A disconnect between product, marketing, and sales teams is more than an internal inconvenience; it's a direct impediment to growth and equity value creation. When these core functions operate with disparate views of the customer and market, the result is often misaligned product development, diluted marketing messages, and sales efforts that miss the mark. This article outlines how we establish a Shared JTBD Language, rooted in our proprietary and patented Jobs to be Done methodology, providing a robust framework for cross-functional alignment, driving customer-centricity and accelerating growth within our portfolio companies.

We will explore how we develop and implement this common vocabulary to ensure teams are united in their understanding and pursuit of customer needs.

Table of Contents

• The High Cost of Cross-Functional Disconnect
• What is Our Jobs-to-be-Done Method for Team Alignment?
• Departmental Silos: The "Different Languages" Problem
• The Power of Our Shared Vocabulary for Cohesion
• Building Your Cross-Functional JTBD Lexicon
• Core JTBD Terms for Unified Understanding
• Actionable Step: Collaborative Definition Workshop
• Our Implementation Framework: Shared JTBD Language
• Phase 1: Foundation & Commitment
• Phase 2: Development & Documentation
• Phase 3: Rollout & Integration
• Phase 4: Measurement & Refinement
• JTBD in Action: Communication Templates
• The Payoff: Benefits of Our Unified JTBD Approach
• Overcoming Hurdles in Adoption
• From Shared Language to Equity Value Creation
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The High Cost of Cross-Functional Disconnect

In many organizations, product, marketing, and sales teams operate in functional silos. While each department aims for success, their definitions of success and the language they use to describe customer problems and solutions often diverge. This misalignment leads to:

• Inefficient Product Development: Products are built based on an incomplete or skewed understanding of true customer needs, leading to features that fail to address what customers are genuinely trying to accomplish
• Ineffective Marketing Campaigns: Messaging fails to resonate because it doesn't speak to the core "job" the customer is trying to get done or the specific difficulties they face
• Challenging Sales Cycles: Sales teams struggle to articulate value propositions consistently if their understanding of customer needs differs from that of product and marketing
• Wasted Resources: Time, budget, and effort are expended on initiatives that aren't aligned, resulting in duplicated work and suboptimal outcomes
• Subpar Customer Experience: Customers receive inconsistent information and experiences across their journey, eroding trust and loyalty
  
  

Addressing these challenges requires a fundamental shift towards a unified, customer-centric perspective across all teams. Our Shared JTBD Language is the cornerstone of this transformation.

What is Our Jobs-to-be-Done Method for Team Alignment?

Our proprietary and patented Jobs to be Done (JTBD) method is a powerful methodology that shifts the focus from products and features to what customers are fundamentally trying to accomplish—their "job." A "job" encompasses not just functional tasks but also the emotional and social dimensions of progress a customer seeks in a particular circumstance.

We use our JTBD method to identify unmet customer needs with precision. Understanding the customer's job is crucial for alignment because it provides a stable, shared point of reference. By identifying the 'job' the customer is hiring products or services to complete, we create a shared focal point that keeps all efforts aligned on solving the same core problem for the customer.

Key aspects of our JTBD method that aid alignment include:

• Customer-Centricity: Our JTBD method inherently places the customer's perspective at the center of all discussions and decisions
• Focus on Progress: It helps teams understand the "why" behind customer actions—the progress they are trying to make
• Actionable Insights: Our JTBD method uncovers specific customer need statements, formatted as action/variable pairs (e.g., "Determine flight status," "Calculate total cost"). These precise statements define how customers measure success in getting their job done quickly and accurately
• Measuring Difficulty: Our approach uses the Customer Effort Score (CES) to identify where customers struggle most. CES is the percentage of customers who report difficulty satisfying a given step in their Job-to-be-Done, based on effort, speed, and accuracy. High CES areas represent significant opportunities for innovation and value creation
  
  

By adopting our JTBD method, organizations can build a common understanding of customer needs that transcends departmental biases.

Departmental Silos: The "Different Languages" Problem

Without a unifying framework like our JTBD method, product, marketing, and sales teams often develop their own terminologies and prioritize different aspects of the customer experience:

• Product Teams may focus on technical specifications, feature sets, and development velocity. Their language is often rooted in sprints, user stories (which can be too solution-oriented), and technical constraints
• Marketing Teams typically concentrate on brand perception, campaign metrics, lead generation, and competitive positioning. Their vocabulary includes terms like MQLs, conversion rates, and value propositions that may not directly map to the customer's job
• Sales Teams are driven by quotas, closing deals, and overcoming objections. Their language centers on sales funnels, CRMs, and customer relationship management, often focusing on the buyer's journey rather than the user's job
  
  

These differing perspectives and vocabularies create friction and inefficiencies. An inconsistent understanding of the core customer problem leads to a fragmented approach to solving it.

The Power of Our Shared Vocabulary for Cohesion

A shared vocabulary is fundamental to effective teamwork. When teams speak the same language, especially one grounded in the customer's perspective, several benefits emerge:

• Improved Clarity: Ambiguity is reduced, ensuring everyone understands concepts and priorities in the same way
• Increased Efficiency: Decisions are made faster as common understanding minimizes repetitive explanations and debates
• Improved Trust: Transparency and shared goals foster stronger relationships between departments
• Unified Purpose: All teams rally around the common objective of helping the customer get their job done better

Our JTBD method provides the ideal foundation for this shared language. It anchors discussions in the customer's context and their struggle, measured by Customer Effort Scores, rather than internal departmental goals or product features alone. In our JTBD research, we let people describe in their own words their situation, struggles, and desires. This leaves no room for guessing and helps teams establish and adopt a common language—that of the customer.

Building Your Cross-Functional JTBD Lexicon

Developing a shared JTBD lexicon is a critical step. This involves defining key JTBD terms and ensuring they are understood and applied consistently across product, marketing, and sales. We help our portfolio companies develop comprehensive glossaries of key JTBD terms to ensure teams can speak our language effectively.

Core JTBD Terms for Unified Understanding

Your internal JTBD glossary should include terms such as:

Job Statement: A concise description of what the customer is trying to accomplish, independent of any solution. Example: "Manage personal finances to achieve long-term security."

• Product: Guides feature development to address core job
• Marketing: Informs messaging that resonates with the customer's primary goal
• Sales: Helps qualify leads based on alignment with the job
  
  

Customer Need Statement: An action/variable pair defining how customers measure success in executing a step of their job (e.g., "Determine account balance," "Identify unauthorized transactions"). These are metrics for speed and accuracy.

• Product: Prioritizes roadmap items that directly address unmet needs
• Marketing: Highlights how the product fulfills these specific needs better than alternatives
• Sales: Used to demonstrate specific value and address areas of customer struggle
  
  

Main Job vs. Related Jobs: Distinguishing the primary functional job from smaller, supporting jobs customers perform.

Customer Effort Score (CES): The percentage of customers who report difficulty satisfying a given customer need statement. High CES indicates significant unmet needs.

• Product: Identifies high-priority areas for innovation
• Marketing: Pinpoints pain points to address in messaging
• Sales: Uncovers opportunities to position the solution as reducing effort
  
  

Forces of Progress: The factors influencing a customer's decision to switch solutions (Push of the current situation, Pull of the new solution, Anxiety about the new, Habit of the old).

• Product: Helps understand adoption barriers and drivers
• Marketing: Used to craft messages that amplify pull and reduce anxiety
• Sales: Helps address objections and guide prospects through change
  
  

Customer Context & Situation: The specific circumstances surrounding the customer's attempt to get a job done, which can significantly influence their needs.

Actionable Step: Collaborative Definition Workshop

We recommend hosting a workshop involving key members from product, marketing, and sales to collaboratively define these terms and agree on their application within your organization. This shared creation process fosters buy-in and ensures the language is practical and relevant for all teams.

Our Implementation Framework: Shared JTBD Language

Adopting a shared JTBD language is a process that requires commitment and structured implementation.

Phase 1: Foundation & Commitment

• Secure Leadership Support: Champions at the executive level are crucial for driving adoption and reinforcing the importance of a unified customer language
• Form a Cross-Functional Task Force: Assemble representatives from product, marketing, sales, and any other relevant teams (e.g., customer success, UX research) to lead the initiative
• Conduct Foundational JTBD Research: If not already available, invest in robust JTBD research to identify your customers' core jobs and their unmet needs (areas of high Customer Effort Score). Our AI-powered platform accelerates this process significantly

Phase 2: Development & Documentation

• Develop the Internal JTBD Glossary: Formalize the definitions agreed upon in the workshop. Make this easily accessible
• Create Internal Training Materials: Develop presentations, short videos, or guides explaining JTBD principles and the shared vocabulary
• Develop Communication Templates: Create standardized templates for product briefs, marketing campaign plans, and sales scripts that incorporate JTBD language
  
  

Phase 3: Rollout & Integration

• Conduct Training Workshops: Train all relevant team members on JTBD concepts and the new shared language
• Integrate JTBD Language into Workflows: Embed JTBD terms and concepts into regular meetings (e.g., sprint planning, campaign reviews, sales pipeline meetings), documentation, and software tools (e.g., CRM, project management)
• Regularly Reinforce: Use internal communications, "JTBD champion" programs, and ongoing examples to keep the language alive and consistently applied
  
  

Phase 4: Measurement & Refinement

• Gather Feedback: Solicit input from teams on the clarity and usefulness of the shared language and supporting materials
• Track Improvements: While direct ROI can be hard to isolate, look for qualitative improvements in cross-functional collaboration, project alignment, and the speed of decision-making. Monitor Customer Effort Scores for key jobs to see if product improvements are reducing customer struggle
• Iterate: The shared language is not static. Refine definitions and materials based on feedback and evolving understanding

JTBD in Action: Communication Templates

Integrating the shared JTBD language into daily work tools and documents is key for adoption. Here are examples:

Product Team: Focusing on Customer Needs

Product Brief Section:

• Customer Job This Feature Addresses: [Define the core job]
• Key Customer Need Statements to be Fulfilled: [List specific action/variable needs, e.g., "Determine available appointment times," "Calculate price variations"]
• Target Customer Effort Score Reduction: [Specify CES goals for these needs]
  
  

Marketing Team: Resonating with Customer Jobs

Campaign Brief Section:

• Core Customer Job We're Targeting: [Define the primary job]
• Key Customer Struggles (High CES areas) We Address: [List struggles]
• Key Messages (aligned with reducing effort for specific needs): [Craft messages]
• Forces of Progress to Address: [How messaging will increase pull/reduce anxiety]
  
  

Sales Team: Aligning with Customer Progression

Discovery Call Questions:

• "What are you ultimately trying to accomplish when you [perform specific activity related to the job]?"
• "What are the most critical steps for you to [execute a job step successfully]?"
• "Where do you currently experience the most difficulty or spend the most effort to [achieve a specific part of the job]?"
  
  

Internal Battlecard Section:

• Key Customer Jobs We Solve: [List jobs]
• How We Help Customers [Execute a specific need statement] Faster and More Accurately: [Detail benefits]

These templates ensure that every team is consistently framing problems and solutions through the lens of the customer's Job-to-be-Done.

The Payoff: Benefits of Our Unified JTBD Approach

Implementing a shared JTBD language across product, marketing, and sales yields significant benefits, contributing directly to equity value creation in our portfolio companies:

Product Teams: Develop more focused roadmaps, experience higher feature adoption rates, and see less rework because they are building solutions for well-understood, prioritized customer needs based on Customer Effort Scores.

Marketing Teams: Create more resonant campaigns with higher quality leads and improved MQL-to-SQL conversion rates because messaging directly addresses the customer's job and areas of struggle.

Sales Teams: Experience shorter sales cycles, achieve higher close rates, and secure better customer fit by clearly articulating how the product helps customers get their job done with less effort.

Organization-Wide:

• Improved Collaboration: A shared language develops a common understanding, eliminating ambiguity
• Faster Innovation Cycles: Clear, common goals accelerate decision-making
• Stronger Customer-Centricity: All teams develop deeper empathy for the customer
• Reduced Customer Effort: The ultimate goal is to make it easier for customers to achieve their jobs, which drives loyalty and willingness to pay
  
  

Our AI-powered platform significantly accelerates the process of identifying these customer needs and helps our portfolio companies' teams generate insights rapidly, giving them a critical speed advantage.

Overcoming Hurdles in Adoption

Transitioning to a shared JTBD language may present challenges:

Resistance to Change: Some team members may be accustomed to old terminologies or methodologies.

• Solution: Clearly communicate the "why" behind the change, highlight benefits for each team, and secure visible leadership endorsement
  
  

Time Investment for Training: Initial training requires time away from daily tasks.

• Solution: Make training engaging, practical, and role-specific. Provide ongoing, easily accessible resources
  
  

Ensuring Consistency: Maintaining consistent use of the language over time can be difficult.

• Solution: Integrate the language into performance metrics where appropriate, celebrate successes achieved through better alignment, and conduct regular refreshers
  
  

From Shared Language to Equity Value Creation

Establishing a Shared JTBD Language across product, marketing, and sales is not merely an exercise in semantics; it's a strategic imperative for companies serious about customer-centric growth and creating equity value. By unifying teams around a common understanding of the customer's Job-to-be-Done and their unmet needs (as identified by Customer Effort Scores), organizations can break down silos, improve collaboration, and develop offerings that truly resonate. This alignment is key to accelerating growth and creating equity value.

We implement our proprietary JTBD method and AI-powered platform to help our portfolio companies achieve this alignment and accelerate growth through product innovation. Our approach ensures that product, marketing, and sales efforts are all directed at solving the right customer problems effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is a Shared JTBD Language?

A Shared JTBD Language is a common vocabulary based on Jobs-to-be-Done methodology that unifies product, marketing, and sales teams around customer needs. Instead of each department using different terminology, all teams speak the same customer-centric language focused on helping customers complete their jobs faster and more accurately.

How does a shared JTBD language improve team alignment?

A shared JTBD language improves alignment by providing a stable, common framework based on customer jobs rather than internal departmental goals. When all teams understand the customer's job and where they struggle most (measured by Customer Effort Scores), they can coordinate their efforts toward the same objective.

What are the key terms in a JTBD shared language?

Key terms include Job Statement (what customers are trying to accomplish), Customer Need Statement (action/variable pairs defining success metrics), Customer Effort Score (percentage of customers who find job steps difficult), and Forces of Progress (factors influencing customer decisions to switch solutions).

How long does it take to implement a shared JTBD language?

Implementation typically takes 2-4 months including glossary development, training, and integration into workflows. However, teams often see improved collaboration and decision-making within 4-6 weeks of beginning to use the shared vocabulary in meetings and documentation.

What role does AI play in developing shared JTBD language?

AI accelerates the analysis of customer feedback and behavior to identify jobs and effort scores at scale. AI can process thousands of customer interactions to pinpoint exactly where customers struggle most, enabling teams to develop more accurate shared terminology around customer needs and priorities.

How is JTBD language different from traditional business terminology?

Traditional business terminology focuses on internal processes, features, and departmental metrics. JTBD language centers everything on the customer's perspective—what they're trying to accomplish and where they struggle. This customer-centric approach creates better alignment because it's based on stable customer needs rather than changing internal priorities.

Can a shared JTBD language work for both B2B and B2C companies?

Yes, shared JTBD language works for both B2B and B2C companies. All customers, whether businesses or consumers, hire products and services to help them make progress in specific situations. The methodology remains the same regardless of market type—understanding customer jobs and reducing effort.

How do you measure the success of implementing shared JTBD language?

Success is measured through improved collaboration metrics (faster decision-making, fewer miscommunications), better business outcomes (higher feature adoption, improved conversion rates, shorter sales cycles), and ultimately reduced Customer Effort Scores, which indicate that teams are successfully working together to solve customer problems.