If people had treated me with courtesy and respect, I probably wouldn't be in this business," Myron Andersen recalls.

It was the mid-1970s, and Andersen was a carpenter installing "shelves upon shelves every day" for The Buckle, a denim clothing chain based in Andersen's home city of Kearney, Neb. Andersen remembers the frustration he felt then at lumberyard contractor desks, when sales staff would lavish attention on larger customers, forcing him to the back of the line with little to no service.

Today Andersen runs Builders., a $44 million building materials business that is probably much bigger than any of the places where he got snubbed. But Builders. doesn't treat its customers like those places treated Andersen.

Younger contractors often need assistance and advice, so Builders. makes sure they get help on how to succeed, including a sit-down with company controller Renae Whitacre on how to set up a bookkeeping system and help from marketing director Scott Casper on promotion tools ranging from business cards and brochures to customized house wraps, billboards, and signs. "Our success is directly tied to their success," Andersen says.

Like that forthright statement and its potentially myriad conseqences, Builders. embraces both the simple and the complex. Its success in both regards have earned it ProSales' Dealer of the Year award.

The simple side starts with the company's logo, whose clean typography and simple roof-like peak over two letters make it memorably attractive for all sorts of media.