You May Not Be Too Expensive — You May Be Selling in the Wrong Room
SAI WHITE PAPER SERIES
Why repeated price resistance may be a market-selection problem rather than a pricing problem
Lawrence M. Schneider
Founder & CEO, Schneider Axiom Institute™
Original Publication: June 2026 · Classification: Market Constraint · Diagnostic Reasoning · Publication Identifier: SAI-SCBC-01
Current Revision: September 2026
Subject: Market Selection · Pricing · Positioning · Buyer Fit · Governing Constraints
Primary Audience: Business Owners · Executives · Advisors · Consultants · Business Educators
SAI Discipline Stage: IDENTIFY → PRIORITIZE
Evidence Orientation: Practitioner Observation · External Scholarship · Conceptual Diagnostic Illustration · SAI Proposition
Executive Abstract
One of the most discouraging things a business owner can hear is:
“You’re too expensive.”
Hear it once, and it may be one buyer’s opinion.
Hear it repeatedly, and it starts to feel like diagnosis.
So the owner responds.
Cut the price.
Reduce the scope.
Trim the proposal.
Become more efficient.
Bid tighter.
Offer discounts.
Train salespeople to defend the number better.
Sometimes those changes are exactly what the business needs.
Sometimes they are not.
Because repeated price resistance does not, by itself, establish that the price is wrong.
It may indicate that the business is offering a level of quality, specialization, service, expertise, certainty, or customization to buyers who do not value those differences enough to pay for them.
In other words:
The business may not be too expensive. It may be competing in the wrong room.
That possibility is easy to miss because the evidence looks like a pricing problem.
The lost bid says price.
The prospect says price.
The sales team says price.
The competitor is cheaper.
Everything points toward the number.
But the more important question may be:
Why are we repeatedly competing for buyers whose decision criteria make our strongest capabilities economically irrelevant?
This paper examines how leaders can distinguish an actual pricing problem from a possible market-selection problem, what evidence should be examined before cutting price, and why the best customer the business ever served may reveal more than the last ten prospects who said no.
The Central Proposition
Repeated price resistance does not, by itself, prove that a business is overpriced. It may indicate that the business is competing for buyers who do not sufficiently value what makes the offer different. Before lowering price, leadership should test whether the problem is price, value, positioning, market selection, or another structural condition—and determine which explanation best fits the evidence.
Why This Paper Matters
Owners rarely wake up and deliberately choose the wrong market.
It happens gradually.
The phone rings.
A prospect asks for a quote.
A salesperson finds an opportunity.
A referral arrives.
A bid invitation appears.
The company responds.
Then responds again.
After enough years, the collection of buyers the business happened to pursue becomes:
“our market.”
Nobody necessarily chose it.
The business simply became good at competing there.
That distinction matters.
Because a company can become very efficient at pursuing customers it should never have built itself around.
It can improve proposals.
Tighten bids.
Increase marketing.
Accelerate follow-up.
Reduce costs.
Train sales.
And become steadily better at winning work that was never going to produce the margins, economics, relationships, or strategic position the company needed.
Execution can improve inside a market that is structurally wrong for the business.
“You’re Too Expensive” Is Data — Not Diagnosis
A buyer says:
“Your price is too high.”
What do you actually know?
You know the buyer did not accept the offer at the proposed price under the conditions presented.
That matters.
But several explanations could produce the same response.
The business may genuinely be overpriced.
A competitor may deliver equivalent value at lower cost.
The offer may contain features the buyer does not need.
The company may have failed to communicate its value.
The prospect may lack the budget.
The buyer may be negotiating.
The company may be selling to the wrong segment.
The offer may be excellent—but excellent in ways this buyer does not care about.
Those are different explanations.
And they imply very different responses.
If the problem is excessive cost, Operational or Financial questions may deserve attention.
If the problem is weak value communication, positioning or sales execution may matter.
If the offer is overbuilt for the buyer, Strategic or Market questions emerge.
If the wrong segment is being pursued, reducing price may simply make an unsuitable market easier to survive in.
That is why:
“They said we were too expensive” is an observation.
“Our price is wrong” is an interpretation.
The Wrong Room
Imagine two rooms.
In the first, four companies are bidding on a standard commercial installation.
The buyer wants reliability.
Acceptable quality.
A reasonable timeline.
Competitive price.
The work is broadly comparable.
Price deserves substantial weight.
Now imagine another room.
The buyer needs a highly specialized installation where failure could shut down an operation, damage a reputation, or create significant downstream cost.
This buyer cares about:
experience,
certainty,
technical depth,
responsiveness,
risk,
documentation,
and who will stand behind the work when something goes wrong.
The same company may appear expensive in the first room and entirely reasonable in the second.
Nothing changed about the company.
Nothing changed about the price.
The room changed.
A “room” is not a physical place.
It is the economic and decision environment created by:
who the buyer is,
what the buyer values,
what alternatives the buyer considers,
how the buyer defines risk,
what problem the buyer believes is being solved,
and what criteria determine the purchase.
A company can have an excellent offer and still perform poorly if it repeatedly enters rooms where its strongest attributes carry little economic value.
Market Segmentation Is Not Just a Marketing Exercise
The idea that different customers value different things is well established.
Wendell Smith’s early work on market segmentation distinguished between product differentiation and the recognition that heterogeneous markets can be divided into groups with different wants and responses.
Later work on perceived value emphasized that customers evaluate what they receive relative to what they give up—and that those judgments vary across buyers.
Anderson, Narus, and van Rossum further argued that effective business-market value propositions should identify the specific benefits that matter most to a particular customer and distinguish those benefits from the alternatives available to that buyer. That reinforces an important distinction here: value is not simply what the seller believes it provides; it is what a particular buyer recognizes as consequential relative to available alternatives.
Michael Porter’s work on competitive strategy similarly reinforced that advantage depends not merely on being “better,” but on how a firm creates value relative to alternatives and the customers it chooses to serve.
None of this independently validates the SAI Market Constraint framework.
It does support the broader premise underneath this paper:
Value is not evaluated in the abstract. It is evaluated by a particular buyer, against particular alternatives, using particular criteria.
So the question cannot simply be:
“Are we too expensive?”
It must also be:
“Too expensive for whom?”
The Owner’s Trap: Getting Better at Staying in the Wrong Market
A business loses bids on price.
The owner responds logically.
Get leaner.
Negotiate suppliers.
Improve utilization.
Standardize production.
Reduce overhead.
Build better proposals.
Improve estimating.
Train salespeople.
All of that may help.
But one question often remains unasked:
Are we improving the business so we can compete more effectively for buyers we should not be building the business around?
That question is uncomfortable.
Owners take pride in becoming better operators.
And better execution feels like progress.
But the wrong market can absorb almost unlimited improvement.
The company becomes faster.
The buyer still wants cheaper.
The company becomes more reliable.
The buyer still wants cheaper.
The company increases quality.
The buyer considers the existing quality sufficient.
The company adds service.
The buyer never wanted the service.
The company increases expertise.
The buyer does not distinguish among levels of expertise.
Eventually the owner concludes:
“Apparently the market just won’t pay for what we do.”
Maybe.
Or perhaps that particular market will not.
Those are very different conclusions.
James and the Custom Cabinet Shop
Consider a conceptual illustration.
Call the owner James.
James runs a custom cabinetry and millwork business.
His work is exceptional.
Carefully selected lumber.
Matched grain.
Hand-fitted joinery.
Custom finishes.
Details most mass-market buyers would never notice unless someone pointed them out.
James spends much of his time bidding on conventional residential kitchen remodels.
The buyer often has three or four quotes.
One may come from a large installer.
Another from a general contractor.
Another from a smaller cabinet shop.
James is frequently the highest.
He hears:
“We love your work, but you’re too expensive.”
Again.
And again.
Eventually James accepts the diagnosis.
Price.
So he improves efficiency.
Standardizes portions of production.
Pushes suppliers.
Reduces estimating allowances.
Tightens bids.
He wins somewhat more work.
But the jobs are demanding.
The margin remains disappointing.
The owner is busier.
The business does not feel healthier.
What should James conclude?
Not:
“The Market Constraint has been proven.”
Several explanations remain possible.
Perhaps James is inefficient.
Perhaps the work is genuinely overbuilt.
Perhaps his pricing architecture is wrong.
Perhaps the quality difference is not commercially meaningful.
Perhaps the sales process fails to communicate value.
Or perhaps he is repeatedly selling heirloom-level craftsmanship to buyers shopping primarily for an attractive kitchen at a competitive installed price.
That last explanation becomes more interesting if James looks backward and finds something else.
Two of his most profitable projects came from very different buyers.
An architect hired him directly for a custom library.
An interior designer brought him into a high-end residence for bespoke millwork.
Neither buyer centered the conversation on price.
Both cared about execution, aesthetics, detail, reliability, and the ability to produce something difficult.
Those jobs were not proof.
But they were evidence.
And they should raise a powerful question:
What if the jobs James has been treating as unusual exceptions are actually evidence of the market in which his capabilities have the greatest value?
That is the point where the inquiry changes.
Your Best Job May Tell You More Than Your Last Ten Losses
Businesses study losses carefully.
Why did we lose?
Who beat us?
What was their price?
What objection did we hear?
Useful questions.
But leadership should also study unusual wins.
Which customers:
paid without excessive resistance?
produced the best margin?
referred similar customers?
required less selling effort?
valued the business’s strongest capability?
stayed longer?
expanded the relationship?
created less operational friction?
were happiest afterward?
Those customers may reveal something lost bids cannot.
A lost bid tells you why one buyer did not choose you.
A high-quality win may tell you which kind of buyer is structurally aligned with what the business does best.
That does not mean the business should chase only premium customers.
It means exceptional wins should not automatically be dismissed as luck.
They may contain diagnostic evidence.
Five More “Wrong Room” Possibilities
The following are conceptual illustrations.
They do not establish exact governing constraints.
Their purpose is to show how market mismatch can hide behind familiar operating symptoms.
1. The Marketing Agency for “Every Small Business”
A small agency says:
“We help small businesses grow.”
It serves restaurants.
Attorneys.
E-commerce sellers.
Contractors.
Professional-services firms.
Every prospect needs something different.
Every proposal competes against a specialist.
The agency stays busy but struggles to build margin or differentiation.
Management assumes:
“We need better sales.”
Maybe.
But if the agency’s strongest results, best retention, and easiest sales consistently occur in one industry, the issue may be less about selling capability and more about market definition.
Relevant evidence might include:
win rate by segment,
retention,
margin,
referrals,
sales-cycle length,
customer-acquisition cost,
and outcome quality.
If one segment consistently outperforms the rest, that pattern deserves attention.
Because “everyone” may be hiding the market where the company has actually earned an advantage.
2. The Boutique Fighting the Big-Box Store
An independent home-goods retailer competes near a national chain.
The chain is cheaper.
Customers compare prices.
The owner responds with promotions and discounts.
Traffic improves somewhat.
Margin deteriorates.
Management concludes:
“We have to become more price competitive.”
Perhaps.
But an independent boutique is unlikely to achieve the purchasing economics of a national chain.
Leadership should ask what the boutique can provide that scale competitors cannot easily replicate.
Curation?
Expertise?
Personal service?
Unique products?
Design guidance?
Local relationships?
If customers who value those attributes show higher retention, stronger referrals, and better margin, the business may have evidence that price-led competition is strategically misaligned.
The question is not:
“Should we charge more?”
It is:
“Which buyer values the economic reason we exist?”
3. The CPA Firm Built Around Tax Return Volume
A small accounting firm grows by preparing more tax returns.
The work is seasonal.
Fee pressure is constant.
Software keeps improving.
National competitors operate at scale.
The partners are exhausted.
Yet some business-owner clients use the firm very differently.
They ask for advice.
Cash-flow interpretation.
Planning.
Entity decisions.
Financial insight.
Succession questions.
Those relationships generate more revenue, stronger retention, and deeper trust.
Leadership may view them simply as “good clients.”
A diagnostic inquiry asks:
Are they exceptions—or evidence of a market where the firm’s professional judgment matters more than processing efficiency?
To answer responsibly, the firm would need evidence:
economics by client type,
capacity requirements,
partner time,
retention,
demand,
competitive intensity,
and ability to deliver consistently.
The conclusion should not be predetermined.
But the question is too important to ignore.
4. The Restaurant with the Wrong Customer Flow
A chef opens an ingredient-driven restaurant in a location dominated by fast-casual traffic.
The food is excellent.
Reviews are strong.
But lunch customers expect speed.
Families expect lower prices.
Table turns matter.
The chef keeps hearing:
“It’s good, but expensive.”
Is the restaurant overpriced?
Possibly.
Other explanations exist.
Portions.
Menu architecture.
Service.
Experience.
Location economics.
Brand positioning.
But another possibility is structural:
The surrounding customer flow may not contain enough buyers seeking the experience the restaurant is designed to provide.
If that hypothesis is correct, discounting may increase traffic without creating a healthy business.
The question becomes:
Does this location consistently deliver the buyer the concept requires?
That is a market question disguised as a menu-price problem.
5. The Software Company Selling to Anyone Who Schedules
A software company builds a scheduling platform.
Salons can use it.
Clinics can use it.
Contractors can use it.
Consultants can use it.
Gyms can use it.
The product is competent across all of them.
But specialists keep winning.
The salon competitor understands chair scheduling.
The clinic competitor understands patient workflow.
The contractor competitor understands field dispatch.
The generic company responds by adding more features.
Customer acquisition remains expensive.
Retention remains mediocre.
Leadership concludes:
“We need a better product.”
Maybe.
But the problem may not be that the product does too little.
It may be that the company has not chosen a buyer deeply enough to know what “better” means.
If one vertical shows stronger retention, lower acquisition cost, higher willingness to pay, and better engagement, that evidence could justify a narrower market hypothesis.
Not proof.
Evidence.
Price Resistance Can Come from at Least Five Different Places
This is where diagnostic discipline matters most.
When management hears “too expensive,” it should not jump directly to Market.
At minimum, leadership should consider several competing explanations.
1. The Price May Actually Be Too High
Competitors may provide equivalent value more efficiently.
The company may have excess cost embedded in the offer.
The market may simply not support the proposed price.
2. The Value May Not Be Strong Enough
The offer may not create enough economic, functional, emotional, or strategic value to justify the price.
Sometimes the offer needs improvement.
3. The Value May Exist but Be Poorly Communicated
The company may possess meaningful differentiation that prospects do not understand.
That creates a positioning or sales problem.
4. The Buyer May Value Something Different
The company may be excellent in dimensions this segment treats as unnecessary.
That is where a Market explanation becomes more plausible.
5. Another Constraint May Be Distorting the Result
Operational unreliability may undermine willingness to pay.
Credibility weakness may make the premium seem unjustified.
Strategic inconsistency may blur the offer.
Financial pressure may distort pricing.
Leadership decisions may create market confusion.
Price resistance is a symptom.
The governing constraint still has to be diagnosed.
What Would Make a Market-Mismatch Hypothesis Stronger?
A responsible diagnosis requires evidence that distinguishes among explanations.
A Market hypothesis becomes more plausible when patterns such as these appear together:
higher margins among a distinct buyer type,
lower price resistance among that buyer type,
stronger retention,
shorter sales cycles,
more referrals,
higher willingness to accept premium service levels,
greater appreciation for the company’s strongest capability,
better fit between buyer expectations and operating model,
and repeatable success in one segment management previously treated as incidental.
No single indicator proves the diagnosis.
The pattern matters.
Leadership should also actively look for contradictory evidence.
If premium buyers also reject the price, perhaps price really is the issue.
If high-end clients do not value the differentiation, perhaps the value proposition is weaker than management believes.
If the company cannot operationally deliver premium service consistently, the Market hypothesis may be premature.
A diagnosis becomes stronger when it survives attempts to disconfirm it.
Do Not Confuse “Premium” with “Better”
This paper is not arguing that every company should move upmarket.
That would be simplistic.
There are extraordinary businesses built around:
low cost,
standardization,
high volume,
speed,
convenience,
simplicity,
and broad access.
A company can create enormous value by being less expensive.
The issue is fit.
A low-cost model should serve buyers who value low cost.
A premium model should serve buyers who value what creates the premium.
A specialized model should serve buyers for whom specialization matters.
A standardized model should serve buyers who value consistency and convenience.
The right market is not automatically the richest market.
It is the market in which the company’s operating model and value proposition make economic sense.
The Wrong Market Can Teach a Good Business to Dismantle Itself
This may be the most damaging part of the pattern.
An owner builds something genuinely good.
Customers repeatedly resist the price.
Competitors appear cheaper.
Margins tighten.
Salespeople ask for discounts.
Eventually the owner begins removing the very things that made the company distinctive.
Use cheaper materials.
Reduce service.
Shorten the process.
Standardize what used to be customized.
Hire less experienced people.
Remove the extra step.
Some of those changes may be rational.
But if the underlying problem was market mismatch, the business can slowly dismantle its advantage in an attempt to satisfy buyers who never valued the advantage in the first place.
That is a dangerous form of adaptation.
The wrong market does not merely reject your price.
It can teach you to remove the reasons the right market would have chosen you.
Before You Lower the Price: Six Questions
Before making a significant pricing change, leadership should ask:
1. Who Is Saying We Are Too Expensive?
Do not aggregate every prospect into one category.
Which segments resist price most?
Which resist least?
2. What Are Those Buyers Actually Comparing?
Are they comparing equivalent offers?
Or materially different offers reduced to one visible number?
3. Which Customers Have Historically Produced Our Best Economics?
Look beyond revenue.
Examine margin, retention, referrals, sales effort, operational friction, and lifetime value.
4. What Do Our Best Customers Value That Our Weakest Prospects Do Not?
This often exposes the difference between a pricing issue and a buyer-fit issue.
5. What Evidence Contradicts the Market-Mismatch Hypothesis?
Could we simply be overpriced?
Is the offer overbuilt?
Is differentiation weak?
Are competitors actually better?
6. If We Changed the Market Before Changing the Price, What Would We Expect to Observe?
Define the evidence that would support or weaken the hypothesis.
These questions do not eliminate uncertainty.
They make the pricing decision more intelligent.
IDENTIFY → PRIORITIZE → RESOLVE → CONFIRM
The SAI discipline is sequential.
IDENTIFY
What condition appears to be limiting performance?
Here:
Is recurring price resistance best explained by pricing, value, positioning, market selection, credibility, execution, or another condition?
PRIORITIZE
Which condition deserves attention first?
The company may have pricing issues and market issues simultaneously.
Only one condition should be treated as governing at a time.
RESOLVE
What intervention fits the diagnosed condition?
If the issue is market selection, resolution may involve:
narrower segmentation,
different channels,
different referral sources,
different positioning,
different buyer relationships,
or leaving certain bid environments entirely.
If the issue is genuinely price, the intervention will be different.
CONFIRM
Did the expected improvement occur?
Did margin improve?
Did win quality improve?
Did price resistance decline among the targeted buyer?
Did sales cycles improve?
Did retention strengthen?
What new condition now appears to limit performance?
IDENTIFY → PRIORITIZE → RESOLVE → CONFIRM
Diagnosis determines whether lowering price is a solution—or merely a faster way to become more competitive in the wrong room.
What This Changes About Sales
Sales teams are often measured by opportunities created and deals closed.
That can encourage pursuit of almost anyone willing to talk.
But a prospect is not automatically a good prospect.
An opportunity is not automatically a good opportunity.
A closed deal is not automatically a good deal.
A company can improve close rate and weaken its economics.
Increase revenue and damage margin.
Fill capacity with customers who consume disproportionate attention.
The more useful sales question becomes:
Which buyers should we be trying hardest to win?
That is not merely a sales question.
It is a market-selection question.
What This Changes About Marketing
Marketing often begins with reach.
More traffic.
More awareness.
More leads.
But if the message attracts buyers who do not value the company’s differentiation, greater reach may simply produce more price objections.
The goal is not always more prospects.
Sometimes it is fewer, better-matched prospects.
That changes:
audience selection,
channel strategy,
language,
proof,
case studies,
offers,
and referral relationships.
A business that has found the right room should market for recognition:
“This is exactly the kind of provider we have been looking for.”
not merely visibility:
“I have heard of this company.”
What This Changes About Leadership
The hardest decision may be deciding which revenue not to pursue.
Owners fear narrowing.
What if we miss opportunities?
What if the premium market is too small?
What if we become dependent on too few customers?
Those are legitimate concerns.
Market concentration creates risk.
Narrowing prematurely can be dangerous.
That is why segmentation should be evidence-led rather than ideological.
But refusing to choose also has a cost.
The business stays general.
Its message weakens.
Its capability becomes harder to explain.
Its marketing becomes broad.
Its sales process absorbs poor-fit opportunities.
Its best work remains hidden inside a portfolio designed for everyone.
Leadership therefore has to make a harder choice than “charge more” or “charge less.”
It has to decide:
Where does what we do actually matter most?
Implications / Applications
For BUSINESS OWNERS:
Do not treat repeated price objections as proof that the price is wrong.
For EXECUTIVES:
Require segment-level evidence before approving broad pricing changes.
For SALES LEADERS:
Measure opportunity quality, not merely opportunity volume.
For MARKETING LEADERS:
Build campaigns around the buyer who values the company’s strongest capability, not everyone who could theoretically buy.
For ADVISORS AND CONSULTANTS:
When a client says “we’re too expensive,” test market selection, value, positioning, and operating economics before prescribing price reduction.
For BUSINESS EDUCATORS:
Teach pricing as a diagnostic problem involving customer heterogeneity, perceived value, segmentation, competition, and organizational capability—not merely as a numerical decision.
Across all six:
Diagnosis before prescription.
Limitations and Questions for Further Examination
This paper advances a conceptual and practitioner-based proposition.
It does not establish that repeated price resistance usually indicates a Market Constraint.
It does not establish that premium pricing is preferable to lower pricing.
It does not establish that higher-margin customers are always strategically superior.
It does not establish that a company should abandon price-sensitive segments merely because another segment appears more attractive.
It does not establish that the SAI Business Constraint Discipline™ or Business Constraint Diagnostic™ has been independently validated as identifying market-selection problems with causal certainty.
Pricing and market performance can be influenced by interacting conditions including:
cost structure,
competitive intensity,
buyer budgets,
product quality,
perceived value,
sales execution,
brand strength,
operating capability,
channel economics,
macroeconomic conditions,
and strategic choices.
Further examination should address:
How reliably can management distinguish market mismatch from genuine overpricing?
Which forms of segment-level evidence are most useful for identifying buyer fit?
When does narrowing a target market improve economic performance, and when does it create excessive concentration risk?
How should firms distinguish a premium-value position from an overbuilt offer?
What role does credibility play in willingness to pay?
How frequently do businesses discover attractive segments through exceptional customers before recognizing them deliberately?
Under what conditions does a governing-constraint framework improve market-selection decisions beyond conventional segmentation analysis?
These questions should remain open.
A serious discipline should identify what remains uncertain as carefully as it identifies what appears probable.
Conclusion
The next time a prospect says:
“You’re too expensive,”
do not ignore it.
Do not dismiss it.
Do not automatically defend the price.
And do not automatically cut it.
Ask a better question.
Too expensive for whom?
Then look at the evidence.
Who buys without excessive resistance?
Who produces the best economics?
Who values what you do differently?
Where does your strongest capability matter?
Where does it not?
What do your best customers have in common?
What do your most exhausting customers have in common?
The answer may still be:
Your price is too high.
If the evidence supports that conclusion, deal with it.
But the answer may be something very different:
You have been trying to persuade the wrong buyer to value something the right buyer already understands.
That is the possibility worth examining.
The business may not need to become cheaper.
It may need to become more precise about where it competes.
Because sometimes the price is not the problem.
Sometimes the problem is the room.
Evidence Boundary
This White Paper combines several forms of material that should not be treated as equivalent.
Practitioner / Operating Observation
Observations regarding price resistance, buyer selection, bid behavior, margin pressure, and market positioning reflect practitioner experience and operating interpretation.
Internal SAI Framework
The governing-constraint concept, Seven Classes of Business Constraint™, and IDENTIFY → PRIORITIZE → RESOLVE → CONFIRM sequence are components of the Schneider Axiom Institute Business Constraint Discipline™.
Independent External Scholarship
External scholarship cited below supports broader concepts involving market segmentation, perceived customer value, competitive positioning, and differences in buyer preferences.
Conceptual Diagnostic Illustrations
James and the cabinetry business, the marketing agency, boutique, CPA firm, restaurant, and software company are conceptual illustrations unless separately documented elsewhere. They should not be interpreted as independently verified cases or proof that a specific governing constraint was conclusively identified.
SAI Proposition / Interpretation
The proposition that repeated price resistance can sometimes reflect market mismatch rather than pricing error is an SAI interpretation informed by operating experience, diagnostic reasoning, and related external scholarship.
Independent Validation
This paper does not claim independent validation of the SAI Business Constraint Discipline™, Seven Classes of Business Constraint™, or SAI Business Constraint Diagnostic™ as establishing causal truth or guaranteeing improved pricing, market, or organizational outcomes.
References
Anderson, J. C., Narus, J. A., & van Rossum, W. (2006). Customer value propositions in business markets. Harvard Business Review, 84(3), 90–99.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. Free Press.
Smith, W. R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing strategies. Journal of Marketing, 21(1), 3–8.
Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: A means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 2–22.
Related SAI Resources
Readers examining market selection, price resistance, buyer fit, and governing constraints may also find the following Schneider Axiom Institute resources relevant:
The SAI Business Constraint Discipline™
A structured approach to identifying what appears to be limiting organizational performance, determining what deserves priority, resolving the priority condition, and confirming whether improvement occurred.
The Seven Classes of Business Constraint™
Market · Operational · Financial · Organizational · Strategic · Leadership · Credibility
Business Constraint Diagnostic™
An SAI diagnostic resource designed to support identification of a probable governing constraint class and the structural condition within that class that appears to be limiting performance.
SAI Credential Programs
Programs designed to develop diagnostic capability for business owners, executives, advisors, and consultants.
These resources are supplementary. The intellectual argument in this White Paper stands independently of any purchase or enrollment.
Lawrence M. Schneider
Founder & CEO
Schneider Axiom Institute™
Schneider Axiom Institute develops and teaches the Business Constraint Discipline™—a structured approach to identifying what is limiting organizational performance, determining what deserves priority, resolving the priority condition, and confirming whether improvement occurred.
Diagnosis before prescription.
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