Your Jobs (should you choose to accept them)

In today’s episode of “Customer Clarity”, we’re diving into a sexy topic:

Customer Jobs.

Like I mentioned recently while explaining the concept of about Pains & Gains, Jobs are the things your customers are trying to get done in their life and work. They range from problems to be solved, to needs to be satisfied, to tasks to get duuun.

This might seem like pretty straight forward stuff.

But it’s surprising how little time entrepreneurs spend thinking about the jobs their customers face.

Or — worse yet — how much time they spend imagining the Jobs their customers have. Instead of, ya’know, finding them out from their customer’s perspectives.

Quickly, there are 3 types of Jobs you need to know about:

– Functional Jobs: Where we have to perform or complete a specific task or problem. Like watering the plants, eating healthy, writing an email, or giving a client feedback.

– Social Jobs: Where we want to improve our status, power, or simply want to look good. These are related to how we want to be perceived by others, like being known to have the trendiest gadgets, or being known as a “true professional”.

– Emotional Jobs: Where we seek a specific emotional state, like feeling happy about your family life or having peace of mind about the potential technical issues for your upcoming launch.

All of these are important to your customer.

And they ALL exist in every situation.

Don’t think for a second that just because you’re selling something boring that social and emotional Jobs don’t exist for your market.

(You’re not getting off that lightly!)

Even water treatment equipment and tax accounting software solves some sort of social and emotional Jobs.

Now, what those Jobs are will depend on the situation…

So, let’s talk about your situation for a moment.

Your Job today — should you choose to accept it — is to list out all of the Jobs that your ideal customer has to complete.

(Or at least as many as you can think of.)

Once you have them listed, the next step is to rank them in order of importance.

Your USP should be focusing on the most important jobs your customer has to deal with.

Because not all jobs are equal. And your USP should be focusing on the most important jobs your customer has to deal with.

Lastly, while listing out your jobs, don’t settle for a superficial understanding of your Customers Jobs.

This is a lesson I learned from one of my mentor’s Felicia Spahr.

Your main priority is to figure out the real Job at hand. To do this, ask “Why” a customer wants to perform a certain job, 5 times.

An example: Let’s say a customer wants to learn a new marketing skill, like creating Facebook Ads.

Why might she want to learn this new marketing skill?

Maybe because the real job to be done is stand out as a candidate for the marketing manager position she saw advertised at ABC company.

So, why does she want to want to apply for a job at ABC company?

Maybe because she wants to earn more money.

Why does he want to earn more money?

Maybe because she wants to save up $3,000 in the next 6 months

Why does she want to save $3,000 in the next 6 months?

Maybe because that’s the amount she needs for a trip to Paris, so she can take a holiday with her old high school friends.

Now, I know that was only 4 Whys, for all you counting Nazis out there…

But, as you can see, even with 4 Whys, we’ve gone deeper to the real motivations.

Or as Felicia would say,

“Had a poke around the see what’s under the rug.”

Next week, we’re gonna look at how your list of Jobs can give your USP a shot in the arm.

As always, if you want to get your USP supercharged, check out my Microbook below:

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