How Jobs-to-Be-Done Research Works

Our proven approach to uncovering real customer buying triggers

We use Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) research to uncover the real reasons your customers decide to buy – and why they sometimes choose not to.

Instead of relying on assumptions, big-data averages, or hypothetical “I would buy if…” guesses, we dig into actual purchase decisions to find the triggers that made buyers say, “Today’s the day I spend my money.”

This research shows you exactly who the real decision-makers are, what motivates them, and how you can design products, services, and messaging that perfectly match genuine customer demand.

Whether you’re selling B2B or B2C, our approach replaces guesswork with actionable insight – so you can align your strengths to what the market truly values.

Why Customers Really Buy

To understand why customers buy, we need to understand what they have already purchased, so we can understand what caused them to say "Today's the day I part with my money in exchange for that product/service".

If your customers say "I would buy this if…" then this is guesswork - they are speculating about what they might spend their money on
When real customers say "I bought this because…" then you have solid data to work on - provided you know how to interview customers to mine this insight

By digging into the real reasons customers purchase a product, we can re-design the product, positioning, placement and pricing to better meet their needs.

Chart showing why asking 'Would you buy this?' is low value, but Jobs-to-Be-Done research delivers high-value insights

Finding the Real Decision-Maker in B2B Sales

We specialise in identifying and understanding the reasons why B2B buyers spend their money. The research we use is called "Jobs to Be Done" - which is straightforward when interviewing B2C consumers (e.g. "Why did you buy the house you live in?", but far more complex when trying to identify the real buyer in a B2B sale.

We deliberately chose to target B2B research because it is hard work and it takes time to build these capabilities
Most people in a business have the ability to say "No" to change, or to buying a new product or service
We find the one person that decided "Today's the day" and was able to drive through all these "No's" and get the purchase over the finish line

In a B2B setting, you must find the person who first realised there was a problem to solve, AND who successfully convinced everyone else in their organisation that they needed to solve it NOW.

In B2B Jobs-to-Be-Done research, we interview the person who triggers the final buying decision

Capturing Diverse Viewpoints to see All Jobs-to-Be-Done

Finding the buyer is only one part of the research process. We also need to ensure we have framed the problem/opportunity properly to begin with.

If we focus the research on too narrow a niche, we may miss opportunities for your firm to grow
If we only examine the viewpoints of your customers today, we may not see a bigger opportunity tomorrow

In practice this means we want to capture diverse viewpoints - customers that purchase from your competitors, bigger or smaller firms than you're targeting today, or those that are buying solutions that you don't realise are genuine competitors for your own offering.

This allows us to see the big picture, and identify all types of demand in the market:

Jobs-to-Be-Done research captures diverse customer perspectives to uncover all types of demand

By recruiting customers of varying sizes, geographies, spending power, and maturity levels, we capture a comprehensive view rather than a limited snapshot. Typically, around 12 targeted interviews are sufficient to uncover the core demand drivers in your market - providing insights that are broad enough to reflect diverse customer motivations, yet specific enough to deliver actionable recommendations quickly, enabling your business to swiftly leverage these insights for growth.

The JTBD Interview Process

Most people ask surface-level questions to try and validate their ideas. We did this ourselves in the past, until we learned how to dive deep and really understand why people buy. Often we will need to ask multiple questions about the same purchase to dig deep into the real underlying motivations behind why people buy.

By conducting thorough interviews that go beyond initial responses, we uncover the true drivers behind purchasing decisions, enabling us to design solutions that align with what customers actually value and will pay for.

JTBD switch interviews dig deep into real purchase decisions, unlike surface-level 'mom test' questions

Example JTBD interview question

In this example, we start by talking about the need for real customer insights - an unbiased view of the user experience that real customers want. Mark talks about realising they really need to capture the voice of the customer to re-design their application because they have a very diverse user base and they want to create the best possible experience. Yet when we get to the decision point, he opts for a service that includes zero customer interviews. Why?

If we stop at what people say they want, we will design a solution that costs too much for the customer to buy
If we dig into why they really chose their provider, we can imagine a better way to solve the problem and craft an offer that is compelling and custom-made

One size fits no-one

You can easily open up a ChatGPT session and ask it what customers want and why they buy. The result will be impressive, and wrong. Analysing big data sets and looking at the average purchase frequency or price or even the customer reviews of a product creates more noise and less signal.

If you ask everyone in your business what their shoe size is, and create a shoe that matches the average shoe size, it will fit no-one

Our approach is different:

First, we dive deep into what each individual we interview wants and needs from the product or service they buy
Next, we ask ourselves, "Which of these interviewees has similar motivations, and which are vastly different?"
We then code up these interviews and group people that have a common context - creating groups who buy for common reasons, and who want the same outcomes

Jobs-to-Be-Done research reveals the buying context that creates perceived value for customers

The context you are in determines the value you see in a product. Someone with a fire in their home or who is dying of thirst will pay a lot more for water (and accept a lower-quality water) than someone simply watering their garden plants.

Analysing Customer Jobs-to-Be-Done

Finally, we delve deeply into these groups to understand their true purchasing behaviour—not based on vague personas or demographic assumptions, but on real customer decisions and trade-offs.

This analysis reveals precisely:

What they genuinely want to buy
How much they're actually prepared to spend
Where they prefer to shop
How their buying decisions unfold
When their need becomes urgent ("must-have" triggers)
Why certain features are non-negotiable or expendable
Who within an organisation truly initiates and influences the purchase

Unlike personas that generalise customers into abstract stereotypes, our approach delivers tangible, actionable insights directly rooted in actual buying behaviours, helping you align your offering precisely to genuine customer demand.

Growth Exposed JTBD research shows what, when, where, why, how, and how much customers buy, unlike personas that only show 'who'

With all of these insights, we connect the demand that exists in the market to your business capabilities. We create a unique go-to-market strategy based on how your unique skills map to the things your best customers want.

We use Jobs-to-Be-Done research to connect supply and demand and drive breakout business growth

An illustrative example of our method

An illustrative example of our method is provided in the table below, which shows how our own analysis of growth consulting needs uncovered five distinct clusters of customer demand (the "Jobs in Jobs-to-Be-Done").

The table focuses specifically on one demand cluster (Job) out of 5 possible Jobs we could have targeted. Here's how we analysed and decided to focus on this job:

Demand-side Expectation: Describes the characteristics or features that customers prioritise when selecting consultants - across all 5 Jobs we identified
Importance to this Job: Indicates how critical this feature is when making purchasing decisions for customers that had this specific Job
Gap vs. Our Capabilities: Provides an honest assessment of our current abilities compared to customer expectations within this Job - note this was our original assessment, and we have spent months closing these gaps before launch
Effort to Close the Gap: Outlines the necessary steps and investments required to bridge any identified gaps - which forms our initial strategy and 90-day action plan, to ensure we are executing against things customers really care about

This analysis helped us:

Choose which Job(s) we wanted to prioritise
Decide on the features we MUST have and the price model we would offer
Focus our early sales efforts on validating assumptions and closing the gaps that were most critical

Here's the analysis:

Demand-side Expectation	Importance to this Job	Gap vs. Our Capabilities	Effort to Close the Gap
Deep domain expertise in their market	Low/Medium – Buyers prioritise a consultant skilled in customer journey analysis over market-specific knowledge, though familiarity with their industry is beneficial.	Low – We have the skills and capability but we need to develop recognition and need anchor clients to establish credibility and create case studies.	High – Secure initial clients willing to trust our skills without extensive references and build demonstrable case studies.
Direct customer/prospect interviews	Medium – Buyers value firsthand insights on customer and competitor perceptions, identifying gaps in their offerings.	Low/Medium – We can leverage our established interview methodology effectively, providing flexibility in interview structure.	Low/Medium – We may need to demonstrate that our interview approach is a better choice than following a customer-provided script
Competitor intelligence research	Medium/Low – Primarily focused on internal service improvements, though competitor analysis is valued as supplementary insight.	Low – Easily integrated within existing processes; we can readily offer competitor benchmarking as an additional benefit.	Low – Project-specific effort; minimal ongoing investment required.
Total Addressable Market insights	Low – Market opportunity size is already established by the client, thus minimal value in extensive additional research.	Low/None – No significant gap, as minimal client expectation aligns with our existing competencies.	Low/None – Minimal effort required.
Execution support (UI/UX, marketing messaging)	High – Significant demand for practical implementation support in customer engagement strategy and execution.	Medium – large Enterprise clients expect comprehensive, multi-skilled teams. Smaller clients will require less intensive support that we can deliver today	Variable – Strategically target smaller organisations, avoiding direct competition with large consultancies.
Comprehensive sales processes, personas, and positioning analysis	High (large firms) – Detailed examination of customer journeys, requiring intensive data-driven insights and persona development.	Variable – Larger clients exceed our current capacity; smaller clients match our existing analytical depth and skillset.	Low – Focus on mid-sized firms that require moderate analytical depth rather than extensive process engineering.
Cross-functional execution playbook to drive new operating models	High – Need to translate insights into actionable, cross-departmental strategies.	Low (small/medium firms), High (large enterprises) – Strong match for smaller clients, significantly challenging for larger organisations.	Low – Leverage insights from our JTBD research methodology to facilitate cross-departmental understanding and strategy execution.

Typical Roles with this Job to Be Done:

In larger organisations, this role typically includes CFOs and Commercial Directors. In smaller organisations, it's usually the founder or owner directly overseeing growth. The common factor is that this individual recognises a critical issue in the business metrics and seeks solutions to drive growth and improvement.

Additional Needs for these clients Beyond Initial Consulting:

Clients typically require immediate, actionable plans to address identified growth issues and ongoing support during implementation. Given their lack of internal expertise, the consulting process involves diagnosing issues, developing clear action plans, and providing ongoing guidance and support until the client successfully adopts the recommended changes and capabilities.

As you can see from the analysis, this Job exists in Enterprise clients (where they will likely hire Bain or BCG or similar) all the way down to small, Bootstrapped startup businesses.

Within the job, what the customers demand remains the same, however at a smaller scale - and we focus on businesses up to $100m in revenue - the demand is more about the insights and the assistance to implement, and less about helping large teams align.

As such, we have been able to execute the plan by targeting customers at a revenue size that match our skills and scale, delivering the value they seek at a price that is affordable.

If we used this research to help Bain or BCG grow their consulting practice, the strategy, tactics and market selected would be completely different - hence the same research can create multiple different Go-To-Market strategies depending on the skills, scale and scope each client we work with.

Learn more

Our insights section features more in-depth information about our approach. This is a constant work-in-progress, and will feature:

Tips and tricks so you can learn how to research your own customers
Lessons learned from interviews and analysis about how to get more customers to buy from you
In-depth analysis of customer demand (based on the research we have delivered to-date)
More amateur artwork trying to simplify complex ideas about business growth so you can avoid the mistakes we have made (and paid for)

Ready to take the next step? Book a growth call to discuss your specific challenges, explore our insights, or learn more about the type of leaders we help.