John Jonas (Ep. 116) explains how to give effective feedback to outsourced Filipino staff (OFS). Key recommendations: give feedback promptly; be specific and show examples (use screen-recording tools like Snagit/Loom so OFS can see and hear you); use the "sandwich" method (positive → corrective → confidence); and make feedback reusable by saving recordings as training. He emphasizes cultural context (Filipinos tend to be people-pleasers and can feel embarrassed by direct criticism) and mentions a ready-made training product ("VA is made easy").
Chapters
How to give good feedback to your ofs. So we had our last inbound ski day of the year recently and instead of being like a warm spring day, which is normal in mid late April, we had a winter storm. It was fantastic for me. So I talked a couple episodes ago about my 8 year old son and how skiing with friends is like everything for him. He got to ski with some older friends. He's these twins are 15 and hopefully we can get a picture of them here. He was thrilled. It was like the culmination of everything I taught him all year long. It all came together on our last day of the year. He skied amazingly well. It was, it was so awesome. However, I got some feedback from my wife. So we had this winter storm right at the end of the ski season. She said, I'm a fair weather skier, I don't like winter storms. Which to me was like, oh, I love winter storms, I love it, I love it, I want it, I crave it. And she just says, I don't like this, which is, you know, it's fine. And it was good to get that feedback from her. So with your ofs, I've often talked about the importance of giving good feedback. Like what does good feedback look like? What kind of feedback are they going to respond to? So let me give you some advice in terms of giving feedback to your ofs. Number one, good feedback is timely. So if you're waiting days and days or weeks before you tell them something, they've probably forgotten what it was. They don't remember what you're talking about. They are worried that it was something recent. Timely feedback is important to them, especially if you're going to give constructive criticism about something like, you know, it's a big deal that it's timely. Number two, specific. So in terms of specifics, it's really easy to see the work that they've done and then show them exactly what it is that you're talking about. Like use a video snagit or loom or tiny, take whatever you're going to use to take a video of your screen and talk to them and say, hey, I love what you did here. This thing was amazing. Good job. Doing this kind of feedback, number one, makes it super easy for you because you just click record. It records and you talk and you click stop and upload and it takes care of it for you. It uploads it for you and gives you the URL. All you have to do is paste that URL into an email to them or into your project manager. System, you don't have to deal with FTP or whatever else. There's nothing else for you to do. That's a really big deal. Number two, for your ofs, they get to see exactly what you're talking about. So they get to see their work. That you're seeing their work because you're talking about their work. You complimenting them about it is a big deal for them. If you're giving them like, changes, they get to see exactly what it is that you're looking at. And for them to see it exactly makes it so much easier to make good changes as they come through. Last, they get to hear your voice, which is a really big deal, especially in a virtual relationship, if they can hear your voice and start to understand you and your personality and who you are, and they'll make a connection with you and hearing you, and it's a big deal. So I use snagit, and below I'll post a link to a description of exactly how I set up SNAGIT to make it easy for me to save all videos permanently. So they're always available. Number three, the sandwich method. So before I give any negative feedback, I always try and find something positive to give. Hey, I really love working with you. Or, hey, you did a really great job on this thing, or you've done really great work in the past, but you've been struggling recently. So here's what I need and I'm confident that you can make this work. So there's like three things in there. Something good either from the past or from this current project. Then the feedback that they need to know, the criticism or whatever it is, and then like a vote of confidence for them at the end. Culturally, Filipinos are people pleasers. Like, they want to make you happy. And if, and if you're not happy, then they're. They take it really hard on themselves. They take it personally. They get embarrassed by it. This is what causes them to disappear. I talk all about this how to Get Feedback in the Altrusting Lever, my book available@altdressinglever.com we talk about how to help them so that they are. They gain confidence rather than gaining embarrassment through feedback along with them being people pleasers. So they feel like we're really aggressive. And frankly, I probably am aggressive. They feel like foreigners are. You're like straight to the point and you don't want to beat around the bush, which you probably feel like, yeah, why would I talk around the issue? But that's kind of what they're used to. And so they feel like you're aggressive. And so if you just go straight to the negative feedback, it really creates a problem for them. And this is a cultural thing. If you'll give them positive feedback first, it kind of signals to them that you're not angry about it, where otherwise they feel like you're mad and you're upset with them, and then they're disappointed and they're embarrassed and they want to disappear. But giving them some positive feedback will let them know, no, this is okay. We just need to fix the work that was done and you need to do better in the future, and then it all becomes okay for them. So the fourth thing of feedback that I have for you is having it be reusable. And this is why I use Snagit and why I'm going to include the link below to how I set it up so that you can. What I do is when I create a video, I will send it to them. Wherever it's posted in our project manager system, it is permanently there. The video gets saved forever. And so that anytime in the future we get someone new, they can come back to this thing and they can learn about it. Now, just so you know, I'm not often creating databases of training. Usually I'm creating these things as part of a task or as part of a project that we're working on, and they're going to learn it, they're not going to see it again. However, that training is still there in the future if we want to reference it, if we want to create it again. So snagit's a really great way to do it. Easily set it up to upload to your Google Drive or to your hosting account where it's just always going to be available. That's a really big deal. And speaking of training and feedback, VA is made easy training done for you. Training that you can hand off to your ofs so that you don't have to create training for them. You still got to give them feedback, but you can at least give them training that you didn't create, that we created for you, that's coming from you. It gives them confidence in you. It lets them know that you care about them. It lets them know that you're not upset with them, that you want to help them. Just has. It has like giving them training carries with it like 100x ROI. It's such a big deal.
