The Keystone Method™
Keystone is built for the moment your money questions start tangling together. For most people that is one of two doors: retirement is getting close, or the business is doing well enough that tax and owner decisions deserve a real process. Roth conversion and retirement tax-window questions usually live inside the retirement path.
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 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.
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.
A lot of financial planning engagements produce a plan document. You leave with a PDF. You put it in a drawer. Six months later, the recommendations haven't happened, because recommendations don't implement themselves.
Keystone is structured differently. Over roughly six months we go through your financial life together, and most of the work happens between the meetings, done for you by our team. The meetings themselves, usually four to five at most, exist for two things: the input only you can give, and making sure you understand every step as deeply as you want to. You are paying to have this done for you. You are not paying for meetings.
The input part matters more than people expect. A balance sheet or a tax return is a picture. I want the movie: how you got here, what you learned about money along the way, and the life you are actually trying to fund. The understanding part matters just as much, because understanding is what creates confidence, and confident decisions are the ones that hold.
Some of the work I do directly. Tax analysis, allocation adjustments, coordination with your CPA or attorney, the Roth conversion paperwork, the beneficiary form review. Some of it you do yourself, because it is your signature on the document or your conversation to have. But you are never doing it alone, and you are never improvising.
Not a plan document that sits on a shelf. Not a sales process dressed up as planning. Not a one-time consultation where you leave with questions instead of answers. Not a product pitch with financial planning bolted on the front.
A six-month working engagement where we go through your whole financial picture together, make the decisions that have been waiting, and get the actions those decisions require into motion.
The best version of this engagement is one where I'm doing the work of leading, and you're doing the work of being the person whose life it is. Those are different jobs.
My job is to know what to ask, what order to ask it in, what's worth analyzing deeply and what's worth setting aside, and how decisions in one area ripple into three others. I've sat across the table from people in situations like yours more times than I can count.
Your job is to be clear about what you actually want. Not the sanitized version. Not what sounds reasonable. The real thing. You make the final calls on decisions that are genuinely yours to make. I handle the rest.
There isn't a rigid script. Every client's situation dictates which pieces need attention first, and in what order. What stays the same across every engagement is the shape of the work and the rhythm of the meetings.
What stays the same
Usually four to five meetings at most across roughly six months. Between meetings, our team handles the analysis, modeling, and coordination, which is where most of the work actually happens. You get a clear agenda before every session and a written summary after, so nothing gets lost.
What flexes
The sequence and emphasis. A client five years from retirement with concentrated stock will spend different time than a business owner three years from a sale. The framework is the same. The depth shifts to where decisions are actually waiting.
What you walk away with is not a binder. It is order, a working system for your money, and the understanding that makes it yours.
Decisions resolved
The Roth conversion strategy for the next several years. The withdrawal sequencing plan. The asset location across accounts. The beneficiary designations across every account. The estate document gaps and how they will be filled. The insurance coverage that is right-sized to your situation. Every major decision has a reason behind it that you understand.
Coordinated actions, completed or in motion
Conversions initiated. Beneficiary forms updated. Allocations shifted. Policies reviewed with recommendations to your agent or attorney. Tax elections filed. I handle the work I am best positioned to handle. You handle what is genuinely yours to do. Either way, nothing gets dropped. We are tracking every open item to completion.
A written summary of what was decided, and why
A short document you can refer back to. Covers the decisions we made, the reasoning, the actions taken, and anything still outstanding. Your spouse can read it. Your heirs eventually could too.
A clear next chapter, known from the start
By the end we have wrapped our minds around your whole picture together, which is what makes the next chapter possible: Ongoing Advisory covers your planning, your strategy, and your investment management, and Tax Membership covers tax strategy, preparation, and the tax side of your cash flow through the year. Many families choose both, some choose one, and some leave in good enough shape to manage independently until life changes. Every one of those endings is fine, and none of them will surprise you, because they are on the table from meeting one.
Choose one, the other, or both.
Every client follows the same Keystone shape. The tier reflects the complexity of the decisions, not how hard we work.
$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:
$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:
Starts at $20,000
scoped individually, six-month engagement
For unusually layered situations where the standard scope does not quite fit. Multiple entities, multi-state issues, concentrated equity, inheritance, divorce, or estate structures that span generations.
Typical examples:
If the main question is retirement timing, income, taxes, investments, and the next chapter of life, Keystone Personal is almost certainly right. If you own a business, have meaningful K-1 income, or manage entities alongside personal wealth, Keystone Owner is the fit.
Keystone Custom is reserved for unusually layered situations where the scope needs to be designed around the work, usually when multiple entities, cross-border considerations, a major transition, or generational estate structures are involved.
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.
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.
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: Ongoing Advisory, which covers your planning, your strategy, and your investment management, and Tax Membership, 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.
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.
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.
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.
