When an entrepreneur is diagnosed with breast cancer, she has to rethink
everything about her business: from figuring out whether to tell clients about
the cancer to how she'll cope with the treatments to what would happen to the
business if she couldn't return. Meet four women entrepreneurs who have survived
breast cancer, and learn how they refocused their priorities and kept their
businesses running through treatment and beyond.
The Diagnosis
Lizabeth Ardisana was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 1999, on the
Friday morning before Labor Day.
She was about to leave on a two-week vacation. Her doctor had called her in to
go over her biopsy results, which he thought would be normal. But when she got
into the office, she knew something was wrong; the nurse was crying. The doctor
said, "Huge surprise, but you have cancer."
After Ardisana got over her momentary shock at the diagnosis, her first
thought was her vacation. She physically felt fine and wanted to go. So she
negotiated with her doctor and took a battery of tests so they'd be ready to
start treatment when she returned.
Because her appointment was running long, Ardisana, founder of 20-year-old
marketing, consulting and staffing firm
ASG Renaissance in Dearborn,
Michigan, started receiving phone calls from her clients. She was late for
meetings. She simply told her clients she had cancer and she'd talk to them
later. "Nothing shuts a phone call down faster than that," says Ardisana.
Ardisana, 55, did have one client, though, who wouldn't reschedule. He'd
flown up from Florida and insisted on meeting with her later that afternoon. She
met with him, though she couldn't concentrate, and ultimately didn't end up
working with him.
"Some clients are very sympathetic and others couldn't care less," says
Ardisana, who believes she had to inform all her clients. "You can't let them
just think you've lost interest in them, right?"
To Tell or Not to Tell
Not all entrepreneurs want their clients to know they have cancer. When Paula
Lovell, president of Lovell
Communications Inc., a 20-year-old PR and marketing communications firm in
Nashville, was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, she told her 10
employees, but had them help hide her diagnosis from clients for fear she'd lose
business. "Folks are odd when it comes to sick people, and I was afraid that
they might not want to do business with us," says Lovell, 56. "I didn't want
that to be an option."
Lovell hid her cancer from all but one client for more than a year--until she
was done with treatment and couldn't stand her wig any longer. When she had a
half-inch of hair on her head, she decided to show the world that she'd gone
through chemotherapy. And when people would ask about it, she'd say, "I was
sick, but I'm well now." Says Lovell, "I didn't want people to feel sorry for
me. It was a big deal in my life and it's in my past."
There can also be a certain shame in telling people. Donna Zobel, president
of Myron Zucker, a
manufacturer of electrical components that improve industrial motor efficiency
and reduce energy costs, didn't want to tell anybody about her breast cancer
when she was diagnosed. "At first I was almost embarrassed by it," she says.
In 2004, Zobel was brought into a failing family business to help turn it
around after her father passed away. A year and a half later, while in the
process of downsizing and moving the company from Royal Oak to Sterling Heights,
Michigan, she was self-diagnosed with breast cancer at age 45.
When she did start telling clients she had breast cancer, the result was
surprising: "In many ways, it has allowed me to connect to customers and
suppliers and others in my industry," says Zobel. "Cancer has touched a lot of
lives and it gives us something sometimes to talk about."
Zobel says her initial fear about telling people came down to a deeply
ingrained insecurity as a woman entrepreneur. "We've spent our lives assuring
everyone that we're strong and confident and can conquer all," says Zobel, "and
here we are dealing with something we don't know anything about."
Giving Up Control
Facing the unknown can make an entrepreneur rethink her business and her role in
it. "I tended to do everything on my own prior to that," says Zobel. "When I was
diagnosed, I had to look at the people around me and say, 'Can you help?'"
Three of Zobel's brothers work for her, and all of her 10 employees have been
with the company at least 10 years. "They rose to the occasion," she says. "In
fact, what I learned is that everyone has the capability to lead when they're
given the chance."
Ardisana also learned a quick lesson in giving up control. Though her husband
is a co-owner of their $20 million company that has 250 employees and seven
offices, his duties are very different from hers--and he also had to help take
care of her at home--so she started delegating to her employees. Her team
stepped up, took on more responsibility and "did it better than I would have
done it," she says.
Ardisana also took the opportunity to reassess her management style. Things
like micromanaging employees seemed far less important to her. And while she was
freed from many day-to-day issues, all this newfound free time let Ardisana take
a good look at the bigger picture of the business.
Not all entrepreneurs, however, give more control to employees. Ethel
Kessler, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994 at the age of 44, realized
that once her treatments were over, she would have to lay off her six employees
and turn the business into a sole proprietorship because she couldn't afford to
keep them on and take her company digital to keep up with the technology changes
in the design industry.
"As a small-business owner, you're wearing six or seven hats," says the
president and creative director of 26-year-old
Kessler Design Group,
a graphic design firm in Bethesda, Maryland. "I was doing the billing. I was
doing the client meetings. I just didn't have the energy anymore to produce
enough for the staff."