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Nine of America's top ten most valuable companies can trace their size back to realizing the boundaries of a market. From ExxonMobil to Apple to Wal-Mart, these companies expanded markets that others viewed as static. How can companies break new ground in today's economy, which are seemingly constrained by highly competitive markets on all sides?

The wrong starting point is to ask customers what they want. Customers will mostly respond to how a market exists today. As Henry Ford reportedly said of his industry, "If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Instead, you need to take a closer look and examine the underlying requirements.

Clayton Christensen, the famous Harvard Business School professor best known for coining the term "disruptive innovation," believed that one of his most enduring legacies would be an idea first mentioned in his 2003 book The Innovator's Solution introduced: Don't sell products and services to customers, try to help people get things done. This seemingly simple idea is having a profound impact on the transformation of industry. As I've seen in years of consulting with Christensen at large and small companies, this can revolutionize competition between companies. However, the concept can also be difficult to put into practice. A six-step process provides a rigorous way to define the jobs that you can target. Once these challenges are well defined, it is much easier to generate bold ideas for new solutions.

1. What are the high level tasks to be done?

Instead of just looking at what people are buying, examine the needs that arise throughout their lives. Sometimes the job is much broader than the product or service that is being bought. For example, why did I take five small children to a movie on Sunday afternoon? Because on a rainy day I had to take her outside for a couple of hours. Could cinemas expand their addressable market by emphasizing how to keep children busy? What if the space for the 20th screen was instead adjusted for an inexpensive game like a kids' gym?

2. What are the current approaches and what are the pain points?

Tasks to do can span dozens of industry categories. Of course, a company cannot address every job, but when viewed broadly it can redefine its true "competition". After understanding the entire landscape, it can focus closely. Theaters may not want to invest in indoor playgrounds, but they need to see playgrounds as a rival that's just as real as a multiplex that's just a few miles away. If a company understands the weaknesses associated with competitive offerings, it can better invest in highlighting its particular strengths.

3. What benchmarks are there in the entire range of competing offers and analogies?

Companies should always compare themselves to directly comparable companies, but do not be seduced by the simplicity of this exercise. By examining everything that all competitors and analogue offerings can do, you can get great ideas for your own business. For example, a Disney World movie theater would learn how to market goods to children and how to entertain people in queues.

4. What performance criteria do customers use?

Much psychological research has shown that even terribly complicated decisions are often reduced to a small handful of criteria that people can consider at any time. What are they for your industry? Which adjectives describe a good solution? When you ask your customers these questions, you can open up surprising ways to improve current solutions or to market existing offers more effectively.

5. What prevents new solutions from being introduced?

Managers are often too in love with their own ideas. Unfortunately, it can take a long time for convincing ideas to take hold. It took 4,500 years for indoor plumbing to become widespread. Is your idea really better than installing it indoors? Think in a disciplined manner about any obstacles that prevent the introduction of new solutions in your industry. Talk to customers about how they decided on a new innovation – not innovation in general, as this can work out important details, but a specific case study.

6. What value does success create for customers?

When you understand the value of solving a point of pain, you can see how many degrees of freedom you have to come up with a new solution. For example, if solving a problem at construction sites twice a week avoids 30 minutes of downtime and that time is worth $ 600 / hour to the crew, you get an idea of ​​the potential price and cost of a new solution. Remember that value is defined by money, time, convenience, peace of mind, and other measures.

Reshaping a market can be an immensely powerful engine for business growth. These six keys help translate Christensen's theory of things to do – an immensely powerful idea – into specific ideas for action.

For more information on this approach, see my book JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-centric Innovation.

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