Matt Gartland breaks down the critical tools needed to run your business, and how much you should spend on them.

When I first started my business I spent a lot of money on fancy business tools. I thought they automagically make me successful as I fell into the “you have to spend money to make money” trap.

As you may have guessed, I was wrong. Want to do things the right way?

In this week’s episode of the Launch Your Business podcast Matt Gartland breaks down all the tools you need to get started, and how much you should spend on them. Matt is the Co-Founder of SPI Media (the company behind Smart Passive Income), FuseBox and advises several tech startups. He’s an expert when it comes to operations, finance, pricing, product development, and customer experience as well as empowering marketing and sales. You get the point, he’s a great guy to know.

During our chat he shared the four tools every entrepreneur needs to save time and make money. Here are some of my key takeaways from our conversation.

Storage – Where do you capture your knowledge?

As an entrepreneur you need a reservoir for your thoughts, content and plans. And if you’re servicing clients, you also need a dedicated system for delivering onboarding or project management documents.

Putting some effort into how you’ll store your knowledge can save you a lot of time and confusion down the road. Matt recommends using some type of cloud based solution such as Google Drive. Most people are comfortable with the platform, it’s free to use and allows you to quickly update documents without needing to send a new file to the recipient.

If you’d like to have a bit more flexibility, consider Notion, a project management and note-taking platform designed to help you coordinate deadlines, objectives, and assignments.

There’s a bit more of a learning curve but based on the extra features you may find it worth the initial extra effort. You can customize your Notion board to effectively function as a hub and dashboard for all your most important projects.

I use both Notion and Google Drive, fortunately they both offer free versions so you can explore with no risk as well.

Website – Where can people learn about you and purchase your product?

Your website is the hub of your online presence so you’ll want to curate a good experience for visitors.

When you’re first starting out two questions typically come up in regard to your website:

• What content should I put on it?
• Who is going to build it?

The content will be unique to you and your business but here’s one universal tip; focus on the outcomes you provide, not how you do it.

In regard to building the site you have two options, you can do it yourself or pay someone else to build it.

Programs such as Squarespace and Wix make it relatively easy for non-technical people to create a great looking website. However, there may still be a need for some customization based on your desired outcome. This could take hours or weeks depending on your other time commitments and tech savviness.

So here’s what I recommend if you’re going to build it yourself; come up with a deadline. If your site isn’t ready to launch by a specific date, seek outside help.

Fortunately, both Squarespace and Wix have marketplaces for you to find vetted experts who can help you for less than $1,000.

As a heads up, if your business is focused on selling goods online you should definitely explore Shopify, a leader in the eCommerce website industry.

Email – How do you connect with your audience?

Entrepreneurs often ask me how they can get more social media followers. And although this may seem like the ultimate way to connect with your audience, building and nurturing your email list is the best way to consistently build relationships over a longer period of time.

So, which tool should you use? If you’re focusing on eCommerce you’ll definitely want to check out Klaviyo, an ecommerce marketing automation platform for email marketing and sms. It integrates well with Shopify and allows you to optimize your campaigns based on your customer’s previous behaviors, demographics and purchases.

If your main goal is to send newsletter and updates, Convertkit is my go to recommendation. It’s free for your first 300 subscribers and you can even leverage the provided landing pages as your initial website.

Again, they also have a marketplace where you can find experts to help you set up and maintain your system.

A word of advice, don’t just sell stuff through your newsletter. Instead, offer valuable information that will have your subscribers looking forward to the next issue. For my weekly newsletter (The Solopreneur’s Shortcut) I offer one thought, one time-saver and one tactic to help you make money and avoid burnout.

Consider using a similar templated approach as it will make it much easier for you to consistently provide valuable information to your audience.

Financial Management System – How can you get paid and handle payments?

This part is important.

Sure, it’s relatively easy to accept a payment, but you could be setting yourself up for a big headache if you don’t have a dedicated financial management system in place.

You’ll need a tool that can answer the following questions and more:

• How can you follow up with people who haven’t paid their invoice?
• What’s the best way to determine your budget and revenue projections?
• How much money should you set aside for taxes?

I didn’t bother considering any of these questions when I first launched and ended up with a $40k tax bill. So, don’t do that.

These days I use HoneyBook for my proposals and invoicing then connect it to Quickbooks so my CPA can easily pull out the information they need come tax season. If you have employees Matt recommends Gusto, a platform helps you onboard, pay, insure, and support your team.

What’s next?

Those were a few key takeaways from my conversation with Matt. To hear the full conversation and get access to additional resources tune in to this week’s episode of the Launch Your Business podcast.

And if you’d like to learn how you can start a professional service business, using the skills you already have, check out The Solopreneur’s Fast Track. A video course I created that teaches you how to determine your service offer, pricing and promotional strategy.

This article was written by Terry Rice, and originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com.