Customer Service is KEY, as has already been mentioned appropriately by the above posters. the one comment I can add is to do a bit of research into the area and who are the big players there.

I've read in several good books to not start a business in a certain location just because that's where you live (or want to live). I think part of the motive behind this statement is in encouraging the entrepreneur to do at least a cursory investigation to make sure they aren't shooting themselves in the foot by entering a saturated market. For instance, there is published data on how many book stores there should be per 10K people, how many hardware stores, etc. The same data may be out there for electricians, although I couldn't tell you where to look for this off the top of my head.

It might not hurt at first at least to get a listing of the number of practicing electricians in the area and where they are located (then call them up and see who they do work for and how professional they sound). This gives you a twofold benefit: you learn about your competition while hopefully justifying to yourself that there is the opportunity to make a profit in Altoona as an electrician...