If you’ve worked in marketing or product development, you’ve probably bumped into new frameworks almost every year. Some promise to give you a roadmap to your customers’ hidden desires. Others boil down to “talk to people and figure out what they want.” The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework sits somewhere in between: it’s simple but powerful, and it keeps showing up for a reason.
JTBD is about understanding what people are “hiring” your product or service to do for them. It sounds a bit odd at first, but it starts making sense. Say you buy fancy noise-canceling headphones. You’re not buying the headphones; you’re hiring them to help you focus at work, cut out distractions, or maybe just make your commute bearable.
That way of thinking is important for marketers. You stop asking, “How do I sell more features?” and start asking, “What job does my customer actually need done?” When you understand that, your marketing talks less about specs and more about the real problems your people care about.
History and Development of JTBD
The idea behind JTBD isn’t exactly brand new. For decades, folks have tried to crack the code of why people actually buy things. But it really took off in the 1990s and 2000s, when Harvard professor Clayton Christensen started talking about it more publicly. He’s probably best known for his work on disruptive innovation, but he’s the reason a lot of us know about JTBD at all.
Christensen and his team wanted to figure out why some products failed and others took off, even when they looked pretty similar on paper. The lightbulb moment came when they studied people buying milkshakes at a fast-food chain. It turned out, folks “hired” milkshakes for breakfast, not because they loved sweet drinks at 7am, but because the shake kept them full and was easy to drink in the car. It literally did the job better than anything else.
Other names show up in the JTBD story, too. Anthony Ulwick helped develop some of the early frameworks with a focus on “outcome-driven innovation.” Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek worked closely with Christensen to bring the ideas to more product teams and marketers.
So, JTBD has seen some updates and debates along the way, but the core idea—people “hire” products to get jobs done—has stuck.
Core Concepts of the JTBD Framework
JTBD starts with one big question: What is the customer trying to get done? That’s the “job.” It isn’t a literal task like “buy toothpaste” or “download an app.” It’s more about the progress people want to make. Sometimes, it’s practical (“I want to keep my teeth clean at work”) and sometimes, it’s emotional or social (“I want to feel confident at my 2pm meeting”).
There’s an important difference between a “job” and a “task.” A task is the thing you do—watching videos, updating settings, clicking add-to-cart. The “job,” though, is why you’re doing those things, the underlying problem or progress you want to make.
JTBD usually splits jobs up into “primary” and “secondary.” The primary job is the main thing a customer wants to achieve. When you buy a drill, the saying goes, you don’t want a drill—you want a hole. But maybe you also have secondary jobs: you want the drill to feel safe, easy to store, or even to show off to friends who care about home improvement.
Getting clear on both the primary and secondary jobs makes your marketing sharper. You can talk to the stuff that really matters to people, not just what’s easy to put on a poster or website headline.
Benefits of JTBD for Marketers
So why bother with another framework? JTBD has a few benefits that tend to show up fast if you use it.
First, JTBD helps with product development and innovation. If you know what “jobs” your customers care about, you build features and products that actually solve those problems. You stop adding useless stuff just because the competition did.
It’s also great for customer satisfaction and loyalty. People tend to keep buying from companies that “get” them. If you consistently help customers get their job done better—whether that’s getting to work on time, making healthier lunches, or feeling less stressed at home—they remember.
Then there’s the marketing strategy bit. When you build your message around the job, not just the product, your campaigns click more with people. Customers see themselves in the story. You’re not just selling running shoes; you’re selling the freedom of a morning run before the neighborhood wakes up.
Steps to Implement JTBD in Marketing
Using JTBD isn’t rocket science, but it does take some structure.
The first step is figuring out your customers’ jobs. This often means having real conversations with people who use—or might use—your product. You’ll want to ask open-ended questions: “What was going on in your life that made you look for a solution?” or “Tell me about a time you were frustrated with other options.”
You’ll often hear answers that aren’t neat or technical. That’s good. People will talk about work pressure, convenience, embarrassment, or little annoyances with competing products.
Next comes sorting out the data. After enough interviews or survey responses, you start hearing similar patterns. From there, you build “job statements,” clear sentences that sum up what the customer is trying to achieve. An example: “When I’m late for meetings, I need a way to prepare breakfast fast so I don’t show up hungry.”
With these job statements in hand, you shape your marketing. Maybe you tweak the website’s homepage to talk about speed and convenience rather than just the calorie count. Maybe you launch a campaign featuring real stories from commuters who rely on your product.
Sometimes the process feels messy, but it forces you to build from what real people say, not just what you think they want.
Common Challenges and Misconceptions
Much like any other idea that gets popular in business circles, JTBD has its share of mix-ups.
One of the biggest issues? People confuse jobs with buying criteria. For example, someone might say, “I need a mattress brand with a good return policy.” That’s not the job—they’re really hiring a mattress to help them sleep better and wake up refreshed, not just to have the option to send it back.
Another common slip is missing out on the emotional or social “jobs.” These are often the ones that really drive buying decisions, even if people don’t always say them out loud. For instance, that morning shake isn’t just for hunger—it might also help someone avoid feeling self-conscious when they skip breakfast at their office’s donut table.
It’s easy to focus on what’s obvious and easy to measure, like performance stats or shipping times. But if you want JTBD to pay off, you have to listen for those deeper and sometimes softer jobs, too.
Case Studies and Real-World Examples
Some companies do a great job applying JTBD, even if they don’t always use the name.
Take Airbnb at the time it started getting traction. People weren’t looking for “just a cheaper hotel”—they were hiring a place that felt homey, unique, and sometimes offered a bit of adventure or local flavor. Airbnb’s early marketing zoned in on that job. They didn’t just show amenities; they told stories of belonging and exploration.
Another example comes from Intercom, which makes customer communication tools. Instead of talking endlessly about chat widget features, they asked, “What job does our customer need to get done?” Turns out, businesses wanted faster, simpler ways to help website visitors get answers and become customers.
But things don’t always go smoothly. Some companies stick too tightly to what they think is the job and stop listening as their customers’ needs shift. Failed product launches often come from people designing for the wrong job or missing an emotional driver entirely.
If you want more examples and practical case studies, there’s a handy breakdown at MrIncreasedA.com that covers how real businesses have navigated the JTBD framework—successes, snags, and all.
Tools and Resources for JTBD
Getting started with JTBD doesn’t mean you need fancy technology, but there are lots of good resources to speed things along.
Clayton Christensen’s book, “Competing Against Luck,” is probably the best intro if you’re after stories and theory. Anthony Ulwick’s “Jobs to Be Done: Theory to Practice” dives a bit more into the how-to and gives a lot of frameworks.
For the nuts and bolts, tools like Miro or FigJam make mapping jobs and interviewing easier. You can organize job statements, quotes from interviews, and scribble down patterns all in one place. Some folks use platforms like Aurelius or Dovetail to manage customer insights and link interviews directly to job statements.
There are also online guides and blogs that give checklists, question ideas, and templates, so you don’t have to start from scratch every time.
Conclusion
JTBD gives marketers a practical way to look past product features and see the customer’s real needs. By asking, “What job is my customer trying to get done?” your team can build marketing and even products that just make more sense to people’s real lives.
It’s not a perfect system, and it won’t solve every problem, but it’s a lot better than guessing. When you apply JTBD honestly, you start hearing—and solving—the nagging issues that get people stuck or drive them to a competitor.
Keep learning, ask better questions, and use the tools that help you get closer to your customers’ actual jobs. If you’re curious, there are plenty of places—websites, books, podcasts—that can help you see the JTBD approach in action, so you can decide what works for your business today.