Business Core · Value Proposition · Module
Customer jobs and pains
What the customer is actually trying to get done, and what makes it hard. This comes first, because a proposition written before it is a guess with a confident tone.
The idea
How it works
A customer does not buy a product; they hire it to make progress on something. Describing that progress in their words, before describing the offer, is what stops the proposition becoming a feature list with adjectives.
The pains are usually more informative than the job. Everyone knows customers want to save time; knowing exactly which part of the process is intolerable is what a proposition can be built on.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Interview rather than survey
Surveys confirm what you already suspect. Conversations produce the phrasing and the surprises.
- 02
Ask about the last time, not in general
“What did you do last time this happened” produces behaviour. “What do you usually do” produces self-image.
- 03
Record their words
Customer phrasing is the raw material for the proposition. Paraphrasing it into company language loses exactly what was useful.
- 04
Rank the pains
Not all pains are worth solving. The ones people already pay to avoid are the ones with a business behind them.
One level in
The components of customer jobs and pains
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The job statement
What the customer is trying to accomplish, in their terms and at their level of abstraction.
Learn
Rank the pains by what customers already spend avoiding them. That number is the closest thing to a market size you will get early.
The other modules in value proposition
The offer
The products and services, and specifically how each one relieves a pain or creates a gain. The connection is the content; the list alone is a catalogue.
LearnDifferentiation
Why this offer rather than the alternatives, including doing nothing. A proposition that would read identically over a competitor’s logo has not differentiated anything.
LearnProof
What makes the claim believable to someone who has not bought yet. Evidence does the work adjectives are usually asked to do.
Learn