*NEXT CLASS STARTS April 10th 2012*

If you'd like to be considered for this class, or you'd like to request the class syllabus, please email andrea at productiveenvironment dot com.

Or simply click the Register Now button below to get started!

 

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Productive Environment Specialist Certification Program^TM

The Productive Environment Institute trains and certifies productivity consultants to deliver Barbara Hemphill's Productive Environment Solution^TM to individuals, small business owners, and corporate clients. This program provides a methodology that measures success, so you can guarantee results for your clients.

Do You Fit the Profile of a Successful Certified Productive Environment Specialist^TM?

The Productive Environment Institute is looking for individuals with experience working in business settings. We offer a licensing program for people who already have their own business, and see the advantage of an added income stream, or for people who have resources to start their own business, but don't want to recreate the wheel. Our most successful Specialists value the resources offered through our program and actively participate in virtual and live events as much as possible.

Why Do We License and Certify Productive Environment Specialists™?

Because as Barbara Hemphill puts it, "Sometimes It Takes An Expert to Take Out The Trash". Here, Barbara explains "Why downsizing information in the office and at home really matters."

According to a 2010 study by Brother International, messy desks and time spent looking for misplaced items costs corporate America $177 billion annually. That price tag figures those minutes spent daily hunting for misplaced files, staplers or documents added up to 76 hours — or nearly two work weeks — a year.

It also is taking a toll on employees’ pocketbooks. Nearly one-third of office workers failed to get reimbursed for a business or travel expense because they misplaced or lost a receipt, according to the study.

At the same time, the biggest organizational challenge in the household continues to be paper -- even though most of our clients have at least one computer in their home, and often carry a laptop as well.

The computer, while originally touted as the ultimate organizational tool, has in reality allowed us to generate information as never before.  In many cases, it has simply increased our ability to create a mess!  Whether it’s paper or electronic clutter, the results are the same.  Being overloaded with disorganized information costs time, money and causes unnecessary stress.

How Does It Happen?

In recent years, a big contributor to information clutter in offices has been turnover; people leaving their companies.  Few companies have a process in place for assimilating the paper or electronic information left behind by departing employees.

How many people do you know who have received training on how to manage information? When you think about it, that’s truly ironic, since the ability of an employee to accomplish any task or goal is directly related to their ability to find the information they need when they need it.

Fear of discarding information -- whether it’s in a paper or digital format -- is enormous. I frequently hear statements such as  "Every time I throw something away, I need it again!"  When I challenge someone to give me a specific example, the response is most often, "I can't think of one right now!"  Whether it's the fear of not being knowledgeable in one's field of expertise,  the fear of being asked by someone else to produce information, or lack of willingness to take the time to clear the clutter, the results are the same: overstuffed filing cabinets, hard drives and information overload!

Paper Versus Digital

Recently I read an article about a couple who were trying to downsize their lives.  The two of them lived with their dog in a three bedroom home.  Upon examination, they realized that the only purpose the third bedroom (office) served was to hold the papers they never looked at, because their office was the laptop computer on the kitchen table!

Those pesky receipts employees need to get reimbursed for lunch can be easily eliminated with a digital solution.

Two essential requisites for any business to thrive in today’s economy are reducing costs and increasing productivity.  Both of these, with the added advantage of being environmentally responsible, - are readily available to every organization with the implementation of two simple strategies:

1. Reducing the amount of paper used in day-to-day operations

2. Creating efficient SYSTEMs for managing company resources, both physical and electronic

The problem? The continued reliance upon paper as a way to communicate and in the way hard copy information is stored and retrieved.

Though overall paper usage is slowly decreasing, companies continue to add to their already bulging stores of paper documents, exacerbating a costly practice. Studies show that the average company uses the equivalent of 10,000 sheets of paper per employee per year.  While the purchase price of the paper is $100 per employee, the costs associated with the paper, i.e., photocopying, printing, faxing, mailing, courier, short term storage, long term storage and disposal are factored in, the true cost is some 15 times higher -- or $1500 per employee.  Citigroup determined that if each employee used one less piece of paper each week, their company would save an estimated $700,000 per year!

New technologies continually become available to store and retrieve electronic information.  But don't get the cart before the horse.  Making the decision of whether to go electronic or remain paper-based should come after a careful analysis of what information is important to the company or the family.

How Do You Eliminate the Existing Problem?

Ask any 100 people, "If you had the time, are there papers and files in your office or your home you could comfortably toss?", 99 of them will answer, "Yes," but who wakes up in the morning and says, "Well, I don't have anything better to do today. I think I'll clean out my files!"  And if they do and they’re at work, quite likely someone will say, "What are you doing?  We've got ‘real work’ to do!”  If they’re at home, it’s likely family matters will overtake -- or family members will object.

Through the years I've seen company after company faced with the problem of hundreds and even thousands of boxes of "archives" in storage rooms or offsite locations.  When management finally realizes the cost and the risk, they decide they have to do something. By then, the people who created the paper are long gone, and current employees have little energy for making decisions about something that doesn't affect their ability to leave work at 5:00 p.m.

For the past 30 years, my company's services have been based on the reality that “Clutter is Postponed Decisions®.”  Eliminating information clutter requires that management in companies, and heads of household in homes, create an atmosphere and a process for decision-making and discarding.

The Professional Organizer/Productivity Consultant Opportunity

One of the biggest challenges that companies face in going to what we call Almost Paperless™ it that the people who should be the champions of the movement are over 50 years old -- and are struggling with making the transition themselves -- let alone leading a company in that direction.

As a 60+ myself, I had to admit it’s been a big challenge for me.  Because I had been teaching individuals and companies how to organize paper files for years, and my system worked perfectly, I had no motivation to change.  Then my mother fell and fractured her neck and ended up in a nursing home in Nebraska where I visit every other month for 10 days.  My organized filing system in North Carolina is worthless in Nebraska. So I had to learn!   That is the same challenge that companies face as employees work out of their homes, on airplanes and in coffee shops -- often encouraged by management to do so in the interest of saving real estate cost. The big challenge for the company remains: how to eliminate all the clutter so they can downsize, and how to store information so everyone can find it regardless of where they are.

The reality is that a large number of businesses never learned to manage paper well, and are now making the same mistakes managing electronic information. Even more significant than your role of helping people eliminate unnecessary information is helping them determine how they can find the information they do keep -- whether it’s paper or electronic. It’s a bottom-line issue for which companies and families will pay.  That’s your opportunity!

 

It's Entrepreneurship 101: Finding a need and filling it is the key to long term business growth.

What is the licensing Program investment?

Because we are not a franchise, it won't cost you $25,000+ to access our business systems and proprietary processes--all of which you can use to launch (or expand) a successful organizing and productivity business.

The full cost of the program for the first year is $2,995. We do offer financing.

Your investment includes:

• Monthly 60 to 90-Minute sessions of training and mentoring with Barbara Hemphill and the PEI team via webinars, individual laser coaching and a dedicated online workspace;
  
• Official Certification;
• Your own iPEPbusiness™ Edition, which includes your iPEPoffice™ (valued at $447); 
  
• Proprietary Program Benefits, including an introduction to sales training and potential business referrals;
  
• Ongoing business building resources;
• Swiftfile plus instructional audio clips from Barbara Hemphill ($57 value);
• Book--Taming the Paper Tiger at Work, by Barbara Hemphill ($15 value);
• NEW Book--Organizing Paper @Home: What to Toss and How to Find the Rest, by Barbara Hemphill with Jennifer Wig ($20 value);
• NEW Book--Bushido Business, co-authored by Barbara Hemphill ($20 value);
• NEW eBook--Organizing Paper@ Home: What to Toss and How to Find the Rest by Barbara Hemphill with Jennifer Wig ($10 value);
• Ebook--Love It or Lose It, Living Clutter Free Forever, by Barbara Hemphill and Maggie Bedrosian ($10 value);
• Participants also become Affiliates and receive Resell Rights to these items, providing a means to generate ongoing, passive income
  

Annual license and program renewal of $750/year maintains your certification in good standing, and allows you continued access to the training program and all benefits and resources. This payment is due 13 months after your training start date.

If you generate business on your own, there are no additional ongoing fees, such as percentages of revenue generated. Create a part time income, a full time income, even a 6-figure Organizing and Productivity Company--and the revenues are all yours. Just renew your membership each year to stay current with the program.

You may also choose to become a subcontractor of PEI and earn income by providing services to clients generated by PEI. We'll do the marketing, conduct the assessment (Productive Environment Audit™), issue the proposal (Productive Environment GamePlan™), secure the project, then contract the service provision out to you.

What are participants licensed to do?

Certified Productive Environment Specialists are licensed and certified to use and deliver all of these (and more) trademarked, proprietary terms and services:

• The Productive Environment Scorecard™ for Individuals and Organizations
• The Productive Environment Process™
  
• The Productive Environment Solution™, including the following services:
  • The Productive Environment Day™
  • The File-Act-Toss System™
  • The Art of Wastebasketry®
  • The Magic 6™
  • Productivity QuickStart™
  • The 8 Hour Miracle!™
  • Paper Productivity System™
  • Digital Productivity System™
  • Creating a Productive Environment in the Digital Age™ Seminar

• Companies that are moving or downsizing
• Entrepreneurs
• Executives & Corporate Employees
• Independent Business Owners
• Direct Sales Associates
• Realtors®
• Financial Services firms
• Design firms
• Accounting firms
• Medical practices
• University faculty members
• Engineers
  
• Professionals with ADD/ADHD
• ...the list goes on and on!

How is the training delivered?

This program is a unique combination of online and offline instruction-- You'll have full access to an online learning environment for the duration of your training period, and will also have access to live training webinars each week as we work through the program together---upon completion, you will begin accessing full Certified Productive Environment Specialist Benefits & Resources.

What is the upcoming training schedule?

All training webinars are on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3PM EDT unless otherwise announced. All sessions are recorded so live attendance is not mandatory.

We will also offer regular Q&A sessions to supplement the official class webinars and your offline learning.

NEXT CLASS BEGINS April 10th 2012

If you'd like to be considered for this class, please email andrea at productiveenvironment dot com to request YOUR CANDIDATE CONSULTATION. Class size is limited.

If you've already completed your Candidate Consultation with Barbara Hemphill or Andrea Anderson, click the Register Now button below to get started!

 

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