John Jonas discusses regular meetings with outsourced Filipino staff. Brett meets his VA every 6-8 weeks to build rapport and appreciation rather than discuss tasks. John adds that video messages, thank-you emails, and occasional in-person visits strengthen relationships and improve work quality.
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 150. It's a follow up on should you have regular meetings with your ofs. So a while back I had an episode about having regular meetings with your ofs, and some people do and some people don't. I don't. But I do have communication with them regularly. But after that podcast, I got this email from Brett and he had some really valid points in it. And so I want to read this to you and kind of discuss it. So here's what Brett says. Hey John, I meet with my VA every six to eight weeks. These meetings are not particularly productive, but that is not the point. Systems and quick communication will always be more productive than conversations, which easily sidetrack. Meeting via video regularly makes my VA feel appreciated and like she's part of a team. We don't even always talk about work and projects, though usually at least ask how the workload has been and if there's anything I can do to make it easier or more efficient. Meeting via video also builds influence with your employees. It seems like for the most part, Filipino VAs do what they're told because that's their job. But the quality of work always goes way up, in my opinion, when in addition to it being their job, you have spent the time to develop the influence and relationship with the people that makes them want to contribute at the highest level. We have the opportunity as business owners to have employees, but we also have the opportunity as business owners to build the types of working relationships that cause both the employees and the leaders to grow. In my opinion, it's the best investment of your time and resource to focus on leading well and growing people, because in the long game, this will always benefit everyone, everybody involved. Video might not be the only way, but it's one of the ways that I've been intentional about growth and building rapport and influence. Thank you so much, Brett. That was awesome. I love it and it is such a great way to build rapport and influence with your ofs. And, you know, it's probably something I should do more often, having heard what you have to say about it. I should probably meet with my team on video more often now. This is just me adding to this. Regular meetings doesn't mean you have to meet every week or every month. Like Brett says, he does it every six to eight weeks, which is super awesome. And that can change their relationship or it doesn't necessarily have to be an actual meeting. I do a couple things. One, I regularly create videos that I send to them where they get to see me and talk to me. Sometimes I will create a video of just myself talking to them and I will. I'll talk about other things somewhat regularly. I will send them an individual email to each of my team members and say, hey, thank you for your work. I love what you're doing. It's super important to us and I really appreciate what you've done, so thank you so much. All these things build rapport. They build trust. You know, it's part of being an employer. The last thing that I've done with this is I actually went to the Philippines. Now, this was in 2010, so it's been a long time, but I went there. I took my family on vacation there. We spent five weeks sitting on the beach. Of course, I thought I'd work the whole time, but the Internet, 2010, on a remote island that was kind of a touristy place. Well, actually probably a super touristy place. The Internet was crappy and I didn't work very much. But I did bring my team to the island, which they said, this is one of my dreams. I've always wanted to visit Boracay and it was an amazing experience for me and them. And that really kind of changed our relationship, was just meeting them, which I had no idea that was the best part of the trip, was meeting my team and having the experience with them of meeting them face to face, talking with them. If you get a chance to do that, definitely do it. It's amazing. So then I want to know, do you guys have other things that you do to build rapport with your team? I would love to hear about it. Johnnlinejobs PH Let me know. Send me an email.
