As has been said, you know pickups, but we're talking about business. You might want to think about hiring a business consultant to set up some procedures and business rules to streamline all your processes. It'll save your sanity. They might even be able to help with hiring.
Have you thought about merging with one of your local competitors (if any are local)? That would increase your knowledgebase and production right away, while decreasing your competition in the market.
As far as the 8800 e-mails in your inbox, though, you might want to think about making a subfolder for each prospective client. As soon as a new inquiry comes in make a new subfolder and put all correspondance with that person in there, including your replies (point taken about people not using the same name always, that's something else entirely). That way you just need to find the name once and all your e-mails relating to that cust are in one place. As soon as your transaction is complete or gone stale with that customer move the subfolder into another called 'done' or something so that it's not cluttering up your inbox. It's a pretty rudimentary contact management system, but it's better than nothing.
One of the biggest hurdles for a small business owner to get over is in handing over business functions to employees. It's like letting your kid go to the mall for the first time by themselves. It's difficult, but if you want them to grow up (both kids and businesses) it's a necessary step.
Good luck.
