7 Characteristics of Services That Finally Get Clients to Say Yes

If you’re offering a service and people still aren’t buying — even though you’ve poured time, energy, and possibly years into it — I want you to consider something:

It’s not your skill. 

It’s not your talent. 

It’s most likely how you package and present your offer.

And more specifically, it’s that you haven’t embedded the right characteristics of services that sell and scale into that offer yet. 

So in this article, I want to show you the 7 characteristics of services that could possibly transform your business as soon as tomorrow.

Take notes.

Rule #1: The Characteristics Of Services That Make an Offer Irresistible

There is only one marketing paradigm that consistently works:

Make an offer that people feel stupid saying no to.

You might have heard this already… but have you implemented it? Seriously, ask yourself:

“Do I honestly think my offer is SO good that people would feel serious FOMO if they said no to it?”

This offer must be baked into the service itself. 

So this is not something that you do on sales calls, or in your cold emails/content.

You have to have the offer DIALED IN before you ever talk to potential clients.

Too many founders try to market a service description. Don’t do that.

The master of offers, Alex Hormozi, actually has a neat formula for this – the value equation:

Source: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/the-value-equation-for-irresistible-products 

Your goal is to come up with an offer that maximizes the top two… and minimizes the bottom two.

The dream outcome has to be HUGE, and it should be very certain that they’ll get it.

On the other hand, it should be instantaneous and without any effort on their side.

Obviously, this is impossible – but you want to come as close to it as possible.

The next rules will pretty much show you – in painstaking detail – which characteristics of services max out this value equation.

Let Me Give YOU Some Value Now…

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You’ll LOVE my free eBook: The 8D Framework To Launch Your Business!

It’s a step-by-step guide (still easy to read though) designed to show you HOW to design your product, how to launch it, and how to scale it.

Finally understand the exact steps you need to take to grow your business here:

Rule #2: Sell Outcomes, Not Deliverables

If you want clients to say yes, stop selling the deliverables.

Business owners don’t want to buy ‘things’. They buy results.

So don’t sell a website audit, or a strategy session, or a social media package.

Sell a transformation. Here are some examples off the top of my head:

• “We help fighting coaches book 10+ calls/month in 3 months using a zero-ads content system.”

• “We help SaaS startups double retention in 90 days by rewriting their onboarding.”

As you can see, these offers sell outcomes. There’s not one mention of “emails”, “AI agents” “Facebook ads”, or whatever else you might be selling…

If you give these offers a better look, they’re also showing the timeframe!

The shorter you can make this timeframe, the better. Obviously, be realistic here. You don’t want to end up giving refunds to everyone…

Oops. I spoiled something.

More about refunds later…

Rule #3: Get Crystal Clear on Your Unique Mechanism

One of the most important characteristics of services is…

WHAT IS IT EVEN? HOW DOES IT WORK?

You need to be really clear on how exactly you deliver results to your clients. I think this is pretty obvious.

But what might be less obvious is.. you need to NAME the mechanism.

That’s right. It’s time to come up with a cringe-ish name.

Something like:

• The Silent Caption Method
• The Attention Funnel 2.0.
• The Loom-Reach System
• The Relationship-Based Blog Method
• Etc…

When you name your service – it’s like you package it with a cute bow tie. People buy results and packages.

Also, it sounds well thought out.

Write down what you do on:

• Day one: What is the onboarding process like?

• Week one: How do you get the ball rolling

• Month one: Which systems will be ready and working after 30 days?

• And what happens after that?

Advanced Rule: Make a Standardized Operating Procedure (SOP)

You don’t have to do this immediately, but it WILL help you down the line.

Make a document explaining how to deliver your unique mechanism. It will help YOU spend less time delivering results (so you can focus more on growth)… and it will help your future employees.

Rule #4: Productize Your Service and Stick To One Thing

Think of your service like a tiramisu. 

When you order one, it feels like you’re ordering a product. A thing. An edible object.

Actually, it’s more of a service. A productized service!

A waiter has to come and take your order. Then a chef (you) needs to look at their recipe (the SOP) and assemble the tiramisu (your service).

Now… why can’t you order Thai food at an Italian place? I’m sure they could go to the store, buy some ingredients, and cook it for you.

But it would take SO much effort.

The same goes for your characteristics of services. You don’t have to take on ANY work that people are willing to pay for.

If you stick to one dish, you’ll be able to make more of them – and they’ll taste better.

That’s what productizing does.

Rule #5: Niche Down Until It Hurts

This one is an absolute game-changer.

If you help everyone, you end up helping no one (cuz no one will want to work with you)

The truth is really simple.

Generalists get price-shopped. Specialists get sought out.

When you choose a niche:

1. You cut down your competition. It’s way easier to be the biggest fish in the pond, than to be the biggest fish in the Pacific Ocean.

2. You look more like an expert. Why would you not choose someone who only works in your niche? For sure they must be good at it…

3. You learn your market faster. When you understand people deeply and can call out their exact pain points – you’re THAT much more likely to close them.

Also, look.

You don’t need to close 1,000 clients to make a good living.

All you need to make great money is 5-10 high-paying clients who feel like your offer was designed for them.

Rule #6: Talk Like a Real Marketer

Marketing is not just describing your characteristics of services.

It’s showing people who they become after they’ve worked with you. You’re not selling deliverables. You’re selling identity.

People buy outcomes because these outcomes change their identity. They change who they are, how they talk, how they dress, what they do, what car they drive, how much people respect them…

So don’t only talk about facts and figures. People buy on EMOTION, and rationalize with logic. Always remember that when selling your services.

In your marketing and sales calls – you want to convince someone emotionally, and then rationalize it with numbers and logic.

Rule #7: The Bold Risk Reversal

This is a big one. In order to make your offer irresistible, you have to remove all risk. 

However, you don’t have to do this every time.

If the client has a high degree of trust in you (either because you worked together for a long time or because you have a huge track record of success) – then you don’t have to offer this.

But if you’re a new entrepreneur, having a risk reversal will help you a LOT.

It will help you close more deals, and you won’t end up refunding them in 99% of cases (if you sign clients who are a great fit for your service).

Let’s look at the offer from before, and let’s upgrade it:

• “We help fighting coaches book 10+ calls/month in 3 months using a zero-ads content system.”

It’s a good offer already. It has a niche (fighting coaches), a clear outcome (10+ calls/month), a timeframe (3 months), and it’s packaged as a product (zero-ads content system).

Now, look at it with the guarantee…

• “I’ll help you book 10+ calls/month in 3 months using my zero-ads content system, and if I don’t succeed, I’ll work for free for 2 more months, and if that doesn’t work, you’ll get all your money back”.

WHERE is the risk here? Nowhere to be found.

Do You Want More Personalized Help For YOUR Business?

Well, you can get it right here.

My name is Igor, and I’ve built five companies from the ground up, with three successful exits.

I’m currently doing Strategic Consulting & AI Services for Startups & Mid-Size Businesses. If you need some help with that, you can check out my services page here:

Takeaways

In this article, I showed you the 7 characteristics of services you NEED to have, if you finally want to close some clients. 

I packaged the characteristics as rules. Let me summarize them one more time:

• Rule #1: The Characteristics Of Services That Make an Offer Irresistible – always remember the Value Equation.
  
• Rule #2: Sell Outcomes, Not Deliverables – Don’t sell ‘things’, sell outcomes (pounds lost, kgs of muscle added, revenue added…)
  
• Rule #3: Get Crystal Clear on Your Unique Mechanism – how do you deliver the results? What’s your system?
  
• Rule #4: Productize Your Service and Stick To One Thing – Make your SOPs (the recipes)
  
• Rule #5: Niche Down Until It Hurts – It’s way easier to be the biggest fish in the pond, than to be the biggest fish in the Pacific Ocean.
  
• Rule #6: Talk Like a Real Marketer – You convince someone emotionally, and then rationalize it with numbers and logic.
  
• Rule #7: The Bold Risk Reversal – It will help you close more deals, and you won’t end up refunding them in 99% of cases (if you sign clients who are a great fit for your service).