Click below to listen to interview with Sherry Borsheim. Play
JANET: Hi, I’m Janet Baker, office manager of The Monticello Corporation, makers of Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management. We have with us today, Sherry Borsheim of Simply Productive. Sherry is also the founder and past chair of Professional Organizers of Canada, British Columbia Chapter and she’s also an authorized consultant and trainer for Paper Tiger Software System. She is a certified productivity training authorized consultant and as a speaker, trainer and coach, Sherri shares proven strategies and solutions that work in the real world and can be customized to fit with her clients then motivates the audience to take specific action steps. They will leave feeling informed, motivated, and energized. Her clients are individuals whose demanding roles require that they perform at peak efficiency. From corporations to small businesses and homeowners, Sherry’s clients have received maximum results in paper, space, e-mail, and time management. Sherry’s unique approach to organizing provides a seamless integration between technology and the working environment. With a number of unique software programs and her personal touch to organization, Sherry has assisted many in finding what they need, when they need it. Her mission is to streamline and simplify!
Sherry is the author of the books, Conquer Your Chaos, Fast Forward to Office Efficiency and Conquer Your E-Mail Chaos. She has also been a guest on local radio and television programs, including the Makeover Wish on HGTV and The Xpress on Shaw TV.
Sherry, wow that’s some bio you have there! Welcome!
SHERRY: Thanks but more importantly it’s about how clients feel at the end of the day in their office and how the systems work for them.
JANET: Absolutely! We thank you for agreeing to meet with us today. We admire what you do and especially appreciate you helping clients implement Paper Tiger when they need it.
SHERRY: Well I love Paper Tiger and it was actually when I started my business that I found out about Paper Tiger Filing System and it completely revolutionized and my business did a complete turn of events and I love Paper Tiger because of what it does, so I’m a big fan.
JANET: Thank you! Tell us, what is your most favorite thing that Paper Tiger fixes? or your most favorite thing that your clients use Paper Tiger for
SHERRY: Paper Tiger solves a huge issue in offices whether there’s one person or there’s multiple staff and where did I file it? So what happens is people leave paper all over their desk in fear of not being able to find it again, so how you’re able to do that which leads me to my favorite feature is the keyword search, because in companies before for 23 years when I was creating a filing system, I only had so many words that I could get on a file label and I had it all indexed in Excel and files were all numbered, but what was missing was the keyword search. If I had thought of that, it would’ve been a different story because if I wasn’t in the office, a lot of times I’d get a phone call “where is that file?” because the keywords I associated with a particular file will be different than someone else in the office and so the keyword search just allows everyone in the office or those using the filing system to be able to enter in those trigger words or those keywords that they associate to the file or the box or whatever you’re using Paper Tiger for because there are just so many applications. So the keyword search is so powerful and when I showed my clients, they just all of a sudden have an ‘aha! moment’ and they get it and the light bulb goes off. So it just revolutionizes the way people retrieve their information.
JANET: What are the problems that the majority of your clients hope to solve when they hear about Paper Tiger?
SHERRY: The biggest problem that Paper Tiger solves and the reason why people call me in the first place is their paper. Whether it’s in their home or their office. They don’t know where to file things and if they do file it away, they can’t find it. So what it solves is the ability to share their information and it gives them a filing system that now becomes a retrieving system. So when I set up a central file location, most offices have either done away with their central files or if they have a central file, it’s like a black hole and nobody can find anything in the filing cabinet. But when you use the Paper Tiger filing system in a central filing or in a storage room of which I do a lot of those of archiving boxes and maps, annual reports, all this historical information, financial records and stuff, people are able to sit at their desk, type in a keyword and Paper Tiger will tell them whether it’s in a central file or if it’s in someone’s office if you set it up that way or if it’s in a storage room and exactly what blocks of files it’s in, so that’s the problem that it solves and that’s why people call me.
It’s amazing that people will find out about Paper Tiger from the website and I have lots of different industries that call me, and I haven’t even talked to them about it. They call me to try and find out more in Canada about Paper Tiger so it really does speak for itself.
JANET: Do you find Paper Tiger is used mainly by the admins in the offices or managers or a mix of the two?
SHERRY: Everyone in the office from CEO down. It saves administrators a lot of time because a lot of people don’t like to file, but it actually becomes a fun-filing and I had that shift nine years ago. I had this love-hate relationship with filing so when I implement it in an office, it’s from the top down. Everybody uses it, so it’s not just for administrative assistants, or just managers, it’s for everyone.
JANET: That is quite a bit of a difference between the old alphabetical system, isn’t it?
SHERRY: Oh, night and day! You have no idea because the alphabetical breaks down over time and you have to shift everything in the filing cabinet or there’s no space on the shelf for the next box. It just doesn’t work. So if you have more than 75 files, Paper Tiger is definitely going to solve a whole bunch of problems down the road. And the other cool thing is, if you are in an organization where you have turn over of staff in the administrative positions as well, it takes less than 30 minutes to train somebody on how to use Paper Tiger because an 8-year-old can use it. So it solves that problem as well and as to a previous question, it solves that turnover or someone coming in and setting up a system that’s so foreign to everyone else. So when someone takes over a position within an organization, they literally could open up the filing drawer and go ‘hmm, there’s only numbers on here; I wonder what those mean.’ If someone has told them about the software, they just have to type in a keyword and they’re up and running. So they don’t have to revamp a filing system and that’s a huge time-saver for those stepping into new positions.
JANET: Absolutely. I have had a number of new jobs, and it is overwhelming to try find files for a new boss and there is no way of knowing what the past employee thought.
SHERRY: Yeah, believe me I’ve seen everything. I had one filing system where the file folders were labeled on both sides of the file folder and for three years, they would open up the filing cabinet and they didn’t know which way to stand and which side, because the files were all mixed up. So for three years, they couldn’t find anything. It was a black hole. Very stressful.
Yes it is very stressful for something as simple as filing seems to be, it is a very stressful thing, especially if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
SHERRY: No so then you’re probably re-creating it or wasting all this time trying to find it so it’s a huge time waster.
JANET: Can you tell us briefly how you implement Paper Tiger in your clients’ offices most effectively?
SHERRY: I will do a quick little demo and I can do that either live on my laptop or I will take them to the Paper Tiger website and they can see a quick little demo on Paper Tiger and then when they think this could solve their problem. Then what I’ll do is, we will implement it in the office and I love that you have the online version now, because it just makes it so simple and easy. I send you an email and it’s up and running. I will work with the staff person either over the phone who implements the first 20 files into the Paper Tiger filing system or if I’m on-site I’m entering them in, setting it up, attaching the numbers and once we get a few files set up, and then I turn it over to them to give them the hands-on experience, and that’s when they have the ‘aha! moment. So they’re up and running literally so quickly versus any other filing system, the learning curve or the process in figuring out how to set it up, is a lot more and saves a lot of time just getting it up. It really is as quick as just starting with a piece of paper on the desk and asking what are some keywords that you would associate with this piece of paper. If you want to file it away, type them in and in less than 30 seconds you’ve got the file set up, you attach the number and you’re done. So it’s really quick.
JANET: Do you find that your clients’ are easily maintaining Paper Tiger after you leave their office?
SHERRY: Yes, as I mentioned, I’ve been using Paper Tiger for nine years and I have clients that have been using it for nine years. I recently had someone who had moved from one city to another. His first phone call within the first hour of him arriving at his office, was a call to my office asking me to send him a new license of Paper Tiger filing system software. I said, wow you don’t waste any time, and he said I cannot live without it. And I have another client, he’s moved to four different offices and every time he calls me, and tells me I got to have Paper Tiger filing system, because I can’t find anything and so they just want to get up and running as quickly as possible. So yes, they are still using it after all these years.
JANET: Awesome! Tell me, what do your clients have to say when you have helped them get their offices organized versus what they would have been able to do without your help? Basically what benefit do you provide to them?
SHERRY: The overall benefit is the peace of mind that they will find it, but the initial benefit is when I show up in an office or a scheduled time on the phone to help them get set up; the scheduled appointment and our focus is to get them up and running, to get their office, the top of their desk and their system set up as quickly as possible. A lot of people have good intentions, and they are just busy, and so they don’t set aside the time. So when we have a scheduled appointment to set up their Paper Tiger filing system, it just gets done, because I keep it focused and I keep it on track and I’m there for them to ask questions and also just clarity on how to use the software and also what is the best system for them because it is so easy to customize Paper Tiger filing system to any industry or any client I’ve worked with. So the end of the session, it’s like ‘wow a hundred pound weight was lifted off their shoulders’ and you can see it melt away and their body language changes and ‘wow, I can actually open up my filing cabinet and it looks organized and I know I can find something.’ It’s weight and also they love the dramatic result that the top of their desk is finally cleaned off and their papers are safely put away.
JANET: Wow that sounds really awesome! Well Sherry, thanks again for joining us today. I really appreciate your agreeing to interview with us. I know that your insight will be so helpful to those listening today.
SHERRY: My pleasure.
Sherry Borsheim of Simply Productive. Sherry has been helping people to work smarter, not harder for years. She specializes in resolving paper, time and information management issues. To learn more about eliminating the paper pile-up and in vastly improving your productively, contact Simply Productive at 604-233-7076.
You can visit Sherry, access her free article archive and grab lots of free stuff at http://www.simplyproductive.com. Sherry lives in Vancouver, BC Canada with her husband (her high-school sweetheart).
Also check out Sherry’s Calm Your Choas special that will give you a JUMP-START on ORGANIZING your office, home and life. She will give you her trade secrets and steps to setting up your organizing systems, including recommending Paper Tiger filing system software for document management, to be organized and manage the paper files that you need to keep in hard copy format and other physical stuff in your life.
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Tags: document management software, get organized, interview, Productivity, The Paper Tiger 'Finding' Filing System
