Continuing with the book, Book Yourself Solid, I've identified what my ideal client is, but what's my target market?

18 months ago if you asked me who my target market is then I would have to answer, "I haven't a clue". Fast forward to today and the answer is still pretty much the same. The reason for this is that I have two types of clients. My major clients are clients I work with in what I see as my target market, the healthcare sector, they're organisations and businesses that require deliver software for the NHS, GP's and other healthcare organisations in the UK. The minor clients are clients I do work for on a rare occasion. I might have provided a website or application for them and they never require much work to either fix or upgrade what they have. They usually require a single week's work every six months or so.

I'll be honest, I still don't know for definite what my target market should be. I'm still getting a feel for the kind of work I want to do and whether there's a long term future for me in that market. Ideally I would like to do consulting work for healthcare software providers or even straight to the healthcare businesses themselves, providing myself as a development consultant and resource, but I don't want to do this forever. There's two options I see ahead.

The first is looking into another target market. I have a few in mind but nothing concrete. The reason I am exploring other options is that while I have firm background in healthcare I also have some experience in other sectors. One area of work I did that was interesting was risk management solutions. I certainly wouldn't be adverse to working in this market again.

The second is building a revenue stream from a number of products that will provide a steady income over the next few years. It has to be years as anything short lived like a book or a screencast is only going to generate so much revenue over a short time frame. If I went down this road I would need to continue releasing books or screencasts every six months and I'm not sure that this plan is for me. Something more long term like a software product or service would definitely be something worth looking at however, getting the right product is a challenge to begin with.

I know what my target market should be and maybe that's enough for me to be going on with for the next few years. There's no rules to say I have to stay with that market. If it doesn't work out then I can always change.