# Why you cannot guess what your customers value [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 4 min topic: Marketing & sales source booklet: [What to Charge](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/pricing-exchange) For anyone to respond to what you offer, you first need to learn what they want and value, and the sign that promotion worked is the exchange it brought back. Most business owners decide what to offer and only then check whether anyone wants it. The source sets the opposite order: first find out what people want and what they consider valuable, and only then do you know what they will respond to. ## Find out first, promote after According to the source, to get a response you must first find out what people want and what they consider valuable. Once you know both, you know what they will respond to. The source shuts the door on the alternative. Guessing and flying blind are no good, because “You won't KNOW until you survey.” The word survey sounds like a tool for large companies. In a one-person business, it can be a handful of short phone calls. According to the booklet, what makes it a survey is that you ask instead of assuming, whatever the size. Suppose an owner asked ten customers what they had missed most before they called him. Seven gave the same answer, and it appeared nowhere on his website. Or an owner who took it for granted that price scared buyers away. Once she asked, the cause turned out to be uncertainty about the timeline. And the other way: the same owner, after she gave the offer a firm completion date and left the price as it was. More of her enquiries closed. ## The customer's money is time they worked The source gives a question to ask before spending anything on marketing, whether on make-up, printing or postage. Are you absolutely sure that people will consider what you promote valuable enough to exchange their hard-won valuables for it? The wording ends on a detail that is easy to miss. According to the booklet, it reminds you that a customer's money is time they worked, which makes it worth more than a figure on a spreadsheet. Seen that way, the question of whether what you promote is valuable enough carries a different weight. Suppose an owner who wrote that question above his desk. Two campaigns were cancelled before they launched. Or an owner who put it to her own sales page and found she could not answer. That told her a survey should come first. ## The test of promotion: did exchange come back How do you know that promotion worked? The source says the real test is whether you are getting an effective exchange. It also widens what counts. The exchange may be communication or goodwill, which are valuable in themselves and come before the material exchange of valuable for valuable. The definition is wide, and it is no softer for that. A phone call counts. A referral counts. A reply to an email counts. **Silence does not count.** According to the booklet, silence after a promotion is an answer. Suppose an owner who sent 40 personal emails and got 11 replies and no sales. Exchange existed, and there is something to work with. And the other way: the same owner, after he traded quantity for quality. He had fewer enquiries, and replies he could actually learn from. ## Find demand or create it The starting point, according to the source, is simple. To exchange something, you must find or create a demand. That gives two paths. On the first, you look for demand already present in the market and fit your offer to it. On the second, you build demand around something you already have. According to the booklet, the first is far easier, and most self-employed people take the second without realizing they chose it. Suppose a designer who spent two years trying to create demand for full rebrands, while the demand actually present in her market was for website refreshes. Once she sold refreshes, two out of every ten turned into a full rebrand. Or an installer who spotted a standing demand for seasonal maintenance, which nobody else in his town provided. He had no one to convince. ## What the booklet adds This chapter of the booklet includes two exercises: a five-calls exercise and an exchange-test exercise. From there it moves to where money gets stuck between what was sold and what came in, and it returns to the question it opened with: how you set your price. A price set before you found out what the customer values is a guess, and the source is clear that a guess leaves you very little to act on. The booklet is general knowledge, not financial advice for your business. - [What to Charge](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/pricing-exchange): A method for pricing instead of copying, and one test that tells you whether the price was right: not on the day they paid, but on the day they came back. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/find-what-buyers-value-before-promoting) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/find-what-buyers-value-before-promoting)