What should we automate before hiring the next person?

The five tasks always worth it: first response to leads, follow-up reminders, meeting booking, invoicing and payment chasing, and the weekly report. If these five are still manual, hiring means paying a salary for work a machine could do.

What should we NOT automate?

Anything requiring human judgment: the personal follow-up messages themselves, responses to pricing objections, customer prioritization decisions, and anywhere a wrong answer burns trust. Automation is for repetition, not relationships.

What's the right order of automation, outsourcing, and hiring?

Automation first (cheapest and most durable), then outsourcing specialized low-frequency work, and hiring last — only when the remaining work genuinely needs a full-time human. The reverse order creates a fixed cost that is hard to walk back.

Before Hiring Your Next Person, Automate These Five Things

By Hassan Saber · 5 min read

Hiring is the most expensive fix for a problem that is often solved with a few hours of automation.

نسخه‌ی فارسی · All articles