How do you identify the jobs or customers are hiring your product to do? Similar to the way you develop a buyer persona, you're going to have to interview some more customers. But these interviews are going to be very different from the interviews you do for persona research. Here's Claire Menke, Senior Manager of UX research at Udemy. I actually use very different questioning approaches to do both pieces of research. Personas, we did based on, again, demographic and psychographic. We first built a survey and then we did a series of interviews around those core components that separated the different personas and asked very directed semi scripted questions related to that. For jobs to be done, we followed rewired's approach and did it based on a timeline which is, I'm sure an image that you've seen, if you've done any research on jobs to be done where basically you start with the first thought and you follow their train of experiences and thought processes till they actually purchase, or use whatever that thing is. For that, I actually had zero formal scripts, no questions in mind. Basically just trying to follow their energy and understand what was important for them in that situation, in making that decision like, what are their hiring criteria? What are their purchase? What are their goals, and getting to that just by digging into why, why, why, why, why. I see jobs to be done as almost like a mediation between the person and their subconscious. Trying to get them to really dig deep and think about things that you've never thought about before. As Claire mentioned, ultimately, what you're trying to get is a timeline or storyboard describing how a person came to be your customer. Long before they ever talked to anyone at your company, maybe before they had even heard about your company, something happened to them that set them on the path of becoming your customer. You're trying to understand that pattern of events from when the person first realized they had a job to do until they purchased your product. You might be surprised how long the timeline is. It might be 18-36 months. It might be even longer than that depending on how long they made do with no solution at all. When you interview your customers to find out about the job your product is doing for them, you want to get back to the very first thought that put them on the road to becoming your customer. To get there, you'll have to work backwards from the time the person bought your product. So ask them, why did they buy it? When they tell you why they bought it, ask them how long they thought about it before they made the decision. Ask what it was that made them finally go through with the sale. Maybe they think it was an impulse buy, but ask them what gave them the impulse? Had they thought about buying before and not done it? Were they making do with something else, or making do with nothing at all? When did they realize that they didn't have to make do anymore? What was the series of events that transpired from that first realization to the time they became your customer? Map that out for 10 or 12 of your customers and then try to come up with a story that describes them all equally well. Once you have your story, ask yourself, why are people going through this story? What job are they trying to get done? The answer will be their job to be done. What does a job look like? You can use a statement called a job story to describe the job your customers are trying to accomplish. The format of a job story is as follows. As a, who the person is. When I am, the situation that person finds themselves in; I want to, the motivation or action, so that I can, the desired outcome. Here's an example. As a morning commuter, when I am driving to work, I want to eat a snack so that I can keep myself occupied during my commute and get through the first few hours of work without having to stop for breakfast. Laying out the job this way makes it easier to see why the milkshake won out against the bananas bagels and other morning snacks, but we can go even deeper. In addition to the job story, there are other job dimensions that help you understand the ways a person might evaluate your offering as a way to get their job done. These job dimensions include functional requirements. What's the minimum functionality required to get the job done? A commuter needs to be able to hold a snack in one hand, which is why a bagel with cream cheese is a bad choice. The snack also needs to last the majority of the drive, which is why bananas don't make the cut. Financial requirements. What are the monetary guardrails I need to stay in to make this financially feasible? If you're selling milkshakes to commuters, there are definitely limits to how much your customers are going to be willing to pay for your milkshake. While it's true that nailing a job allows you to charge more for your product. Every category has its limits. Know what they are, and stay within them. Personal identity. How does this product or service act as a symbol to represent what I believe about the world? Remember, the commuters who tried eating candy bars ended up feeling guilty. If you're in the business of pedaling milkshakes as breakfast food, you might want to look into offering low-fat or sugar-free or organic or sustainably sourced variants of your product. You want people to feel empowered by your product, not compromised by it. Social appearance. How will others view me while I use this product or service? If there's anything embarrassing about your product, you've got to provide a way for your customers to save face. That's the great thing about drive-throughs. Nobody has to know you're there. Once you get an intimate understanding of the job people are hiring your product to do, you'll be able to search for other people who have that job to be done. A good example of this is Paint Nite. Paint Nite is a two-hour event that takes place at a local bar or restaurant where a local artists walks people step-by-step through a painting. Even if you've never painted before, you'll be able to learn how to paint a little bit, and I also have a glass of wine. That's Sean McGrail, one of the founders of Paint Nite. When Paint Nite started looking at the people who were coming to their events, they quickly discovered that it was predominantly women, and the job they were trying to do was having a fun night out with friends. Initially, we somewhat fought against that, just because we knew that we were cutting our market in half by only focusing on women and we would try and put up paintings that would appeal more to men. But we found the cost of acquisition to acquire them was much higher, and it was just a real struggle to get men on board. We went with what the marketplace was telling us that women really wanted to have a creative night out. We've embraced that, and now as we've grown the company, we've introduced Plant Nite and we have other event concepts that we're planning in the future that will cater more towards girls night out and a creative night out with friends. As Sean mentioned, understanding the job people hire Paint Nite to do has guided them in designing other products that do that same job. It's the same concept is that bed and breakfast teaming up with a restaurant and a theater to provide a fun night out. But instead of forming alliances with other companies, Paint Nite is developing additional products. But all of these products continue to be focused on the same job. Helping women have a fun night out with friends. Paint Nite came about because we recognize with Paint Nite was that it really wasn't about the painting at all, it was about allowing friends to connect with one another. The painting was just the activity to get people together, and with Plant Nite, we saw that gardening is very popular with wide variety of audiences, and we knew that we could leverage that and leverage our current consumer base and our technology and everything that we had built today to really form a whole new event concept was a new creative event to launch Paint Nite. This approach has worked really well for Paint Nite, which at time of interview was the second fastest growing private company in the United States. In addition to uncovering a job you didn't expect, you might find that different customers are hiring your product to do different jobs. In the case of McDonald's milkshakes, the commuters, we're only buying shakes first thing in the morning. What about people buying shakes it other times. Here's Clay again. One of the jobs in the evening was, I'm busy, we're here coming down canned dinner of hamburgers and French fries. I'm as a dad, I've been working hard all day long, and my son asked me, can you get me a milkshake for dessert? I just thought, after all of the work I've done through this day, do I allow him have a milkshake, and it'll take him forever to second up that thing little straw. For that job in the evening, the characteristics of the job is, it has to have low viscosity, so that you can suck it up quickly so that I could get home. The product that is good in the morning that commute is a conflict with the job that would do the second job to be done in the evening. Understanding that different people might hire the same product to do different jobs can give you powerful insight into why certain customers are dissatisfied with your offering. If there's a job that you know, people are hiring your product to do, but that your product doesn't do especially well, one of the best things you can do is to make that clear to people before they buy. Here's Clay again. These two products are designed for two very different jobs. I is the customer, if I have this job to do, but I hire this job, I will judge it as not a very good product, because it was designed to do a different job. We've got to be very careful to tell the customer what they shouldn't buy this job to do. Not just that they should. Having a brand that pop into people's mind, that causes them to buy the product that you're offering when they have the job. But they don't buy it when they don't have that job to do. Because otherwise we will be judged by the wrong measure, and that's a very difficult thing to do. Figure out the job that your product does best and lean into it. Make sure you have an intimate understanding of the situation where that job rises, and then find ways to provide experiences that help people use your product in that situation. If there are people in other situations with a different job to be done that might want to hire your product, make it clear to them that your product isn't designed to do that job. Understanding the job at that level can completely transform every aspect of your business. Marketing will be able to position your products in a way that's meaningful to your prospects. Sales will be able to offer insights into a person's situation and provide solutions the customer might not have been able to think of on their own. The teams designing your products and servicing your customers will be able to make sure every aspect of your offering ties back to the job to be done. As Clay say, it's a difficult thing to do. But if you can do that, then you'll be meeting your customers needs in a way that no other company can.
