The Opposite of Value is Not High Price. It's Disappointment.

A recent lawsuit claims McDonald’s overstated what customers were getting with the McRib. Whether that claim has merit is for the courts to decide. What interests me is the business lesson underneath it.

Some talk about value as though it is mainly a pricing issue. If the price is low enough, people talk about “getting value.” If the price feels high, they worry about getting their money’s worth. Many buyers define value too narrowly, as though it were mainly a function of price. McDonald’s has built a lot of marketing around that idea. Think “Value Meal.”

What destroys value is not price by itself. What destroys value is disappointment.

A buyer can pay a premium and still feel perfectly fine about it if the experience, the result, and the promise all line up. On the other hand, someone can pay a modest fee and still feel burned if what they got is not what they thought they were buying. That is when buyers modify their definition of value. Their thinking stops being about what they paid and starts being about trust.

This is not just a fast food problem. Professional service providers do it too, although usually in subtler ways. I recently interviewed bookkeeper Christy Krzyzaniak, who shared that bookkeepers as a group have a reputation for not returning phone calls. In cases like that, the client’s frustration is not mainly about the fee. It is about the letdown.

Value is not just about making the price feel reasonable. It is about making sure the delivery matches the promise. When the signal and the substance match, people can tolerate a lot. When they do not, even a lower price can feel excessive.

A cheap letdown is still a letdown. A lousy hotel room does not become charming because you got a discount on the booking app. It is still the room that looked much better online than it does in real life. The same is true in professional services. If the promise is one thing and the lived experience is another, the client does not walk away saying, “Well, at least it was affordable.” They walk away disappointed, and disappointment has a way of making any price feel too high.

That is why the work of creating value starts before the work begins. It starts with setting clear expectations, a sound diagnosis, and positioning that does not overpromise. Seeing value this way protects how clients ultimately judge the work. Clients do not decide value by price alone. They decide it by whether reality matches what they were led to expect.

The opposite of value is not high price. It is disappointment.

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I’m John Ray, author of the five-star rated book, The Generosity Mindset. I show expert-service professionals how generosity creates the confidence, value, and relationships that grow a business and restore joy to your work. Generosity isn't about giving everything away; it means serving in ways that deepen value for clients. Want to start a conversation? Let's talk.