Americans love to utilize space and when they go to build a new garage or pole building, they want the most bang for their buck.  Oftentimes potential customers will ask for a partial loft in the back of their barn so that they can achieve extra storage space.  For a lot of salespeople, this can become a cumbersome project to accurately price.  Most will scratch out a rough list of materials that includes some floor joists, plywood, posts, headers, and stairs.  They’ll have to call their supplier for pricing, determine a mark up to charge for it and track down a crew foreman on a job site to find out the cost for them to install it.

It’s a shame to have to jump through 10 hoops to make a nice sale a little bit nicer.  Building lofts inside a barn is super easy so why can’t pricing one be as well?  It is with Post Frame Protractor.  We have a full line titled Wood Flooring devoted to pricing these nice little add-on sales. You’ll be able to select from our drop down menu exactly how you want your floor constructed in regards to floor joist size and spacing.  Tell the program how many posts you want to hold it up, enter the square footage and you’re done.  It’s one of the niftiest parts of the program that new users absolutely love because it makes it so easy and customers love to buy the added feature when they’re having their new building installed.  “A lot of times I’ll just throw a small loft area at the bottom of the quote as an option and people buy it!” says Mark Rose of Fetterville Pole Buildings in Lancaster, PA. “I used to hate pricing them out and would take days to get back to the customer with a price.  But now I’m offering it without them even asking me for it. I’ve been able to increase my sales and margins simply by suggesting the option.  People love having a loft!”

Lofts are a common request in Horse Barns as well.  How many times have you been asked to put an 8’ wide loft above a row of 12’ horse stalls for hay storage?  And then they ‘might’ want it above both rows of stalls depending on the cost.  Stop rolling your eyes and go to the Wood Flooring line of Protractor.  Enter the loft square footage for the one side, click the + button to generate an additional Wood Flooring line and enter the loft square footage for the other side, check the Option box and you’re done.  The customer will have the one loft included in their quote and the additional loft area will be found as an option at the bottom of the quote.  It might take you 60 seconds to do all this.

Protractor comes standard with 2×10 floor joist options as well as 2×12 and TJI floor joists for heavier loads.  Don’t see what you typically use for floor joists?  We can customize the line for you quickly to reflect exactly how you build.