Email Framework #2: Jobs-to-be-Done

The Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework is a useful approach to helping businesses focus on what their customers need. Instead of focusing on product features, JTBD looks at the problems or “jobs” that customers are trying to solve.

Although Jobs-to-be-Done is typically used for product development, Sales and Marketing are also able to apply JTBD because of how it makes crafting customer-centric emails easier.

Here’s a closer look at what the JTBD framework is and how to use it.

What is the Jobs-to-be-Done framework?

According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, Jobs-to-be-Done is a special framework that helps companies understand customer behavior. 

The underlying principle is that people aren’t buying a product or service. They’re ‘renting’ it to meet their actual needs.

Instead of asking “Who is our target customer?”, the question you want to be asking is “What job is our customer trying to accomplish?” This will help shift your focus to the outcomes customers want.

Example of Jobs-to-be-Done

Here’s a simplified example.

Ashley is 29 and lives in Seattle with her husband and child. She’s an account executive at a growing tech company. She enjoys cycling on weekends and is an avid coffee drinker (no wonder if she’s from Seattle).

Ashley decides to get an AI SDR for her sales team.

Is it because she’s 29, married, and drinks coffee? No.

She does it because her team spends hours every day sending emails and chasing cold leads, leaving little time to follow up and speak with warm prospects. What Ashley wants is to free up her team’s time to focus on closing deals.

Benefits of the Jobs-to-be-Done framework

At the end of the day, Jobs-to-be-Done is all about your customers’ and prospects’ motivation and context. That’s why even though it’s native to product development, it can be applied across multiple industries because all companies have clients who want their jobs done.

JTBD helps you look past the demographics and concentrate on the real reasons driving peoples’ decisions. You can then create emails that speak directly to customer pain points and present yourself as a solution.

Here are 3 reasons why you’ll want to use the Jobs-to-be-Done email framework for your B2B messages.

Target real customer needs

JTBD draws your attention to why customers need your solution. Not just who they are.

By understanding their challenges and pains, you can tailor your emails to target the exact problem they want to solve. This makes your emails timely, relevant, and on point.

Personalize for better conversion and engagement

Rather than guessing based on demographics like age or location, JTBD helps you personalize your email content and touch on a prospect’s goals. This makes your outreach meaningful, thoughtful, and targeted without relying on assumptions.

As a result, by focusing on the job a prospect wants done, you can position your product as the best solution. Prospects see value, and they’re more likely to open, read, and respond, leading to better outreach performance.

Adapt to different customer segments

One of JTBD’s main strengths is that it isn’t tied to customer demographics or traits like age, job title, or industry. Consequently, JTBD emails are highly adaptable and easily adjusted to different customer segments without reworking the core content.

For instance, Company A is a small start-up that wants to automate lead generation with minimal time cost. Company B is a medium-sized business that wants to scale its outreach. Although both are very different in their firmographics, they share the same “job” – to streamline sales outreach while optimizing time.

Best practices for JTBD emails

Here are 6 best practices for creating JTBD emails:

• Identify the core job to focus on – Understanding the core job allows you to create an email that speaks to a prospect’s pains and needs.
• Keep the focus on the customer’s ‘job’ – Avoid the temptation of focusing on your product’s features. Highlight how your solution accomplishes the job. Instead of saying “AiSDR automates lead generation”, you might say “Win back 22 hours per week by having AiSDR run your outreach for you.”
• Use the customer’s language to align with their mindset – Resist using jargon or overly technical explanations. Keep your message simple and clear, using the vocabulary of the audience so that they know you get them.
• Appeal to emotions – Tap into the emotional reasons why someone wants to do a job, such as lower stress or more time savings. People buy on emotion (and they’ll sign on logic).
• Make your email concise and solution-focused – Buyers are busy, and they want quick, clear solutions to their pains. Similar to the Justin Michael Method, short, to-the-point emails are more likely to catch their reader’s attention and secure a positive response.
• Test and retest your JTBD emails – Run A/B tests consistently to see which jobs and pain points lead to better results. Customer needs and jobs change over time, so what worked before might not work now.

How to use the Jobs-to-be-Done framework in sales outreach

Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of how to apply the jobs-to-be-done framework to emails.

What job will you focus on?

Start by figuring out the specific task your prospect is trying to accomplish.

For example, if your prospect is an account executive, the ‘job’ might be pushing deals through the sales pipeline faster or improving the team’s quality of outreach. Similarly, an SDR might need to run high-volume outreach.

Just make sure that you’re focusing on a job they want to get done, not a surface-level problem.

What struggle will you highlight?

Show that you understand the challenge they’re facing while trying to complete the job.

This helps build trust and shows you’ve taken the time to comprehend their situation. For instance, you might mention how slow and time-consuming prospecting can be or how tedious it is to manage leads and data entry efficiently.

How will you position your solution?

Present your solution as the ideal approach to getting their job done faster, easier, or more effectively.

People like specificity, so be specific about how your solution addresses their struggles. This is the perfect time to let your copywriting skills shine by using:

• Concrete phrases
• References and imagery your audience likes
• Present tense
• Non-round numbers

What are the results they can expect?

Try not to fall into the old habit of focusing on features.

Build your message around how your solution will improve their results and generate better performance. The trick is to connect your features with the outcome prospects care about most – a job well done.

Jobs-to-be-Done example

Here’s an example of a possible JTBD email.

General framework

Here is the general structure of a JTBD email.

Example email

Here is a possible JTBD email following the main structure.