A Jobs Reminder

I was on vacation last week in upstate New York with my wife and our little guy, my parents, and my sister and her husband.

Part of our family ritual is for my Dad and I to sneak off at least once or twice to go fish, so on the way up I stopped in a bait and tackle shop (now you know where the company name comes from) to load up for the week. I asked the guy working the shop what people had been catching fish with, and he responded:

“Better question — tell me about a perfect day of fishing”

This caught me off guard, but I said “well, my Dad and I will probably only be able to sneak out once. We’ve been fishing forever, so catching lots of small fish isn’t the goal. We’d love to catch one huge fish between us, ideally with a lot of strategy and difficulty involved. Something with a story.”

“Great,” he said, and brought me to the back of the store where he grabbed a few simple worms - probably the cheapest things there - and went to the check out desk.

While he was adding up the worms on an old calculator I asked about the layout of the store. “Why’s the stuff that catches the most big fish in the way back?”

“Because most of my customers aren’t actually here to catch big fish. They want to catch lots of little fish because fishing is boring and that brings action. Or, they want to just sit there and drink beer and for that I can sell them a brick and it doesn’t really matter. Or, most of all, they just want something they can talk about for the next couple of days but never use.”

He continued.

“Most of the lures up front catch way more fishermen than fish. They’re called the Terminator and they cost $40 bucks and they keep our lights on. I used to feel bad selling that stuff until I realized they make people happy. A big, flashy lure that maybe one day they’ll use to catch a giant fish. That lure is about the ‘one day’ story. But if you’re trying to actually catch fish? And you know what you’re doing? The worm is plenty.”

We talk a ton about Jobs to be Done and I still think we don’t talk about it enough. What job is your customer actually hiring you to do? What would success be? What is the thing they need to accomplish?

We’ve gotta figure that out first before we build a product and price it and market it.

Always nice to get a reminder of it in the real world.

And, my Dad caught a huge fish. I caught nothing. But at least I got a topic to write about.