040: Why You Need To Eliminate Your Buyer Persona And Replace It With The Jobs To Be Done Framework

If Steve Jobs’ favorite book was written by the thought leader for this way of thinking,…

… then you may want to eliminate your buyer persona and replace it with the jobs to be done framework.

In our efforts to provide more insight into creating buyer personas for ecommerce websites, we stumbled on to an interesting couple of posts that argue that buyer personas may no longer be relevant to your business and that the jobs to be done framework (aka JTBD) might suit you better.

According to one of the most prominent “jobs to be done framework” thought leaders, Clay Christensen (author of one of Steve Jobs’ top books), the framework is:

“a tool for evaluating the circumstances that arise in customers’ lives. Customers rarely make buying decisions around what the “average” customer in their category may do — but they often buy things because they find themselves with a problem they would like to solve. With an understanding of the “job” for which customers find themselves “hiring” a product or service, companies can more accurately develop and market products well-tailored to what customers are already trying to do.”

More simply put, the jobs-to-be-done framework helps identify customer attitudes and characteristics by framing purchasing decisions as a choice to “hire” a product or service to do a “job” versus making assumptions about customers through buyer personas.

One of the most fascinating topics we’ve come across in a while, and in this episode, we try to break it down while also tempting you to eliminate your buyer persona and replace it with the jobs to be done framework.

Topics Discussed Throughout the Interview

• Why buyer personas don’t work
• How stumbling onto this topic might completely change our own business
• Being able to distinguish between a buyer persona and a JTBD framework
• Real world examples of JTBD in action
• Getting started with creating your own framework

Links / Resources:

• The Christensen Institute’s Definition of JTBD & Website
• Jobs To Be Done Framework Article by Christensen in MIT Online Publication 
• Fill In The Blank Statements To Distinguish Between Persona & JTBD 
• Innovators Tool Kit Break Down 
• Medium’s Database of JTBD Articles

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