Is Google Places a sustainable business?

There are some 4.5 million people in Ireland. I'm figuring there must be some 150,000 businesses there (Chicago area's got 300,000 and about 2 times the population).

Most of them would be local.

Which means, there's plenty of businesses for you and a few dozen other marketers to create profitable businesses working with nothing but Irish companies.

Some guy figured out in 2008 that there were some 45k business that had websites.

The number of Irish businesses with websites and email addresses | Gordon Murray

I offer Google Places and have sold a few in South Africa where I'm from. In my opinion it shouldn't be the only thing you offer. It perhaps words best as a foot in the door, and/or upsell to other services such as website development, video marketing, etc.

If you become proficient at all parts of Google Places and transfer that proficiency onto your clients, then there is no reason at all as to why you could not sustain a business on Google Places alone.

You help business Claim the listing, optimize the listing on page, claim citations, gain reviews, setup a review gathering system, include other LOCAL site listing services like Bing, do hands off consulting, seminars, webinars, products, membership site, forum, etc etc etc ALL revolving around Google Places.

If Google Places, now Google Local changes to Google Neighborhood and you learn all about the transition before it happens. Then you easily set your self up for any transitions that need to happen, fixing transition issues, consulting on the transition ect etc, just like when Google + local happened.

Lastly, you can easily partner with SEO firms, Marketing Firms, etc etc to be their go to person for Google + Local and charge the firm a monthly retainer just to have you available to them if they need you for a consult or hands on work.

People that asy you need to sell multiple services do not understand that Google + Local is a multiple component service and it is similar to a hardwood/laminate floor installer. It is essentially 1 service but there are multiple components to the service that the average person does not realize. Work out all the components of Google Local and then be the expert in that service category.