100: How to Become a Customer Champion - A Job to be Done with Ruth Hartt

For this very special milestone, the 100th episode of The Dan Nestle Show,  Dan has the great honor to chat with Ruth Hartt, a classically trained opera singer and music educator, now Chief of Staff at the Clayton Christensen Institute (a think tank dedicated to improving the world through Disruptive Innovation) and founder of Culture For Hire, a platform she uses to help arts organizations rethink their purpose and reinvent themselves by understanding their customers.

Drawing examples from the world of music and art, we learn how Ruth is applying Jobs to Be Done theory to become a true customer champion and turn arts marketing on its head. You'll find yourself nodding along with Ruth as she takes us through stories of marketing malpractice, and how a few brave innovators and Jobs to be Done approaches are helping to breathe life into a dying industry.

In This Episode

• (01:59) Dan welcomes Ruth to Dan Nestle show.

• (03:49) On meeting Ruth as part of the uprising at an anti-conference.

• (05:40) Ruth journey as a musician and educator to joining the Clayton Institute.

• (06:18) Talking about harassment and pregnancy discrimination.

• (09:50) Absorbing, learning, reading, and listening to knowledge coming her way.

• (16:01) Explaining Job to Be Done and why people buy.

• (26:33) On being a relevant strategist and customer champion.

• (38:40) Discussing the epidemic of loneliness and how to tackle it.

• (40:17) Dan elaborates on the three-box solution.

• (52:15) Job To be Done going beyond just a marketing solution.

• (54:58) How can people discover classical music and the arts today.

• (59:53) What Dan discovered about classical music.

• (1:03:18) How reaction videos can create an impact.

• (1:05:33) Ruth shares a book with the audience.

Notable Quotes

• “All of a sudden, I am thinking, we have got a marketing problem in the arts world. Because we are not considering the customer at all. In fact, traditional arts marketing ignores the customer, and so does the theory change the game for marketers in the arts world and I sort of set out to figure out what that looks like.” – Ruth (11:33)

• “We need to understand the functional need, the emotional context, and the social context in their life that causes them to buy. Sort of in a nutshell, people buy not because of who they are but because of who they want to become. Or because of what they want their life to become or their world to become.  The way Clayton Christensen always puts it is they say, people hire things to help them make progress on a circumstance in their life.” – Ruth (16:39)

• “There is the value chain architecture; how the business is run and how value gets delivered. There is the value of proposition, and then there is the customer. Those 3 elements if you change any one of those, it’s a non-linear innovation. And that a way you can sort of validate whether or not what you are doing is innovative.” – Dan (42:09)

• “The forces of progress. There are forces that are in someone’s circumstance that are pushing him towards a solution. There is a solution that has great things about that is pulling them towards it. But then there are these habits of the past and anxieties about the new solution that are forcing them away and unless the pull towards the new solution outweighs the anxieties and the habits of the past, you are not going to sell whatever it is you are trying to sell.” – Ruth (43:55)

• “How do you get people to buy in, right? Some of it is creating this relevant doorway; relevant meaning something that is familiar to them. There are so many Queen fans out there. And for them to see a concert advertised as Queen with full orchestra, that’s a draw! I would be interested in that. I am a Queen fan.” – Ruth (1:01:39)

About Ruth Hartt

Ruth Hartt is a classically trained opera singer and music educator. She spent the last 5 years at the Clayton Christensen Institute for disruptive innovation, where she has been immersed in research and theories of one of the world's legendary business thinkers, learning the power of Jobs to be Done and customer-centricity. Now she has combined her experience in the arts with her expertise in business strategy and launched Culture For Hire, where she helps arts organizations to rethink their purpose and reinvent themselves by understanding their customers and creating relevance for their communities. 

Resources & Links

Dan Nestle

• The Dan Nestle Show: https://nestle.libsyn.com/

• Dan Nestle on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dsnestle

• Dan Nestle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nestle

• The Dan Nestle Show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDanNestleShow/ 

Ruth Hartt

• Website: https://www.cultureforhire.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-hartt/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ruth_hartt

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultureforhire

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultureforhire/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6qshnsYS1UHPa7H8DuTlA

Mentions

• Book: https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering