Customer Reviews

The Home Office From Hell Cure: Transform Your Underperforming, Time-Sucking Homebased Business Into a Runaway Success

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one great book for those of us that are entrepreneurs by nature (and anyone that wants to be). Jeff's practical advice, along with his great sense of humor are enlightening and refreshing. Well, well done!

This is a simple guide for anyone who works from home, or is considering that life-step. It is a good blueprint with stories and a plan any entrepreneur can follow.

The 100-Day action plan will be a great motivator for any home based business owner. This alone makes the book worthwhile. The author's step-by-step format is easily readable and helpful. This book may be an eye opener for struggling entrepreneurs who can't figure out why their home-based business is not bringing in the big bucks.

Follow the steps, look in the mirror and stick to the "Cure" ... And your business will almost certainly benefit from the information. "The Home Office From Hell Cure" is a great book for "newbie" home office entrepreneurs!

Jeff Landers has an excellent understanding of what the homebased business entrepreneur needs to do to become more profitable and get to the next level. One on my favorite sections was the discussion in Part 2, "What kind of Entrepreneur Am I." It really is the basis of the level of success a homebased business can achieve. Without that understanding it is impossible to become truly successful. A very impressive and insightful business book.

Within minutes of opening Jeff Landers new book "The Home Office From Hell Cure" I felt as though someone finally understood the challenges I was facing every day as a business owner working from home. With humor and real life stories Jeff presents the challenges we face and then set about giving us invaluable tools to help take our businesses to the next level. From how to establish a professional image using a virtual office or executive suite option, to the importance of promoting your business using press releases, Jeff discusses the gambit of areas we should be focusing on. After reading this book I wrote a press release using his guidelines, went to prweb.com to post it and received 540 hits the first day! Bravo Jeff Landers!!!

I'm starting up my home based operation (part time so far). I've been following the advice so I don't end up with a "time sucking" sink hole. This isn't thew only book I'm also using other resources for specific advice, like technology resources, marketing, advertising and publicity.

So far, thanks to the advice in "Home Office from Hell Cure," I think I've successfully avoided many pitfalls. Highly recommended for newbies like myself.

I did not like this book. I did not like the way it was written. I did not like the way it was outlined. And I did not like the advice that it provides. It has the following 8 chapters and an appendix:

1. Is my home office really the home office from hell?
2. What kind of entrepreneur am I?
3. So you want to be a contender? A primer for growth mavens
4. I want a business that supports my greatest lifestyle! A primer for lifestyle gurus
5. Calling all growth mavens and lifestyle mavans! It's time to become a nexpert
6. How to become a nexpert 101
7. How to become a nexpert 102
8. From your "home office from hell" to a thriving, growing, innovating success in 100 days
A. The 100-day plan

At the end of this book is an advertisement that tells the reader he or she can contact the author who will provide coaching services for a fee. A Web site address is provided and more about the coaching can be learned there. I got the feeling that the author read "Coaching Millions" (ISBN: 097929320) last year and followed the system the author of that book talks about. Even his Web site kind of looks like hers.

The problems I have with this book are many. There are all kinds of home offices, and this book does not clearly explain the different kinds. Some home offices exist because the business cannot support an office outside the home. Some home offices exist because an office outside the home is not needed. And some home offices exist because an office outside the home is only needed some of the time. Furthermore, I did not find it helpful to describe entrepreneurs as growth mavens or lifestyle gurus. Sure, businesses run from home can be in need of growth. But that doesn't mean they have to grow out of a home office. And businesses run from home can be run so the founder can have a certain lifestyle. But that doesn't mean that business needs fixing.

Another problem I had with the book is how the author assumes home office businesses are consulting or infopreneur companies. At least that is the message I got when reading chapters 5 through 8 and the appendix. The advice provided was about how to get yourself recognized as an expert in your field. It talks about writing articles, writing books, and doing public speaking. I am curious what this has to do with someone who has a home office for an import/export business or an eBay retail business that uses drop shippers? The point is, the book is very sloppily written.

Most, if not many, businesses run from a home office need a great Web site. There was no discussion of Web sites in this book. There was a mention of them at page 103, but I wanted more, a lot more regarding the necessary online presence for someone running their business in their PJs. However, I did like the "entrepreneur stories" sprinkled throughout the text. They were the one thing I liked about the book.

Apparently the target audience for this book is comprised of people who run a business from home and are not successful. And the advice they should be getting is that they need a sound written business plan to help them be successful. If they don't already have a business plan, then they need to research and write one. And if they have one, then they need to take a look at it and tweek it so it can be their roadmap to success. Failure to plan is a plan to fail. This is a golden rule in business and I did not see it mentioned anywhere between the covers of this book. And I didn't see anything about business plans and how to research and write them, either.

The author says this book was written to help a homebased businessperson become more professional, productive, and profitable. This should have included much discussion of business plans. Unfortunately it did not. I liked how the author advised the readers to focus on high-revenue-generating items and let others do the grunt work. But I think that is only good in theory and not so good in practice until the business is really successful. A small business owner has to wear all the hats in the beginning. That includes marketing, operations, bookkeeping, accounting, and legal matters. 2 stars!

"The Home Office From Hell Cure" by Jeffrey A. Landers has some good information. There is a lot more you need to know to start or succeed with a home based business, but that does not detract from some of the good advice found here.

I have to admit, one of the things that prompted me to purchase this book was the Foreword by George Ross. I like Ross, and I agree with his statement that you can talk a good game or you can do what's necessary to make it happen. The choice is yours. There are definitely some ideas in this book that will prompt certain business owners to make it happen and take their businesses to a higher level. However, it does depend on what your business consists of. The book is most helpful for the small business that is built on information. For the entrepreneur that sells his or her expertise and information in a certain area, this book has a lot of useful ideas.

In the first part of the book, Landers discusses the differences of what he calls the "Growth Maven" and the "Lifestyle Guru." He then provides tips for succeeding at these two different types of entrepreneur choices. There is some good information on virtual offices and virtual assistants in this first half of the book, and for some people these might be just what the doctor ordered to cure your home office. There will be some people that this information will not be as useful. It just depends on your business, and your style.

The second half of the book focuses on becoming what Landers calls a "nexpert." This is his word for a niche expert. This section of the book contains some very good information on getting the word out to potential customers and clients by the way of establishing your "expertise" in your chosen area. Things such as writing articles, presenting speeches, being interviewed, creating a tips booklet, and doing tele-seminars are covered.

Overall, Landers covers a lot of topics in a short amount of time. The format is divided into many small chapters, combined with an action guide for you to implement the strategies and ideas presented in the book. The information is brief, and for some areas readers may wish to learn more on these topics. However, there is enough in this book to get you started. The 100-day plan, if followed, can be motivating and prompt you toward success since it breaks the tasks down into bite sized bits that you can do day-by-day. This is a good book for certain entrepreneurs that need a kick start with their home based business. It does not have everything you need to know, but definitely presents some good ideas and strategies to move your business forward.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, author of Hard-Won Wisdom From the School of Hard Knocks.

Jeffrey A. Landers has written a lively and entertaining guide for people who have launched a one-person business from their garage or kitchen table and are having trouble combining the typical chaos of home life with the structure of a workplace. Both the book and the program are broken down into short, easily absorbed bites, laid out as a tidy, workable, day-by-day plan. Each section is stuffed with practical advice and tips on topics such as office leases, shared office space, moving to your new office, working with virtual assistants, writing and using a tips booklet, and giving a teleseminar. Not only are the tasks organized into steps, the steps are assigned to specific days, and each section concludes with a summary and checklist of the actions that have just been described.

Landers' book suffers from a shortcoming shared by all books of this type: by aiming to apply to everyone, it isn't a perfect off-the-rack fit for anyone. Of course, if you can't think creatively enough to customize generic advice to your own situation, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur at all.

*The Home Office from Hell Cure* will be very helpful for people who have launched a one-person business with growth potential, but who find themselves overwhelmed by the tendency of home-based businesses to be more home than business. The structured action plan keeps the entrepreneur working toward goals. Like all self-help books, the results the reader gets are entirely dependent on how much he or she commits to the plan. The fundamental outline of the plan can be creatively tailored to the specific needs of any business. I definitely recommend this book to anyone working out of their home.

My husband and I both work from home offices in separate businesses. You can tell that Jeff knows what he's talking about--he asks the right questions and gives specific advice. I especially enjoyed the the chapter on "Day 14-16", what and how to out source to improve efficiency. Best of all the advice comes with good humor and support rather than sounding like it comes from your mother in law. I'm ordering this book for a few friends who are in the same boat (different businesses!).

If you're looking for a way to escape the cubicle jungle and create a business from your home, you need to check this book out.

Jeff offers some great advice and ideas to get your business out there. And he uses humor to keep things light and fun through the process.