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Buying-Reason Analysis

Buying-Reason Analysis

You’ve conducted the interviews.
We analyse them.

The recordings are in the folder. The planning meeting is in the diary.

What’s in your conversations that you haven’t heard yet?

What’s in your conversations ↓ Peter, have a look at my interviews

You were there. And still didn’t hear everything.

In the conversation, you listen, follow up and are already thinking about the next question. Whatever comes up in passing slips by: the day your customer started looking. The word they use for their problem. The thing that nearly made them walk away.

Then comes the part hardly anyone looks forward to. First transcribing, then piecing it together: which sentence counts, and which is just noise? The longer you read, the more seems important, and the less you know which of it holds up. It eats into working time that is needed elsewhere, and the planning meeting draws closer.

We take this load off you: Peter Rochel and his team, Jobs to be Done since 2006, more than 700 projects. We draw out of each of your interviews what’s in it: the story of the purchase, your customers’ language verbatim and what that suggests for your decision, as a hypothesis. Plus our feedback on how well the conversations were conducted.

And you hold evidence in your hands that you can pass on, to your team or to management: what your interviews brought to light, and, with it, what you achieved as an interviewer, every statement linked to the exact moment in the conversation. Unique, because it can only come from your conversations. And you will get it – guaranteed.

What would you decide differently once you read what you missed?

What others have made of their interviews.

Two microphones on a dark table, blank cards and a small blue box between them, a hand on the right.

5×

the sales: that is what German business magazine impulse reported for Mantrafant (April 2023), after new marketing copy, a trial guarantee and partnerships with yoga studios. Around 60 per cent lower advertising spend per new customer, the founder told us. After the first interviews together, his team went on to run them itself.

The case: Mantrafant →

A brand of its own

An IT services firm went on to build a cybersecurity unit with its own brand. Its COO knew Jobs to be Done from courses; what he was looking for was support with the interviews and with distilling them. ‘[…] I’ve probably hired eight people.’ – the COO, Customer Insights Sprint 2021/22.

The case: IT services firm →

And what’s in yours?

Where are you right now?

What you’ll have in hand.

For each interview: analysis and the Wheel of Progress as a poster; the detailed Wheel analysis on request. For all of them together: an overview across your interviews, feedback on how you conducted them, a results call. Everything as a PDF, every statement linked to its moment in the conversation.

Wheel of Progress for the sample case: the purchase of a height-adjustable desk, pseudonymised
The poster, with a real case: a buyer of a height-adjustable desk, pseudonymised (in German).
What exactly is included

For every interview we analyse, you get the analysis, starting with an ‘At a glance’ page: the situation the purchase was made in, and a profile of the person. Then the story of the purchase, what the person bought it for, the Wheel of Progress in condensed form, your customers’ language verbatim and what this case suggests for your decision, as a hypothesis. On request, the Wheel analysis as well: every element, how we arrived at it and its point in the conversation. And the Wheel of Progress as a one-page poster.

Once, for all your interviews together: an overview of what recurs and what doesn’t, explicitly as a hypothesis. Feedback on how you conducted each interview, including any we don’t analyse. Handover and a results call with you, 60 minutes.

For a recording, the point in the conversation is the time; for a transcript without timestamps, it’s the numbered exchange. Either way, you’ll find it just as quickly.

On request, also: the evidence brief, the same evidence without our conclusions, for passing on. The story of the purchase as a separate document. All texts as files for your whiteboard, such as Mural. The transcript, pseudonymised.

You get the analysis in English, German or Spanish, even across languages: a Spanish interview analysed in German, say, or an English one in Spanish.

Not included: new interviews (we conduct those in the Buying-Reason Finding or in the sprint), interviews from different projects in one engagement, analyses based on notes taken during or after the conversation, interviews in languages other than English, German and Spanish, segments, personas or statements about all your customers, an action plan, and a course in interviewing.

More from the same case on the Buying-Reason Finding page →

Listen to the whole interview, around 90 minutes (in German) →

Three interviews are three cases, not yet a pattern.

How it works.

  1. 01

    We sort out the formalities and check whether your material is a fit. A short briefing is all it takes, with no files yet. If it’s a fit, the engagement, data processing agreement and your written confirmation of consent follow. Payment is in advance.

  2. 02

    You send us the interviews, and we analyse them for you. As recordings or transcripts. We’re done two working days after we have everything.

  3. 03

    You get the results and a debrief with us. The debrief, our results call, takes 60 minutes. From then on, you have 30 days for the sprint.

up to 3

interviews from one project

2 working days

after we have everything

Fixed price

per engagement, not per interview

Your effort

one email, your files, one hour of conversation

How it works in detail

01 Your email says how many interviews there are, what they were about, which decision is coming up and whether the material is a recording, a verbatim transcript or notes taken during the conversation. Files only come once the engagement is confirmed.

02 The first look: we look at your description and ask about anything that’s missing. You answer three questions for us: Is it about a specific purchase, a switch or a decision to walk away? Is one person telling the story of their own decision? Is the conversation available verbatim, as a clearly audible recording or as a transcript with speaker labels, in English, German or Spanish? If you have more than three interviews, we tell you which three are most promising, or whether the sprint is the better fit straight away.

03 If it’s a fit, we confirm the engagement by email and send you the invoice. Then we sign the data processing agreement, and you confirm to us in writing that your interviewees have agreed to the recording and to it being passed on to a service provider. Only then does the first file come to us.

04 Ideally the recordings, as audio or video, clear enough to understand every word. We transcribe them ourselves, so every quote remains verifiable right back to the original audio. A verbatim transcript with speaker labels works just as well; then we check the quotes against the transcript, and the analysis says so.

05 We look at each interview in full, first remove the personal data and then hold it up against five questions: The right person, who made the decision themselves? Told openly, about themselves rather than about ‘people in general’? Specific moments with a place and a time? Did you dig into the trigger? The whole story, from the first thought through to use? If an interview doesn’t capture a buying decision, we don’t analyse it and tell you why. That always applies if there’s no specific purchase, switch or decision to walk away, if the person neither made the decision nor was involved in it, or if there are only notes. You get our feedback for every interview.

06 Everything means: payment received, the interviews complete, the data processing agreement signed, your confirmation of consent in hand. Two working days after that, your analysis is ready. Guaranteed.

07 In the results call, we go through the analysis and the feedback with you, because only in conversation does the feedback become a tool for your next interviews.

08 From the results call, you have 30 days. If you book the sprint within that time, we credit the full fixed price, and your analysed interviews feed into it. If not, the analysis is yours to keep, and that’s all there is to it.

How it feels.

  1. While reading

    A sentence you missed in the conversation.

  2. In the feedback

    The point where a question was missing, and the question, word for word.

  3. In your next interview

    You know where to follow up.

Workshop: a team working at tables and at walls covered in sticky notes.

‘What was another aha moment for me was understanding, for one thing, that other people think completely differently from me, or from us in our small team.’ (translated from German)

Stefan Hück, founder of Mantrafant, on our podcast (October 2020) · Listen to the conversation (in German) →
Peter Rochel in a meeting room

Why us.

  1. 01Peter Rochel has worked with Jobs to be Done since 2006, in more than 700 projects.
  2. 02The analysis uses the Wheel of Progress, developed in 2019 by Eckhart Böhme and Peter Rochel.
  3. 03Transcription happens on our own computers; no transcription service listens in. We analyse only the pseudonymised transcript.
  4. 04With a recording, every quote remains verifiable right back to the original audio.
Your interviews stay yours

The interviews belong to you, and the rights to them remain with you. Whether we may receive them is for your interviewees to decide; so you confirm their consent to us in writing before the first file comes to us. Before that, we sign the data processing agreement.

We delete recordings and transcripts 30 days after the results call, or sooner if you wish. If you book the sprint within that time, your material stays with us until the sprint ends, and we delete it afterwards. If we don’t analyse any of your interviews, we delete them 30 days after you’ve received our feedback. The analysis itself is pseudonymised; we keep it for ten years.

We only analyse for you, not for a third party to whom the analysis is passed on under another name.

What’s probably holding you back.

‘What if my interviews aren’t good enough?’

Then we tell you before we analyse, with feedback, so that the next one holds up.

In detail

Once they’ve arrived, we check every interview before we analyse it. If one doesn’t capture a buying decision, we don’t analyse it; instead, you get our feedback: what’s missing, why, and how to conduct the next one. If some hold up, we analyse those at the fixed price; should none hold up, you get your money back. Then the Buying-Reason Finding is the better place to start: we conduct that one ourselves, with an interview that holds up. Or you learn in Mastering JTBD how to conduct it yourself.

‘Do they have to be Jobs to be Done interviews?’

No. But each one has to trace one person’s specific purchase, switch or decision to walk away.

In detail

That means the moment the person started looking, and what finally made them buy or walk away. If the interview wasn’t conducted along Jobs to be Done lines, the analysis is often thinner, and the feedback tells you where and why. We don’t analyse opinion or satisfaction interviews, usability tests or group discussions, because there’s no decision in them to trace. We clarify that during the first look.

‘I have more than three interviews.’

Then during the first look, we pick the three most promising, or it becomes a sprint.

In detail

With that many, it’s worth asking whether you’re looking for a pattern rather than individual cases; that’s what the sprint is for. And if you conduct interviews on an ongoing basis, as a team or every month, let’s talk about a volume package, tailored to your rhythm. Ask about a volume package →

‘Am I even allowed to pass the recordings on?’

That’s for your interviewees to decide. If their consent is missing, don’t send us anything.

In detail

If they have agreed to the recording and to it being passed on to a service provider, you confirm that to us in writing before the first file comes to us. Before that, we sign the data processing agreement.

More questions

My interviews are in English and my team works in German. Does that work? Yes. We work in English, German and Spanish, in any direction: interviews in one language, the analysis in another – whichever your team needs.

Can’t I analyse them myself? You can, and anyone who does their own analysis learns a lot along the way. If you want to master it, Mastering JTBD is the better route. The analysis is for the moment when a decision is coming up, there’s no time for analysis, and you want to find out along the way how well your interviews were conducted.

What’s the difference from the Buying-Reason Finding? In the Buying-Reason Finding, we find a real buyer, conduct the interview ourselves and set it against your assumptions. Here, you’ve already conducted the interviews, and we analyse them. Same fixed price, different starting point.

Why not go straight to the sprint? You can. If you already know you need a pattern, the sprint is the direct route. The analysis is for the moment before that: when you first want to see what’s in your own conversations. And if you go further within 30 days of the results call, you haven’t paid for anything twice.

I’m an agency and conducted the interviews for a client. Then we won’t analyse them for you. The interviews belong to your client, and we don’t produce analyses that are passed on under another name. If your client wants them analysed, they can engage us themselves.

Suppose you knew, before the next planning meeting, what’s in your own conversations: what would move up your plan, and what would be cut?

And the sober side:

€300,000–€400,000

is what one executive we interviewed keeps losing for as long as nobody knows whether the product will sell.

A plastics manufacturer told us that an injection mould for a product nobody ends up needing costs him around €150,000 on its own. An analysis of your interviews comes to just over one per cent of that.

And left unread, your interviews are already costing you: the search for interviewees, the appointments, the hours spent in conversation.

What does a decision cost you if it’s made without what your own conversations say?

Your investment.

€1,900net

Fixed price per engagement

up to three interviews from one project · for customers in Germany: €2,261.00 including 19% VAT · payment in advance by invoice.

Peter Rochel, portrait

If you move on to the sprint within 30 days of the results call, the fixed price is credited in full.

Is there a date coming up? Two working days after we have everything, your analysis is ready.

Peter, have a look at my interviewsNo files yet.

If none of your interviews holds up to analysis, you get your money back and our feedback on each one.

When the fixed price drops to zero

You book the sprint within 30 days of the results call: €0 extra, the fixed price is credited in full.

None of your interviews holds up to analysis: €0, plus our feedback on every interview.

Only some of them hold up: the fixed price for analysing those, and our feedback on the rest.

You take the analysis and leave it at that: the fixed price. The analysis is yours, and your interviews have turned into a clear answer instead of gathering dust.

This offer is for businesses only. For business customers in other EU countries, we invoice without German VAT.

You want a pattern rather than individual cases?

Explore the Customer Insights Sprint →