Looking for New Career Options? There's No Place Like Home for Entrepreneurial Inspiration.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Annapolis, Maryland.  It's a charming town that boasts a lovely waterfront, impressive shopping and the prestige of being home to the Naval Academy.  As I strolled through the downtown area and perused the storefronts featuring names like Annapolis Ice Cream and Boatyard Bar and Grill and Annapolis Sailing School, I got to thinking about how where we live can influence our career options, particularly when we are interested in starting a small business.

Typically when you consider a career reinvention, you look inward for answers, but my walk through Annapolis reminded me that it can be useful to look to your outside world for clues about next steps.  The people you know, the items you own and the places you live, can impact your career choices in unexpected ways.

While not every town is as rich in natural resources as Annapolis, virtually every location offers something unique that could potentially be leveraged into a successful business: 

• A city that is home to a multi-cultural population might provide the inspiration for a unique dining or shopping venue that reflects the ethnic influences in your town.  
• A place with inexpensive land or a relatively cheap labor force might enable you to start a business with less capital investment than you might need in a more affluent area.  
• A location that has a good growing climate might be a great spot to start an organic farm or a mail-order fruit business.  
• A community that has a high percentage of young children might prove to be the perfect place to start a kids exercise program or a daycare center or a children's birthday party service.  Likewise, a town with a high percentage of elderly residents could be a great place to open an errand-running service or a home health care agency.
• A unique home might be marketed to movie scouts for a location fee.  A home with a guest cottage could provide rental income or a spot where you could host workshops or a photography studio.

The opportunities are only limited by your imagination.

What is special, unique or inspirational about where you live?  Take the time to appreciate the world right outside your door.  Once you look at your hometown as a potential career asset, instead of "just a place to live", your world of possibilities will expand in interesting ways.  

P.S. To learn more about the "how-to's" of starting some of the businesses in this post, click here.

Comments

[GL Hoffman]

Good post.
i think every town is missing out by NOT celebrating local entreprenuers who made good...and the town better. Somehow we need to return to celebrating and telling stories about all the local people too...not just Steve Jobs.