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April 20, 2007

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IN 2003, AT THE age of 38, Terri Hornsby was sitting in the office of her company, TLC Adcentives in Houston, when she got bad news. The lump she had discovered was indeed breast cancer. And in that moment, it became clear: Not only was her survival in jeopardy, but that of her business, too.

"I initially cried a little bit, and then I was like, 'Focus — you need to put things in place,'" she remembers. Within minutes, she had stepped out to tell her assistant (who happens to be her sister) that she needed surgery. "This is what I need you to do," Hornsby recalls telling her sister. "I need you to make sure the office is open every single day, and you need to handle customer service." And after a grueling eight months (in which Hornsby sometimes juggled chemotherapy sessions with client visits), the cancer was gone — but her promotional-advertising firm was thriving.

Dealing with illness can be the toughest challenge a small-business owner can face. Whether it's a serious condition like cancer or even an occasional bug, entrepreneurs say handling sickness usually entails a lot of "muddling through," mixed with a healthy dose of reliance on trusted staff or a network of business associates. And taking preventative steps — whether that's altering your lifestyle, or something simple, like napping at the first signs of a cold — becomes far more critical when you're running the show.

David Nour, for instance, loved to play amateur soccer and other sports until he started his own management-consulting firm, Nour Group Inc. in Atlanta, in 2003. "When your name is on the door," he says, "your risk tolerance gets re-adjusted." Gone went the shots on goal and the mountain biking (although Nour still takes the occasional ski trip). Nour, who has a staff of five, compares running a business with having children. "Your priorities change," he says. "It's not just my life — it's the livelihoods of other people."

Many business owners report that they regularly practice yoga or Pilates to stay fit, and practice common-sense remedies like eating healthily to ward off illness. Diana Ennen, president of Virtual Word Publishing, a book-marketing firm in Margate, Fla., takes a 15-minute power nap at about 11 a.m. each day to handle fibromyalgia, a painful condition that affects her knees, back and neck. And she sits on an exercise ball to stretch her muscles, although "it kind of looks funny," she says. "If a client comes in, I think twice about doing it."

Ennen, who's been in business since 1985, says she learned the hard way that it doesn't pay to ignore the warning signs of an attack, which can knock her out for a week. These days, "I just don't push myself to the extreme," she says. "I used to do that. I'd say, 'I can't stop.'" Now, she says she's learned to "just be good to myself."

And then there are the business owners who are constantly exposed to germs, like the the parents of pre-schoolers. Lindsey von Busch, founder of LvB Public Relations in Chatham, N.J., says she's accepted that her 3-year-old son will routinely bring something home from school, so she's formed a network of publicists in the New York City area who can pinch-hit when she's sick. Most of them are women with small children so "we're all in the same situation," she says. A publicist who fills in gets paid an hourly rate for tasks performed, such as writing a press release or accompanying a client to a media appearance.

Having a back-up plan that you can set in motion when you're under the weather is a smart approach, says Donna Maria Coles Johnson, a consultant in Charlotte, N.C., who often advises small businesses on work/life strategies. "Overall, don't panic if you get sick," she says. "And the way not to panic is to plan in advance." She also advises business owners to make a mental checklist each night of tasks that need to be accomplished the next day. That way, if you're unexpectedly sick in the morning, "you have a list of things you need to delegate, and you can deal with it in 10 minutes," she says.

Entrepreneurs often don't like to give up control — but when paying customers or clients expect a regular service, it's a necessity, says Teri Gault, founder of TheGroceryGame.com, a coupon-clipping site that sends emails about the best deals to subscribers. Shortly after she started the Los Angeles company in 2000, she realized it was a "scary thing" to be indispensable. Everyone who works for the site — and she now has franchisees in 48 states — has a point person who covers for them if need be. "Everybody has a back-up, and everybody shares a job," she says. On rare days when she's under the weather, she sends an email to her assistant, attorney and board members, "and they leave me alone," she says. "Anything I do can be covered by someone else, or put on hold."