The two sub-markets of revenue development using Jobs-to-be-Done

A fresh look at the market of Marketing - Part 3 of 5

If you like what you’re reading here, I’d appreciate some help. First, hit the like button, otherwise it looks like no one likes it! Second, share it via email or social media (especially LinkedIn). There’s a button for that too. Third, follow and contribute to the conversation in my Telegram discussion group if that suits you. Finally, if you haven’t subscribed to receive notifications, do that too! (choose the free plan)

Customer objectives define natural markets. As you will see later, the market is bounded and defined by more granular objectives, steps or capabilities. Each can be drilled down, and therefore they have a natural hierarchy to them. The farther down you go, the more you move from the problem-space to the solution-space - or from the core job to consumption jobs.

One of the sub-objectives necessary to achieve profitable growth is to develop revenue. However, as I look at this it makes sense to break this down further into two sub-markets, where the person responsible for revenue development oversees (but doesn’t directly perform activities needed to reach the objective).

One sub-market has a current period objective, and the other has a subsequent period objective, while executing current period activities. The two very different objectives require the application of two very different competencies. In the future, that could certainly change as technology consumes them.

We can debate that, but generally speaking, current period marketing activities should not be executed with the hope of generating current period revenue. I am going to establish these two sub-markets as:

1. Marketers trying to Develop a Qualified Lead

2. Closers trying to Convert a Qualified Lead to Revenue

Groups of people across Enterprises (or households) have common objectives. Without this understanding, its challenging to think of a market as being stable. A market exists if this common objective exists. Therefore, simply creating a product does not mean you have created a market. 

Yes, there are people who would disagree with me on this

Many companies have created brand-new products that no one purchased in sustainable quantities or at sustainable price points. Therefore, they were neither an innovation, or a market. Nor would I blame the lack of success on marketing. To be predictably successful, we need to realize that demand is not generated by "marketers." Demand exists naturally within hidden market segments. It is the job of market strategists (or product planners) to find this hidden demand and inform their internal customers within the organization once they have devised winning solutions.

Marketing does not generate demand…it is a result of end users with unmet needs.

For example, if you are a music enthusiast, you have used different solutions over time; but listening to music has been a constant. When I was growing up, I got a component stereo system for Christmas one year. It had a receiver (tuner/amp), dual cassette decks, a turntable and two huge speakers. I had to listen to music in my bedroom, although I could hear it a quarter mile away! 

A few years later I got a “Boom Box” that had a tuner and a cassette deck. I could take this with me, but I still had to plug it in somewhere because the batteries lasted about 15 minutes. I had a cassette deck and tuner in my Jeep so I could listen to music when I was driving. I also got myself a Walkman (cassette) and then a Walkman (CD) so I could listen to music or radio while riding a bike or running. At one point, I owned all of these at the same time.

Fast forward a few decades. The iPod came along and blew things up. However, we were still listening to music. If you think about it, the performance metrics for this market were simply more fully satisfied over time; but they were always there to be studied if you knew where to look for them. I cover this more here.

When we understand markets this way, we can develop customer performance metrics based on the market, and not on the solution. Doing so allows us to predict the winning solutions of the future with far more accuracy; especially if the market is ready for solutions that do not look like current solutions. 

Turntables and iPod’s don't look like each other, and studying the turntable, or it’s “buyer journey” did not lead us to the iPod 

But, I digress.

“Revenue Developers” are Customers too

Marketing and Sales organizations are working (ideally in unison) to develop revenue for their company. To do so requires inputs, tools and resources that they must acquire, thereby making both of these groups customers with distinct objectives; but having a larger common goal.

In a process, we generally consider the output to be consumed by a customer; either internal or external. In Jobs-to-be-Done, we often call those that are downstream beneficiaries. In other words, a quota-carrying sales rep (internal customer) is a direct beneficiary of the Develop a Qualified Lead job. There could be others

In the case of the marketing organization, they are trying to develop qualified leads. That could look like any of the following:

• Encourage a consumer to visit a brick and mortar store

• Encourage a consumer to visit / browse an Ecommerce site

• Provide well-nurtured leads to a quota-carrying closer whose sole job is to convert complex opportunities into cash

In any given market there is no such thing as an average customer, and there is no average marketing or sales team either. Different modes, or situations will determine which of their needs a group of marketers, or closers deem important. They will also determine how well the available solutions support them in their daily jobs. These groups are the natural segments I mentioned above, and will require different solutions, or different versions of the same solution, for a provider to be successful.

When we attempt to elicit solution requirements for groups such as these, we have traditionally developed future state processes, or capability maps to align them to. These set the boundaries of the study while also providing a useful level of detail (actionable) within those boundaries. 

What I will suggest is really no different. In fact, you can call them process maps, or capability maps. The only difference is that what I will propose is a completely solution agnostic map of the market. You don’t see that in most capability maps, and certainly not in a process (which are very “do” focused).

Each step in the market map will be a sub-objective supporting the overall objective, and organized in a logical order. Each sub-objective will also have a unique set of performance metrics. We will not be measuring how well a solution works, but how well a customer can reach their objectives given the solutions available. This is a big difference.

Don't ask your customers how well *you* are doing. Ask them how well *they* are doing

---

Introducing a new language simply introduces unnecessary friction

I prefer to use the process approach, simply because it represents a logical flow in reaching an objective. Current solutions may, or may not, address specific steps in the flow. However, mature markets repeatedly demonstrate that a single platform will ultimately address each step in these processes. Therefore, they can (and should) be your road map for growth; a journey that will see many solutions come and go as more steps get addressed over time.

What follows is an attempt to demonstrate where vendors might find adjacent objectives from a marketing customer's perspective. Such an understanding could identify new growth paths when developing marketing solutions.

This same technique applies to studying sales, customer service, forward logistics, and any part of the relevant consumption (customer value) chain for a product. Also, this clearly applies to any type of market - I’ve just selected an industry somewhat familiar to me.

---

Previous - The Organic Objectives of “Martech Stack” Customers

Next- A Map of the market of Marketing