Invaluable! A conversation with Crown Restoration

Jeremy Newman is the owner of Crown Restoration in San Antonio, Texas. During a recent conversation with me, he shared his story on why and how he began using magicplan.

Tell us about Crown Restoration.

My wife and I started Crown Restoration in 2006. We began with just a van and a little bit of equipment out of our garage and our house. We spent several years doing almost all the work ourselves and with our kids, when they were younger, and a couple of temporary helpers here and there.

Was it a difficult ride?

Yeah, exactly. All in all, it was just very hard work. We learned a lot about the business. We educated ourselves. Now we offer multiple services and have over twenty employees. Also, we are opening into a new market in West Texas, so that's kind of a big deal.

My role now is learning what it's like to be a CEO and overseer instead of a doer. That’s been a new thing for me in the last couple years. So my role here is to continue to keep the vision out in front of everybody and make sure that we're staying on the right track.

Before using magicplan, did you notice any industry issues or common problems that people were facing in the restoration industry that magicplan solves for you?

Absolutely. Since day one, I've resisted using some of the most common names that you hear in estimating software. Just because of the nature of who I am, I didn't like what they had to offer. So, early on, I helped develop a painting software, and I adapted restoration to it because it had the ability to do linear feet and square feet. I spent a lot of time kind of making a Frankenstein out of that program and I was using that to make estimates.

However, not long ago, we were still using hand sketching to make floor plans, and that was aggravating. It involved sketching on paper, bringing the sketch back to the office and then putting it into our system. Using magicplan instead has helped us come a long way with our sketching abilities, and that has been very attractive to us.

Read more: 10 Reasons Why You Should Be Creating Digital Sketches On-site

Would you explain how magicplan solved some of those issues you had with hand-drawn sketches?

Well, first of all, we are able to create our own custom price list with magicplan. That is a huge thing in the restoration world for us.

Also, magicplan is very intuitive, and that has been really helpful. It's easy to use on your own, and it’s easy to teach someone else to use it. In fact, anybody who has basic technological understanding is able to do the sketching. Plus, we have been able to adapt magicplan to exactly the type of work we do.

Do you have an estimate of how much time you save with magicplan?

With the way that we're using magicplan now for sketching and estimating, it saves a good thirty minutes to an hour on the job, depending on the skill level of the user and how big the job is. So it saves a lot of time.

But the other way magicplan helps us save time is the fact we can take the floor plan and do something else with it. Being able to do that in magicplan gives us the ability to save around $10.00 per job, just in processing and then the time that we save. That’s a pretty big deal, too.

How did you hear about us?

I experimented with magicplan many years ago, but never really delved into it. Then, more recently, I saw that some of my restoration friends that I know around the country have been implementing magicplan successfully. That piqued my interest, and so I tried it again and started spending a lot more time with it.

What's your favorite feature?

The AI recognition has been the biggest thing because it can sense an object, like a window or a door. That means windows and doors are added automatically during sketching, making the whole process very easy.

What aspect of magicplan provides the greatest benefit to businesses like yours?

I would have to say the sketching, for sure. The estimating feature also provides real value.

Do you think both features combined are what makes magicplan powerful?

That’s very true. Having the estimating built in makes everything a lot quicker because we don’t have to switch between systems. So, we can create an invoice right there at the job site, and we actually use that document to bill for the work we do.

Would you recommend magicplan to other businesses?

Absolutely!

And what would you say to a business that's trying to decide whether or not to use magicplan?

The entry level of magicplan is so reasonable, it's worth it for anybody to at least experiment with it, get used to the sketching feature and then start building on that. And I would definitely recommend integrating the estimating feature.

For restoration companies, I would say magicplan is an invaluable tool. I am very excited about what it’s doing for us.

How would you describe magicplan in one word?

Intuitive. I mean it's a pretty easy tool.

Thank you so much, Jeremy of Crown Restoration!

Interested in learning more about magicplan?

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