Lesson 1 of 5
Why people buy: jobs, pains and the moment they start looking
The job people hire you for, and the moment they start looking
The idea
Think about the last coffee you bought at a train station. You didn't want “a coffee” as such. You wanted to stay awake in a meeting, or to hold something warm while you waited.
That's the job you hired the coffee to do. The business professor Clayton Christensen called it the job to be done. It explains why people buy, and it shows your real competition: for the station coffee, that's also the energy drink and the nap on the train.
The practical side
What needs to get done: stay awake
The feeling
How they want to feel: calm and ready
The image
How they want to look: on top of things
Something has to change first
Nobody shops for a fix to a problem they don't have. First something happens. The phone screen cracks. A client wants a quote by tomorrow. The wedding date is set.
Step 1
Something changes
The screen cracks
Step 2
They look
They search, ask friends, ask an AI assistant
Step 3
They compare
Two or three options
Step 4
They choose
Usually the one that feels safest
Before that moment, your posts slide past them. After it, they're looking. Be easy to find right then, in the words they would use.
What pushes them, what holds them back
Holding them back
- Worry: what if the new thing goes wrong?
- Habit: the old way is annoying, but familiar
Moving them to you
- The push: what's wrong with how they do it now
- The pull: what the new thing promises
Worry and habit are stronger than they look. Losing something that works feels worse than winning something better. That's why good marketing often calms a worry instead of shouting louder.
Sort it
1 of 6
Push, pull, worry or habit?
“I lose a whole evening every time a brief comes in”
Today, with AI
People now type their whole problem into ChatGPT, like “a tool that writes proposals from a client's brief”. That sentence is the job, in their own words.
The assistant answers with the businesses that describe that same job clearly. A site that only lists features is harder to match.
What AI does well
Reading hundreds of reviews and sorting what people say into jobs, pains and triggers.
Where it goes wrong
Ask it how your customers feel and it answers with confidence anyway. That's a guess, not research.
What stays yours
Picking the job you're best at, and checking it with real customers.
Check yourself
Do it in the studio
Try it here first
Write your job sentence
Use your best customer's words, not yours. The sentence builds itself, then you paste it into the studio.
Yours
When a client's brief lands, I want to send a priced proposal fast, so I can win the work before someone else replies.
- 01
Open Your report → Documents and press Read on Audience and market. Note the jobs and pains it found.
free - 02
Write your job sentence above, then note the push, pull, worry and habit you hear from customers.
free - 03
Put it in In your own words, under What the report gets wrong or misses. Then press Save — the team reads it from now on.
free - 04
Want a second opinion? Ask the CMO about this document on Audience and market: which job do my customers hire me for?
15 credits
Done when You can finish the sentence “People hire us when…” in under 20 words, and the team has it.
Go deeper
University courses on the same topic, if you want to go further.
London School of Economics
Consumer Insights: Behavioural Fundamentals (MG404)Why people choose what they choose, and why they don't always do what they say
Wharton
Consumer Behavior (MKTG 7110)How customers decide, applied to marketing decisions