I work in a small contracting office. We are never the "low bidder" because we plan for some unexpected difficulties, and we are not "Change Order Artists". With the economy as is, its kind of difficult to get work since bigger companies have enough funding that they can undercut small businesses to tread water.

Any suggestions for what we can do to leverage our small business style?

As a small business, you can often squeak out a small profit on a job, or in a niche market, where bigger companies can’t because you have lower overhead.

As a small business, you can adopt new tools, technologies, methods, etc. far more quickly than your larger counterparts. This flexibility can be a huge source of competitive advantage.

As a small business, you can still go head-to-head with larger competitors by subcontracting some of the work to other small businesses; this gives you "just in time" scalability. Every time you subcontract you surrender a portion of your profit margin, but it keeps you in the game.

As a small business, you have greater growth potential than many larger competitors, which can make it easier to secure venture capital from investors who want to grow, replicate or franchise a business with a winning model.