MOPS Book Review: Making Work at Home Work

There are work-at-home opportunities and companies everywhere you look. There seem to be twice as many books about working from home out there. Believe me, I know. I've worked in libraries and book stores, not to mention reading more of them than I can remember. I've even seen and read books about working from home from women. They happen to be moms. Those books weren't about moms working from home, though.

Can we say frustrating and useless?

Well, we all know I'm a huge MOPS fanatic. Why? Because MOPS helps me. And not just at meetings. MOPS is helping me become a successful work-at-home mom with a new book called Making Work at Home Work, by Mary M. Byers. It's not just a book about working from home. And it's not all about party companies, either. This is a real book about real moms who really work at home. A quilter, business strategist, meeting planner, interior designer, cake decorator, and photographer are among the 125 women who contributed by answering questions like these:

• What's the toughest part of running a business and a family under one roof?


• What unique child care strategies have you used to enable you to work successfully from home?


• What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you started?


• What's the biggest mistake you've mad as an at-home business owner?


• What advice would you give to a another woman who is interested in starting her own work-at-home business?

The book is subtitled "successfully growing a business and a family under one roof." This woman gets it. Yes, we are women business owners. Yes, we want to be successful. Yes, we are also moms who want to nurture our children to be responsible, loving, successful adults. The two are not mutually exclusive, folks. Making Work at Home Work is the first book I've seen or read that understands this foundational principle of women working at home.

If all you do is pick up the book and read the first chapter, you will have gained the value of the purchase of the book.

There are two main parts to the book: Saving Your Sanity and Preserving Your Profit. Saving Your Sanity addresses key issues that must come before profit if any person is to ever be successful in working at home. From understanding your motivation to setting boundaries and handling client "crises," Mary covers all the mental building blocks you need to lay in place before you can truly start on your journey to work-at-home success. If all you do is pick up the book and read the first chapter, "Being Honest: Acknowledging the Difference between 'At Home' and 'Work at Home,'" you will have gained the value of the purchase of the book. Those 7 pages will revolutionize how you see yourself and your identity as an at-home business owner.

Preserving Your Profits gets into the nitty-gritty of money-making. Starting off with "Accepting the At-Home CEO Mantle," Byers covers ten different financial aspects of being an at-home entrepreneur. Questions on equipment? Covered. The dreaded tax dealings? Yup, it's here. You'll even learn how spending just one morning a year planning can make a huge difference in your entire fiscal year.

And as if all that wasn't enough, Mary shares over a dozen recipes from acclaimed fast-mom cooks Trish Berg and Mary Beth Lagerborg! Sanity, money, and food all in one book? It's so worth it, and so are you. It'll be the best $12.99 you've invested in your business this year.