How You Can Leverage a Layoff

…Meanwhile the service industry, home of those jobs no one seems to want to do, has plenty of opportunity for enterprising entrepreneurs who don't mind getting their hands dirty, says Bob Shepherd, district director of the Central North Florida chapter of small business nonprofit advisory group SCORE. He implores the idle to start landscaping, painting, car-washing and housecleaning businesses by soliciting work door-to-door if they have to. If business takes off, entrepreneurs can hire crews and take a seat managing the startup, he says.

And career coach Hallie Crawford, author of Flying Solo: Career Transition Tips for Singles, says the world is your oyster if you can offer virtual services to the next entrepreneur.

"I have a marketing consultant, and I've never met her," Crawford says. Accounting, personal assistant and web-design startups are hot fields and require a computer, a phone, some software, and almost zero startup funds, she says.

"Were you a financial officer or an administrative assistant at your job?" Crawford says. "Almost anything you did in an office, you can do virtually. You need business cards, maybe a website. The only catch is marketing. While it's a low cost to start, you have to be assertive and proactive."…