73. The Secret Lives of Customers: A Conversation With David Duncan

The Disruptive Voice

Along with his work as a Managing Director at Innosight, the consulting firm co-founded by Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson over two decades ago, David Duncan is also a co-author with Clay on Competing Against Luck and co-author with Scott Anthony, host of this episode, on Building A Growth Factory. Most recently, David - a leading authority on the Jobs To Be Done framework, and drawing on his wealth of experience conducting market investigations – has published The Secret Lives of Customers: A Detective Story About Solving the Mystery of Customer Behavior. David and Scott touch on a myriad of topics in this insightful and witty conversation. In one instance, David, reflecting on the experience of writing his page-turning mystery, tells listeners, "I've always thought that doing research on customers is kind of like detective work. You go out in the world, you do interviews, you try to gather clues and piece together patterns and make observations, and you draw out insights to crack the case - I took that metaphor to an extreme in this story and used that as a premise for the plot." The Secret Lives of Customers addresses the conundrum that though more data than ever before is widely available, most still find it challenging to understand who their customers really are, why they act as they do, and what they really want. Learning to think like a market detective can help to answer these questions!