Jayson and Sam discuss a framework for both requesting and providing feedback, and cover some ways in which feedback can be both beneficial, and harmful. If you are in a position where you need high-quality feedback, this is for you!
-Episode #6 - How to Ask For and Provide Useful Feedback-
Sam McRoberts, CEO of VUDU Marketing and the author of Screw the Zoo, and Jayson DeMers, CEO of EmailAnalytics, discuss 12 content marketing ideas to get your content strategy off the ground.
With many decades of combined business and digital marketing experience, Jayson and Sam will walk you through everything you need to know as you go through your own entrepreneurial journey.
Websites mentioned in the podcast:
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Jayson: What up guys? Welcome to the Entrepreneur Cast, your source for tactical lessons in entrepreneurship, from a cast of entrepreneurs. I'm Jayson DeMers.
Sam: And I'm Sam McRoberts.
Jayson: And today we're going to talk about how to ask for and provide useful feedback.
Sam: Yes, please. Okay, so a little bit of background. I've had a couple of experiences over the years, with A, not knowing how to ask for feedback effectively, and that matters, and also, B, getting feedback that's completely and totally freaking useless and pisses me off. So, like recently, I'll give you an example. I've run a deal for my SEO training course on App Sumo, and literally, the first review, right out of the gate was a nasty review from somebody who I checked, didn't actually go through and complete any of the course, and their complaint, their number one complaint in the review was that I used an affiliate link in a couple of places in my course, even though there's like a big fat disclaimer in the first module, "Hey, you know, if I find a tool I really like, I pay for it, I use it, and they let me be an affiliate, I'll be an affiliate, I'm going to link to it, because why not? But I will not be an affiliate for something that I think is trash. I have to be a user; I have to like it.". Right? So, big fat disclaimer, but that was the complaint. And I was just looking at this and I was thinking like, "What? What possesses a person to go in, maybe skim at best, something, and then leave a completely unhelpful review for a product? Like, why do you feel the need to shit on something without having actually like, given it some time and effort?". So, that pissed me off and brought up this idea? So, how do you ask for good feedback and how do you provide useful feedback? Have you run into this Jayson? Have you seen stuff like this?
Jayson: Yes, I have. I see it from time to time with my business Email Analytics, because I'm often asking people for feedback. And as a matter of fact, I've got an automatic message that sends to anybody who signs up for a free trial, that sends them an email after three days and just says, it's just like a two liner that just says, "Hey, I'd love any feedback that you could provide.". And so, this isn't public feedback, it's private feedback. But I've still seen some really ridiculous responses from people. You know, that kind of goes off the rails for something that's free during a free trial. Of course, 99% of people, of course, are super helpful and kind. But there are this subset of people who seem to just be angry and want to spew negativity, and when they do so in a public setting, not only is it frustrating, but it can actually really hurt someone's livelihood, right?
Sam: And there are times you know, like this particular case, my initial gut reaction was like, "Alright, is this sort of a shill? Is this somebody who's associated with another course who wants to come in and like poop on this one to kind of muddy the waters?", I don't know if that's the case, maybe it wasn't, right. And to be fair, like teachable, pretty good platform can be glitchy sometimes. So, maybe they did go through some of the course, and I just couldn't see it in the analytics. And maybe I'm just interpreting it the wrong way. Like, that's how it seemed, and it wasn't a particularly helpful piece of feedback. There's really two pieces to this, right. There's the asking, and the giving. So, I want to talk a little bit about the asking first.
I love feedback. I ask people for feedback all the time, but I'm very careful about how I ask. I don't just say, "Hey, did you like it? Tell me what you thought about it.". Like, that's way too broad and it doesn't give any structure, and since you asked a shitty question, you're probably going to get a shitty answer. So, instead, I'll say something like, "You know, I did this thing or made this thing, I'd love for you to take a look at it, read through it, watch it, whatever it is, I'm looking to improve on it. So, if you don't mind, could you let me know a few things that you thought I did well on, and why you thought I did well on those things? And could you also let me know a few things that you felt could be improved and how you would improve them? And kind of just explain your thinking behind it. So, I can constructively make this thing better for everybody.". With something like that, you add some very clear boundaries, and you're identifying that, "Hey, you know, I want to hear some positive and negative, I don't want to only focus on the negative, I need you to explain your thoughts about the subject.", right, "Why do you think it's good? Why do you think it's bad?". Not just, "Is it good? Is it bad?", right. Not open ended, they need to provide some detail. And I found that this approach is much more effective, right? There's a little more skin in the game, there's a little more framework, and people are able to give better feedback with that.
Jayson: Yeah, I really like this. As a matter of fact, you know, you're giving me some ideas here for how I could improve my own, in the example I just talked about, rather than saying, you know, "I'd love to hear your feedback on how things are going.", here's a real, sort of real time example. I could probably change that messaging to say something more along the lines of, "What is the one thing that you like most about?, or maybe, "What's the one feature you find most useful?", and, "If there was one thing that you wished that the app had, that it doesn't currently have, what would it be?", I can narrow it down to like one or two questions like that, that are specific. And I might just see an increase in my response rate and get some more useful feedback for my app. And by the way, really, you know, asking for and providing useful feedback is critical for business owners and entrepreneurs, you know, you-- we need that feedback in order to improve our products, our services, and improving and iterating is how we're going to grow. And that's how we're going to become successful. So, that's, you know, that just to sort of tie in everything for today's topic there. But yeah, Sam, I think that's a great example and some great feedback on how I can go ahead and change my messaging and improve. I'll do that here. I'll do that today. I'll let you know how it goes.
Sam: That's awesome. And there's a couple of pieces to this, right? So, I think one, you know, a lot of people aren't, they're not super self-aware. They know what they're feeling, but they don't necessarily know why, and they maybe are just not in the habit of poking at the, "Why did I feel what I felt?", so, this can help them to kind of dig a little deeper into why they were feeling what they're feeling. But also, as somebody asking for feedback, there's also your piece of that, which is you need to be open to it. So, if you ask somebody for honest and genuine feedback, and you give them some frameworks, and they provide it, even if you don't like what you're hearing, you need to be open to the feedback like, "Hey, thank you for telling me that, I'm going to look into this and I'm going to see how best to apply what you've told me. You know, I want to make it better. I'm talking to a few different people. I'm going to group all that feedback together and then take some action with that.". But don't say, "You know, I don't agree with you at all. It's not like that. Like, it's it's terrible.", if their feedback was genuine, right? They followed the framework, if they're just like, "Yeah, shit, I don't like it.". You know, like, "Well, could you tell me a little more?", "No, I just, I didn't like it.". Fucking ignore that feedback, don't listen, that's not a helpful person, that's not constructive feedback like you, you want to have a good dynamic with people who are willing to make the effort. But you know, you can ignore the people who are unhelpful haters.
Jayson: Agreed. Sam, I know that there are some good tools or apps or services that help you gather customer feedback, I'm trying to remember. I know that one of them that I've used is called Bootric, it's B-O-O-T-R-I-C, and what that does is it essentially puts a sort of a bar in your app, if this is in the context of a SAS app, on your pages displaying for some of your customers, and then it allows them to rate their satisfaction with your product, you guys have probably seen this many times. But there's another tool that I was trying to remember and what it does is it gets real people to use your app and it records their session, and then afterwards, you can have a call with them to get their feedback on your product or service, or you can view the recording of how they used your app. And then, you can sort of see what snags they ran into and so on. Can you remember what that's called? Because
Sam: Oh boy, it's like on the tip of my tongue.
Jayson: Yes, I know we can drop it in the show notes if it doesn't come to us in this episode. But--
Sam: Yeah, I want to say it's something like user experience.
Jayson: Yeah, I'm googling it right now just to see if I can. Unfortunately, if you Google user experience, you get a lot of articles about it, but you don't really find an app. In any case, we can drop that into the show notes, but there are--
Sam: Oh, it's called User Testing.
Jayson: User Testing, there we go.
Sam: Usertesting.com.
Jayson: User Testing, so I've used it and I thought it was really cool, actually. You don't pay that much. I think, what is it? Maybe 40-50 bucks? Is that it?
Sam: I want to say it's like 100 bucks, and you get five people.
Jayson: Who will go through it?
Sam: Something like that, like 20 bucks per person.
Jayson: Yeah. So, I've used it and I thought it was really actually interesting. The only problem I have with it is that, it's not going to be people who are definitely in your target market. It's more of a general pool of people who try stuff out. And so, if you want feedback from people who are actually in your target audience, you really need to use something else that tracks their behavior. I know that Crazy Egg has, one of their features is they will record user sessions, and that you can actually go and replay like a video like, you hit play, you can rewind, and you can see how they browse through your website, including where they move their mouse, where they clicked and everything, which is really fascinating. It's sort of like looking over the shoulder of somebody without them knowing, you know, while they browse your website to see how they used it. And you can sort of gather, you can use that recording in a sense to create or get insights about your site, and essentially use it as a feedback tool.
Sam: That's a great way to get feedback. You can do, you can run surveys, you can ask questions via email. On the survey side, like you could promote a survey, you could run a Twitter poll, promote your survey on Facebook, like there's a lot of ways that you can reach out and get feedback. The best feedback is going to come from people who have interacted with it, whatever it is that you produce, right? So, if you're going to start asking somebody for feedback, start by asking your customers, and this is, you know, as an entrepreneur, like that's one of the best ways when you're starting off building a business or a product, like, if you're the CEO, you should be asking everybody who uses your product, like, "What did you like? What did you not like? What can we do better? What are some things you wish it had?". Like, get that feedback from everyone who uses your product and get it yourself, right? Don't pass it off to somebody else, don't have it aggregated like, you go talk to those people, at least initially. So, you can really understand like, what's happening on the ground and you'll be able to take that and like dial in your questions and super helpful.
Jayson: Agreed. So, what I like to do is, I wear a lot of hats at Email Analytics. And so, I handle all the marketing, but also all the customer service. And so, I, on a day to day basis, I am emailing and chatting with my customers, answering their questions and getting feedback on what they like and what they dislike, and things like that. And what I do is, I notice certain trends over time, you know, there's a certain feature that people seem to ask for a lot. And then what I can do as the CEO, is I can direct my Dev team to prioritize the things that I see are going to provide the most value and answer the most needs of my users. And so, being on the ground like that, allows me to steer the development of the app, optimally. Because I can directly use that feedback. So, that's one thing I like to do. And it's so helpful to be, like you said, Sam, you know, on the ground level, sort of in the trenches, seeing first-hand what people want and need and using that feedback to iterate. So, that's how I do it.
Sam: That's perfect. So, that's one half, right? We've hit, kind of the ask for and gather feedback. The other side of this coin is what if you're on the other side, right? What if you're the person who's been asked for feedback? You're the person who has to provide it. Is there a framework that you can use to make sure your feedback is better? And the answer is, yes. Yes, there is. So, number one, right? Don't skim. If you're going to provide feedback for something, make sure you give it your best effort. So, I've been a beta reader for a couple of New York Times bestselling authors, and, you know, as a beta reader, your job is to read the whole book, end to end, make notes, things that you thought worked well, didn't work well, sticking points, stuff you liked and dislike, you know, just to give kind of a dump. Like, "Here's how I felt as I read your book. Here's things where, here's places where I got bored, here's places where I felt really strong emotions.". Like, you're helping that author to dial in what they're writing for their audience, and they'll aggregate that across a handful of different beta readers, and then they'll make changes if they think they need to, like, "Hey, everybody's getting stuck at this part. Let's change it.". But you can't skim, right? You can't skim the book and provide feedback because that feedback isn't useful. You can't skim through an app or a course or any, you know, like, use a product for a minute, and be like, "Yeah, I didn't like it", if it takes more time, if you haven't done it justice, you're not in a position to provide feedback, and you simply shouldn't. Either give it more time, and actually give it a chance and take the time to get to know the thing before you provide feedback, or just keep your mouth shut and don't provide feedback. And the same goes for personal reasons, right? I don't-- I can't remember, I feel like this quote has been attributed to absolutely everybody, but, "I don't know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everybody.".
So, as a creator, you will never please everybody. You will always have a subset of people who absolutely freaking hate you and anything you create, and the more people that you reach, like, the larger that pool is going to get. And it's just, it's unavoidable, right? It's just a part of life. You can't please, everybody. That's okay. But as somebody who's considering providing feedback, or who has been asked for feedback, if your only opinion is, "I didn't like this.", for whatever personal reason, it's not constructive, if you telling the person who created it, that isn't going to help them to improve it, or benefit somebody else, it is just based on your personal opinion of the thing, "I didn't like.", just keep your mouth shut. There's no reason to share that. Actually going back to authors, I've heard a lot of authors on Twitter and other creators, people who create movies, any sort of creator, who people come to them and say, "I hated that thing you wrote or that movie you made. It was terrible.". And it's like, what a mean and hurtful thing to say, it doesn't help that person to improve, it doesn't give them anything that they can work with, it's just being an asshole. Don't be an asshole.
Jayson: Yes, I think that's probably the main takeaway, you know, of maybe the show, is be nice, right?
Sam: And don't--
Jayson: Sorry, go ahead. I'll add something when you're done.
Sam: I'm ready, and I should get off my soapbox. But like, really, I feel like people maybe don't think through like, "Hey, this thing that I'm about to go and tear down.", just because you know, no good reasoning, no good feedback, whatever, like you may be hurting somebody's business, you may be causing them stress or anxiety, like, you may be actually causing harm to somebody with your flippant opinion. And maybe, pause and think about that. And you know, maybe that's what you're setting out to do, maybe you're an angry person, and you just want to take it out on somebody in an anonymous review somewhere, seems like a great way to do that. And if that's the case, like, I feel bad for you, that sounds like a really shitty way to go through life. But I think a lot of people just maybe don't pause and consider like, "Hey, do I really need to do this? Like, is this going to help anybody? Is this going to make anything better? And if not, maybe I just shouldn't, maybe I should focus on putting good stuff into the world. And if I can't, then I shouldn't put anything into the world.".
Jayson: Agreed. So, this is really important in the context of entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship is so much about building relationships. And over the course of being an entrepreneur, I have provided feedback on many dozens of tools, services, apps, you know, webinars, videos, blog posts, you name it, for people who are, who I've come to meet over my time as an entrepreneur. And people remember when you give them something of value, when you give them your time to provide that feedback, and it almost always comes back around. It's like karma. What goes around comes around, it's true. If you provide value, if you're nice, if you make yourself a resource to other people, they will do the same for you when you need it. So, in the context of entrepreneurship, you need to give in order to receive, and that can mean giving feedback, giving constructive criticism, it can mean giving advice, really, think about giving-- think about what you can do to give people something if you want to receive something. I have to give a shout out to a long-time friend and entrepreneur, who you and I both know Sam, and this is John Rampton. Because one thing that stands out to me about John, is that the first thing that he always-- the first thing he ever asked me and sort of the way he often leads something is, "What can I do for you?", sometimes he'll just reach out to me out of the blue and just say, "Hey, Jayson, is there anything I can help you with?". That-- I've never met anybody else who does this. So, John is the guy who comes to mind, and it has helped me reshape the way I think about making relationships with people. Rather than saying, "Can I get your help with something?", start out by saying, "What can I help you with?", because when you need help, they will be there, when you've done that uncommon-- when you've taken that uncommon step of offering help before you ask for it, it goes a long way. And clearly, what John does has stood out in my mind to the point where it has changed my behavior and the way I think about this stuff, and to the point where he's the first guy that comes to mind when I think about this topic. So, shout out to John.
Sam: Like, that's perfect, you know, and karma. You know, karma is a word that comes with a lot of baggage, but I feel like it's essentially. a way of setting a pattern for your life, right? If you consistently put good things out there, you will attract good people to you. And if you're a negative person and put bad stuff out there, you will attract bad people to you. Your mental frame, it has more to do with your mental frame than anything and if you have a positive, uplifting, make the world better mental frame like, you will have a better experience in life. There's just no way around it.
Jayson: Agreed, and a more successful shot at business and entrepreneurship, obviously. So, it's really important.
Sam: And so, when you're providing feedback, right, like one thing, this always makes me chuckle, you can't always provide glowing positive feedback. And to be fair, you shouldn't do that, right? If you have genuinely positive feedback to give, give it definitely. If there's things wrong, don't hide them and don't sugar-coat them. I see this a lot inside of companies. A lot of times people don't want to tell their boss that something's wrong, or that something's broken. And so, they hide it or sugar-coat it or downplay it. And so, the people above them can't make good decisions because they don't have good data, right? So, if something's wrong, or needs to be fixed or is broken, it's okay to say it, but if you need to provide negative feedback, there's this thing called the shit sandwich. And it can be a little kitschy, but really try and say something nice, "Hey, you know, I really appreciated the effort you put into creating this great presentation.", and then the shit in the middle, "But here's this thing that there was problem with that I would do differently, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but again, you know, thank you for the effort. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do next.". Like, nestle your negative feedback in between two pieces of good feedback. That's why they call it the shit sandwich.
Jayson: Sam, I think we a hashtag, #shitsandwich, that's what we need.
Sam: That, right, like, you know, a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. And I think if you have something that may be hard for people to take, nestling it in with some good will help it be more palatable. But if you need to critique something, it's okay to do it, you know, and as somebody who's receiving feedback, you've got to try really hard not to get offended. You need to be open to the feedback; you can't improve if you don't get honest feedback. And if people think you're going to get angry or be vindictive, when they give you honest feedback, you're not going to get it. And so, you need to be able to accept the good and the bad, and not take it out on, you know, don't shoot the messenger, if they're providing you with information that is useful for you. So, that's it.
Jayson: Hey, you know, it's good insight, it's relevant to any entrepreneur's experience. So, it's good stuff, it's good lessons to learn and it's better to sort of learn it this way than to learn these things the hard way.
Sam: Definitely. Thank you for listening to us ramble on this random topic, and you know, if you like what you heard, we would love to hear from you. We'd love your feedback as you listen to this podcast, please give it to us.
Jayson: Yeah, we would be remiss not to ask for your feedback after an episode of talking about how to ask for feedback. So, also, you know, we would love to see your feedback in any ratings or reviews that you would feel obliged to leave us, that helps us out a lot, especially as a new podcast, we need that in order to help other people find us. So, please like, rate, subscribe and review and we would love to hear from you. So, thanks. We'll see you on the next show.
Sam: Thanks, folks.