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Lillios: On our side, sadly to admit, we've never done a sales and marketing effort. We existed for six years without doing one. Eventually, I can see us in the next year hiring somebody who really does that for a living and knows what they're doing. We know that the ceiling would be much higher if we had a better sales system down, a better lead-generation system, and someone who really knows how to handle it.

Inc: Do you think that there is still more you can do, Trish?

Karter: Oh, my God, every day I'm overwhelmed by how much I do badly. I think I'm pretty smart, but there's just enormous room for improvement in every aspect of the way we run our business. And by the time we've really figured it out at this level, we won't be here anymore. We'll be somewhere else, and we'll be trying to figure that out. I can't imagine ever saying to myself that I've got it figured it out now.

Lillios: That's what keeps it exciting, that learning process you're talking about.

Inc: Have any of you had moments during this past year when you doubted yourself? Have you had a moment when you thought you should walk away?

Conley: Yes. I'll admit it, yes.

Lillios: I am doing it, actually.

Inc: What are you doing?

Lillios: I'm taking a sabbatical. The market is so flat and so stable right now that I actually want to take some time off to figure out what dramatic changes we're going to make next. And then I'll come in and just do them like gangbusters. Right now we're still in a mode of trying to change things a little here, a little there. And I think we need something more radical. So right now I'm in the mode of trying to make sure that the day-to-day, slow-growth activities are being managed, and I'm going to separate myself for a while, collect my thoughts, and figure out how we're going to take this to the next level.

Inc: What exactly are you going to do?

Lillios: I have an entrepreneur network that I'm tapped into. [I'm going to] just get into other people's businesses -- do a lot of learning. I feel like I've done a good job, but I definitely have been undertooled. I don't have an M.B.A. I don't feel like I have a lot of business experience under my belt. And through this network of entrepreneurs, I want to tap into that collective brain trust. Sit down with them, have lunch, go into their businesses. Grill them in more detail than I have in the past.

Inc: How long are you planning to be out of the company doing this?

Lillios: Initially, I'm planning about three months. I have two partners who can keep the business running as is.

Inc: Do you think your impulse to do this comes from the fact that you define yourself as the start-up guy or the entrepreneur rather than the manager?

Lillios: Yeah. I mean, I thrive in the rock-and-roll change environment. Let's react to things, let's go, go, go. And right now it's more of a status quo.

Inc: Let me run some other issues past all of you. How big a concern is providing health care for your employees? And how much do you fear that the rising cost is going to erode whatever profits you are able to eke out?

Karter: I don't think that's the issue. We have a pretty generous benefits program. And yeah, health-care costs are rising, but it's just not a big enough piece of the whole picture. It's scary, it's unfortunate, but it's not on my radar screen.

Lillios: I'm in the same camp. I was surprised that in the recent survey of Inc 500 CEOs (see "Growing Nervous"), a surprising number of the chief executives were concerned about it.

Karter: Health care is a tiny number when you look at the overall business expenses. You could double our health-care costs, and it just wouldn't really matter.

Inc: Do you guys all think you've squeezed all the blood that you can out of your employees? Do you think that they are working at absolute maximum capacity?

Karter: I can't imagine that any business owner would feel that that was the case. But there's a point past which you can't push it.

Inc: Are you there yet?

Karter: There's always a mix of people. But I think on the whole we've got a fabulous team, and they're giving it what they've got. At the same time, we're not a sweatshop. We want people to have lives and be happy people.

Inc: Are you fearing war in Iraq could be destructive to your business?

Conley: I was at an antiwar protest in Union Square in San Francisco yesterday. And it was interesting to see the mix of people there, because, of course, this is San Francisco. And San Francisco being what it is, you're going to see all the characters that made the hippie movement. But, you know, what I saw yesterday out there was not just peace activists but also many other hotel managers. That's because we cannot afford another downturn in our industry. There were people out there on a hot Sunday in suits carrying placards saying "Who's going to pay for this?"

Inc: Looking a little more inward, are you guys still having fun?

Karter: Yeah. It's my philosophy about life and work -- it's got to be fun. There are those days, and there's a lot that's not so fun, but on the whole, I'm having a great time.

Conley: My standard for this is very high. When you call a company Joie de Vivre, which means joy of life in French....So my standard for my own success and my sense of well-being in my job are much more driven by my fun and my joy of life than they are by the financial side. Honestly, I've had lots of cognitive dissonance on this for the last year and a half, because it's no fun laying off 150 people. And it's no fun going to scores of investors and ownership groups and giving them bad news consistently. The problem is that on a daily basis I'm doing things I just don't want to be doing. And so I suck it up, but I also have to look outside the workplace for a lot of my joy, which as an entrepreneur is something that a lot of us forget about.

Lillios: I took up doing triathlons two years ago, and I've gotten more and more joy out of that. It's a respite for me.

Karter: I used to run marathons a lot. And lately I've let my [career] and family and kids' life and divorce and all that kind of stuff -- it gets complicated -- sort of kill my athletic program. And I've been thinking that if I have to run between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., I've got to put that back in for sanity's sake.

Karen Dillon is Inc's deputy editor.

Please E-mail your comments to editors@inc.com.

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