Marketing that focuses on the art or artists is no longer effective for sales. Instead, marketing that focuses on the customer grows sales revenue.

That's because today, audiences “hire” organizations to solve a problem, meet a need, or do a job they need done in their life. This is the premise of Jobs to Be Done Theory, developed by Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen.

In this episode, Clayton Christensen Institute Chief of Staff Ruth Hartt joins Aubrey to talk about the Jobs to Be Done framework through an arts marketing lens.

Ruth also shares examples from the wild — real classical music ads done right and wrong — as she unpacks Jobs to Be Done Theory. If you want to see the visuals Ruth talks about, you can watch that part of the conversation here.

See Ruth’s website and subscribe to her arts marketing hall of fame.

Podcast Season 2 Episode 2

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And I share this because the topic of the talk I gave is totally related to this. The topic was user experience, the customer experience. And I was really struck, I have to say, as I was preparing for that session, I realized that this talk in particular is one of the first I started giving when I started doing more public speaking.

Now doing it is another thing, but talk always precedes action. So what I'm trying to say is I'm encouraged right now by how much movement there is on this particular subject. And more and more organizations are taking really great steps in this direction as you'll hear more about in this episode. So to share some history here, the reason I became obsessed with customer experience is a stat I cite all the time.

So if you have followed my work for a while now, you. I think a lot about the customer experience in bucking this trend I'm about to share. And if you're newer here first, welcome. However you found me, you were in the right place. I'm so glad you're here. And two, that stat that I'd cite regularly is that a first time attendees at American orchestras, 90% never return.

That stat comes from the leak of American orchestra's churn study, and that study was probably about 10 years old, pre pandemic, I would say, and probably about four to five years old when I started becoming obsessed with this topic. And it really hasn't changed much during all of that time. So a few things to share about this study is that the league did this with big orchestras.

Some of our biggest budget orchestras were the source data for this study. And so that's where you're getting this. 90% of first timers don't return. The bigger you are, the more likely that is true. , but I have seen it at all kinds of different budget sizes through the organizations I've worked with over the years.

2014, I became obsessed because I just thought if we can get that one stat changed instead of nine outta 10 not returning, what if we could move the needle? There is significant money on the table. I remember thinking, and that's true for all of us, if we could just get the retention a little better, so much to be gained.

You're a millennial. You're Gen Xer. Cause we said, if that's you, but you just don't go to the symphony, we wanna hear from you. So I later learned that that was called User experience research. I didn't know it at the time that that was the name. All of that. My point in telling you all of this, all of that is the talk that I just gave in Memphis, what we learned about the customer experience from that UX research, the changes we made in response by just listening and then addressing the feedback we heard and how that resulted in some dramatic changes to our audience growth.

Customer experience, centering the customer, really trying to understand their needs, wants, pain points, desires, all of that is something I still think about a lot to this day. Today's episode is the next evolution of my thinking and learning on this topic. It's customer experience through the lens of jobs to be done theory.

So very quickly to define it, if you're not familiar with jobs to be Done theory, that is no problem. It's not an arts term at all. This comes to us from Clayton Christensen. He was a Harvard professor. He later founded the Clayton Christensen Institute. And the idea is that people, all of us hire, I sort of say that in quotes.

We hire organizations, businesses, brands, for a. That we have in our life. This episode breaks the definition down even more. So don't worry more is to come on this, but that's the idea. Consumers hire organizations to meet a need, fill a job they have in their life. So maybe two years ago now, I came across the work of Ruth Hart.

She's the chief of staff at the Clayton Christensen Institute. What she has to say about applying jobs to be done theory to the arts world, and specifically to classical music organizations. This is a very interesting framework on what a customer needs and wants. So again, the next evolution of my learning on this idea of customer centricity.

So we're gonna spend the next 20 minutes or so learning about this from Ruth. And I will wrap up these opening remarks by saying, here's why the customer experience matters. No matter your role, whether you work onstage, offstage in the boardroom, in the venue, and on and on and on, here's why it matters.

The vast majority of our revenue comes from the customer, period. Eventually, when they're super fans, we call them donors, right? But they start as a customer. And if we don't as a field address, this churn of up to 90% of first timers never coming back. The challenges we face as an industry with audience development will persist.

It's as simple as that. We work way too hard chasing down new audiences when we're bleeding out. The ones who do come and give us a try, So this is a big mind shift that needs to happen for us on the whole, but again, the narrative is changing here for sure. That's the good news. This mind shift is happening more and more, and we are gonna look at it in more depth together right now in season two, episode two.

Here we go. Hey, everyone. I'm Aubrey Berger and welcome to my podcast. If we haven't met, I'm known in the arts world for being customer-centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue. The arts are my vehicle to make the change I wanna see in this world, like creating places of belonging, pursuing gender and racial equality, developing high performing teams and leaders, and leveraging technology to elevate our work.

In this season, I'm bringing new conversations with some. Favorite experts from both inside and outside the arts, all to help build the vibrant future we know is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders. You are listening to the offstage mic.

I am so happy to introduce our guest today. Ruth Hart, as I mentioned before, works at the Clayton Christensen Institute, so we'll come back to that in just a moment. But she is also a professionally trained opera singer. Which is why I'm particularly interested to hear what she has to say on this topic.

Ruth has done all the things. She has a master's degree in vocal performance from Boston University. She's been in the Young Artist program at Opera Theater of St. Louis and the Young Artist program at Opera Maine, where she lives now for 17 years. Ruth Hart worked as a music educator, but what attracted me most to her is her marketing chops.

So, as an aside, this makes sense because I say frequently now marketing is synonymous with education. So her marketing chops paired with her education background, I think is why she is so excellent. On this topic, we're gonna hear about. So back to her role at the Clayton Christensen Institute. She works directly with the president there.

They are known there for the jobs to be done theory. That is what they do across so many brands and so many sectors. And Ruth is gonna break that down for us, what it means, how it applies, and I think it is a fascinating approach to learning how to better serve our customers and really just get into that mindset of what our customers need from us as organizations, all so that they want to spend more money with us and consume our art that we are producing.

That's the end. Towards the end of this recording, you're gonna hear in our original conversation, there was an audience watching. There was a livestream element here, and she shares some visuals, some examples of ads from actual orchestras, and then she shares how to make them more customer centric. I think you can still follow along with the audio of this only and understand what she's describing, referencing, but in case not, I will drop the link to the YouTube recording of the original talk in the show notes.

That way if you really want the visual, or even if it does make sense, audio only, but wanna see what she's referencing, I'll provide that for you so you can do that. So if you find this conversation helpful, please share it with others because as I said before, this topic of customer centricity serving our communities better is so at the forefront now, especially compared to seven, eight years ago.

So for now, let's hit it.

And what's so great about business theory is that it's developed using a rigorous. Scientific process and it can explain what causes what and why. So it can help predict which solutions, which products will be most effective and and most successful. So as I became familiar with the theories, it dawned on me that we've got this pressing problem in my other world, the arts sector, which is audience decline.

And you know, maybe these theories can help there as well. So I started researching and writing about these ideas, and that's how my blog culture for hire came to. And it became apparent pretty quickly to me that one theory jobs be done, theory held really exciting implications for cultural organizations who are looking to build their audiences.

It's based on a seemingly simple concept, but it's a really powerful theory that has sparked incredible growth for, for-profit businesses worldwide, but it's really untapped in the cultural sector. So what is jobs to be done? Very in the arts sector, we do a lot of data mining. We're trying to understand the demographics of our audiences, who they are in terms of age and income and ethnicity.

But here's the problem, data isn't enough. It doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't provi provide enough context. It doesn't really tell us. Why someone purchased a ticket. What's their deepest motivation for purchasing that ticket? And here's the thing, most customers aren't buying a ticket purely because they want to experience art.

There are deeper motivations that drive these decisions, and these are motivations that stem from a desire to make progress in their lives. This can be a, a large progress or a small progress, whatever it. The adult daughter who wants to get her elderly mother, something different for her birthday than that, you know, boring bouquet of flowers.

Maybe something that will create a shared lasting memory. Maybe the young parents who wanna break from entertaining their children, but they wanna make sure it's something that's educational. The young millennial who's new to town and wants to find a way to meet others, other like-minded people. So, you know, without insight into these real customers specific circumstances with their emotional and social context, a marketer really cannot truly connect with their potential audiences and administrators cannot truly create the right audience experience.

And I love Clayton Christensen's quote on this. He says, unless you understand the full context in which your customers are making a choice to hire your product or your. You will be unlikely to create the right offering for them. You'll just be treading water with them until they fire your product and hire one that understands them better.

So Jobs we Done, theory was developed to address these limitations. And here's the very simple premise of the theory. It's that people don't buy products because of who they are. They buy products because of who they want to become. So, you know, as humans, we are wired to constantly look for transformation in our lives.

We're always looking to make progress on so, And so when we're buying a product or a service or a concert ticket, we are hiring it. We're bringing it into our lives to help us make progress, to solve a problem, eliminate a frustration. So, you know, when an arts organization is basing its marketing and strategy on demographic characteristics, Clayton Christensen would say, you've got the category.

What you need to be targeting is the job to be done or the why behind a purchase decision, and knowing why a real person buys a product or a service helps you perfect your marketing strategy, helps you make your product or your service better. So every job to be done has three components. It's got a functional component, a social component, and an emotional component.

That's the way we look at it. At the Christensen Institute, Theodore Levitt has that famous example of the drill. He said, people don't wanna buy a quarter inch drill. They wanna buy a quarter inch hole. . But when you're truly looking to get to the deepest motivation for the purchase, you have to ask more questions.

You have to ask more why questions? Why do you want a hole to hang a shelf? Why do you wanna hang a shelf to display family photos? Why do you wanna display family photos? Because my children have left the nest and I miss them, and I wanna relive those happy memories because I don't know how many more years we have left.

Oh, okay, . Now we have uncovered what Clayton Christensen calls the causal mechanism. Now we can see the functional, the social, the emotional components of your job to be done. And we are empowered with this information to speak to this customer with a deep understanding and a deep empathy in our marketing, and to design products and features that help them get this job done better and faster.

Jobs to be done is sort of, it's a mouthful. I see a lot of eyes glaze over when I say that phrase. Really, you can think about this in terms of customer centricity or you know, being obsessed with the customer, putting the customer at the center. It's 180 degree shift from look at us to how can we help?

Right. You're shifting from what Bob Messa calls the supply side to the demand side and become more of a service focus, so it's more of a service organization. Your target audiences we know are looking for transformation. So your job is to show them, we understand your needs, we understand your struggles, your areas where you're trying to make progress, and we can help you with these.

We can provide this transformation. , what does that look like? You gotta get out there. You gotta have these deep conversations. You gotta identify what these needs are and use that information to create really empathetic content. And I think what organizations find when they make that shift is you're suddenly freed up from that really sort of icky feel of having to sell.

And suddenly you have become a service organization, right? You're as a marketer, now your job. Connecting the customer with something that will help them because they can choose anything for this particular job to be done. There was, you know, a whole assortment of different things that they could choose from, and your job is to say, look, we can help you the best with our offering.

You're no longer selling tickets, and now you are asking how can we help?

as you said, they don't need the drill, they need the hole in the wall. Like I totally am tracking with all of that. So my question though is jobs to be done theory asks not just what will help customers make the progress they want, but it also, it tries to uncover what obstacles must be removed. So my question in this is, can you talk about the importance of remov?

Obstacles and how that applies to the arts. Because to me, where I'm going with this is, you know, you mentioned consumers want a transformative experience, for example, but there's a lot of obstacles between sitting in your seat in the concert hall from when this idea first comes into a consumer's mind.

So can you just talk about this obstacles and how does this apply to arts organizations?

Switch making that new hire to that new solution, and he says that the pull of the new solution has to outweigh the anxieties or obstacles for someone to actually make that jump today. Oh, classical music is for me, when they haven't ever said that before, right? So that's why it's so important not to just worry about the product itself and your programming and what's happening in the program, but also determine what is it that's keeping audiences away?

What is it that turns them off? What's making them anxious? This is exactly what you did, Aubrey with Orchestra X, right? Mm-hmm. , you sat down with the haters and you said, okay, what turns you off? What do you, what do you not like about this experience? And it's particularly important as we start to target the millennial generation because it's so dramatically different from the older generations.

They're so much more diverse. They're digital natives. They have more financial obstacles, they have so many more entertainment options available at their fingertips. So you really have to get in there and suss out what is. Is it, you know, the formal rules around how to behave, you know when to clap? Is it, you know, questions about what to wear?

Is it the fact that you cannot be attached to your phone because that you're gonna get the side eye from the older generations in the audience? So I think those are really important things to tackle.

That is the transformative part, but it's all these other things. Yeah, what do I wear where, how do I find my seat? How do I find parking? How do I know what to wear? So much stress and anxiety was around all that. Anyways, so yeah, I just really interested in this idea of how do we remove the barriers, the obstacles.

Okay. Next question I have is we've been very sort of theoretical about this conversation so far, so let's get tactical. I know we have people watching who wanna know, okay, if I'm at my organization and I want to become more customer obsessed, how do I make that shift? What does somebody do and maybe different levels of seniority within the organization maybe have different options available to them.

But I'd love to hear for somebody saying, yeah, what's my next step? What do I do?

I think in your marketing and on your website, you know, rather than telling your readers how talented your musicians are, how beautiful the music is. Start to show your readers how your offerings can transform them and transform their lives or transform their world. Right? You know, for example, will they be able to feel more socially connected by attending?

Do they know about the health benefits of listening to music? You know, are you partnering with a local nonprofit to shed light on a, a pressing issue in your community that your audiences are passionate about? So these are the things to highlight rather than your glowing bios or whatever. You know, that sort of ego-centric approach that I like to talk about.

And I think part of building trust is writing in everyday. It sounds so simple, but you start to really build trust and show empathy. When you move away from that really elevated, lofty language, that traditional sort of arts sector language, that kind of language builds a barrier cuz it's not familiar, it's not relevant to the outsiders.

And I'm always looking at this in terms of who are the outsiders and how are we gonna get them in, right? Because that's how we grow our audiences. So the outsiders in your community, they need relevant. Into your offerings to help them see that it might be something that can help them transform. They're not going to see that if it's in language, if it's cloaked in something that is unfamiliar to them.

So those are a few

There's research behind this. I first heard this feedback just as you're saying, from the Orchestra X participants, newcomers saying your website reads like inside baseball, I have to have a music degree to understand the program notes. Like all these things, like basically they told us, please use plain English that we can understand.

We're smart, educated adults. We're just new to classical music. So, Anecdotally, yes, our UX research totally matches what you're saying. Then I learned there's broader research that supports this as well, and you probably know this, but just for everybody watching, I was so captivated by this. I forget where this study came from, but basically it comes down to.

People, humans who tend to use more jargon, technical language, are usually as a general statement found to be less secure and confident in what they're speaking about. Like it's almost this facade that we put forward to start dropping these words. Now, that was a study about individual people, but I think when you apply it to brands, there's something there as well, and it just supports this idea.

Use simple language. It's okay. We can be very confident in what we do as an organization and as a brand. And using consumable language is part of that confidence. So, Anyways, I just, oh man. I eat this stuff up all day. Okay. My last question is, of all the different organizations that you have worked with, with Jobs to Be Done Theory, whether inside or outside the arts, are there common themes?

Is there something that you're always finding like, yep, always this is what customers want at the heart or, or at least part of the answer of what customers want? Or always, always, this is a roadblock or obstacle. Are there common themes that. I think

But I, I would say the major theme that always comes out is social connection. I don't know if you've read that book together by Viv Murphy about the, it's on the list. I have not, but so good about the Pandemic of loneliness and it's only gotten worse with technology and with C O V. And I think that is one of the biggest, deepest human needs right now is how do I connect with other people and I.

Art is such a great way to do that, and I think that's probably the biggest theme that I've seen come out

Ruth is gonna share her screen. We've got some. How shall we say this sort of marketing dos and don'ts, but we're gonna show some examples of, if you don't follow Ruth, you should just for so much of our content, but this in particular, some ads, real ads. in the wild of classical music and then how to make them more customer-centric.

So, alright, Ruth, talk us through

And I think with this example, here we are. The orchestra, right? And it's hard to know like, who are the other people I'm gonna be seeing if I attend this, what is it gonna feel like for me and do I fit in? You know, that's one of the major questions people ask. So I thought about what could we do to show the audience more.

So here's an example of really digging in. I'll zoom in here too, really turning that camera around instead of, you know, like I said, that focus on, look at us, and all of a sudden you're showing how the audience is transformed by this experience. Another example too is just trying to show the emotion that's brought out by your offering, that transformation that the audience is looking for.

If you can find images of your audience that show that super valuable in your marketing,

So just to Absolutely. That out there,

Well,

Do they even care? Right? So maybe we try to show the audience instead, and maybe we change the language around the headline here, rather than saying the maestro returns, maybe we. Something more relevant. It's been too long, right? We've been at home on our couches for two years. Let's replenish our souls.

Yeah, that's that job to be done, right? We need refreshment. We need replenishing. Here's just another image I found. I, I think it was classical uprising, has this lovely image of a child being transformed by the experience of the art they're watching on social media. You see a lot of sort of vague imagery or vague language on some marketing, but I think if you can really start to dig down, be more specific, you know, I like to talk about how, you know, as an opera singer, every gesture on stage had to mean something and it had to connect to real emotion because if it didn't, the audience wouldn't care.

And I think the same applies to marketing. Here's an example. I love this theme of escape into the music. It's a beautiful photo. It shows the audience and the nature. But if you really think about, what does that feel like to escape into the music? What's that transformation feel like? I think you can get more specific with an image of a customer and that sensation of being surrounded by music.

So that's that right hand example there. And even the language behavior now is something that folks who are interested in self-improvement in yoga and meditation, that's a phrase they'd be familiar. Here's a tweet, which I think it just needed a couple of tweaks, right? You've got images of these faces who your outsiders won't know who they are, right?

So if you can replace it with some customer images of people enjoying a show, and then change that language a little bit to talk about what we've been dealing with in Covid, you know, let's ditch the sweatpants and bring back the magic and use a hashtag that we are gonna relate to. That's something that those outsiders are gonna resonate.

Couple more here. I love the language that they used here. Join us from the couch tonight. That's real, right? That's real and relevant during covid. But as an outsider, am I, what am I gonna feel when I see this guy with his lips smooshed up against a flute ? You know, is that gonna appeal to me? So what if we replace that image with, you know, a couple with a glass of champagne, really cozy on the couch watching that concert, right?

Just a little bit of a tweak here in terms of. These are examples I didn't need to tweak. I thought they were really great examples. I do this every day. I post on my Arts Marketing Hall of Fame, I post examples of outstanding customer-centric marketing. And so here's Emmanuel Music. They're offering something called Musical Sanctuary where they're offering, um, just one musician publicly practicing in their space.

And you can come and just sit and you can find some respite and some reflection, and I thought that was great. Here is on Jam talking about escaping the Sunday scaries, right? More relevant language for the outsiders. English National Opera now offers a relaxed performance for those target audiences who, you know, wanna be able to make noise and leave and enter the auditorium whenever they want to get a break in the chill out area.

That was really a lovely offering. The other thing about being customer-centric is you just, you provide a platform for featuring your customers. They love this to see their photo shared and they can share that with their followers. That is just a boost for their , for their social standing. Right? Here's, you know, another example of showing the image of the customer.

Using emojis. That's something that a lot of people look down their noses at. But for those outsiders who aren't part of this music world, that's how they talk. That's how they relate on social media. And so an emoji on occasion is I think, not a bad thing.

No, live a little Aubrey show an emoji. Okay. Yeah. So anyways,

We're gonna wrap up here and I just first wanna thank Ruth. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, as you know, I've just been really fascinated with your work, with Jobs to Be Done Theory more broadly, and I'm grateful for you spending the time with. Today,

If that resonates, I created a new community and you're invited to join. It's an online gathering place for arts and culture professionals wanting a different stronger paradigm for the. It's a place for those not satisfied with the status quo for arts and culture who believe there is a better way forward, and that the future of the field doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

It's a place of people trying to navigate the ins and outs of careers in the arts and want smart growth mindset type people alongside them. It's a place called the changing the narrative community. I'm so excited by the folks who've already joined, and no matter your artistic discipline, geographic location, role, or years in the field, you are welcome and invited as well.

Visit aubrey berger.com/community. The narrative is changing, and I hope to see you there. And we're back today on Top. Tunes. The music,

Well, what are we waiting

Definitely hit that follow button to subscribe to this podcast. And if you like what you heard here, will you consider leaving a review or rating? I'd be so grateful for your help and support in. Thanks again. See you next time on the Offstage Mic. The Offstage Mic was produced by me, Aubrey Berger, and edited by Novo Music, a studio of all women, audio engineers and musicians.

The narrative is changing for arts and culture, and I'm so glad you're here to be a part of it. This is a production of changing the narrative.