What you want
What matters to you, what worries you, and what you want life to look like. We need to hear that from you.
The Keystone Method™
Six months.
One whole picture.
The work gets done.
Planning, investments, and tax strategy brought together, with the work carried out for you along the way.
The pieces belong together
About six monthsUsually four to five meetings
$6,000 Personal$12,000 Owner · One flat fee
Fully refundableDuring the engagement, for any reason
Two optional services afterWealth Advisory · Tax Advisory ↗Explore the Keystone Method
Why together
Planning. Investing. Taxes.
Working together.
We go broad before we go deep. Your tax decisions shape your investment decisions, which shape your estate decisions, which shape your cash flow, and a retirement date moves all four. Advising on any one of them at a fiduciary level means understanding all of them first.
That is why Keystone comes first, and why it does two jobs at once. It gets done the things you probably need done, and it builds the whole-picture understanding everything after it stands on. The frame of the house is agreed before the finish work starts.
Tax Advisory or a managed portfolio without that frame would be incomplete work, and we would rather do the whole job.
Explore a retirement decision →Planning, investments, and tax strategy stay connected throughout the engagement.
Where the time goes
We do the work.
Here’s where we need you.
Over about six months, we handle the research, analysis, and implementation for you. Your main commitment is usually four or five hour-long meetings, where we need your active participation. Those conversations help us understand what you want and help you understand the strategy we’re putting in place.
The work we carry for youAn illustrative rhythm. The work follows your situation.
Follow the six months. Scroll across the timeline →
- Opening conversationYour story
We research and model your situation
- A meeting along the wayUnderstanding your strategy
We develop and put strategies in place
- A meeting along the wayYour participation
We carry out the agreed work
- A meeting along the wayQuestions worked through
We review what’s complete and what remains
- By the closeWhere things stand
Occasionally, a signature, approval, or other step needs you outside a meeting. We prepare you for it and help you get it done.
Your perspective
The numbers tell us part of the story. Your preferences and the tradeoffs you’re comfortable with shape the work, too.
Your understanding
We work through your strategy together, starting with what you already understand, until the reasoning makes sense to you.
What you take with you
A plan you understand.
The work put into practice.
What we do depends on what your life calls for.
A few examples, when needed
- Updating investments, including accounts held elsewhere.
- Putting tax strategies into practice.
- Guiding you through your estate documents on an online estate planning platform, from the first draft through signing and notarization.
- Reviewing your insurance coverage with you and helping you update it where the plan calls for it.
- 01
The work put into practice
We do as much as we can for you, with your involvement where it’s needed.
- 02
Understanding what you have
You know how your strategy fits your life and why we arrived at it together.
- 03
A record you can return to
What’s in place, why it’s there, and who is handling anything still open.
Sized to your life
The same whole picture.
A different emphasis.
Someone retiring next spring brings different priorities from a household five years away. Choose an example and watch the areas resize and the path change.
Choose a life
The path through them
The order blends what matters most to you with what actually moves the needle. Usually four to five meetings at most, and most of the work happens between them.
Illustrative situations show how the emphasis can change. Your engagement is shaped around your own circumstances.
Fees and fit
A clear engagement.
One flat fee.
Personal covers the household’s financial picture. Owner adds the complexity of a business. Both run about six months, usually four to five meetings, with most of the work done for you between them. The initial conversations help establish which fits.
For your household
Keystone Personal
$6,000 one flat fee
Especially the years when retirement timing, income, taxes, investments, Medicare, and estate decisions need to work together.
The work this can include
- Retirement income strategy mapped, with timing and withdrawal actions initiated
- Multi-year Roth conversion and tax-window plan decided, paced, and ready for execution
- Tax strategy coordinated across the year, with the next filing-season and year-end steps clear
- Investment allocation adjusted to match the income, tax, and risk decisions in the plan
- Estate planning process driven through document, beneficiary, account-title, and execution steps
For your household and business
Keystone Owner
$12,000 one flat fee
For owners whose business materially shapes the personal picture, including owner pay, business cash flow, taxes, and retirement plans.
Everything in Personal, plus
- Owner compensation structure translated into salary, distribution, reserve, and tax-payment decisions
- Business tax strategy coordinated with personal tax strategy and tracked through implementation
- Retirement plan design reviewed against profit, cash flow, and owner goals
- Entity structure examined for whether it still fits the tax and personal plan
- Owner-pay rhythm created for what stays in the business and what comes home
Room to decide whether it’s right.
Keystone is fully refundable at any point during the engagement, for any reason.
Start to finish
One way in.
Your choice of what follows.
Every relationship begins with Keystone. Once it is complete, two ongoing services open, each optional, both available from the day Keystone ends. Both, either, or neither.
-
Explore Call
Fifteen minutes
Free. Whether we should work together at all.
-
Strategy Session
One hour
We review what you've shared and decide together what the build should focus on.
-
Months one to six
Flat fee, once. $6,000 personal, $12,000 owner. Refundable in full at any point.
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Keystone complete
Then, optional
-
1.00% of managed assets, from the month your money is managed.
$200 a month, or $400 for business owners.
Both, either, or neither. It is on the table from meeting one, and some engagements end here, happily.
Through Talley Wealth
Wealth Advisory
1.00% of managed assets
Someone to ask about anything involving money who holds your whole picture, your investments managed as a fiduciary in accordance with your plan, and someone proactively thinking about your situation, all year, with a spring and a fall session to work through it together. The fee starts the month your money is managed, usually near the end of Keystone. For the year it is the larger of 1.00% of what we manage or $5,000, with lower rates above $2M.
If the portfolio is the only job, we manage it at the same schedule, with no minimum and one review a year.
Wealth Advisory, in full →Through Talley Tax, our tax firm
Tax Advisory
$200 a month, or $400 for business owners
The whole tax year carried by someone who already holds your picture: every return you file prepared, filed, and signed by David, an Enrolled Agent, withholding and estimates reset each spring, a summer projection, a fall strategy session, and IRS letters handled. It replaces the preparer bill the way Wealth Advisory replaces an advisor fee.
A tax year with nothing to carry can be just the return, $750 a year, flat.
The Tax Advisory year →How the two fit
With Wealth Advisory, the plan decides the tax moves, how much to convert, which account pays first, when to gift, and Tax Advisory carries the year those decisions land in, and files. On its own, Tax Advisory does both.
Before you decide
A few questions
worth asking.
Keystone is delivered from our Johnson City office, in person or virtually.
The local picture →Can I start with just one area, like tax or retirement income?
No, and the reason is the method itself. We go broad before we go deep. Your tax decisions shape your investment decisions, which shape your estate decisions, which shape your cash flow, and advising on any one of them at a fiduciary level means understanding all of them first. Keystone gets done the things you probably need done and builds that understanding at the same time. If you want help with one piece and nothing more, an hourly advisor is probably the better fit.
Do I have to move my investments to work with you?
No. Whether any account moves is decided together during Keystone, based on what the plan needs. If it does not need to happen, it will not. Later, the Wealth Advisory fee applies only to what we manage, and an account that stays where it is, a 401(k) still at work being the usual case, still gets planned around.
What comes after your Keystone Method?
Two ongoing services open the day Keystone is complete, and each is optional. Wealth Advisory is 1.00% of managed assets, from the month your money is managed. Tax Advisory, through Talley Tax, our tax firm, is $200 a month, or $400 for business owners, with the return included. Both, either, or neither. With Wealth Advisory, the plan decides the tax moves, how much to convert, which account pays first, when to gift, and Tax Advisory carries the year those decisions land in, and files. On its own, Tax Advisory does both. If the portfolio is the only job, we manage it at the same schedule with no minimum and one review a year, and a tax year with nothing to carry can be just the return, $750 flat. Some households finish Keystone, take the system home, and come back when life changes. That is a good ending too.
When does the advisory fee start?
The month your money is managed. For most households that is near the end of Keystone, once the plan has settled what the portfolio should look like. The Keystone fee does not change either way.
Is Keystone really refundable?
Yes. Fully. If at any point during the engagement you decide Keystone is not the right fit, for any reason, I will refund what you have paid. I would rather you leave a partial engagement feeling fairly treated than stay in one that is not working.
How much of the work do you actually do versus me doing it?
I lead the work. That means I run the analysis, set the agendas, ask the questions that matter, and coordinate everything moving between meetings. Some of the execution is mine to do directly. Some of it needs to be yours, because it is your signature or your conversation. When it is yours, I have prepared you for it and I am in the chain. The one thing that does not happen is you sitting at home searching for what to do next. That is my job.
The whole relationship
Three numbers,
start to finish.
The Keystone fee once, then the two ongoing services if you choose them. Nothing else on the page is a fee.
The next conversation
Start with what’s
on your mind.
Fifteen minutes by phone with David. No cost or preparation.