Customer Highlight: Williams Professional Painting

Williams Pro­fes­sion­al Paint­ing is known as the pre­mier com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial paint­ing com­pa­ny serv­ing the Wash­ing­ton D.C. metro area. With a ded­i­cat­ed team of 8 – 10 office staff, 30 – 40 field staff, and addi­tion­al sub­con­trac­tors when need­ed, the team is known for ded­i­ca­tion and qual­i­ty and trust­ed by some of the top brands in the country. 

Today, Rick Williams, who stepped in as the pres­i­dent in 2004, is a stew­ard of the val­ues held by the founders and has led the com­pa­ny fear­less­ly into new mar­kets and geographies. 

In 2005, the com­pa­ny expand­ed from its res­i­den­tial roots into com­mer­cial paint­ing. Tak­ing on church­es, schools, and com­mer­cial offices, to name a few, Williams found that he was not one to run from a chal­lenge. ​“I love get­ting the call for a job that some­one says, ​‘Hey, we’ve talked to six painters, and they can’t fig­ure it out.’ I know we can fig­ure it out,” says Williams.

In 2019, Williams real­ized that their cus­tomers with nation­al brands loved their work so much that they began ask­ing them if they could do projects at their oth­er loca­tions. In response, the team cre­at­ed their mul­ti-loca­tion trav­el­ing paint­ing ser­vices com­pa­ny: Will­Go Nation­al Paint­ing. ​“Nation­wide paint­ing with a local feel” is their mis­sion. ​“Once we found a cus­tomer and built a rela­tion­ship, it just made sense to do work for them at all their loca­tions. For them, it’s eas­i­er than hav­ing to find a new con­trac­tor at every loca­tion,” said Williams. 

The addi­tion would have been a chal­lenge for many paint­ing com­pa­nies, but their adept use of tech­nol­o­gy allows them to assess, plan, and man­age a trav­el­ing team smooth­ly. It even adds an oppor­tu­ni­ty for adven­ture to those employ­ees who want to trav­el and expe­ri­ence a new loca­tion while work­ing for the same company.

Notable Projects

Williams Pro­fes­sion­al Paint­ing serves many com­mer­cial build­ings, but church­es stand out as one of the big­ger nich­es. They even offer dec­o­ra­tive work, includ­ing gold leaf­ing and stat­ue restora­tion. ​“The stat­ues are real­ly inter­est­ing because they are so old and del­i­cate. We have pic­tures of painters in a big lift, clean­ing a bronze stat­ue with a lit­tle tooth­brush very care­ful­ly,” says Williams. 

They were even cho­sen to paint a nation­al icon, St. John’s Epis­co­pal Church. Known as The Church of the Pres­i­dents, it was built in 1815, and every pres­i­dent since James Madi­son has attend­ed ser­vice at the church. Williams Pro­fes­sion­al Paint­ing took on the com­plex exte­ri­or repaint, includ­ing car­pen­try work to fix wood rot repairs, prep­ping, prim­ing, and painting. 

Favorite Mar­ket­ing Strategies

In the same way they bring qual­i­ty and atten­tion to detail to their paint­ing projects, Williams Pro­fes­sion­al Paint­ing stands out for their thought-out, well-round­ed approach to sales and marketing. 

Repeat cus­tomers and refer­rals make up a large por­tion of their busi­ness, thanks to their excel­lent cus­tomer ser­vice and qual­i­ty work. Yet, they do not skimp on out­bound and dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing efforts, includ­ing Google Ads, SEO, and LinkedIn to pull in new leads. They’re thank­ful to have a great mar­ket­ing guide in A David Cre­ation to keep them rel­e­vant and ahead of the curve as the ecosys­tem changes often and quick­ly. ​“It’s nice to have some­one like David, because he helps us nav­i­gate and posi­tion us and keep up with changes,” says Williams. 

They cer­tain­ly don’t stop with mar­ket­ing. Williams Pro­fes­sion­al Paint­ing invests in a robust boots-on-the-ground effort as well. ​“We have a cou­ple of peo­ple who are just ded­i­cat­ed to busi­ness devel­op­ment. They are rela­tion­ship spe­cial­ists: meet­ing with peo­ple, net­work­ing, doing walk-ins, cold call­ing, email­ing, etc.” This allows them to heav­i­ly focus on build­ing valu­able rela­tion­ships that lead to new jobs for years to come. 

As Williams Pro­fes­sion­al Paint­ing ven­tures into its 46^th year and Will­Go Nation­al Paint­ing Ser­vices hits the road for nation­al jobs, we can­not wait to see what they do next.