What Is Your Clientele Hiring You To Do?

Bootstrapped Growth

Today we discuss the Jobs To Be Done Interview.

Once you have your ideal customer profile and personas locked in place the next step is going to be to interview them.
If you’ve already got customers, you can use the Jobs to Be Done Framework.

Josh Braun, has a killer template inside his Bad Ass B2B Growth Guide that I use when we sign on new clients.
What’s great about this is that unless you’ve held the role of your customer, which many of us haven’t, (I'll never be an MD) you normally can’t speak their language naturally.
That’s why much of the marketing that's out there tends to be filled with buzz words and generalities that lead to low conversion rates.
When you interview customers they will give you the exact pain, problem and issues they deal with daily.. in their own words!
That will allow you to speak more fluent “Clientese”
If you don’t have customers yet, and you’re pre revenue, reach out to the persona that is in your ICP.
In this, you’ll ask similar questions to a Jobs to Be Done Interview but, they’ll be focused mainly on theoretical assumptions.
So questions like:
“In your opinion, what’s the biggest challenge people in your position face when it comes to…
These questions will allow you to speak to your customer, truly understand their problems and tie your product into each as a solution.

Here's the Interview Questions:

Finding the first thought

• What was going on in your life when you first realized _____ was a problem?
  
• How did you know you needed to start looking at that time?
  
• Where were you? What were you doing?
  
• Once you realized you had a problem, what did you do next?
  

Building the consideration set

• Tell me about how you looked for a product to solve your problem.
  
• What kind of solutions did you try? Or not try? Why or why not?
  
• How did you first hear about _________? What did you know about it at the time?
  
• Why did you decide to do something at all?
  

Be curious about emotion

• What was the conversation like when you talked about purchasing ________ with your team/superiors?
  
• Before you purchased, did you imagine what life would be like with the product? And what were you expecting?
  
• Where were you when you were thinking this?
  
• Did you have any anxiety about the purchase? Did you hear something about the product that made you nervous? What was it? Why did it make you nervous?
  
• Did you have any concerns about pulling the trigger?
  
• How did you overcome your last doubts about buying?
  

While conducting an interview, it’s important to be genuinely interested and non-judgmental about what your customer is talking about. They will notice this and be more willing to reveal themselves — particularly their anxieties, prejudices, and insecurities.