# Why guessing what customers want feels like knowing [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: [Who Are You Actually Talking To](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/publics-surveys-image) A guess about what customers want may be right, but until you have checked it you cannot build on it, so you find out before you promote. You can guess what your customers want, and the guess may even be right. The trouble starts when you build on it. Until you have checked, you have no way of knowing, and everything resting on the guess stands on loose ground. A guess like that usually feels like knowledge, especially when you are sure of it. The booklet gives a whole chapter to why that happens and to the practical difference between a guess and knowing. Here we go through what the source behind the booklet says about guessing, and what exactly you look for when you find out. ## The source admits you can guess One sentence in the source is unusually fair, because it leaves guessing allowed. It accepts that you can guess, and adds that until you have found out in practice, little can be done with the guess. Notice what that sentence leaves open: your guess might be right. What it rules out is acting on the guess with any confidence, so whatever you build on it stays unsteady. Suppose an owner is certain that his customers want a low price. Ten conversations with them reveal that what they want is certainty about dates. Everything he would have written about price would have fitted his guess and missed his customers. ## Two things you find out together The source also explains what a survey is for. You use it to learn what people want among the things you are able to supply. That sentence holds two requirements, and they work only together: what they want, and what you can give. According to the booklet, one without the other is worth nothing. An answer you would rather not hear is information too. Suppose a designer discovers that her customers want something she does not know how to supply. She stops promising it, and that is already a result of the finding out. ## What they will pay for The source states the purpose of a survey in a single line of capitals. In short, surveying means seeking to know which service you can provide is valuable enough, in the eyes of the people you ask, that they would hand over money or something of value for it. That is a business definition. What you look for in a survey is what they are willing to pay for. What interests them, and what they think of you, are other questions, and income is not built on them. Suppose a consultant discovers that two of her services interest customers a great deal, and that only one of the two is a service they pay for. For the purpose of the survey, that is the finding that matters, since it points to the service her income will rest on. In the other direction, suppose an owner surveys what matters to his customers and collects lovely answers that nobody paid for. That is why the booklet separates two questions that sound close: which things matter to you, and what you last paid for. According to the booklet, the second one is more accurate. The first invites a lovely answer, and the second takes you back to what the customer actually did. ## The weak link The source places the survey within the whole chain of promotion. Promotion, ads and leaflets done without a survey mean, in its words, going in blind. From there comes the sentence that sums up the chapter: “Survey, lack of, is the weak link in all promotion.” Notice the wording. The source singles this out as the weak link, and prints a slogan of two lines: “Survey! Know before you promote!” The order in that slogan is the whole point. You know first, and only then do you promote. In a small business this turns into a simple order of operations. Two hours of finding out come before the first payment for advertising, and they cost far less than a campaign that heads the wrong way. Suppose an owner spends two days on conversations with customers before a campaign. The campaign then goes out in a message the customers worded themselves. And suppose a fitter asks ten customers what made them choose him. Eight give the same answer, and it appears nowhere in his advertising. The booklet has two exercises for this chapter, one for spotting and one for doing, plus self-check questions. The chapters after it deal with the finding out itself: how to word a question people answer, and how to count the answers. Your guess may be right. Until you have checked it, you have no way to know, and so you have nothing to build on. - [Who Are You Actually Talking To](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/publics-surveys-image): Who your audiences are, and what each one wants to hear. That is enough to stop wasting a budget. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/why-guessing-feels-like-knowing) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/why-guessing-feels-like-knowing)