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Even in markets dominated by low-bid work, it's not always the low-bid contract that gets the job. That's one of the most important things Williams & Willman learned as they have grown their on-road pavement marking business from a fledgling barely-able-to-make-it start-up in 1995 to a leading pavement marking contractor in the western and central Pennsylvania market.

"The only year we had a loss was a year weather was bad and we ended up fighting our competition for jobs and we lowered our price, figuring that we'd make up for it with our volume," says Cliff Williams, vice president/treasurer. "But it didn't work that way. We ran our butts off and our profit was zero. We decided not to work that way again."

Instead, Williams & Willman, Kittanning, PA, decided to take a different approach.

"We decided to do a great job, be reliable, and charge a little more for that," Williams says. "We figured the prime contractors would eventually come to us after they experienced poor reliability and poor quality of low-bid striping and that's what happened."

And in 2005 Williams & Willman experienced their best year, striping 13.2 million lineal feet of Pennsylvania roads. Williams attributes their success to several factors, including employees and a recognition within the market itself.

"Our employees are quality people and we think they have been doing a better job in the field in terms of production," he says. "We have more experienced guys because our retention is better, and we're starting to see the benefits of that."