James Tartaglia

James Tartaglia is the founder and owner of Topgun Asphalt Maintenance, a pavement asset management company based in Moncton, New Brunswick. Like other asphalt maintenance companies, James and his crew only offered sealcoating, crack filling, and pothole patching at the onset.

He was quite hesitant to offer line striping to customers because of two reasons. One was the cost of investing in a line striping machine. For James, the line stripers are quite expensive, and he assumed that one had to acquire large-scale commercial jobs to pay off the initial investment for the machine.

Another roadblock for James was the assumption that line striping is not as lucrative as other asphalt maintenance services.

But after consulting with Asphalt Kingdom's Judd Burdon and other members of the community, James was finally convinced to invest in line striping equipment and start offering this service to commercial property owners.

How did his first foray into line striping go?

James's first line striping contract was to stripe lines in an apartment complex parking lot. The owner wanted only seven spots striped, so it was a relatively small-scale job. Little did James know that this would be his gateway to a better and more lucrative opportunity in line striping.

Instead of just providing line striping, James pitched crack filling, pothole patching, and sealcoating to the apartment complex owner. The owner agreed and what started out as a $200 job became a $2,000 job.

James Tartaglia Line Striping Photo: Example of Topgun Asphalt Maintenance's line striping work

According to James, the next line striping jobs started to come in like crazy. One project that stood out, in particular, was for a veterinary hospital. The facility's parking lot had not been striped for six or seven years, so the lines had already faded and the business's customers found it hard to navigate the parking lot.

This project had around 30 parking spots, complete with ADA-mandated handicapped signs and crosshatches. It was originally a $600 job, but James was smart enough to pitch the benefits of crack filling, pothole repairs, and sealcoating to the owner. What started as a $600 job turned into something where he would earn more than $5,000.

LOOKING FORWARD

While James and his crew were working the veterinary hospital's parking lot, he was approached by someone from Canadian Tire across the street who inquired about Topgun's asphalt maintenance services. The new customer asked James for a quote for crack filling a 60,000 sq ft parking lot, which meant another $3,000 to $4,000 in James's pocket.

James's fear that the line striping equipment would be too expensive and that he would not be able to recoup what he invested turned out to be unfounded. The line striping machine paid for itself after just two jobs and more line striping jobs snowballed from there.

James Tartaglia Line Striping 1