I know this post won’t make me more popular, but I would be very remiss if I didn’t point out something that in my belief is hindering the capability of some US investors and professionals to deal with international clients. When I first arrived here in the US about seven months ago, I noticed a very peculiar behavior that is not common in Europe and that baffled me.
Many times people would come to me telling they had the final solution about something and that it was the real thing, so I would retain them, a lawyer or a CPA for example, or I would buy their course or product or whatever, for immediately finding out a series of clauses in the service agreement contract that would negate any usefulness of the product or service being rendered. I understand that it is advisable to put some kind of disclaimer for legal purposes, but I believe this is greatly overdone to the point that some people refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever about the service or product they provide and for which they want to be paid. For example, the first CPA I retained had the final solution as far as tax strategy was concerned. He had been suggested to me by a “reliable” source. Too bad it took me 3 months to finally get a business plan worked out and then he would give no formal endorsement to it whatsoever.
A real estate guru stated he had the complete package for getting to work on his particular acquisition strategy, too bad that all the legal forms had a disclaimer that required me to review them with a local lawyer who found most of them inadequate, but who wouldn’t otherwise produce reliable alternatives. Another lawyer advertised he had all the paperwork for setting up a company with no legal expenses, and then on the package there was a big disclaimer stating that such was only “education material” and that one should retain an attorney to check them out.
I am not saying that everybody is like that, fortunately it isn’t, but I see more and more a tendency of shying away completely from taking responsibility with the excuse of legal liability protection. Eventually one cannot blame people for becoming cynical or for making mistakes, since valid support is so difficult to find even when it is not only promised but also paid for.
When dealing with an international investor all of this cannot happen. One cannot expect somebody who is on another continent to do due diligence, to get proper counsel and to basically do the work that we should do here on his behalf. I find that real estate investors also often err on the side of patching things up. Just lately I was offered a “turn key” package, homes that were ready to go, and it “turned” out that the investor offering it had not even inspected them. He expected the buyer to do his due diligence. Total, honest and responsible service is the answer if one wants to really deal with investors overseas. Then everything flows well.
Roberto Mazzoni
Tags: service
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