Smart associations are constantly looking for ways to innovate and enhance member value. They survey their members, tweak existing offerings, promote the new and improved - and often struggle to reach retention, engagement or revenue goals.
In short, they don’t have a clear understanding of their members’ needs.
A famous example of this involves a national fast food chain that wanted to sell more milkshakes. The product team interviewed customers:
Do you want more flavors to choose from?
Thicker milkshakes?
Chunkier milkshakes?
More or less chocolate?
They incorporated customer feedback, began offering improved milkshakes and waited for sales to increase.
Instead, the new milkshakes had almost no impact on sales.
Why? Despite having great information about what customers wanted from their product, the company did not understand why its customers bought milkshakes in the first place. (Check out the five minute video to learn the surprising reason why they bought milkshakes.)
Jobs to be Done uncovers what your members are struggling with
What jobs do customers need to get done? That question is the foundation of Jobs to Be Done (JTBD or “jobs”), an innovation framework popularized by Clayton Christensen, the former Harvard Business School professor best known for coining the term “disruptive innovation.”
Jobs theory is based on the premise that people don’t buy products. Instead, they “hire” products to do a “job” for them.
For example, people don’t just hire Uber to get from point A to B. They hire Uber to know how much the ride will cost, exactly when the driver will arrive and ride in a clean vehicle with a courteous driver.
Uber’s now ubiquitous solution has changed our expectations about ground transportation. The company understood the challenges customers were experiencing with taxis, and it responded by building a solution that exactly addressed those needs or “jobs”.
We will help you gain a deep understanding of your members’ needs
Conduct deep dive interviews to uncover clients’ jobs to be done
Assess how well current offerings are addressing the jobs to be done
Create and implement an innovation roadmap
Engaged Strategies uses the JTBD theory to:
Identify what causes someone to engage with your association, choose to become a member
or attend your conference.
Show you how to dig deep into the jobs your members need done.
Uncover patterns of those jobs and prioritize them.
Create innovative, tailored JTBD solutions and confirm with your members they are the right jobs.
Guide you in implementing your priority solutions.
In short, the JTBD framework will take the guessing game out of the innovation process.
You will:
Achieve shared agreement among staff and the Board about what’s most important to members
Discover valuable member and business strategy insights
Identify opportunities to generate non-dues revenue and value for members
Mike was really great. He provided useful examples, and gave great directions. Got me thinking about management and leadership in a more focused way.
CONTACT US TODAY
to discuss how the JTBD framework can support your association’s goals, relevance, and value.
to discuss how the JTBD framework can support your association’s goals, relevance, and value.