SMARTDRAW IN FACILITIES MANAGEMENT:

SmartDraw Helps Business Owner Win New Clients with Polished, Professional Floor Plans

Jack Reich is the president and founder of Custom Storage Systems, Inc, a company that provides unique solutions for storage needs. Jack is responsible for all aspects of his company, but spends most of his time selling, which includes making phone calls, meeting customers, preparing floor plans, and sending out proposals.

Jack needed any easy way to create floor plans for his various projects and proposals. At first, he was using Microsoft Excel^® to create plans, but it wasn't very effective. Then, he purchased an expensive CAD software program for his company, but it presented several difficulties.

"I spent more than $1,000 and six months learning how to use this CAD system I bought," said Jack. "Not only was it difficult to navigate, but it was a problem when hiring new employees. I simply could not spend the time teaching them how to use CAD. In many cases, I found myself sitting behind the desk wasting valuable sales time drawing floor plans."

Jack ended up abandoning his expensive CAD program and going back to Excel. Finally, one day he searched the Internet for an easy program to create floor plans, and he found SmartDraw.

Although he had no graphic design experience, Jack found that SmartDraw made easy work out of his floor plans. Unlike other complex CAD programs that provide users with a blank screen and expect them to draw, with SmartDraw, users select from a template that is specifically designed to create the type of illustration they need. For example, SmartDraw contains dozens of SmartTemplates for floor plans, facility plans, and more. After selecting the appropriate template, users simply enter the information and SmartDraw does the rest: building the graphic automatically using built-in rules and professional design themes to guarantee polished, presentation-quality results in just a few minutes.

"There is no other program that comes close to SmartDraw…it's fantastic," said Jack. "There really aren't any alternatives. The options are limitless. It is so easy to transfer the floor plan to Excel^®, Word^®, and PDF. I couldn't have asked for more!"

Jack estimates that he used to spend over an hour creating each floor plan in Excel^® or CAD. "With SmartDraw, it only takes me fifteen minutes from start to finish…it's that easy to use."

In addition to major time-savings, using SmartDraw has other benefits as well. "SmartDraw has made it so much easier to hire new employees," said Jack. "The ease of teaching someone SmartDraw is amazing. It also allows me to hire someone without CAD experience which isn't even necessary in my organization."

SmartDraw also helps his business look extremely professional.

"We now offer the most impressive proposals in the industry…I am constantly getting praise," said Jack. "Repeat customers come to expect our quality. But by far, the biggest benefit, is that using SmartDraw frees my time up to do what I do best—sell!"

To learn more and to download a free trial, visit www.smartdraw.com.