Schedule not all so easy in cottage industries

By Marcus Green
Gannett News Service

When many entrepreneurs envision working from home, they often dream of a flexible schedule. But the reality is quite different.

The owner of this errand-running business in Kentucky, Anita Johnson, says she tries to train a part-timer to fill in when she's ill. Gannett News Service

"I hardly ever take off," Burton said. "Because if I do, I get to pay someone to 'inn-sit,' which is a minimum of $100 a day to do what I do."

Vacations, family emergencies, illness or injury can leave home-based businesses in the lurch.

"The top priority is to plan for the unexpected," said Nelda Moore, an extension agent in Jefferson County, Ky., who advises the Greater Louisville Home-Based Business Association.

Moore suggests that home-based business owners develop a contingency plan for planned vacations and other time spent away from work, including emergencies.

Moore said one common backup plan is to educate family members, such as a spouse or children, on running the business during an emergency. "You've got to have some kind of a support system," she said.

While Burton used an inn-sitter once, she usually turns to her children to help run the bed-and-breakfast in her absence. That is the case as she plans an upcoming vacation.

"I'm getting ready to go for 10 days to England," she said. "And this is the first vacation in five years. In 10 years, I've maybe had 50 days off."

T&A Sauces Inc. of Shepherdsville, Ky., a maker of gourmet hot sauces, has been selling its products to retailers for only about a month.

"I'd probably have to recruit the son-in-law and daughter to fill in. He helps me sometimes now," said Troy Perry, who created the business with his wife, Annette. "That's probably who I'd have to trust it with if I was going to have to shut down for a week."

There's no set plan that will work for all home-based businesses, said Rudy Lewis, president of the National Association of Home Based Businesses.

"You will have emergencies, and you have to be able to still maintain that business," Lewis said.

Anita Johnson, who owns Johnson's Errands for You, knows the importance of planning. She once had to rely on part-time assistants during an illness.

"You try to train someone in a part-time capacity so that if you are caught out of town unexpectedly, then you've got coverage," she said. "Your business goes on. It doesn't fold."

When Dale Mulhall of Bullitt County, Ky., recently learned he needed arthroscopic knee surgery and would be sidelined for at least a week from his business, Amazing Signs & Designs, he started working 14-hour days to meet his customers' needs.

Mulhall, who manufactures custom signs and banners in his garage workshop, was worried about continuing to fill his regular clients' work orders. "We work on deadlines a lot, but this was pretty strenuous," he said. He personally informed his customers that he would be off.

Mulhall also has a contingency arrangement with another sign-maker in the event a customer needs a sign immediately, or one of them goes on vacation.