Target businesses for your computer consulting company are typically small businesses.  These are what we call the sweet spot small businesses.  Your target business has generally outgrown their peer to peer network and they have one or more dedicated servers.

That’s a very key fork in the road for the kind of business target you are looking for as a client.  Once they get to the point where they have a dedicated server, they need professional help along with it. They can’t limp along with low budget economy, no-frills options.

The typical target business in your sweet spot will have 10 to 50 computers and 10 to 100 employees. Revenues for your target businesses should be anywhere from $1 million to $10 million in annual revenue - sometimes as high as $20 million.

Beyond the sweet spot small businesses, many new computer consultants are curious about  other types of target businesses there are and what their needs are.  

Medium-Size Small Businesses
If you want to move into medium-size small businesses and make them your target business you need to get into really deep networking skills. Here you start looking at things like enterprise-oriented platforms like Computer Associates, IBM, Linux, Oracle, Sun Solaris - you really need to specialize.

Large Small Businesses
Large-small businesses have 50 to 100 computers and 50 to 200 employees and are doing anywhere from $5 million to $20 million in annual revenue. The big distinction of these larger small businesses is they usually have at least two dedicated servers and you start to see an in-house IT manager who handles most of the generalist work. Because they’re handling the generalist work, they don’t need virtual IT or an outsourced IT department. This is why they are not your target business.

Very Large Small Businesses
Next are the very large small businesses. To appeal to this set as your target business you need to drill very deep in two or three core networking skill sets and be a strong specialist. Here there will be an in-house IT department that will handle almost all of the generalist work. The only things they’re going to outsource are deep specialties.

Bottom Line on Target Businesses
The best place to focus on for your target business is the sweet spot small business client who is too big for economy service but too small for their own IT manager.  With this type of target business you will be able to find your specialty and market yourself accordingly.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Target Businesses. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Target Businesses, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.