Grow your business & chase your dream
Business Pioneers Advice & Solutions
Turn your life's work into your legacy
You’re a business owner who has everything on the line with your business. You’ve sacrificed family time, a load of money ─ and plenty of sleep ─ for the promise of financial freedom, and security for you and those you care about.
It’s your dream to build a legacy that you can put your name on. You want a due reward for your efforts: to see your business and people thrive, get your succession plan in place, and to exit feeling proud of your hard work and sacrifice.
We understand you.
We understand that time is never on your side: you want answers you can trust, guidance that fits your schedule, and a financial partner to help shoulder the load.
If that’s the way you feel, then let’s talk about how we can help you.
TURN YOUR LIFE’S WORK INTO YOUR LEGACY
Many business owners come to us seeking answers to these questions.
What is my business worth?
How do I go about funding it?
Am I maximizing the tax mitigation opportunities?
How should I attract, retain and incentivize my employees?
How will the sale of my business affect my retirement?
What’s my succession plan if something unexpected happens to me?
Who can I trust to guide me through all the layers?
“Business Owners are fully invested in their business. They do it all, but don’t have the time to dive into taxes, retirement plans, and exit strategies. We help them understand the important details so they can make educated decisions that fit their goals.”
Mike Smith, Financial Consultant
PROSPERITY-BASED PLANNING
WestStar’s advisors and firms help business owners gain clarity on their goals and options, plus real confidence and assuredness in their decisions. Our clients get a 360° plan that builds and protects their all-around prosperity.
This means focusing on both your personal and business financial plans.
We’ll guide you and coach you through the processes that center on these financial planning imperatives.
- Financial Planning
- Business Financial Planning
- Succession & Employee Benefits Planning
- Tax Advice & Social Security Planning
- Investment Management
- Personal and Business Insurance
- Retirement Planning
- Estate Planning
These imperatives are brought together through our holistic planning approach, and find direction and dynamism in your personalized 360° Roadmap. We don’t simply advise you on what to do, we show you how to do it, and shoulder a significant portion of the load.
A holistic plan for today & tomorrow
Business owners need to create a holistic plan that spans every aspect of their financial life. It’s always beneficial to divide their financial planning into business and personal plans.
We provide for long-term success through a holistic financial planning framework.
That includes regular strategy sessions, close mentoring and monitoring, and blended advice for all of your business and personal financial interests.
Our clients rest easy, knowing these interests are aligned, and that they have the path to prosperity clearly road-mapped. Our professional direction and guidance gives them confidence and clarity in their decision-making.
Once we’ve agreed on your priorities and milestones, we develop and employ the most appropriate investment, compensation, risk, and tax strategies.
Your Navigator 360° Roadmap is a strategic plan that embodies your personal and business goals, pinpoints your priorities, and maps the journey ahead.
Your Roadmap also serves as a communication tool that articulates our strategic thinking in a clear, understandable, and actionable way.
WestStar’s Navigator make a complex journey simple, easy to follow and perfectly clear.
“Our clients find confidence in working together with us in pursuit of their dreams. They never feel like an account number: instead, we forge partnerships built on trust, transparency, continued communication and contact. With regular check-ins and reviews, they know we’re monitoring and tracking their financial plan’s progress, and providing solutions based on their results, changes to their goals, and life events. They can be certain they’re receiving well-considered investments and advice, and feel protected in today’s ever-changing world.”
Mark Serafini, Financial Consultant
Tech and Tools that put you in the driver's seat
Your Navigator 360° Roadmap is a step-by-step plan that will route you to your goals in the most efficient way possible. Beneath the dashboard lies a simulator that measures your plan in multiple scenarios.
With Navigator, we can measure your probability of success, and create scenarios that show you your trajectory based on our recommendations.
It’s an incredible tool that brings your overall personal and business prosperity into focus.
Your Roadmap is robust and essential to what we do from the start. It is strategically reviewed throughout our journey together, tracking your progress and course-correcting when necessary.
Personal Planning
Your business is a key asset in your individual financial plan. Understanding what happens to it when you’re gone is essential both to your financial goals and confidence.
We help you to determine an accurate valuation of your business, and incorporate it into your personalized financial plan.
While your business plays a major part in your life, planning for your own retirement ─ and things like saving for your kids’ education, and minimizing taxes ─ can all come into play.
We help you create assets outside your business. Often, these assets are protected from bankruptcy and creditors. We work with you to ensure that your spouse and children are protected and cared for should the worst happen.
Some of the big questions that I help my clients with include: “Am I saving enough to achieve my goals and successfully fund my dream retirement? How should I save for my children’s college without sacrificing my own retirement savings? How can I best protect my retirement savings as I approach the end of my career?”
Jason Hewett, Financial Consultant
Business Financial Planning
Juggling the financial aspects of your business requires a deft hand: how best to structure ownership, and manage cash flows, profits, income, risk ─ and more.
Our goal is to establish your foundations for business growth through regular discussions between you and your financial advisor.
Succession Planning
To free up time to work on the business you must attract, retain, and motivate the right kind of talent. Your organizational structure needs to support task delegation and the development of tomorrow’s leaders (and potential future owners).
Business growth rarely happens by chance, and we find that high-growth businesses are those with employee benefits and plans to reward and retain key people.
We have advisors and firms in our Network that are specialists in Employee Benefits. One thing we make sure to consider is the potential for adding insurance on the lives of key people – like partners and founders – and so provide for your business’ continuity while mitigating your risks.
BALANCING BUSINESS AND PERSONAL GOALS
When we develop your roadmap, we keep your personal and business financial goals in balance.
Is it better to put profits back into the business, or to use profits to build a retirement plan for your future?
The former makes you fully reliant on yourself and continued business growth. The latter will provide security for you in the event the business fails. It’s a choice that requires careful consideration.
Our knowledge and experience bring you confidence, knowing that you’ve made the right decisions for your unique situation.
Investment Planning
In our experience, most of our business owner clients have self-financed their businesses. It is not unusual to find that the business is its owner’s major (or sole) investment.
When owners have extra capital to invest, they often choose to invest in the business.
Control is a powerful motivator, but far-sighted planning requires diversification to offset the concentrated risks that business owners take. We carefully evaluate and select outside assets for your personal portfolio, which may be protected from bankruptcy and creditors, so all your eggs are never in one basket.
Investment Strategies
In developing a plan that fits your needs, we will discuss any appropriate strategies, as well as your goals and risk tolerance.
Our open architecture affords us access to an extremely broad spectrum of professional money managers and funds.
Our Business Pioneer Advice and Solutions bring top tools and technology to make your investment strategy dynamic and transparent.
OUR EASY-TO NAVIGATE INVESTMENT PLATFORM
We will present and review your finalized financial plan with you. We will propose and explain investment allocation and initiate account opening processes.
Our platform is easy to use, and your investments are easily viewed and understood on our intuitive dashboard.
Investment Portfolio Management
When developing your investment strategy, we focus on your unique circumstances, goals and values, rather than sales and products.
Some of the many questions we’ll seek to answer are:
- What goals do you want your funds to accomplish?
- What time horizons will govern their deployment?
- What expectations do you have for risk and reward?
- How do you want your portfolio to be balanced?
- Are your funds qualified for tax deferral?
We understand that your goals and priorities will change over time, and your WestStar Network advisor will review progress with you regularly, and evaluate your portfolio to keep you on track towards your goals.
Tax Planning
Business ownership affords all sorts of tax-advantaged ways to save for retirement, along with the option to put aside amounts far larger than those allowable to non-business owners.
We provide a deep analysis of your tax advantaged investment and Social Security options.
Tax efficiency is vital when your time comes to collect Social Security. Our Network Advisors provide retirement income planning strategies, help you decide the best time to take benefits, and show you how to stay within tax brackets.
This may mean working in concert with your tax advisor to deliver integrated advice.
Business Risk Management
While it’s important to focus on how to grow and secure your business’ future, it’s just as crucial to put protections in place from the risks that could impair your financial situation.
As a business owner, your risks escalate to include the interruption of your business due to the death or disability of those who are essential to its success, or due to a natural disaster.
We have advisors and firms in our Network that are specialists in Employee Benefits, Group Health Insurance, Group Dental & Vision Insurance, FSA & HRA Programs, Group Life & Disability Insurance, Business Insurance, and Cybersecurity Insurance.
Life Insurance
We assess business succession funding and estate planning aspects, seeking to structure an income tax and estate tax free vehicle.
Disability Insurance
We look to protect your income should you become unable to work before you have gained financial freedom.
Long-term care
We evaluate your options for financial support should you require adult care, respite care, or assisted living.
Retirement Planning
Most of our Network’s business owner clients get a real kick out of what they do. They often assume they’ll never retire, and they view their business as an adequate retirement plan in and of itself.
These assumptions need testing ─ we find that business owners are likely to need more retirement planning, not less.
It’s crucial to prepare for a time when the business owner is either no longer able to ─ or no longer wishes to ─ work; or the business can no longer provide for their financial needs.
“We help business owners who are within 10 years of retirement to build a strategy that can help them retire when they want (not when the market allows). I like to say: “Let’s create a strategy so it doesn’t matter whether the Dow is 40k or 10k – we’ll have a strategy in place for a variety of market conditions.”
Jarrod Haynes, Financial Consultant
Estate Planning
When a business grows to become a valuable asset in your estate, simple wills or family trusts might not be adequate.
More sophisticated financial planning techniques may be necessary to ensure aspects like business continuity after death, the reduction of estate taxes assessed for the business, and provision of liquidity to your heirs to pay those taxes.
WestStar is here to make sure your business transfers smoothly. We consider the (sometimes) pivotal role of insurance and charitable trusts, reorganize the business when necessary to create alternative types of ownership for family members, and make full use of IRS-approved discounts in valuing the business for purposes of gift and estate taxes.
Relationships built on trust
WestStar Network Advisors believe that trust is earned. Our relationships are real, honest and candid. We say what we do, and we do what we say.
Our personal touch and care is evident in all of our relationships, many of which have served business owners and their families’ best interests for decades.
As business owners ourselves, our insight and experience make us valuable sounding boards for clients who wonder if they’re making the best decisions.
We also connect our clients with other professionals, as well as groups like Vistage, YPO, and EO to give them perspective and grow their knowledge beyond what we offer as their financial mentors.
If that sounds like a relationship worth pursuing, then we would be delighted to partner with you on your pioneering quest.