01
Explore Call
Fifteen minutes to see whether the fit is right and answer your first questions. If it is not the right fit, I will tell you directly.
The Keystone Method™
Before we manage anything, we understand everything.
The Keystone Method is the six-month engagement every relationship here begins with. It is built for the moment your money questions start tangling together: retirement is getting close, or the business is doing well enough that tax and owner decisions deserve a real process.
Schedule an Explore CallThe Keystone Method™ sets the piece that holds it all together: the confidence that comes from understanding your whole picture.
Keystone turns scattered financial pieces into a working system, held together by the confidence of understanding it.
Every financial decision affects the others.
A tax move affects the investments. A retirement date changes the estate plan. A business decision changes personal cash flow. Keystone exists so those decisions get made together, on purpose, instead of one at a time by different professionals who never talk.
The Path
Keystone comes first. Everything else opens after.
02
Strategy Session
A working meeting on your real numbers, built to be worth your time whether or not you go further.
03
The Keystone Method
Roughly six months. Four to five meetings at most, with most of the work done for you between them.
04
Two Optional Paths
Wealth Advisory carries the planning and investments. Tax Advisory carries the tax year. Choose one, the other, or both.
Real work, done for you.
You are paying to have this done for you, and the meetings exist for the two things only you can provide: your input and your understanding.
The meetings
Four to five at most across the six months. They exist for the input only you can give and for making sure you understand every step, because understanding is what makes decisions hold.
Between the meetings
Our team runs the analysis, the modeling, and the coordination with your CPA and attorney. This is where most of the work actually happens, and it is done for you.
Along the way
Decisions get implemented as they are made. Conversions initiated, beneficiary forms updated, allocations shifted, elections filed. Open items are tracked to completion.
The progress the Keystone Method makes.
By the end of the six months you have order, a working system for your money, and the understanding that makes it yours. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Decisions made, for reasons you understand
The Roth conversion strategy, the withdrawal sequencing, the asset location, the beneficiary designations, the estate document gaps and how they will be filled. Each one settled on purpose while the engagement is running.
Actions in motion before the six months are up
Conversions initiated, beneficiary forms updated, allocations shifted, elections filed. I handle what I am best positioned to handle, you handle what is genuinely yours, and every open item is tracked to completion.
A written record of what was decided and done
A short document covering the decisions, the reasoning, the actions taken, and anything still open. Your spouse can read it. Your heirs eventually could too.
Your Keystone, sized to your life.
Every Keystone covers the same ground, and none of them look alike. The circles grow and shrink to fit the life they serve. Pick a person who sounds a little like you and watch them resize.
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.
Two versions. Same framework.
The version reflects the complexity of the decisions, and the Explore Call settles which one fits.
Keystone Personal
$6,000
flat fee, six-month engagement
For households where the financial picture is mostly personal, especially the years when retirement timing, income, tax strategy, investments, Medicare, and estate decisions need to work together.
By the end of six months:
- 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
Keystone Owner
$12,000
flat fee, six-month engagement
For business owners where the entity materially shapes the personal outcome. The depth extends across tax strategy, owner pay, business cash flow, retirement plans, and personal wealth.
Everything in Keystone 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
The Whole Picture
What it costs, start to finish.
One fee to build the system, then two optional paths that carry it. Nothing after Keystone is automatic, and every fee is discussed before you decide anything.
First
The Keystone Method
$6,000 personal / $12,000 owner
Flat fee, once, roughly six months of work that ends with the decisions made, the actions in motion, and a written summary. Refundable in full at any point during the engagement, for any reason.
Then, if you continue
Wealth Advisory
1.00% on the first $2M
We manage the accounts and keep the plan current through the year: planning, strategy, and investment management. $5,000 annual minimum, declining brackets above $2M.
Tax Advisory
from $200/mo
Through Talley Tax, a separate business. The return prepared and filed, the planning windows, and the estimates handled. Business-owner pricing from $400/mo, and the exact fee is set after we see the return.
Choose one, the other, or both.
Both paths are optional. Some families finish Keystone, take the system home, and carry it themselves. That is a fine outcome, and it will not surprise anyone, because the choices are on the table from meeting one.
Common Questions
Can I start with just one area, like tax or retirement income?
Not really, and here is why. The reason Keystone exists is that those areas are not actually separate. Your tax strategy is shaped by your retirement income plan, which is shaped by your investment allocation, which is shaped by your estate picture. If you only want help with one piece, an hourly advisor is probably a better fit. If you want coordinated work across everything, that is what Keystone is for.
Do I have to move my investments to work with you?
No. Keystone is a planning engagement. Whether investments end up moving is a decision we make together during the work, based on what the plan actually needs. If it does not need to happen, it will not.
What happens after Keystone is complete?
By then we understand your full picture, so we can truly act as a fiduciary of it. There are two ways we keep carrying the work, and many families choose both: Wealth Advisory, which covers your planning, your strategy, and your investment management, and Tax Advisory, which covers tax strategy implementation, tax preparation, and the tax side of your cash flow. Some clients instead finish Keystone in good enough shape to manage independently and come back when life changes, and a small number decide partway through it is not the right fit and take the refund. All of those endings are valid.
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, not yours.
If this is the kind of work you're looking for.
The Explore Call is the next step. Fifteen minutes to see whether Keystone fits the situation and what the first meeting would look like. If it is not the right fit, I'll tell you directly. Already had your Explore Call? Reach out and we will pick up right where you left off.