Small Business Owners NEED to get away!
Taken from The Wall Street Journal online - Jun 18, 2010

The official start of summer may be just days away, but for many small-business owners, relaxing at a beach resort, touring a foreign city or camping in a remote forest is still tough to picture – at least not without a cell phone, laptop or other communication device by their side.

More than half—55%—of 750 entrepreneurs surveyed in May say it's been two or more years since they last took off for a week or longer, according to Discover Financial Services, which commissioned the study.

This year, 51% of business owners say they don't plan on taking a vacation. Of those, more than three quarters blame the sour economy for their inability to get away, with 47% looking to save money instead, the survey shows.

But with "staycations" being a low-cost alternative to traveling—just 8% of respondents say they're planning vacations at home this year—business owners who never break from work may only have themselves to blame.

"They feel they're too important," says Rod Means, a district director in San Diego for SCORE, a nonprofit small-business mentoring and training organization. "They're afraid to leave the business with their employees. Nobody can make a decision but them."

Yet that kind of attitude can actually hurt a business's long-term success, he warns. "Teams win and individuals lose," says Mr. Means.

Besides, he adds, the basic principle behind entrepreneurship and working in general is to be able to afford a healthy and happy existence off the clock.

"Work is but to feed the fun of life," says Mr. Means.

And that's why some business owners have come up with strategies for taking vacations—real ones that involve no contact with their workplaces other than in cases of grave emergencies. Here'ss how they do it, and their best advice for other entrepreneurs.

1. Expand your Safety Net:
Sandra Espinet, owner of Interiors By Sandra Espinet Inc., a 12-person luxury design firm with offices in Los Angeles and Los Cabos, Mexico, puts two senior staffers in charge whenever she goes on vacation. This way, if either one becomes ill, there's still at least one deputy in charge, she says. Ms. Espinet is on holiday in El Giza, Egypt.

2. Leave Plenty of Cash:
Ms. Espinet, who's vacationed in Kathmandu, Nepal, leaves four times as much petty cash as usual for her employees to tap in the event of a problem when she's away. For example, once the company's two delivery trucks broke down on the same day while Ms. Espinet was traveling abroad. Employees had enough money available to quickly defuse the situation.

3. Put New Projects on Hold:
About three months before going on holiday to Iceland, Kristina Libby, stops taking on new assignments for her solo advisory business, Kristina Libby LLC in New York. Instead, she focuses on completing whatever jobs are currently on her plate and schedules all other projects for after she gets back. Also a partner with digital-consulting company KMV Media LLC, Ms. Libby says she prepares her seven direct reports at the Washington, D.C. firm for what they need to do during her absence. "I just try and set up everything I possibly can before I go," she says.

4. Go Somewhere Remote:
Once Ms. Libby goes on vacation, she's completely unreachable. "I have a little summer place in a township in Maine where there is no electricity let alone cell-phone service," she says. "The only way I'll stop working is if it's actually impossible."

5. Set a Date and Stick With It:
Last year, Brian Frank says he made the mistake of rescheduling a vacation he had booked to Mexico to accommodate a client for his family's New York investment business, Frank Capital Partners. The new date he settled on upset another client and things "spiraled out of control," he recalls. Going forward, Mr. Frank, vacationed in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, says he'll give his clients less advance notice of when he'll be on vacation and make it clear that his plans are set in stone. "You inevitably cannot please everyone," he says.

6. Hire a Temporary Virtual Assistant:
Veena Prasad, owner of start-up company Veena's Market LLC in Seattle, has no qualms about taking some time off to travel this summer even though her business has been operating only since mid-February. She says she'll produce extra inventory and rely on a Web-based shipping service to pack and ship orders for her Indian cuisine kits to customers. She'll also use a software program to post Twitter updates (that she writes in advance) at scheduled times during her absence. Taking a vacation is "doable if I plan ahead," explains Ms. Prasad.

7. Take Multiple, Long Weekends Off:
Rather than go away for an entire week or more at a time, Joseph Dornoff, co-owner of Bake Me a Wish LLC, a provider of gourmet gift cakes, takes Fridays and Mondays off once a month between May and September. He spends most of those long weekends just two-and-a-half hours away from his Manhattan office at a beach house he shares with friends on New York's Fire Island. "I don't bring my computer," he says. "You can go there and sever yourself from your business and take the relaxation time you need."

8. Anticipate Potetial Problems:
Business partners Michelle Laferrier and Evelyn Burke like to vacation together on cruises because they're also best friends. During those times, they leave their specialty foods company, Vermont Country Gourmet, in the hands of another pal. "We trained her on every aspect of the business," says Ms. Laferrier of the duo's temporary replacement, including how to cope if problems arise. "We'd run through scenarios like, 'You get a huge order. You're out of stock. What do you do?' Or, 'The website crashes, what do you do?'"

9. Wait Until Your Off Season:
Twice a year – during the summer and at Christmas -- business slows down for Terri Orringer, founder of PartyDetails Inc., a Livingston, N.J., event-planning service specializing in Bar and Bas Mitvahs. "That's when I travel," says the solo entrepreneur, who's been to Budapest, Vietnam and Thailand, among other destinations. "I don't have to worry about my clients." Ms. Orringer began taking holidays during the off-season after she once traveled to Turkey while a client's party was taking place. Though she hired contractors to run the event, "I couldn't rest on my vacation knowing that something was going on," she says.

10. Align Vacations with Busiess Trips:
Maryellen Kane travels up to six times a year to attend tradeshows and meet with vendors and suppliers for her children's clothing company, Olive Juice LLC. She says she'll sometimes tack on a few days at the end of those trips or during downtime in-between to do some sight-seeing. She might also make plans to spend a few more days away from her Norristown, Pa., office, to visit another far-off destination. After all, her six employees have already been coping with her absence, says Ms. Kane visiting the Great Wall of China.