You don't have a money problem. You have a coordination problem.
Your advisor, your CPA, your attorney, your banker. Every one of them excellent at the job you gave them. None of them given the whole picture. That seat is empty in most successful households and it's the expensive one.
We're not after anyone's seat; there's plenty of work to go around. Most people who call keep every professional they have. They just stop being the one who carries the coordination. 8 minutes. Costs nothing.
Six seams · read them honestly · nothing to submit
Six questions about the team you've already built.
Not a judgment on anyone. These are just the six places where good professionals working separately tend to leave a seam — answer honestly and you’ll see your own. This is general information, not advice about your situation.Question 1
When did your advisor last speak to your CPA? Not emailed — spoke.
If you hesitated — Nobody owns the tax conversation
The plan and the tax return are being written by two people who don’t talk.
Question 2
Can you put your hands on a written plan — not a statement, not a performance report?
If you hesitated — There is no plan, only a portfolio
Performance answers ‘how did it do.’ It never answers ‘is this going to work.’
Question 3
Has anyone checked your beneficiary designations against your estate documents?
If you hesitated — Your documents may contradict each other
A designation from years ago overrides a trust drafted last month. It’s the most common expensive mistake we find.
Question 4
Has your life and disability coverage been reviewed in the last three years?
If you hesitated — Coverage priced for a life you no longer live
Income, debt and dependents move. Policies written years ago usually don’t.
Question 5
Does your advisor engage with your practice — entity, owner comp, plan design, what it’s worth?
If you hesitated — Your largest asset is outside the plan
For most owners the practice outweighs the portfolio, and it’s the part nobody is modeling.
Question 6
Does the word ‘taxes’ come up before December, or only after April?
If you hesitated — Tax is being reported to you, not planned with you
Almost everything worth doing has to happen before the year closes.
Every answer you’re not sure about is a seat nobody is sitting in.
One is worth a conversation. Three or more and you’re paying for part of the job — not because your advisor is falling short, but because coordination was never anyone’s assignment.
If you’re good on all six, your advisor is doing the whole job. That’s genuinely rare, and worth knowing for certain.
BOOK THE 8-MINUTE CALLNobody has to lose a seat for us to be useful.
READ THIS BEFORE YOU WORRY ABOUT IT
We work with other advisors more often than we replace them. Yours may be excellent at the part they were hired for. We don't devalue work you've already done or ask you to start over - we look for what nobody has been assigned, and we adjust where it's needed.
We don't need to be your final answer on everything. We do need somebody to be accountable for the whole picture, and right now that job may simply be vacant.
WHEN PEOPLE ACTUALLY CALL
Nobody calls us because of a market. They call after a tax bill nobody warned them about, a practice changing hands, or a death or serious illness.
All three are cheaper to handle before they happen than after. That is the whole argument for having this conversation while nothing is on fire.
Who you would actually be working with
Two people. You’ll speak to one of them,
not to a call center.
Steven Kuza, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, RICP®
CEO & Wealth Management Advisor
He runs the 8-minute calls himself, and he’s the one who builds the plan.
Brandon Landry, RICP®
COO & Financial Advisor
He runs the operation behind the plan, and he’s the reason the work doesn’t depend on one person being available.
5
death claims settled, start to finish
20
disability claims stood beside, since 2009
MI
Bloomfield Hills, with clients nationwide
Claims figures are firm-wide totals since 2009 and describe work performed, not outcomes you should expect. CFP® is a certification mark owned by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.
One plan, on one page, that everyone can see.
We are not here to manage the professionals you already pay. We build one document that pulls the whole picture together - tax, legal, valuation, practice transition, estate, insurance - so you and everyone advising you are reading from the same page, and the decisions get made with all of it in view.
Tactical Triage
Driving the Wealth
What happens, in order
The 8-Minute Call
You talk, we listen, and before you hang up you hear what we’d coordinate first — whether or not you ever become a client. No pitch, no fee schedule, no form to fill in first. If your plan is already coordinated, you’ll hear that in minute 8, and that’s a fine place to end it.
We look at the real numbers
Your balance sheet and your recent tax returns. We go deep, at no charge, and come back with a scope of engagement — what we would take on, and what it would take.
The roadmap, out loud
What's working, what has no owner, and the order we would suggest taking it in - triage first, then the longer-term work.
One document, kept current
The plan stays up to date and shared with whoever you want to have it, so nobody is working from an old picture. When something changes, there is one number to call.
Estate & Legacy - the part most advisors leave alone
If something happened to you tomorrow, how many numbers would your family have to call?
A designation from 2011 may override a trust drafted last year. We read them against what your attorney actually wrote and flag anything that does not line up, so you can take it back to them.
Buy-sell agreement, funding for it, and who runs the practice next week if you can't. Most owners have one of the three.
Estates settle slowly. Whether cash is available in week one is a design decision, not luck.
We've settled five death claims and stood beside twenty disability claims. Somebody your family already knows should pick up.
What it looks like
Nobody is replaced and nobody reports to us. They each keep doing their own work -
from the same set of facts - instead of four different ones.
The second opinion is free. The work is priced in writing before you agree to it.
If we manage investments
An ongoing advisory fee - a stated percentage of assets under management, billed on a set schedule. Advisory fees are generally based on assets under management rather than transaction-based commissions.If we place insurance
The carrier pays a commission. You'll be told that it applies, and why the coverage is recommended, before anything is placed.If you only want the plan
A planning fee agreed in writing up front. Take the roadmap and keep managing the money wherever you like - including with the advisor you already have.Fee schedules, conflicts of interest and compensation are described in Oxford Harriman's Form CRS and Form ADV Part 2A. Read them before you hire anyone, including us.
And when you should stay where you are
If your advisor already coordinates your CPA, your attorney and your practice — and you can point to the plan that proves it — you don’t need us. You’ll hear that from us in minute 8.Mostly about the awkward part.
No. The first conversation moves nothing and signs nothing. If we did work together, assets are held at a third-party custodian in your name — we direct strategy, we never take possession of your money.
We coordinate it. We don't draft documents — your attorney does that, and if you don't have one we'll help you find one. What we do is look at the documents, the titling, the beneficiaries and the insurance together, show you where they disagree, and make sure your family knows which number to call. That's the piece that usually has no owner.
There is no hard minimum, so please don't rule yourself out on our behalf. Coordination starts mattering once income and complexity have outgrown the setup — which happens long before anyone feels 'big enough.'
Fair question, and one you should ask any advisor working solo. Brandon Landry is our COO and a financial advisor, our team supports the work, and the firm has a written succession plan. Your plan does not depend on one person’s availability.
No, and be careful with anyone who says otherwise. What can be promised is the process: everything in one place, one document everyone can work from, and every decision explained in plain English. If you hate taxes and you believe in math, that conversation is usually worth eight minutes.