Forty people can do the work. One person has the answers.
Every one of these needs you. None of them should.
Not a people problem. The answers live in your head.
of your week gone to questions someone else could answer, if the answer existed anywhere but in your head.
of the quotes you personally sign off do not need you. You see them because nobody else knows what is still in force.
calls a day while you are away. Which is why you stopped properly going away.
Three things, in the order we would do them.
You stop signing every quote.
Prices, lead times, agreed customer terms and discount limits sit in one place and stay current. Your people quote from what is actually in force today. You see only the exceptions.
You can leave for two weeks.
The things only you know get written down once, and stay right as the business changes. Your team stops needing you to unblock them, so the phone stops.
You stop being the answer desk.
The questions get answered without you, based on the latest data rather than one from two years ago that nobody realises was updated.
It worked for a month. Then it started being wrong.
Plenty of owners have already pointed some AI tool at their files. For a few weeks it looks like the answer. Then it starts confidently repeating things that used to be true.
We fix that part first. Everything above depends on it, and it is the reason the second attempt works when the first one did not.
Small, proven, then wider.
One thing first.
Whichever question interrupts you most. Not a transformation programme, not a platform.
Inside your business.
Our engineers work with your people, in your week, on your real jobs. Not from a brief and a kick-off deck.
Measured both ways.
We time it before and after, on the same work. If it made no difference, we know we failed.
A business that only works when you are in it is worth nothing without you.