The Job of Creating a Customer

If there is one thing we (for profit businesses) can all agree upon, it’s that we are in business to create customers. In order to do that successfully, we must figure out what they need and do it better than anyone else. Yes, it’s a zero sum game much of the time; which may explain the degradation of capability as we continue our desperate attempts to keep our corporate heads above water. In my last post I talked about a community of like-topic-minded folks who use the term job-to-be-done; which is a term that has been heavily associated with innovation. However, innovation is really just another conceptual silo we tend to get stuck in.

Innovation alone will not make you successful unless you have an entire process that starts with market identification (and prioritization) through to the implementation of valuable and profitable solutions in that market, and new markets as they emerge. These steps relate to attracting new customers as much as they do retaining existing customers; and…