buyer-persona-research v1.0.0

name: buyer-persona-research description: Research buyer personas the hard way, through real buyer interviews instead of demographic guesses. Runs Jobs-to-Be-Done switch interviews, extracts Adele Revella's 5 Rings of Buying Insight, maps each segment onto Schwartz's awareness levels, and hands back a persona brief with messaging per level. Triggers on "buyer persona", "who is our buyer", "customer research", "interview buyers", "awareness levels", "what do buyers need to hear".

Buyer Persona Research

Purpose

Build a buyer persona out of primary research, not assumptions. A good persona answers what the buyer thinks about when deciding to do business with you, not what their job title is. Demographics go in a sidebar; the meat is the buying decision itself: what triggered the search, what success looks like, what holds them back, how they decide, and what to say to them at each stage of awareness.

This skill runs a JTBD switch interview process (Bob Moesta's method, from Demand-Side Sales 101), analyzes the transcripts against Revella's 5 Rings of Buying Insight, and maps each segment to Schwartz's five awareness levels so the messaging matches what the prospect already knows. Full interview script lives in references/switch-interview-guide.md; the persona brief template in assets/persona-brief.md.

Workflow

1. Define the decision, not the person. Name one specific buying decision (e.g. "choosing a project management tool for a 20-person agency"). A persona is contextual to a decision. If you cannot name the decision, you are not ready.

2. Recruit recent buyers, not prospects. Interview people who made the decision in the last 3 months: your newest customers, recent churns, and buyers who chose a competitor. Never interview people who have not bought yet; their answers are hypotheticals and will lie to you. Aim for 8 to 12 per round. Patterns usually show by interview 6 or 7.

3. Run switch interviews. Use the script in references/switch-interview-guide.md. The core move is a timeline reconstruction: what was happening before the purchase, the first thought, the trigger event, passive looking, active looking, deciding, first use. Ask about past behavior and specific events, never opinions or hypotheticals. Record and transcribe every interview.

4. Mark up transcripts against the 5 Rings. For each interview, tag quotes into Revella's rings: Priority Initiatives (what made this a priority now), Success Factors (what they expected to gain), Perceived Barriers (what almost stopped them, about the category or about you), Decision Criteria (what they evaluated), Buyer's Journey (who was involved, what they trusted, what they did). Look for patterns across interviews, not single quotes.

5. Write job statements. For each distinct segment, write the job as a JTBD statement: "When I am in [circumstance], I want to [make this progress], so I can [outcome]." Include the four forces of the switch: what pushed them from the status quo, what pulled them toward the new solution, what anxiety they had, what habit held them back. Name the true competitive set (often not your direct competitors, think bananas and bagels).

6. Map each segment to awareness levels. For each segment, mark where the bulk of the market sits: Unaware, Problem Aware, Solution Aware, Product Aware, or Most Aware. Then write the messaging each level needs: Unaware gets a story that names the latent pain; Problem Aware gets problem-naming and empathy; Solution Aware gets differentiation and proof; Product Aware gets specifics, comparisons, and objection handling; Most Aware gets the offer and the reason to act now.

7. Ship the persona brief. Fill assets/persona-brief.md for each segment. Lead with the 5 Rings and the job statement; put demographics and the awareness map after. Attach 3 to 5 verbatim quotes that marketing and sales can use in the buyer's own words.

Output Contract

• One persona brief per distinct segment, using assets/persona-brief.md. Each brief contains: the buying decision it covers, a JTBD job statement, the four forces, the 5 Rings of Buying Insight with supporting quotes, the awareness-level distribution, and messaging guidance per level.
• An interview log: who was interviewed, when, and where the transcripts live.
• The 5-Rings analysis sheet: every interview's quotes tagged by ring, so the patterns are auditable.
• A short "what we cut" list: insights that came from one interview only and are not yet validated.

Operating Rules

1. No demographic avatars. If a persona can be built without talking to a buyer, it is not research, it is fan fiction. The brief's rings section must carry real quotes from real interviews.
2. Never ask hypotheticals in interviews. "Would you pay for X?" produces fluff. Ask what they did, when, and what happened next. Past behavior is the only reliable witness.
3. Opinions are not data. "I think integration matters" means nothing until you hear the story of the day it failed them. Dig for the specific event behind every opinion.
4. Patterns need repetition. A one-off quote is a lead, not an insight. Do not write a ring entry from a single interview; keep singles on the "what we cut" list until a second interview confirms them.
5. Segment by the job, not the title. If two VPs have different struggling moments, they are different personas. If a founder and a contractor share one, they are the same.
6. Revalidate yearly. Buying decisions change as markets mature (Schwartz's market sophistication). A persona older than 12 months gets a fresh round of interviews before anyone relies on it.