The worth of a cold fried potato

Tonight I made a test.
On my dog.

I was in the kitchen eating a chocolate bar when he came in and put his snout on my thigh, begging me to give him a piece. Sometimes, yes, he gets chocolate, we're not the best dog owners in the world, I admit, and we really treat him like part of the family, like our youngest child who deserves to be loved and spoiled.

As I was chewing on the chocolate, feeling his warm, wet snout and his whiskers on my leg, I looked on the table and noticed a bowl of cold french fries, leftovers from lunch.

Cold french fries are like Scooby Snacks for my dog. It's that kind of treat he gets when any of us is eating something and he comes to beg between his meals.
He enjoys them cold fries, but they're not his favorite kind of treat. Especially when he knows there's a chance for him to receive some sweet delicious chocolate.

Here's what I did, in order to test how worth and value are artificially created towards something worth very little.

I took a piece of potato, showed it to him and caught his attention. I leaned my hand holding the potato towards his nose then pulled it back to me. And again.
His pupils dilated as he was watching the cold potate in my fingers while I was teasing him.

Needless to say that when I finally gave him that worthless piece of potato he grabbed it instantly and swallowed it without chewing.

This is not the first time I'm eating chocolate and giving him french fries when he comes to beg, but I don't play these games with him. I just take a potato from the bowl and give it to him. And you know what he does?
He spits it.
Yep, that's right. He spits it on the kitchen's tiles, his eyes fixed on my chocolate.

So I repeted the test.

I wanted to see if withholding a worthless, tasteless, cold piece of old fried potato from giving it to him will make it more desirable.

So I took another one, showed it to him, let him smell it but then took it away, I touched his whiskers with it and then pulled back. Finally I gave it to him and again, he grabbed it in a rush and instantly ate it.

That's the thing about withdrawing and withholding stuff on purpose. If you've got nothing much or nothing else to give, you hold it back in order to raise its value.

But the truth is it's just a cold fried potato.

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Know the VALUE of things, not the PRICE.

Don't get fooled by deceiving strategies.
This is true in marketing processes, in selling, in accessing resources and in relationships.

There's a reason why the best things in life are free.
Remember that.