Jobs to Be Done: Finding Out Why Customers Really Buy
Jobs to be done is a simple idea: customers hire a product to make progress in a situation. When you know the job, your marketing stops guessing.
Key takeaways
- Customers do not buy products. They hire them to make progress in a specific situation.
- The best evidence comes from interviews with people who recently switched to you or away from you.
- Listen for the trigger, the alternatives considered and the anxieties that almost stopped the purchase.
Most customer profiles describe people: age, job title, company size. Those details help with targeting, but they rarely explain why someone bought. Two buyers with identical profiles can choose you for very different reasons, so messaging built on the profile alone often misses both.
Jobs to be done offers a different lens. Instead of asking who the customer is, it asks what progress they were trying to make when they chose you.
What jobs to be done means
The idea is closely tied to Clayton Christensen. In a 2016 Harvard Business Review article, he and his co-authors argued that customers hire products to get a job done in a particular circumstance. When the product does the job well, they hire it again. When it does not, they fire it and hire something else.
The article gives an example from home building. Developers selling condos to downsizers, mostly retirees, found that buyers kept stalling. The real job was not buying a home. It was getting through a hard life transition, including deciding what to do with a lifetime of belongings. Once the developers helped with the move itself, sales improved.
This lesson carries over to any business. The job often includes emotional and social parts, not only the functional task.
How to run jobs to be done interviews
The most useful interviews are with people who switched recently, either to you or away from you. Memories fade quickly, so aim for customers from the last three months.
Keep the conversation on what happened, not on opinions. Walk through the timeline step by step:
- The first thought. When did they first realize the old way was not working?
- The trigger. What happened that turned a vague wish into active searching?
- The search. Which alternatives did they consider, including doing nothing or hiring someone?
- The choice. What tipped the decision, and what almost stopped it?
- The first use. What did success look like in the first few weeks?
Ask for details such as dates, people involved and what they typed into Google. Specifics trigger real memories, while general questions produce polite guesses.
What to listen for
Four forces, described by Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek, shape most switching decisions. The push of the current problem and the pull of a better future move people toward change. Meanwhile, anxiety about the new option and habits tied to the old one hold them back.
Most marketing only talks about the pull. However, the anxieties are often where deals are lost. If buyers worry about migration, cost overruns or looking foolish to their boss, your message needs to answer those fears directly.
Turning the job into marketing
After eight to ten interviews, patterns usually appear. Write the main job as a short statement: when I am in this situation, I want to make this progress, so that I can reach this outcome.
Then use it in three places. First, update your positioning so the competitive alternatives match what buyers really compare you with. Second, rewrite your homepage and sales pages around the trigger moments. Finally, add proof that reduces the anxieties you heard, such as guarantees, timelines or case studies.
Jobs to be done research also sharpens targeting. Instead of chasing a demographic, you can reach people at the moment the trigger happens.
Common mistakes
- Interviewing happy long-term customers only, who no longer remember why they switched.
- Asking what features people want, which produces wish lists rather than motives.
- Writing the job so broadly, such as “grow my business”, that it guides nothing.
Customer research is often the missing step behind weak brand positioning. If you would like us to run these interviews with your customers, book a free diagnosis.
Related guides
Find out where your marketing is bleeding.
Brand Doctor is based in Vancouver and offers a free marketing diagnosis to businesses across Canada, in person or remotely. You leave knowing what’s holding growth back and what to fix first.
