This was from the latest edition of The Optimized Report newsletter, a collection of actionable ideas to help small business teams improve their performance, profit, and potential without sacrificing what's most important.

Hiring happens on a spectrum.

On one end of the spectrum, you feel you need to hire someone quickly because you need the help. On the opposite side, your controlitis kicks in, and you try to convince yourself, "I can do it better myself, so I might as well just keep doing it."

If you're a control freak, get that under control.

But if you're ready to make a hire, whether it's your first or thousandth employee, ask yourself these five questions before you start the recruitment process.

Question 1: How could we redesign the processes we're hiring for so it takes less time, money, and energy to get the same or better result?

This question forces you to improve your processes.

Defaulting to "we need to hire" is an easy way to ignore broken systems. Always fix your systems first. You never want to hire someone into a flawed system unless you hire them to create the system.

Question 2: How can we automate the processes we're hiring for to deliver the same result?

Stop relying on human potential for redundant, simple tasks.

By asking yourself this question, you'll expose yourself to new ways you can automate the most basic tasks within your core processes.

Question 3: How can we make the areas of responsibility or processes we're hiring for so simple that any new hire could execute them successfully with little or no training?

The goal of every manager should be to simplify their processes so that anyone "off the street" can execute them.

Question 4: If money wasn't a factor, how could we redesign our core processes? If we had a severely small budget, how would we go about redesigning the processes?

Force yourself to think wild and conservatively about how you could improve your processes with as much and as little money as possible. This is a thinking exercise to stretch your ideas.

Question 5: Is this a core area of our business (like sales, product design, etc.), or can we hire a contractor or company to perform the activities (accounting, logistics, payroll, etc.)?

You don't always have to hire an internal employee.

You can outsource a lot of business processes. Jason Calacanis recommends, "If it's administrative or repeatable, outsource it. Keep everything strategic in-house."

If your best ideas cost less than a new employee, you know where you need to start.

TL;DR

• Before you make a hire, do this:

• Improve your systems.

• Look areas to automate.

• Simplify your systems so anyone can execute them.

• Consider outsourcing.