Levitt tells us we keep trying to sell people the drill, when the reality is, we should be helping them figure out how to drill the hole. This is only half the story. The real question is not around the how, but the WHY.
Imagine yourself in the Home Depot and you need a drill.
You go into the aisle, and there are drills of every color, with different torques, battery life, and accessories. What’s happening here? The guys in Milwaukee are looking at their competitor at DeWalt saying, “They just increased their battery life by three percent, we need to keep up.”
This feature creep, or incremental innovation, does very little to help move the product. It is more about keeping up with the competitor rather than creating something the consumer can value.
This is a supply-side push of technology.
Now when you walk down the drill aisle, you have side-by-side products that are hardly discernible.
How do we break out of this mold? How do you create products that people genuinely need? By understanding the progress people are trying to make when they buy a drill.
Stop selling features and start solving problems
People buy a drill to make a hole, right? We keep trying to sell people the drill, when the reality is, we should be helping them figure out how to drill the hole.
In marketing and sales, there’s the push to add a bunch of features and benefits that don’t bring any value. We get so myopic on the little things that we don’t realize the bigger purpose of what people are trying to do.
We should be asking why, and not just once but several times*. We need to get to the root of the progress people are trying to make.
- “I need a drill, because I want a hole.”
- “I need a hole, because I want a plug.”
- “I need a plug, because I want a lamp.”
- “Why do you want a lamp?”
- “Because it’s hard to see, and I want to read better.”
Now, we are beginning to understand the customer. They don’t need a drill at all; they need a Kindle. Let’s invent the Kindle!
It’s all about taking a step back to see how your products and services fit into people’s lives and the outcomes they are seeking.
Forget the product— what progress is your customer trying to make?
The same principle applies to selling software, services, or anything else. If you’re marketing a CRM system, your customers don’t wake up wanting to buy CRM software. They want to close more deals, avoid losing leads, or make sales meetings more efficient. If you’re selling an email automation tool, people don’t just want automation—they want more conversions with less manual effort.
Jobs to be Done shows us that customers don’t buy products, they “hire” them to solve a problem. Your job isn’t to sell the drill—it’s to understand what “hole” they’re trying to make and why.
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Ways to apply this thinking to get to the route of the progress your customer is trying to make:
Product Managers: Build for progress, not features
Before adding another feature, ask: What job is the customer trying to get done? Instead of competing on specs, map out the real progress your customer is trying to make.
Conduct interviews, listen for struggles, and design solutions that remove friction rather than just keeping up with competitors. Learn more about conducting Jobs to be Done interviews.
Marketers: Shift from selling products to selling outcomes
People don’t buy products—they hire them to solve a problem. Your messaging should reflect that. Instead of listing features, tell stories that highlight how your product fits into the customer’s life and helps them achieve their goal. Answer the question: What does success look like for them? Once you’ve got clarity on this you’ll have a better idea of how to position your products.
If you’re keen to learn more, check out the Mastering Jobs Theory podcast with Bob Moesta and April Dunford.
Salespeople: Ask “Why?” until you hit the root cause
Don’t stop at the first stated need. Keep digging with questions like, Why is this important? What happens if you don’t solve this?
Customers may think they need a drill, but you might uncover that what they truly need is a better way to set up their home office. The deeper you go, the more valuable your solution becomes.
*The importance of asking Why multiple times – introducing The Five Whys
Developed in the 1970s by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota, The Five Whys is used to quickly get to the root of a problem. It’s the idea that when a problem occurs you should ask why five times to find the source of the problem. This method is still used at Toyota today.
Part of the “Five Whys” is to take a step back and not talk about what the customer wants from the solution perspective.
For example, people might say I want the car door to be easy to open and close. Now, if you focus on the door, you have a limited set of solutions. As opposed to looking at it more broadly and thinking about making it easier to get in and out of the car generally. Now you are not just looking at the door but the placement of the seatbelt, etc., because you stop assuming the solution. It’s about seeing the bigger picture.
The team at The Re-Wired group uses this methodology when interviewing our customers to get to the root of the problem they are trying to solve.
Companies are selling drills, instead of holes, because they do not ask why enough times. They sit in boardrooms thinking of their product’s features and benefits and fail to see how it fits into their customer’s lives because they simply fail to ask why.
You cannot design the way your customer makes progress; you need to understand their meaning of progress and design your process around it. People don’t buy products they hire them to make progress in their lives.
Interested in learning how to apply this thinking to your products? Read up on the Jobs to be Done framework to change your viewpoint from supply-side to demand-side.