I have always struggled with the concept of a persona in the way that 80% of the teaching presents it.
Hi, meet Mindful Mary – she is a 45 year old mother who lives in Doncaster. She has 2 children and wishes they would do their homework and chores. Her husband is delightful and does all the cooking, but she hates how he prepares vegetables (OK so Mary and I have something in common….).
Making a totally fictitious person, with an internet based image just always seemed silly.
While diving into some research I re-read Adele Revellas Book on Buyer Personas – and it is the least “make a person and pick an image”. She introduces the helpful 5 rings of buying insight framework and advocates for real customer conversations. A great read and a step away from the ‘Mindful Mary’ scenario.
But my real aha came when I found the Outcomes Driven Innovation and the JTBD framework pioneered by Anthony Ulwick of Straegyn. I am re-reading the book. But it makes so much more sense. I had come across the term in a strategic planning workbook and took it as a nice quirky task to consider for greater insight. But it is so much more!
Basically, a customer employs something to do a job. So when defining your market it is by core functional job (its most simplistic explanation) and it is the anchor around which all other needs are defined and we can then determine how to serve it better.
A job has no boundaries and does not change. It is solution agnostic, and role agnostic. Ta-dah!
I can’t wait to dive into some customer discussions and develop a Jobs-to-be-done growth strategy matrix to help create better marketing strategies for our group.