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JTBD Workshop
(Jobs To Be Done)
Paul Holliday
Senior Product Designer
appear.in whereby.com
Telenor Digital, McCann, MediaFront,
Making Waves
Sean Percival
Chief Marketing Officer | appear.in
Katapult, 500 Startups, MySpace
A question we often ask our customers
What do we need to improve?
(so you’ll buy more)
A different question
What job are you hiring this product
to do for you?
The designers at intercom (intercom.com) use this illustration to show what is, and isn’t, important to customers.
Charles Revon’s quote forms the core of JTBD thinking. JTBD isn’t about doing things,
it’s about making a positive change — i.e. to make progress.
Upgrade your customers
A key to motivating customers to
buy what we are offering
In marketing, there’s a famous
analogy about a drill...
“People don’t want a quarter inch drill...”
Theodore Levit: An American economist and professor at Harvard Business School.
“People don’t want a quarter inch drill...
they want a quarter inch hole”
Theodore Levit: An American economist and professor at Harvard Business School.
Drill competitors
What jobs are you hiring
this product to do?
★ Screw driving
★ Masonry drilling
★ Impact driver
★ Feel professional
★ Quality buyer
★ Lend to friends
★ Faster than by hand
★ I can build a house with this!
Functional Personal Social
Emotional jobs
Functional Personal Social
● Fixing cupboards
● Shelves on the wall
● Faster screw driving
● Shelves on brick walls
● Hanging up a picture
Emotional jobs
Functional Personal Social
● Fixing cupboards
● Shelves on the wall
● Faster screw driving
● Shelves on brick walls
● Feel like the provider
● Get the “honey do” jobs
done
● Add to my branded
collection
● Accomplishment of
building stuff
Emotional jobs
Functional Personal Social
● Fixing cupboards
● Shelves on the wall
● Faster screw driving
● Shelves on brick walls
● Feel like the provider
● Get the “honey do” jobs
done
● Add to my branded
collection
● Accomplishment of
building stuff
● My wife is happy that
the shelves are fixed
● I can lend it to my
friends
● Seem like I know what
I’m doing
● Seen as a buyer of
quality products
Emotional jobs
The milkshake story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfUsSyGWJ8
The switch
People switch to get a Job done better
Find new buyers who just made the
switch in the journey
★ Expose recent, rich, deep, emotional stories
★ Not user focus groups - “what we do” and “what we think we do”
are different
Find the “Switching Moment” in
the journey
★ Find moments there is an explicit choice to hire a
new solution
(Not habitual buying / impulse / novelty purchase)
PUSH
of the present
PULL
Of the new solution
New
behavior
Current
behavior
PUSH
of the present
PULL
Of the new solution
New
behavior
Current
behavior
“My current way just doesn’t
cut it anymore”
“This new way looks pretty good!”
PUSH
of the present
PULL
Of the new solution
ANXIETY
Of the new solution
OLD HABIT
Of the present
New
behavior
Current
behavior
“My current way just doesn’t
cut it anymore”
“This way looks pretty good!”
PUSH
of the present
PULL
Of the new solution
ANXIETY
Of the new solution
OLD HABIT
Of the present
New
behavior
Current
behavior
“My current way just doesn’t
cut it anymore”
“This way looks pretty good!”
“There’s things holding me back
from changing”
“I’ve got a few concerns about this
way”
Push+Pull > Habit+Anxiety
=
New behavior
That’s nice,
what areas should I market in?
Exercise
Honey, Let’s buy a cabin!
Exercise pt 1/3
Honey, Let’s buy a cabin!
Passively Looking Actively Looking Deciding Consuming
First thought Event 1 Event 2 Buying Experience
Exercise pt 1/3
Map the journey
Passively Looking Actively Looking Deciding Consuming
First thought Event 1 Event 2 Buying Experience
Vis f i d
ca
Mis g
s e d
fa y e
Tal t
f i d
Do s o l
se h
Gro g
di t ac
wi c n
si i n
Go s ab
vi g
Tal t k
In i s en
an m fo
fir s i r
Exercise pt 1/3
GO!
Passively Looking Actively Looking Deciding Consuming
First thought Event 1 Event 2 Buying Experience
Exercise pt 2/3
Map Push+Pull vs Anxiety+Habit
Passively Looking Actively Looking Deciding Consuming
First thought Event 1 Event 2 Buying Experience
Can I ff r
it?
Wha t
ba s n ?
It’s i n h
Nor an
d e
Al he n
ar el !
So m c
fa y e!
Is i n o
be t
co c y?
I co s e
t e b
ow s !
Pro
Nor an!
Exercise pt 2/3
GO!
Passively Looking Actively Looking Deciding Consuming
First thought Event 1 Event 2 Buying Experience
Exercise pt3/3
Share time!
Now you can design a marketing
strategy
★ Understand the job(s) your product is really solving
★ Context of moment
★ What contributes to the switch
★ Where the switch happens
★ Where to give reassurances for anxieties + old habits
★ Where to promote pushes and pulls
Surveys
Surveys - The good
★ Opinions, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, satisfaction,
patterns, easy of use, frequency, expectations
★ Quantitative people like them!
★ Fast to get a lot of responses
★ Secure, anonymous, and confidential
Surveys - the bad
★ Can not capture human emotion
★ Can be difficult to get to the root of the issue
NPS score + word cloud
NPS
How likely are you to recommend ______ on a scale from 0 to 10?
A fun example
“Not to be used as a juicer.”
"My juicer is not meant to squeeze oranges, it is
meant to start conversations"
Philippe Starck
Thanks!
Further Reading
https://jtbd.info/
http://www.whencoffeeandkalecompete.com/
https://jtbd.info/know-the-two-very-different-interpretations-of-jobs-to-be-done-5a18b748bd89
http://noahc.me/Value%20Proposition%20Design.pdf
paul@whereby.com
Jobs To Be Done Workshop