Customer-driven = smart growth
Here at Paddling Furiously, we believe strongly in customer-driven growth. After all, you started this business to provide something people want. And you’ll go farther, faster by listening to and providing what the customer needs.
It’s not about you
Your customer doesn’t really care about your business. They care about their needs: a healthy snack, a stylish haircut, an HR system that works for their business. How you do it is up to you and, frankly, the less said the better… unless it’s supporting your customer’s goals.
So how do you know their goals? You need to put yourself in their shoes.
You are not your customer
This might seem unnecessary. After all, many business owners started a company to solve a problem they felt deeply about. So they understand the goals, know the pain. Don’t they?
You may know the problem – often quite well – but you’re not the customer. By the time you get around to starting a business, you’ve thought way more about it than your customer has; they may not even recognize that they have a problem yet! And you’re deep in the weeds of how to solve it, how your approach is better.
So you’re going to want to go back and capture the perspective of the customer who knows something’s wrong and just wants it fixed.
Getting it wrong is dangerous
One third of companies fail because of lack of “product-market fit”; simply put, they don’t make something anyone wants to pay for. Another 22% fizzle due to marketing problems: they may have a valuable product or service, but they can’t find the right potential customers or convince them they can help.
“Jobs to be done”
To have a business, you need to sell. To sell, you need a buyer. But for someone to buy, they need to:
- Recognize they have a problem
- Be motivated to change
- Be willing to pay for the change you’re providing
The “Jobs to be done” (“JTBD”) framework addresses this by looking at the issue from the customer’s point of view: what “job” do they want done? Why would they “hire” your product or service to do that job? The classic example: the customer doesn’t want a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole in their wall.
Functional, social or emotional?
Another key JTBD concept is that the “job” can have various aspects:
- Functional: core tasks or outcomes
- Social: how customers want to be perceived by or interact with others
- Emotional: how the customer feels after using the product
For example, a cook book’s functional value is to provide instructions on how to prepare food. The social benefit might be to impress friends or family members, or signal the user’s taste or health consciousness. Emotionally, the user might feel nostalgia in preparing a childhood dish or pride in a new accomplishment.
Think like a customer
Start by picturing your customer. Try not to get too focused on demographics. Age group, income or other factors can be helpful, but you want to concentrate on psychographics: who this person is, what’s important to them, what they’re worried about.
What are their goals? What worries them? What’s holding them back?
Then, instead of describing your business in terms of features or functions, think about the gain you offer. How do you help the customer you described achieve their goals? Or how do you help them avoid or eliminate, avoid or minimize something that’s bothering them?
Try it yourself! Here’s a worksheet to help you get started. (See below for tips on using the worksheet and other useful links)
