yesterday I was having fun at the Italian Business Council aperitivo
at the beautiful Luigia restaurant in Dubai.

At my table, the conversation between Matteo, founder of Langpros translation services
and Rajneesh, the BD manager of MFC logistic, picked my curiosity.

Rajneesh and Matteo were talking about how they find new clients.

Of course networking was on top of the list, expecially now, after the pandemic,
that people feel the need to reconnect in person.

Then Matteo told us about one of the key gears that bring him leads...

Matteo's translation company is one of the few that has "the stamp" needed to certify the legal value of the translation.

Any expatriate arriving in Dubai, sooner or later, needs this "stamp":
It can be for legalizing the translation of a birth certificate or the contract between two legal entities and dozens of other uses.

For this reason the Italian Consulate points to Matteo's Legal Translation Services any time someone has this need.

This legal transaltion services are not particularly of value. More often is more the time consumed than the compensation recived. But they convey a steady stream of new costomers at Matteo's door.

There is no way that an expat can excape this "job-to-be-done".
A legally translated document is a Must Do, that cannot be solved in other ways than using a Certified Translation Service. The expat can choose someone else than Matteo, but cannot avoid to produce it.

The Legal Translation is what I call a "Must Do Job-to-be-done"

Let me give another example.

Few days ago I was listening to the Brian G. Burns Bruthal Truth on B2B sales podcast.

Brian was interviewing, the Sr VP of Atlantic Packaging Products of Canada.
It was a great conversation around value-selling something that most of us consider an indifferentiated commodity: a carton box.

Frank gave more than a hint about how to sell a "commodity", beat the competition, prospecting for customers.

Also in these case, Frank was starting with a firm foot on the ground.

Yes, he is selling commodities, but their purchase by the Customer is unscapable.
If you want to ship goods out of your factory, you need a package.
Then we can discuss if the package is a commodity or a valued component of your offering.

But the package is a "Must Do Job-to-be-done".

Frank or a competitor, someone it's needed to fullfill this job.

There are dozen other examples, starting from the Accountant that is needed for your Tax Report, and then leverage the relationship built on this Must-Do-Job, to convey other services.

The point is that if our offer targets a Must-Do-Job:

• The customer is in search of someone helping him
• The customer is always open to discuss better ways to do it

Our go-to-market has a "natural traction".
We just have to build the best way to win the deal about the Must-Do-Job and build our bundled value-added services around the one solving the Must-Do-Job.

Without a Must-do-job, our efforts to prospect and make adopt our solutions skyrocket:

Our business model falls in the realm of the:

• Should-do-Job:
  Our solution helps achieve a better outcome, but without a solution, the customer can complete his job-to-be-done anyhow.
• Could-do-Job:
  Our solution helps to grab an opportunity, but without grabbing that opportunity, the customer continue to deliver on his job-to-be-done.

Should-do-job go-to-market is tough.
You can still build a great business model to serve a Should-Do-Job, if you can actualize for the customer the future lossess of not implementing a solution.

You have to crash his assumptions, define a great positioning for your brand, instruct your sales force on clear step-by-step sales funnel execution, constantly adapting your pricing.

Furthermore, because the customer will not be in search for your solution, you have to build a prospecting process and culture.

Could-Do-Jobs are even worst to sell.
Your proposition shall be so compelling, so easy, and so low risk, that the customer will be wake-up from his daily job-do-be-done and focuses his attention on you.

Good luck. If you are after something of that kind, you probably will need a ton of money for your communication budget, 'cause people is capable of anything, just to stay in their comfy "today".

To recap:

there are at least 3 levels of "job-do-be-done" our go-to-market could target:

Our business model falls in the realm of the:

• Must-Do-Jobs
• Should-Do-Jobs
• Could-Do-Jobs

When I start analyzing a Startup Business Model, or assessing a Company go-to-market,
I always try to figure out if a piece of their Value Proposition serves a Must-Do-Job.

If not, I try to create such a condition, when possible, before to start working on pieces of the Value Proposition that answer the Should-Do-Jobs.

For the Could-do-jobs .. we are organizing ...(*)

Hope this helps.

Flavio

(*) «We do what we can. We try to do the impossible. We are organizing ourselves for miracles ».. Ros, il Raggruppamento operativo speciale - Special Police Forces of Italy