Does my SEO effort generate demand for my business?

I am doing SEO for the last two years and recently, in an interview, I have been asked how much demand you can generate by doing SEO. I said we can't generate demand but we can only tap the potential demand which means users searching for a particular phrase on which your website is ranking and that's how we tap the potential demand.

In short, I said SEO is a customer-to-market approach. In which customer just type what he needs and chooses the best marketeer according to him.

Am I right?