When a man calls his business, “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur,” you have to wonder how much potty humor there’s going to be and how serious he is about business. But gosh darn it, Mike Michalowicz has BOTH, potty humor and serious business ideas.

I’ve been writing business tips for Mike’s TPE Blog website for about 6 months…or longer really. And Mike, like Seth Goding, answers his own emails. He asked for my opinion and well….that started an ongoing conversation and after reading a PDF version of part of the book I raved about it. So he sent me an advanced review paperback copy of his new book, The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field Seriously. This is the best business book I’ve read in years.

If you like your business advice slightly ribald and totally real, this book is it. I don’t like pretentious, pie-in-the-sky, philosophical and contemplative books on business. They bore me. Mike gets REAL. I feel like I’m sitting down in a bar with him, drinking a beer and watching the game of the week when the wide screen tv goes dead and we have to talk about something besides the taste of light beers and how stale the beer nuts are…and so he launches into his passion—business. And it makes sense. He uses the analogy of a pumpkin farm, of all things, to explain basic business concepts. The garden thing, about weeding, trimming, pruning etc. I knew, but he applies it to business in ways I didn’t know about. It’s the kind of advice you’d get from your millionaire entrepreneurial dad or uncle if you had a functional family with a millionaire dad/uncle. It’s just real. What can I say? He makes business easy to understand and not so intimidating.

He talks about how to limit your business to make it pay better. I recently learned this the hard way. So this re-enforces my decision to limit my writing to one field. But he uses case studies and conversations with real clients and he talks about the really sucky stuff you have to do—like lay off people, or fire clients…the messy stuff, along the way to growing your business. No doubt about it. Business is not for sissies.

This book is PACKED with insights, tips, humor and a real plan. I LOVE it! Not since Jonathan Field’s Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love have I been so hyped about a book. Seriously. It’s funny, irreverent, a GREAT read and you should have it on your bookshelf the minute it comes out.

What I LOVED about it….oh wait. I just read in the front of the book that I can’t quote the content until the final book comes out…bummer. Okay, I’ll just write ANOTHER review closer to publication time July 5, 2012…although you CAN preorder it at Amazon.com. Seriously…it rocks. Order it. NOW. Be prepared to see more about this book down the road because it really, really, really is good.