At best, it’s a time-consuming process to replace your life. You likely completed many jobs in the course of choosing, buying and getting comfortable with your new phone.

For example, you probably…
• Researched your options
• Chose your provider and device
• Purchased a phone and contract
• Set up the phone, address book, preferences, apps
• Familiarized yourself with the platform
• Monitored how it was working for you
• Troubleshot or adjusted as needed

Lots of different jobs required to get back in action with a new phone, some fun and some downright annoying. Yet I would bet that few of the companies you dealt with in the process met your needs entirely.

And that’s a problem I often see and experience personally as a consumer.

From our inside seat in business, we tend to see customer needs through the lens of the business we have now. We begin with the features and functionality that our product offers and try to link that to reasons that customers buy.

You might say it’s the approach of “I have a hammer; I know you really want to be nailed.”

Your own experiences as a phone buyer may illustrate that viewpoint.

So how can you really solve your customer’s problem? By understanding her challenges in ways that she may not be able to articulate.

Learn more about the “jobs” your customer wants to handle using your product or service, and you can provide the value they really need.

You will see opportunities to differentiate your products and services when you know the discrete jobs that your buyer must complete.

You may identify how your product or business better delivers what’s needed. Or simply more clearly tell your prospects how you differ from other products or companies that he might choose.