Use your internet as your best guide for researching the demographics of a new location. (educational levels, crime stats, age group density, % of who owns or rent, school ratings, etc) All while remembering an area where there is high employment, usually equals higher crime rates for that location.
It is troubling for me to see now, that KY has some counties with some seriously high drug abuse issues now.
And with my being born and raised in KY and having worked in it for 45 years in the construction/facility maintenance fields, I have learned a bit about the contracting business and how people use them.
When someone moves in to a smaller town or rural area here in KY while wanting to start up a business or while bringing a business with them, they need to expect to have some lean times while getting started and established.
But we do have a good demand for trades/skilled workers in the residential/commercial construction/service fields. Because for the passed 30 years, our school systems here pushed the young people to get college degrees, so the young people did not go in to the building/or skilled trades.
Now that we old baby boomer building trades/skilled workers are retiring and dying off now, we have skilled/ building trades companies here in KY that are coming up short of skilled help now.
But do not take me wrong here. Just because a person drives in to a KY town with a magnetic sign on their vehicle stating their trade license number and services on it, does not mean they will get hired and worked steady... immediately.
Because in my states smaller populated town's, the people tend to use people for their services that is : someone they know, kin to them, or that someone else may know, that this other person may know they may know, that could be highly recommended to do their work for them.
Good Luck on your endeavor and JMO