How do I stop being the bottleneck in my own shop?
Short answer
Find the three decisions only you can make. Train someone on two of them in the next 90 days.
Find the chokepoints
Ask the team: what do you wait on me for? Their answers are your bottlenecks. Usually it's quoting, scheduling exceptions, or vendor problems.
Hand off in steps
Decision rights with limits: 'You can quote anything under $X without asking me. Above that, text me a number and I'll respond in an hour.' The limit shrinks the question and grows their confidence.
Ask your version of this question
This is one business owner-tested take. Your shop size, trade, and team change the answer. Ask the exact version inside Ask a Shop Owner and get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.
Now run it against your numbers.
This answer is written for shops in general. Inside Ask a Shop Owner it becomes your answer: your revenue, your crew, your market, your history. Ask "How do I stop being the bottleneck in my own shop" and get the version that accounts for what you already told us.
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