When Snickers discovered that their customers weren't just buying candy—they were "hiring" their product to solve hunger-induced irritability during busy workdays—their messaging shifted from generic candy marketing to "You're not you when you're hungry." This insight-driven approach, rooted in Jobs to be Done (JTBD) thinking, transformed their brand positioning and drove significant market growth.
This same customer-centric clarity can revolutionize your go-to-market strategy. While most GTM teams rely on demographic-based buyer personas that describe who their customers are, JTBD reveals why customers buy—the underlying job they're trying to accomplish. This fundamental shift from customer attributes to customer motivations creates unprecedented alignment between marketing, sales, and customer success teams.
At thrv, we've refined this approach through our work with portfolio companies, using our AI-powered JTBD platform to help teams identify unmet customer needs in hours rather than weeks. When GTM teams struggle with misaligned messaging, inconsistent sales conversations, and scattered customer success efforts, our proprietary JTBD methodology provides a unifying framework that transforms how teams understand, target, and serve customers. When your entire revenue organization operates from a shared understanding of the customer's job, everything changes: messaging becomes more precise, objections decrease, and customers recognize your solution's value faster.
Most revenue organizations operate with a fundamental disconnect. Marketing creates content based on demographic personas, sales develops pitches around product features, and customer success focuses on usage metrics. Each team operates with different customer assumptions, creating friction that customers can feel throughout their entire journey.
Research from Bain & Company reveals that while 80% of companies believe they deliver superior customer experiences, only 8% of customers agree. This massive perception gap often stems from GTM teams that aren't aligned around a common understanding of what customers actually need to accomplish.
Consider these common alignment failures:
Marketing generates leads who aren't ready to buy because campaigns focus on broad pain points rather than specific jobs that trigger purchase decisions. A cybersecurity company might attract IT directors interested in "better security," but sales discovers these prospects aren't hiring software to solve an urgent compliance deadline—they're just browsing.
Sales conversations stall because reps can't connect features to customer outcomes. Without understanding the underlying job, sales teams resort to feature demonstrations that fail to resonate. Prospects think, "This looks interesting, but I don't see how it solves my immediate problem."
Customer success teams struggle to drive adoption because they focus on product usage rather than job completion. Users receive onboarding focused on feature mastery instead of achieving their desired outcome, leading to poor retention and expansion.
The root cause isn't individual team performance—it's the absence of a shared framework for understanding customer motivation. Traditional buyer personas describe customer characteristics but miss the functional, emotional, and social dimensions of why customers make purchasing decisions.
JTBD solves this alignment challenge by providing a common language centered on customer jobs rather than customer demographics. When your entire GTM organization understands that customers aren't buying your product—they're hiring it to do a specific job—every interaction becomes more relevant and effective.
Traditional buyer personas paint demographic pictures: "Sarah is a 35-year-old marketing director at a mid-size tech company. She lives in Austin, has an MBA, and prefers collaborative tools." This information tells us who Sarah is but not why she might buy or how she evaluates solutions.
JTBD flips this approach. Instead of asking "Who is our customer?" JTBD asks "What job is our customer trying to do?" This shift reveals the functional, emotional, and social dimensions that drive purchase decisions.
Clayton Christensen, who popularized JTBD theory, illustrated this with McDonald's milkshake research. Traditional market research suggested improving milkshakes by making them more chocolatey or chunkier based on customer preferences. But JTBD research revealed that many customers were hiring milkshakes to handle a lengthy, boring commute while keeping them full until lunch. The job wasn't "drinking a delicious milkshake"—it was "making my commute more interesting and satisfying."
This insight changed everything. McDonald's could now compete not just with other milkshakes, but with bananas, bagels, and coffee—any solution customers might hire for the same job. More importantly, they could optimize the milkshake specifically for commute needs: thicker consistency for longer consumption, convenient size for car cup holders, and flavors that wouldn't become tiresome during daily use.
JTBD reveals three interconnected dimensions that traditional personas miss:
Functional Dimension: The practical task customers need to accomplish. This is often what sales teams focus on, but it's just one piece of the puzzle.
Emotional Dimension: How customers want to feel during and after job completion. A project management tool isn't just organizing tasks—it's helping managers feel confident and in control.
Social Dimension: How customers want to be perceived by others when using your solution. Enterprise software buyers often consider how their choice reflects their competence and forward-thinking approach to colleagues and stakeholders.
When GTM teams understand all three job dimensions, several powerful changes occur:
Marketing can create content that resonates at each stage of the customer journey. Instead of generic "productivity tips" content, a project management company can create specific resources about "maintaining team confidence during complex product launches"—addressing both functional and emotional job dimensions.
Sales conversations become consultative rather than transactional. Reps can position their solution within the context of the customer's complete job, including emotional and social outcomes that aren't immediately obvious.
Customer success teams can measure and optimize for job completion, not just product usage. This leads to higher satisfaction because customers achieve their desired outcomes, not just feature adoption.
The shift from personas to jobs creates a customer-centric alignment that competitors using traditional approaches can't match. While they're optimizing for demographic segments, you're optimizing for customer outcomes.
Implementing JTBD within your GTM organization requires a systematic approach that translates customer jobs into actionable strategies for marketing, sales, and customer success. The framework consists of four core components that work together to create customer-centric alignment.
The foundation of JTBD-driven GTM strategy is accurately identifying and defining customer jobs. This goes beyond surface-level pain points to uncover the underlying progress customers are trying to make.
Job Statement Structure
Customer jobs should be defined using this format: "When [situation], I want to [action], so I can [outcome]."
For example:
Discovery Methods
Once jobs are identified, map them according to market opportunity and strategic fit. This creates a foundation for prioritizing GTM efforts and resource allocation.
Customer Effort Score (CES) Analysis
We use Customer Effort Score to evaluate each job based on the percentage of customers who report difficulty completing it. High-effort jobs represent the greatest opportunities for differentiation and value creation through our AI-powered platform.
Jobs with high effort scores typically exhibit:
Market Segmentation by Job Type
Group customers based on the primary job they're trying to accomplish, not demographic characteristics. This creates segments that respond to similar messaging and value propositions.
Position your product as the optimal way to complete high-priority customer jobs. This involves mapping product capabilities to specific job steps and outcomes.
Job-Solution Fit Matrix
Create a detailed mapping between:
This matrix becomes the foundation for messaging, sales positioning, and product development priorities.
Ensure marketing, sales, and customer success teams operate from shared job definitions and positioning. This requires systematic communication and measurement approaches.
Shared Language Development
Create standardized terminology and frameworks that all teams use when discussing customers and positioning. This includes:
For more detailed guidance on implementing JTBD methodology across your organization, explore our comprehensive Jobs to be Done framework.
Marketing teams that adopt JTBD thinking move beyond demographic targeting to create campaigns that address specific customer jobs. This shift dramatically improves message resonance and lead quality because content connects directly to customer motivation.
Our experience implementing JTBD with portfolio companies shows that this approach can generate a 40% increase in marketing effectiveness while reducing customer acquisition costs through better targeting precision.
Customers follow predictable patterns when recognizing, evaluating, and completing jobs. Marketing content should map to these job stages rather than traditional funnel stages.
Job Awareness Stage
Customers recognize they have a job to do but may not understand its scope or urgency. Content should help customers clearly define their job and recognize its importance.
Example: A cybersecurity company targeting IT directors might create content titled "Hidden Compliance Risks That Surface During Audits" rather than generic "Cybersecurity Best Practices." This addresses the specific job of "ensure audit compliance" rather than broad security concerns.
Job Definition Stage
Customers understand their job but need help scoping requirements and success criteria. Content should provide frameworks for evaluating solutions and defining outcomes.
Job Execution Stage
Customers are actively working to complete their job and evaluating solutions. Content should demonstrate how your solution enables faster, more accurate job completion.
JTBD transforms campaign targeting from demographic characteristics to situational triggers that prompt job recognition.
Trigger-Based Targeting
Instead of targeting "marketing directors at tech companies," target situations that trigger specific jobs:
Job-Centric Messaging
Transform product-focused messaging to job-focused value propositions:
Traditional: "Our platform provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities."
JTBD: "Transform chaotic campaign data into board-ready ROI reports in minutes, not days."
The JTBD version immediately connects to the customer's underlying job while positioning the product as the optimal solution.
JTBD enables more accurate lead scoring by focusing on job urgency and fit rather than demographic matching.
Job-Based Lead Scoring
Evaluate leads based on:
This approach identifies prospects who are actively trying to complete jobs your solution addresses, leading to higher conversion rates and shorter sales cycles.
Sales teams using JTBD approach conversations as job consultants rather than product demonstrators. This consultative approach builds trust faster and positions solutions more effectively because reps understand and address the complete job context.
When we implemented our JTBD method with Target's Registry team, this approach helped reverse declining revenue trends, achieving over 25% top-line growth annually within 12-18 months by aligning the entire sales process with customer job completion.
JTBD discovery focuses on understanding the customer's job context, not just their product requirements. This deeper understanding enables more effective positioning and objection handling.
Job Discovery Question Framework
Most objections stem from misalignment between the solution presentation and the customer's complete job requirements. JTBD provides frameworks for preventing objections by addressing job barriers proactively.
Common Job Barriers and Solutions
JTBD enables sales teams to assess value based on job outcomes rather than product capabilities. This approach resonates more strongly because it connects directly to customer success metrics.
Job Outcome Assessment
Help customers calculate the value of successful job completion:
This assessment becomes the foundation for price justification and ROI discussions.
Learn more about implementing effective value creation strategies that align with customer job outcomes.
Customer success teams using JTBD focus on job completion rates rather than product usage metrics. This shift improves retention and expansion because customers achieve their desired outcomes, not just feature adoption.
Our portfolio companies typically see a 20% improvement in Net Promoter Scores when customer success teams optimize for job completion rather than feature usage, because customers recognize that they're achieving their actual goals.
Traditional onboarding teaches product features. JTBD-driven onboarding ensures customers can successfully complete their jobs using your product.
Job-Centric Onboarding Design
Monitor customer health based on job completion success rather than login frequency or feature usage.
Job Completion Health Metrics
Identify expansion opportunities by discovering additional jobs customers need to complete and positioning relevant capabilities.
Job Expansion Discovery
JTBD transforms market segmentation from demographic categories to job-based segments. This approach creates more precise targeting and messaging because segments are defined by customer motivation rather than customer characteristics.
Effective JTBD segments share similar job requirements, success criteria, and solution evaluation approaches.
Segment Criteria
Example segmentation for a project management company:
Each job-based segment requires tailored approaches across marketing, sales, and customer success.
Segment Marketing Strategy
Segment Sales Approach
Traditional personas describe customer demographics. JTBD-derived personas focus on job context, motivations, and success criteria. These personas become more actionable because they connect directly to customer behavior and decision-making.
Core Job Definition
Job Execution Context
Solution Evaluation Process
Conduct customer interviews focused on job context rather than demographic information. Ask about specific situations that prompted their search for solutions and their definition of successful job completion.
2. Job Pattern RecognitionIdentify common job patterns across customer segments. Look for similarities in job triggers, execution approaches, and success criteria that indicate persona groupings.
3. Persona Creation and TestingDevelop personas based on job patterns and test them with actual customers to ensure accuracy and relevance.
Marketing Usage
Sales Usage
Customer Success Usage
For additional insights on developing customer-centric strategies, explore our portfolio company case studies that demonstrate job-based transformation results.
Successfully implementing JTBD across your GTM organization requires systematic change management and measurement. This roadmap provides a structured approach for transformation based on our experience helping portfolio companies adopt JTBD methodology.
Objective: Establish JTBD understanding and identify high-priority customer jobs
Key Activities:
Success Metrics:
Objective: Test JTBD approach with focused campaign and sales process
Key Activities:
Success Metrics:
Objective: Scale JTBD approach across all GTM activities
Key Activities:
Success Metrics:
Objective: Refine JTBD implementation and identify new opportunities
Key Activities:
Success Metrics:
Effective JTBD implementation requires metrics that measure job completion success rather than traditional activity-based indicators. This measurement approach ensures teams focus on customer outcomes rather than internal processes.
Content Performance
Campaign Effectiveness
Conversation Quality
Conversion Performance
Job Completion Tracking
Retention and Expansion
Process Consistency
Customer Experience
Jobs to be Done (JTBD) is a framework that focuses on understanding what customers are trying to accomplish rather than who they are demographically. While traditional buyer personas describe customer characteristics like age, industry, and preferences, JTBD reveals the underlying job customers are hiring your product to do. This includes the functional task they need completed, how they want to feel during the process, and how they want to be perceived by others. JTBD provides deeper insight into customer motivation and decision-making than demographic-based personas.
Customer jobs often exist beneath surface-level pain points and require discovery techniques that reveal context and motivation. Start by asking customers about the circumstances that prompted their search for solutions, exploring the consequences of not achieving their desired outcome, and understanding their current approach and struggle points. Focus on the progress customers are trying to make rather than features they think they need. Look for patterns in customer behavior, timing of purchases, and the alternatives they consider, including non-consumption.
JTBD works particularly well in complex B2B environments because it reveals different jobs for different stakeholders within the same organization. For example, in enterprise software purchases, IT directors may have jobs related to implementation risk and system integration, end users focus on daily workflow efficiency, and executives concentrate on demonstrating strategic decision-making. Understanding these interconnected jobs enables more effective stakeholder management and consensus building throughout the sales process.
Initial results often appear within 60-90 days as teams apply job insights to messaging and positioning. Marketing content becomes more relevant, sales conversations improve, and lead quality increases. More substantial impact typically emerges over 6-12 months as content strategy aligns with customer jobs, sales processes become outcome-focused, and customer success programs improve job completion rates. The timeline depends on implementation scope and organizational change management effectiveness.
The most common mistake is treating JTBD as a research project rather than an operational transformation. Companies conduct customer interviews and identify jobs but continue operating with traditional personas and product-focused messaging. Successful JTBD implementation requires systematic changes to how teams define customer segments, create marketing campaigns, position solutions, handle objections, and measure success. The framework must be integrated into daily operations, not just used for strategic planning.
JTBD enhances rather than replaces existing tools by providing customer-centric context. CRM systems can incorporate job-based fields and scoring criteria, marketing automation platforms can create job-triggered campaigns and nurturing sequences, and sales enablement tools can include job-specific discovery questions and positioning materials. Customer success platforms can track job completion metrics alongside usage data. The framework makes existing tools more effective by focusing them on customer outcomes rather than internal processes.
Small companies often benefit more quickly from JTBD because they can implement changes rapidly without complex change management processes. The framework is particularly valuable for small companies because limited resources require precise targeting and messaging, customer conversations have more direct impact on product development, and competitive differentiation is crucial for establishing market position. JTBD provides the focus and clarity that helps small teams maximize their impact and compete effectively against larger competitors.
Success should be measured by customer outcomes rather than internal activity metrics. Track job completion rates, customer satisfaction with achieving desired outcomes, retention rates correlated with job success, and referral rates from customers who successfully complete their jobs. For GTM teams specifically, measure lead quality based on job fit, sales cycle length for job-focused conversations, win rates when using outcome-based positioning, and expansion revenue from customers achieving job outcomes. The key is connecting internal process improvements to customer success metrics.
Ready to transform your go-to-market strategy with Jobs to be Done? Learn more about our proven methodology and how we help companies accelerate growth through customer-centric alignment at thrv.com.