Introduction to JOBS-TO-BE-DONE with Bob Moesta

0:01 foreign so at the very core of demand side sales is something called jobs to be done and that we talked about the other

0:31 aspect of supply side and demand side but ultimately there's a deep dive into this side of understanding kind of you know what causes people to say today's the day they want to buy something new or do something new basically it's the progress that a person is trying to make in a very particular struggling moment and there's two really important aspects here it's the circumstance that they're in and the outcome that they seek so I usually call

0:56 it the a moving from a the old way to B the new way and that ultimately there's these two sides where you have this circumstance that if they're not struggling they're not actually thinking about what has to happen but like think of it as they get to the edge of this water of the stream and ultimately they're like okay I can't be here anymore why do they need to change and that's part of that struggle and the

1:18 circumstance questions create spaces in the brain for solutions to fall into it's like God this isn't good enough I can do better like when they start to ask themselves questions that's how they create the space to start to learn what they can do the other part though is the thing that's on the other side the progress that they're actually trying to get the idea of the other side and what's possible really a job is about both sides of this

1:42 it's about this fact of if there's this this outcome and there's this context and the progress is basically from them going from A to B and and Deming would always talk about the context is just as important as the outcome because at some point value is that difference between if I start here and I go to here that's worth that much but if I start down here like I I value it actually way more or if I start up

2:05 here I value it way less and so part of is understanding that the circumstance and the progress are connected the other part is that when I was in Japan they'd talk about this aspect of that technology agnostic requirements from the consumer and I kept going I have no idea what that means and they would say like I want to know what the customer really wants without talking about the product or the solution and that's the trick so think about it

2:30 if I understand the struggly moment that says I like I need to get off this side of the of the river and and I need to get to the other side of the river the reality is like that circumstance and that those outcomes determine the best way for me to get across because there's a difference between speed and effort and and a whole bunch of other things and and to be honest I can come up with

2:49 a thousand ways to get across that River I can teach them to swim I can dig a dig a tunnel I can build a bridge I can get a boat I can get a dock I can like on and on and on and on there's many many ways and so part of is that the technology is more about how does it fit into that circumstance in progress as it is about just you know being the best it can possibly

3:10 be three keys here one is that to understand that it's about the causation nothing is random every every change that people make is cost though they might be aware of it though they might not be aware of it is for us to be the investigator to understand that causation the second part is really that the fact is that the circumstance is the reference point needed to actually understand value without that reference point we don't we should say well people

3:37 will value this because of this outcome but if they if they're already close they only value it so much but if they're farther away they're going to Value it more so circumstances equally as important and the third is to uncover the process of making progress the real journey that they go through because at some point part of the journey is to add value like for them like when they put work in they actually value it more and so part of this is

4:00 those understanding those three things around the job to be done and so again this is really not a New Concept I think in 1960 Ted Levitt who was a marketing professor said people don't want to buy a quarter inch drill they want a quarter inch hole right it's it's pretty good it's not the solution but the outcome and what I would say is that that I learned something in Japan when I was there called the five wise

4:20 why do you want to drill I want a hole why do I want a hole I want a plug why do I want a plug I want a lamp why do you want a lamp I want to read better perfect I'm going to go work on the Kindle so you start to realize that most of the time we're working so much on what we know as opposed to what they want and so this is the important part

4:37 of being able to understand kind of when we're selling how do we understand what they want so we can actually figure out the important features that are important to them most people have 10 15 20 features but only five of them usually resonate but it's which five and us just showing up in throw up doesn't actually work and so there's two key Frameworks in understanding the jobs that people are trying to get done one is what we call

5:01 the forces of progress what are the causes that cause people to change and then two is the job to be done timeline which is what are the sequence of dominoes that have that have to fall in order to basically enable people to make progress so let's talk about the forces of progress if a is the old way and B is the new way and that there's a some struggling moment the first the first force is really the push of the

5:23 situation there has to be some push of the current situation that causes people to say like oh I gotta do something different and ultimately then they they have an idea so that creates the space in the brain to have an idea of what's possible and then what you need to do is understand what is it about the features that enable them to get to the outcomes they want so what are the pulls of the new solution

5:45 this is not new either this is there's pains and gains there's problems and solutions there's there's a different ways to see it but the key of the of the force of progress is that there's fuel which is the top two push and pull our fuel to actually enable people to make change but the other part is to realize that there's actually two two other forces that are actually friction which are below the water line that most

6:07 people don't see until afterwards or they're not willing to talk about one is basically the anxiety of the new solution as they look for the new solution it's one of those things of like what causes them to say what do I do with the old one you know how much do I have to learn what is the maintenance on that there's a whole bunch of other things that cause anxieties and and the more we can reduce

6:29 anxieties that actually the more likely they are to switch the other part is the Habit is there are certain habits that they have to give up in order to make that progress and if the Habit is too strong the fact is no matter how much you push and pull The Have And The Habit doesn't go away they won't switch the way I think about it is push and pull have to be greater than anxiety and Habit in order to make progress

6:51 so one of the things I did in the mid-2000s was basically I built houses built this lab I was a VP of sales and marketing we built almost a thousand homes in three years here in the Detroit area and and we had three course segments one was you know about first time home buyers divorced parents with kids and then downsizers think of you like your parents if we walk through this model and we start to think about it it's like what

7:19 causes your parents to downsize from the house you grew up in to move into a condo it's not random it's certain things have to happen to them and be in their life so what are the things that push your parents to say today's the day they need to move pushes usually have nothing to do with the solution everything to do with about the struggles you know the house is too big we pay a lot in taxes we want to travel more

7:46 you know at some point the the fact is there's a lot of Maintenance to do the you know the laundries in the basement and we got to carry it up the stairs we got to clean the gutters all these things kind of create that push to say like man we may we should think about downsizing and then at some point they start to look and see Solutions and it's like what's the pull of like this condo or

8:04 that condo or even going to a condo like well we can travel more or the fact is like at some point you know we we we can move closer to the kids there's a whole bunch of other like the the first floor laundry the The Gourmet Kitchen there's all these things of what they can do and part of it is understanding what is the outcomes that they seek from that but the other part of these other two

8:25 the anxiety of the new creates these very large I'll say frictional points that keep them from from being able to actually make that decision so for example how far is the grocery store I've got to sell my house how boy we got to fix up the house how are we going to move we haven't moved in 40 years there's all these anxieties that they have about being able to do that and what I realized is the more I could

8:49 actually reduce anxiety I didn't actually have to add more features I could actually get people to move the other part is the habit of the present which is the things where they're comfortable with the things they love about the old house there's all the nostalgic there's all the fact that the you know the the this is where we grew up we know the neighbors I know where the grocery store is I know where church is all those

9:08 kinds of things and so part of is to realize like at some point the the push and the pull have to be greater than the anxiety inhabit one of the things I did is I realized how hard it was to move and I had people canceling I mean all the time and so what I realized is at some point in time I needed to actually include moving and two years of storage and a room to sort

9:28 all the stuff so we could actually help you move faster and enable you to do it and you could say it's a feature but it's not a feature of a builder right it's a feature of a mover and so ultimately we could help people move by actually help people move into our condos by actually understanding by helping them pack up move and actually have a way in which to go about it in the systematic way it increased sales 18

9:48 crazy there's a timeline and there's a sequence of things that have to happen and and the sequence is there's a first thought where people basically create the space in the brain for something to fall into they passively look and then there's an event one that causes them to move to active looking and then there's another event that caused them to go deciding and ultimately they end up going to buying and committing and then they end up

10:15 consuming and looking at satisfaction and so we've broken that down into basically a six-step process of how people buy first thought is really about making sprays in the brain it's about actually understanding kind of what are the causes what are the things that are going on what what's the struggling moment and what I would say is there's four ways that I know of that I'm sure there's more but I only know a four that that you can use to basically create a

10:40 first thought one is you ask people a question and don't answer it number two is you tell somebody a story that is close enough to their story that they actually resonate with it so they can see the possibilities a third thing is you give them a new metric number of steps right there's all these different ways in which you can kind of actually figure out how to actually help them make progress by giving a new metric and them

11:01 knowing that they can do better the last one is to State the obvious I always tell my father-in-law why is the TV so loud because it's eventually he's he's got to think about hearing aids because he always says what what so first thought is about actually creating the space two passive looking is really about where they're learning so now that they've got the space they can actually start to and what I mean by passive is they're not actively engaged but now

11:27 that they see it and they go through life there's things that happen where they now notice where they didn't notice before and this is where they're learning about the problem they're learning about the potential Solutions they're learning about from other people but they're building language to talk about is this something I should do something about and if it is then they move to active looking where active looking is where they invest but active looking is more

11:50 like I call it a kid in a candy store it's about finding all the possibilities oh could we do this or what does it have this and how about this and how about that and ultimately at some point in time they they line everything up but ultimately the fact is the hardest part is that they usually can't get everything they want and so stage four is about actually making trade-offs what are they willing to give up in

12:11 order to get something and this is where people make make a the challenge between well I don't want to compromise but the reality is that progress is about time and and point A to point B through time and the fact is is at some point if you want to make that progress in a certain time frame you're always going to have to make trade-offs it's not compromising it's more or less saying like I'm willing to make a half step of progress

12:35 as opposed to a whole step of progress given where I'm at and then ultimately they have they buy it and they have their first use and so part of this is making well how did they know they're making progress how does it feel to make progress what are their metrics for progress and then ultimately how do we build it into a habit and so those are the two core Frameworks between the the forces of progress and

12:58 push-pull anxiety and habit and basically the timeline which is first thought passive looking active looking deciding and first use those are the key frames that we actually look at buyers to understand where are they in their timeline and what are the things that are happening to them that are I'll say causing them to make progress oh all right