How to manage customer backlogs

No Dollar Left Behind Matt Plaskoff, president of Plaskoff Construction, a $10 million company doing about 30 remodels a year in the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles area, doesn’t exactly push the smaller jobs out when the volume gets untenable, but he has raised his average job size. “I tell [clients with small jobs] that if they can be flexible with timing I’ll put them on a waiting list.”

Plaskoff works with a subcontractor who has crews and supervision manpower for smaller projects. “I now have business that I’d normally have to turn down,” he says.

Plaskoff also spun off a company, One Week Bath, which only remodels bathrooms. Though the lead time on the bathrooms is a month to six weeks, customers are pleased to have the company quickly in and out of their homes.

Plaskoff expanded the selections list from the initial basic white, and notes that what he thought would be a “basement-bathroom” business has also attracted clients with high-end desires. These people want unique tile patterns and high-end fixtures. To keep up with the detail, Plaskoff added one man to each of his two-man crews and is still able to deliver a bath in a week. The average sale is $15,000, with a lower-end bathroom running about $10,000.

“Customers are not paying a premium to go fast,” he explains. “We’re just more efficient with our systems, have lots of crews, warehouse capability, and customized trucks.”

Right now the company has 40 employees, including 10 bathroom designers, which will soon grow once Plaskoff solidifies a pending partnership with The Home Depot and rolls the company nationwide by 2008.