We asked readers what they want in the next 90 days. One wrote "Lead time booked jobs scheduled 8 weeks out." Another wrote two words: "Huge backlog."

A full board is the goal for a lot of companies. Once you have it, the next question shows up fast: is the wait costing you sold work, and do you need another crew?

Nobody has measured the first part for tree work. The closest real test comes from retail. In 2006, researchers from Northwestern, Duke and MIT followed out-of-stock orders at a catalog company and tracked what happened by how long the customer was told to wait. Waits up to about three weeks barely moved the numbers. Past 40 days, cancellations nearly doubled.

That's catalog goods, not a removal over somebody's garage. Solar points the other way. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory looked at 199,665 residential solar contracts in a January 2022 report. Installers had ranked permitting delays among the top reasons customers cancel. In the permitting stage, cancelled and installed jobs ran on nearly the same timelines, and the authors wrote that "longer cycle times are not specifically associated with unsuccessful projects."

A long wait costs some businesses sold work and others nothing. Most owners answer a long queue by hiring. That's the slowest, most expensive fix on the list. Korey Conry, a Certified Treecare Safety Professional, wrote in TCI Magazine's August/September issue that "it is often not until the second or third year that employees begin to generate significant net value." Hire in June to clear a spring queue, and if that queue is gone by January, you're carrying a multi-year bet on a seasonal problem.

There's cheaper capacity to try first: a sub a couple of days a week, overtime or a Saturday crew, or turning down the small, low-margin jobs. Some work can move to the slow months, too. Peterson Tree Care in Springville, Utah, "encourages clients who need extensive pruning to schedule that work for winter," according to the same TCI Magazine issue.

Write the quoted start week on every estimate, and let your own close rate tell you when to hire.

There's no published rule for how many weeks of backlog means add a crew. Your estimates can answer it for your market in one season.

Action Steps:

If you work in oak wilt country, oak pruning is some of the easiest backlog to move into winter, and you have a solid reason to give the customer. The Minnesota DNR wrote in December 2025: "Now through February is a great time to prune or cut oaks without the risk of oak wilt infection." Michigan puts the high-risk period at April 15 through July 15. Windows vary by state, so check yours. Book oak jobs for the dormant months and they come off the spring pile.

A full board feels like proof you're doing it right, and plenty of owners are working hard to get one. It can also be sold work quietly walking out the door. Your own estimates will tell you which one you have. Find out before you put a new guy on the payroll.

Have you ever lost a job because your wait was too long? Reply and tell me what kind of job it was. Those are the stories I want to hear.

Here's to filling the calendar with the right work!

- Jacob Hastings

The Backcut