When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become great at making products people will buy

understand two things: what customers are struggling with now, and how they hope life will be better when they have the right solution. Put these two together, and you’ll have their JTBD.

When customers start using a solution for a JTBD, they stop using something else.

People have Jobs; things don’t. It doesn’t make sense to ask, “What Job is your product doing?” or say, “The Job of the phone is…” or “The Job of the watch is…” Phones, watches, and dry-cleaning services don’t have Jobs. They are examples of solutions for Job.

There is no demand—and therefore no JTBD—unless push and pull work together. A powerful step in understanding customer motivation is to study and appreciate the interdependencies between push and pull. They need each other. I might be attracted to the idea of owning an electric car from Tesla, but I won’t buy one unless I need a car. I have no push

Is it a Customer Job? Does it describe an improved life-situation or something else? When presented with a possible description of a Customer Job, the best framework of thinking I can offer you is the decision tree in figure 8.

Keep in mind that a Job to be Done describes the “better me.” It answers the question, “How are you better since you started using [product]?”and “Now that you have this product, what can you do now that you couldn’t do before?”

Reduce anxiety-in-choice with trials, refunds, and discounts. “Buy one, get one free!” “Lifetime guarantee!” “Free shipping!” “Thirty-day refund!” These are probably the most obvious and widely practiced techniques of managing cost/value expectation. We’re all familiar with them and have heard enough about discounts in Anthony’s case study on theat

The advertising campaign makes it clear: Revlon isn’t selling a product, it’s selling transformation – the idea that, with this product in your life, you’ll be able to create a “new me” that is desirable in ways your “existing me” is not.

Keep in mind that a Job to be Done describes the “better me.” It answers the question, “How are you better since you started using [product]?”and “Now that you have this product, what can you do now that you couldn’t do before?”