“At Twitter we had all the sales people in a different building and so we organized a margarita and taco event in the sales building. Of course all the engineers wanted margaritas and tacos so they had to go and spend time with the sales people and ask them around their roles.”
Kris Cordle
Cordle goes on to tell Shane Parrish that once a sense of community forms it’s easier for the sales people to go to the engineers, “rather than filling out a form that goes to the engineer who goes, ‘what is this person talking about?’.”
Jobs-to-be-done is like an elegant meal—but in the kitchen the cooks are hot and the chef is scratching her head wondering what will make it into tomorrow’s soup.
JTBD-ing is messy because we don’t have the language for it. The axiom to don’t ask the customer what he wants exists not because the customer doesn’t know but because the customer doesn’t know how to express it.
Here’s a question transcription of a sample interview Moesta conducted:
Look at the ground Moesta covers! For a mattress! Look at the language. “You moved?” “Who suggested sand bags?”
JTBD is elegant because of the hard work behind it and the hard work is the translation. Often this comes down to: what does the person need to feel.
Now we can circle back to Cordle and see how, like a game of telephone, the message ‘needs to feel this’ gets garbled going from one person to another. What makes the message clearer is good communication which exists in a good culture.
Margaritas and tacos seems unnecessary to the bottom-line but becomes axiomatic once we trace the process back. Like looking at the flurry of activity in a kitchen can give a sense how such a polished meal emerges.
For more, check out Moesta’s (2020) Demand Side Sales 101.
The Waiter's Pad 