If You Can't Sell, You're Dead

Note: This article was written for Trends.co, a private newsletter of the Hustle

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Want to get traction with your next business idea … or raise money… or launch a viral product?  Then you need to read this first.

“Your customers aren't interested in what you deliver. They care about their own struggle to make progress.” That’s what Bob Moesta, coarchitect of the “Jobs to be Done” theory says. 

Bob just released Demand-Side Sales 101 (published by Scribe Media). We connected with him to ask how Trends members can make progress with their business ideas.

Too many people are focused on what product to build when they should be concerned with the progress their customers are trying to make. Progress requires change and change is hard – a struggle. This struggle is the key for all new sales. Find it and you have a dramatic advantage.

How Others Are Succeeding With Demand-Side Sales:

• Real Estate: A Detroit condominium builder targeted downsizers. They discovered that buyers often start thinking about downsizing when someone they know dies. Shifting ads from the real estate section to the obituaries yielded a 37% increase in traffic at 70% less cost.
• DTC / E-commerce: Casper’s mattress-buying experience was designed around the struggle people have with sleep, not mattress features (see our previous coverage of Sleep Industry Trends). This helped Casper upset the status quo by pioneering at-home mattress buying and capture more than 2% of the US mattress market.  
• Technology / SaaS:  Des Traynor met Bob Moesta in 2011 when Intercom had 4 engineers and was searching for direction. Intercom’s one-size-fits-all solution at the time seemed expensive. Interview insights helped them reorganize their offerings around the progress that customers were struggling with when they switched to Intercom. 

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Ready to Implement Demand-Side Sales? 

Start by interviewing your customers. If you don’t have customers yet, find people who recently purchased from competitors. 

Make a timeline of their decision-making process. Imagine you’re outlining the scenes for a documentary. (also read The Mom Test for more detailed interviewing techniques)

Next, use the Four Forces formula. It goes like this: we buy stuff when our current frustration and desire for the new way is greater than our current habits and anxiety about change. 

At this point, you might be tempted to pull buyers towards your offering by adding features. But this would be a mistake. Adding new features often creates new anxiety. 

Instead, you’ll get more juice for the squeeze by reducing anxiety with less friction. Look for people who aren’t buying even though they should be. What’s stopping them? Address this head on. 

For example, consider lowering the barrier to buy with a trial. Or perhaps you could create a guide that teaches shoppers how to think through their decision. Diamond sales grew 10x when jewelers introduced the notion of cut, color, and clarity to help their customers navigate trade-offs when choosing a stone.

Note that reducing friction does not mean lowering price. “Everyone always assumes it's about price. It's never about price,” said Bob. “Price is the thing someone tells you when they don't want your offer but they're trying to be nice.” 

The process for understanding progress and struggle extends beyond business. What interviews did Bob never imagine he would do? JTBD has been used to figure out what makes people switch religions. What causes someone to forgive. And if a couple should get a divorce. In every case, it boiled down to framing progress within the context of a decision.

So stay curious. As Jason Fried wrote in the Foreword to Demand-Side Sales 101: "Selling isn’t about you. Great sales requires a complete devotion to being curious about other people.”

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