What jobs are your customers hiring your product to do?

[KyleJepson]

Sometimes your customers will use your products in surprising ways. Do you have any stories about customers who used your product in a way you didn't expect? Was it a use case that your company decided to support, or was it one of those things better left a secret? Share your stories in the comments below!

*To learn more about this, check out the Using the Jobs to Be Done in Sales lesson via HubSpot Academy. 

[Draam]

"Jobs to be done" concept has provided me a context for some of the activities and processese that took place in the last couple of companies I worked, though they developed organically. The partnering up process happened in an engineering company I was working in. This specific company focused on one specific type of area, but a lot of projects came in through larger engineering companies that needed specialised engineering for the customers. So the offer was much more complete. About usage, in one of the companies I worked for, we sold light strips for lighting in elevator shafts. We started getting feedback that strips, albeit shorter, were also used in control panels, top of cabin lighting, etc. As I was in Sales, I added this information to my pitches. But we maybe could have added this also to our marketing materials. I´ve already ordered Competing against luck and waiting for it to arrive soon.

[NCapobianco]

Yes people have used the ease of our product to their advantage to apply to different aspects and solve different issues. It was something that excited us, and because a tool for objection handling rather than something that we promote. 

[chicriassef]

I sell swimsuits from the luxury brand Vilebrequin, which has as one of its main characteristics the variety of prints available from turtles to all kind of sea animals and abstract designs. I was surprised that a customer show me that he not only by our swim trunks for his personal use in the beach, but also make cushions for his sofas and decoration using the material of the product as a cover. It was amazing and I was very proud of his creation.

[Jyeesmuis]

I provide clean energy in rural communities as a better option in comparison to carbon emitting options which could help with the health of the people and create more productive ways to boost the economy

[SRCHAUDHURI]

I do voice overs. I had received a VO request from the same company and they asked me to record my voice in a certain way. When I asked for a reference audio, they shared a video instead. In the vdo, there was a girl (model) who was explaining the product and to my utter surprise, the background voice was mine! That experience helped me focus on empathy more than ever before.

Nowadays, I dont judge scripts, nor do I judge the inputs that come from the agency before recording. I try and stay true to myself, focus on the script and try my best to incorporate the inputs coming in from the clients after asking a few discovery questions or paraphrasing their inputs in my own language to ensure that we are on the same page.

[hotsyrob]

a pressure washer to clean the inside of television tubes for complete cleaning

[HHowell]

I sold a t-shirt to someone who decdied to hang it on his wall instead of wearing it.

[fcommunicatio]

Very good 

[vsrivastava1]

people use our product to become energy independent and save the mother Earth

[HHaMy]

Great advice

[SWhittington]

Hey Kyle, 

I hosted a customer council and for education, I had my customer council what the 14-minute video on Jobs to be done...I bought and consumed the book Competing against luck shortly after.  So when I asked my customers what job my company did for them (we are an agency) not one of our ten capabilities was stated.  For one company which we built out workflows for his answer was " you gave me my time back" as opposed to implemented HubSpot, for a VP of marketing her answer was " you make my goals happen" as opposed to creating a demand generation campaign, for CX director his answer was "you grew our capabilities and understanding" as opposed to conducted stakeholder research and journey mapping ...the list went on, it was fascinating and such gold that we have spun the language into our current messaging and sales talking tracks.

[GusJim]

I haven't experienced a similar situation yet but I think it would be very helpful to find out if it were to happen.

[HDilmen]

I have got a customer who uses our system totally for a different purposes. And when I offer our boss what if we seek those kind of clients to provide our software he replied to me " We would like to known best of what we do, if we provide to those who are using our system for different purposes we would drift from our course." Seems logical I understand him very well. But what would be your counter idea for those cases.

[JBonsay]

Customers used my products in a way I expected.

[LDreher]

They use our product to provide them shelter, a place to live, a place to raise their family.

[Dat2021]

Great advice.

[Behzad]

I always sell products that people are force to buy them because they need it 100%, but the issu is that they can buy the product from our competitors, so I keep my knowledg updated about the competitors products & price and it makes me able to focus on our product USP and persuade customers to choose us.

[MrOneCarlos]

I don't have personal stories. I used to go to the hardware store to buy a medium sized plunger, and take out the stick. The easiest and generic trombone mute. 

[Mirza1]

Agree

[CMcGilvray]

Sometimes customers don't inform you what they want to use your service for. One customer thought that the 2-minute video we created for him could be put on Instagram. Another customer made the video we created "unlisted on YouTube" and they wondered by no one could find it 🙂 

[UDAS24]

There’s many benefits to finding your personas on social media - from understanding what’s topical to learning how they describe their problems and even reaching out to start the relationship.