Uncovering your customer’s JTBD
What “job” causes someone to hire a milkshake at eight o’clock in the morning? That’s the very question we asked ourselves while investigating an anomaly occurring at multiple restaurants within a chain before smoothies for breakfast were a thing.
You see, the restaurants weren’t supposed to sell milkshakes at breakfast, but several did—and rather successfully. So, we set out to understand what “job” people were hiring milkshakes to do for breakfast.
First, we drove to a store where this anomaly was occurring and just sat and watched. Immediately, we noticed some similarities between these consumers: they arrived alone before 8:00 a.m., bought only a milkshake, and immediately got back in their cars and drove away.
That’s curious, we thought.
So, the next day we sat in the parking lot and approached these people as they left the store, post-purchase. “Why did you buy that milkshake?” we asked. “What would you normally do for breakfast?” We wanted to understand why they bought that milkshake that day, in that moment.
After interviewing numerous customers, we went back and unpacked all the conversations, looking for a common thread. Of course, not everyone had the same reason, but we found one cluster of customers in the same circumstance, fulfilling the same “job.”
As it turns out, each of these consumers had a long, boring commute to work. They needed something to help pass the time that would keep them full until lunch. And since they were driving, it needed to be something they could handle with one hand on the wheel.
The milkshake did this “job” quite well.
It took at least twenty minutes to suck the thick liquid through the straw, which kept them busy—a nice respite from the long, boring commute. It was self-contained and created no crumbly mess. When they finally got to work, they just tossed the cup in
the trash. As far as navigating the road, it was ideal; it could be handled easily with one hand on the wheel, and it fit in the cup holder nicely. Finally, the people we talked to told us that when they hired the milkshake, they stayed full all morning, which made them more productive and pleasant to be around.
Let’s break down the “job” of the 8:00 a.m. milkshake into the core eight elements:
1. Context:
This element is about what’s going on in a person’s life; it’s a broad, big-picture view. Each person we spoke to talked about their long, boring commute to work.
2. Struggling Moment:
A struggling moment is the point in time when you realize that something can be better: Oh my gosh, things have to change. It’s the emotion that’s driving the change. For the person hiring the milkshake, it’s about solving the hunger now so that they are not hungry later.
3. Pushes and Pulls:
The pushes are about the circumstance that causes the struggling moment. Here, the push is about the boredom while driving and the energy needed to make it through the morning. The pulls are based on the struggling moment, and help you define what progress looks like. Here, the pull is the notion that drinking the milkshake will pass the time and fill your stomach.
4. Anxieties and Habits:
The anxieties are about the anxiety of the new—future anxiety. The person worries, Will it fill me up? Is it going to give me a sugar rush and a subsequent crash? The habit is about the old thing they must give up. So, here the person thinks, But I really like my Egg McMuffin.
5. Desired Outcomes:
This is about what you wish or dream for the world to be when you change to the new—it’s an accumulation of the pulls. What does satisfaction look like? It’s about getting to work and being productive.
6. Hiring and Firing Criteria:
What things must be there for me to hire something? Here, the hiring criteria would include the drink’s thickness: Does it take long enough to drink to help me pass the time? The firing criteria are the things that will cause my product to get fired. These consumers didn’t want to feel like they were eating dessert for breakfast, so making the drink too sweet would be a firing criterion.
7. Key Trade-offs:
This element is about what the person is willing to give up to achieve their goal. Here, they are willing to give up their preferred breakfast for a solution that will fill the time and ease the boredom.
8. Basic Quality of the JTBD:
Each “job” has its own basic quality or things it must do. Most people think about basic quality from a product standpoint. That’s important, but each “job” has its own basic qualities too, certain things that you can’t violate. Here, the milkshake must last long enough to pass the time.
It was our responsibility to take these requirements over to the supply side and figure out what they meant. Should we make the straw smaller or the milkshake more viscous so it would take longer to drink? Did it need to be less sweet or more filling?
The customer can’t tell you the answer. It’s your responsibility to figure out the offering or series of offerings that fit the gamut of their needs through other testing. Finding the cluster told us where to dig, but there was still work and testing to be done.
When you understand the “job” your consumer needs done, knowing how to reformulate your product from the business side—the supply side—becomes easier.
Now it’s easier to see that you need to reformulate the milkshake offered at breakfast into more of a morning thing: It needs to thick enough so that it takes twenty minutes to drink and not be too sweet because people don’t want to feel like they’re having dessert for breakfast.
Additionally, you realize that your competitive sets are not just other milkshakes but any other food that fulfills the “job”: self-contained, long lasting, one-handed, and filling.
What’s an actionable JTBD?
An actionable JTBD is clear when it is in consumer language and abstracted at the right level.
Here are wrong examples of abstraction:
• If you go too high you make a product that’s too broad. You think everyone will say yes, and everybody will want it; you think it’s the golden thing that’s going to make you $15 billion.
• If you go too low, it only applies to two or three people.
You need to find the jagged place in the middle that allows you to have three to five clear JTBDs. It should be broad enough that it allows you to group large segments of people with similar but not identical circumstances but tight enough that you cannot fit people from different circumstances into the same “job.”
You do not want 100 “jobs” for a product or service, nor just one; you’re looking for three to five JTBDs.
When you have clear JTBDs, you can do two things:
1. Look at each of the eight elements and define them in a meaningful way.
2. Look at people and say, “I’d put them here because of that, or I’d put them there because of this.”
The key is that a JTBD should be guided by the consumer’s intent and actions not by common language and aspirations.
If you have a JTBD that is dependent on the economy or technology, that’s not a “job.” A “job” is independent of those things. The JTBD is about the person and what they want to accomplish.
Think about traveling musicians from the Middle Ages, a transistor radio, and an iPod. What do they all have in common?
They’re all things that allow someone to bring music wherever they go, instead of having to follow the music. Yes, over time the technology advanced, but the core, causal “job” stayed constant. The technology didn’t create the “job.”
The demand was already there. The technology enabled us to get the same “job” done better, faster, cheaper, and more conveniently, but it did not cause the struggle that created the demand.
At its core, a JTBD must help people make progress.
What is NOT an actionable JTBD?
Let’s explore some common misconceptions:
A JTBD is not a demographic: People act based on their situations and what they want to get done; age, gender, and income are not the deciders. In fact, what demographics tell you is often misleading. If demographics were always good predictors, you would never see a twenty-year-old driving a BMW.
Demographics would tell you that you that your product needs to reach a consumer at a certain age and income level.
A JTBD is not a persona: People will often ask me, “Well, aren’t ‘jobs’ just personas?” No. Personas help identify a group of people who will normally act a certain way; conversely, “jobs” tell you how the person acts in a specific context. Personas are a supply-side look at the world without the trade-offs, context, or outcomes from the eight elements of a JTBD.
For example, food companies will often describe their buyers by saying things like, “They’re clean eaters; they want organic; they want a clean label.”
But then you go into the consumer’s house and find a chocolate bar and a tub of ice cream: “How did that get there?” Inevitably, the person will slump their shoulders and say, “Well, you know those times when you just have a really bad day,” or, “I eat that other stuff, so that I can still fit into my clothes while eating ice cream.” That’s a JTBD—the moment where they’re struggling with something and make a trade-off.
A JTBD cannot belong to a company: Only people have JTBDs, not organizations. Organizations have mission statements, strategies, etc. But even when you are selling B2B, you must find the JTBD of the person hiring you to make the change for the organization. That person is willing to use their personal capital to make the purchase happen.
A JTBD is not person-specific: People can be hiring for different “jobs” at different times, even throughout the same day. I may have one set of circumstances and outcomes that drives me to buy a milkshake at 8:00 a.m. and a different set in the afternoon. In the morning, I want a milkshake that’s not too sweet, so that I don’t feel like I am having dessert for breakfast, while in the afternoon, I’m buying it as a treat and the sweetness is desired. I’m the same person, but my circumstances and the outcomes I seek are different.
“Jobs” are not people-specific; they’re moment-in-time specific. So, when you’re trying to determine a person’s JTBD, you have to be specific about the person in a particular circumstance. What are they trying to get done? What forces are they acting upon?
There are no impulse buys; everything is a JTBD: An impulse buy is just learned behavior that allows someone to go through the decision-making process very quickly. For instance, every time you go to the refrigerator, you’re going through a decision making process. It’s only because you have done it a million times that you move through the decision quickly.
Tips and tricks for uncovering a JTBD
The best way to understand demand is to talk to people who have already decided and are using your product or service. When you talk to them after they have decided— good or bad—you can unpack their context, the trade-offs they were willing to make, and their overall satisfaction.
• What were the key drivers of satisfaction?
• What were the key drivers of hiring and firing a product or service?
Most people think you must talk to a bazillion people to capture demand. We’ve found that if you use robust design experiment principles and pick interviewees from varied backgrounds, you can do as little as ten. If you’re new at interviews, consider fifteen ortwenty but not 100. It’s not science; you’re not trying to get statistically significant results.
There are two interview strategies we employ at Re-Wired to help separate ourselves of supply-side thinking:
• Unpack vague language.
• Don’t interview alone.
Unpack vague language
This goes back to the notion that people have many different definitions for the same words, so you must unpack their meaning. Unpacking language is about getting to the causal mechanism of what a consumer means by a word.
So, for example, if someone says, “I want to be healthy,” I respond, “I have my definition of ‘healthy,’ but I really need to understand your definition of ‘healthy.’”
“I want to feel good,” they might say.
“Why do you want to feel good?” I’ll ask.
I want to understand them at a much deeper level: Why don’t they feel good? What are the circumstances of them not feeling good? And how do they measure feeling good or healthy? Only then will I understand their meaning of “healthy.”
On the supply side, people often look for the words their consumers use and collaborate and build around those words. But you really need a deep understanding of the consumer’s meaning, not just the words they use.
Don’t interview alone
You must continually check yourself to prevent inserting your own biases into the interview process. At Re-Wired, we check ourselves by having multiple people in the room when conducting consumer interviews. When there are more people in the room, the variety of views becomes obvious and asking the questions becomes natural.
Even after the interviews conclude, we debate each other on our understanding of the consumer’s meaning. We are constantly challenging ourselves to disengage our minds from our current knowledge.
Final thoughts
A JTBD is pure. It’s a pristine view of demand independent of supply. When identified effectively, it helps predict future buyer behavior. But the JTBD is not the whole picture of how to design a product. A JTBD is totally separate from supply, but ultimately when you design a product, the needs of the supply side must be weighed.
A “job” is about looking beyond the decision to the reason why someone made the decision that they did. Often, consumer behavior will seem irrational, but that’s just because you haven’t truly uncovered the eight elements of a JTBD. The irrational becomes rational with context. At the core, people just want to make progress in their lives.
So, how do you know if you’ve uncovered your customer’s JTBD? Ask yourself the following questions:
• Do I know the consumer’s competitive sets for my product?
• Do I know what the consumer has hired and fired in the past and why? • What makes my offering different?
• What struggle is the consumer trying to solve?
• What is holding them back from consumption?
• What is pushing or pulling them to the new idea/product?
If you’re struggling and need help uncovering your consumer’s JTBD, feel free to reach out to the Re-Wired Group.
