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

So, at the very core of demand-side sales is something called jobs to be done, and that We talked about the other 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 2 really important aspects here. It's the circumstance that they're in and the outcome that they seek. So I usually call it the A Moving from A, the old way, to B, the new way. And that ultimately there's these 2 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 that they get to the edge of this water, of this 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 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. It's about this fact of if there's this outcome and there's this context, and the progress is basically from them going from A to B. 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 value it actually way more. Or if I start up here, I value it way less. And so part of it 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 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. If I understand the struggling moment that says, I like, I need to get off this side of the river 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 a whole bunch of other things. And to be honest, I can come up with 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 it is that the technology is more about how does it fit into that circumstance and progress as it is about just, you know, being the best it can possibly be. 3 keys here. One is that to understand that it's about the causation. Nothing is random. Every change that people make is caused, though they might be aware of it, though they might not be aware of it. It's 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 will value this because of this outcome. But 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 circumstance is 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 understanding those 3 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 pretty good. It's not the solution, but the outcome. And what I would say is that I learned something in Japan when I was there called the 5 Whys. 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 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 5 of them usually resonate. But it's which 5? And us just showing up and throw up doesn't actually work. And so there's 2 key frameworks in understanding the jobs that people are trying to get done. One is what we call the forces of progress. What are the causes that cause people to change? And then 2 is the job to be done timeline, which is what are the sequence of dominoes 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 some struggling moment, the first force is really the push of the situation. There has to be some push of the current situation that causes people to say like, oh, I got to do something different. And ultimately, then 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? This is not new either. This is— there's pains and gains. There's problems and solutions. There's different ways to see it. But the key of the forces of progress is that there's fuel, which is the top 2, push and pull, are fuel to actually enable people to make change. But the other part is to realize that there's actually 2 other forces that are actually friction, which are below the waterline that most 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 the more we can reduce anxieties, the actually— the more likely they are to switch. The other part is the habit. Is there certain habits that they have to give up in order to make that progress? And if the habit is too strong, the fact is, is no matter how much you push and pull the habit 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. So one of the things I did in the mid-2000s was basically I built houses. I was a VP of sales and marketing. We built almost 1,000 homes in 3 years here in the Detroit area. And we had 3 core segments. One was first-time homebuyers, divorced parents with kids, and then downsizers. Think of it like your parents. And if we walk through this model and we start to think about it, it's like, what 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. You know, at some point the fact is there's a lot of maintenance to do. The laundry's 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 maybe 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 that condo or even going to a condo? It's like, well, we can travel more. Or the fact is, like, at some point, you know, we, we, uh, we can move closer to the kids. Um, um, 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 2, the anxiety of the new creates these very large, I'll say, uh, 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 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, you know, this is where we grew up. We know the neighbors. I know where the grocery store is. I know where church is. Is, all those kinds of things. And so part of it is to realize, like, at some point the, the push and the pull have to be greater than the anxiety and habit. One of the things I did is I realized how hard it was to move, and I had people canceling on me all the time. And so what I realized is at some point in time I needed to actually include moving and 2 years of storage and a room to sort all the stuff so we could actually help you move faster and enable you to do it, and you could 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 a systematic way. It increased sales 18%. Crazy. There's a timeline, and there's a sequence of things that have to happen. And the sequence is there's a first thought where people basically create the space in their brain for something to fall into. They passively look. And then there's an event 1 that causes them to move to active looking. And then there's another event that causes them to go deciding. And ultimately they end up going to buying and committing. And then they end up consuming and looking at satisfaction. And so we've broken that down into basically a 6-step process of how people buy. First thought is really about making space in the brain. It's about actually understanding kind of what are the causes, what are the things that are going on, what's the struggling moment. And what I would say is there's 4 ways that I know of that— I'm sure there's more, but I only know of 4 that you can use to basically create a first thought. One is you ask people a question and don't answer it. Number 2 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 3rd 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 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 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. Phase 2, passive looking, is really about where they're learning. So now that they've got the space, they can actually start to, uh, and what I mean by passive is they're not actively Engaged, but now 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 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 line everything up. But ultimately, the fact is, is the hardest part is that they usually can't get everything they want. And so stage 4 is about actually making trade-offs. What are they willing to give up in order to get something? And this is where people make the challenge between, well, I don't want to compromise. But the reality is that progress is about time. 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 as opposed to a whole step of progress given where I'm at. And then ultimately, they buy it and they have their first use. And so part of this is making— how do 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 2 core frameworks between the forces of progress and 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, oh, oh, oh, oh.