4 Ways JTBD Framework Can Help Your Business Grow

When you think about your customers or prospects, what do you focus on? Do you try to figure out who your existing customer is and what they are buying? Many businesses today use this information to form their strategies and create their future products.

The Jobs-to-be-Done framework teaches you entirely new ways to grow your business.

JTBD focuses on the ‘job’ that your business and products need to complete for the customer instead of what they are buying or who they are. 

Why JTBD Is Important For Market Research?

There are several reasons why you should get familiarized with this unique framework.

For starters, it helps businesses make a research case. Henry Ford, one of the early users of this model, realized it a long time ago. He said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.

Basically, Ford focused on ‘the job to be done’, which is to get from one point to another one effortlessly and quickly.

Another reason why this is beneficial is that it offers you an opportunity to incorporate the framework into a variety of project processes.

For example, JTBD researchers and practitioners often use it in market segmentation. In addition to segmenting prospects based on behaviors or attitudes, this framework gives another set of unique segments – by the “jobs they are hiring your products for”.

You can further implement it in your brand’s development and help your business grow. The so-called ‘purpose brands’ of today are built based on this framework.

This also applies to product development. Even though you’ll need tons of data such as market trends and customer insights, it is good to know what ‘job’ your product will be used for before you develop it and put it on the market.

This will give you more intelligence and, considering that most brands are focused on a single framework at the moment, will also give you a competitive edge.

Did You Know That You Can Use A Job To Be Done Template To Collect Data?

Using an entirely different framework to collect data about your customers can sound exhausting and expensive. However, you’d be wrong to think so. Nowadays, you can simply customize a ready jobs to be done template by providers like Aattest, send it out, and collect data with ease.

Performing research by using this framework is much simplified thanks to such tools. You can use that data to power your future product development or enrich your research with another point of view.

JTBD Benefits Through Examples

Things are understood best through examples, so firstly, we’ll take Bookafy as one.

Bookafy offers software that is used by users who want to save time and boost results in their work or for their business. 

Instead of checking numerous calendars, worrying to make changes without missing out on anything, and keeping track of different schedules, users can get Bookafy and automate everything.

This SaaS solution was created to get one important job done for the user – make them punctual. Users use Bookafy to automate their appointments and keep track of everything. They use it not to miss another meeting. Essentially, the job of this tool is to make their lives easier, which it certainly does.

But through the prism of JTBD, businesses that use Bookafy have another ‘job’ in mind. They don’t only use it to save time, but also to appear more professional in the eyes of their clients. Essentially, their “main job” has side aspects that are of functional and emotional nature.

The functional aspect is already well known, but the emotional aspect for the clients is that they:

1) Feel more in control, organized, and can do their jobs better (personal dimension).

2) Receive compliments, good reviews, and recommendations from customers and colleagues for their good job (social dimension).

Let’s consider another good example. 

The second on our list is Amazon Web Services, a highly trending business that we can all agree uses smart strategies and creates quality products. Based on the JTBD framework, Amazon has created something different for customers – a cloud computing solution.

Thanks to this solution, users don’t have to buy expensive, big physical servers or data centers. They can use cloud computing and scale it up as their business progresses. With this, Amazon created a solution for small businesses that thrive to become successful and gave them the option to scale up the cloud computing software right alongside their business.

Their idea is so successful that AWS now owns almost half of the public cloud infrastructure.

The third excellent example of this is Veeva, a SaaS solution that ‘hit the right spot’ with pharmaceutical companies. Nowadays, pharmaceutical companies have to jump endless hoops before they are able to launch a compliant product and of high quality.

What ‘job’ are they getting this product for, you might wonder?

The life sciences sector uses this SaaS solution to get products to the market faster. That’s the main goal of these companies – and the thing they struggle most with. The tool is used to do this faster, efficiently, and while maintaining compliance with regulations and laws.

Finally, take a look at how JTBD changed things for Slack:

Ways In Which The JTBD Framework Can Help Your Business Grow

There are different ways in which the framework helps businesses grow. If used right, the framework will allow you to:

• Learn what jobs your products are currently helping solve
• Identify opportunities to improve your products 
• Identify gaps in the experience of your users and new ideas for products
• Implement a culture that is more focused on the needs of the users
• Give you a more unique innovation mindset and a competitive edge
• Measure the efficiency of your products and services
• Give you ideas of how to add more value to your offerings

Do you want to achieve all this? If you do, we present you with a four-step guide on how to use the JTBD framework to grow your business.

1. Define The Jobs To Be Done In Your Market

When you define the JTBD, it is very easy to define your target market. You’ll know what people are expecting from your products, so you’ll know the main thing about your customers.

This is why the first step to take is to ask questions that identify these wishes and goals. You need to be direct in this, and ask questions like: “for which job did you use this product”?

You can expect to get many different answers to your questions. After all, people are using products for different reasons. However, some will be repeated over and over again, and those are the JTBDs to focus on.

2. Research The Needs Of The User

Each of those jobs will have certain needs tied to it. Users will know exactly what those needs are. In the case of Bookafy, for example, users know that they want to keep their schedule organized, avoid forgetting about meetings, keep their customers happy, and get more time to work on other business tasks.

But, they didn’t go to the company and asked for a SaaS solution that offers it all.

In many cases, people know their needs, but don’t know the solution. Henry Ford’s example is great proof of this. It turns out that people wanted to get from one place to another, but didn’t explicitly say: “create a car for us”. They knew their need, but they didn’t know the solution.

This is why, after determining the jobs, you need to focus on determining the needs. These can be very numerous, but there’s no reason why your product shouldn’t meet several needs at once, right?

3. Measure How Well You’ve Met Those Needs So Far

To grow your business, you shouldn’t focus solely on your future products and services, but on your existing ones, too. Do you believe that the products you have at this point meet the needs of the users and get the ‘job’ done?

This is where this next step comes. Your next job is to measure how well you’ve met the needs of the customers so far. 

When you measure this, try to answer the following questions:

• Are there gaps i.e. needs that you aren’t fulfilling with your service?
• Can you do the job better? Are customers complaining about your product right now?
• Are you serving the biggest needs of your customers? Should you switch your product’s priority to get the job done?
• What is your competition doing to fulfill these needs? What are they doing wrong or right?

4. Find The ‘Hidden Opportunities For Growth

One of the main reasons why you should be using the JTBD framework is to find hidden opportunities that you missed through more traditional methods. Keep in mind that this framework is still developing and it is rather new compared to traditional methods. As such, it allows you to get a new perspective on things and discover opportunities you weren’t aware of.

Consider what the complexities of the job in question are, what outcomes can be underserved, and how you can improve this. Do users have any unmet needs that you can tackle? Do they struggle with getting the job done because the current solutions on the market aren’t focused on it?

By answering these questions, you can find the hidden opportunities and grow your business.

Are You Ready To Test The JTBD Framework & Grow Your Brand?

If you are ready to try something new and effective, go through these four steps and align your market opportunities and existing products to what you discovered. After identifying your market, the jobs, and the needs, it is much easier to offer the right thing to your target market.