I reckon we almost never spend enough time at the beginning of a business, or the launch of a new cluster or offering, determining exactly who the target market is, and how narrow it should be.

I don’t think there is a more important tactical decision to be made at this stage (although I’d love to hear any arguments for what you think is more important).

The range of possible target markets goes from everyone (or every business) to just one single person (or one single business or company).

Coca Cola is very clear that their target market is everyone. They famously want to have coke within arms reach of everyone on the planet.

At the other end of the spectrum is a company I did some work with last year. Telstra is their only client. The whole company has been set up with a target market of one.

Here’s a really cool exercise that I’m introducing into my next Million Dollar Expert program. I think it helps answer this question.

For an offering in your business or practice, at the bottom of the page write the name of one person or one business that you could target. If you had a target of just one, who would that be? Then increase the size through seven different levels until at the top of the page you have everyone. You should then have seven different possible target markets, and a choice to make. And mostly I think people end up one or two rungs higher up than they should be.

Love to hear your thoughts about your target market, and the idea in general – you can leave them below.