The BWM Guided Journey to the Financial Summit™
Through years of experience and dedication, we’ve continually refined our approach to provide clients with the clarity and confidence they need to make informed investment decisions and plan for the future.
BASECAMP: Organization • Vision • Clarity
Basecamp is the foundation of everything we do. Before advice, before strategy, before recommendations—we organize. At Basecamp, we create a secure, personalized portal designed to bring every aspect of your financial life into one clear, easy-to-use command center. This allows both you and our team to see your entire financial picture at a glance.
- All financial accounts and assets.
- Retirement plans and investment accounts.
- Insurance policies and coverage.
- Estate and legal document.
- Business interests and ownership structures.
- Key professionals (CPA, attorney, insurance, advisors).
- Important financial records and documents.
This comprehensive organization allows us to take a high-level snapshot of your total financial life, not in isolation, but as a coordinated system. Once everything is organized and visible, we:
- Establish a clear Summit Vision for your life, family, and future.
- Identify risks, gaps, inefficiencies, and challenges.
- Clarify priorities and opportunities before strategy begins.
You leave Basecamp knowing exactly:
- What you have.
- How everything connects.
- What challenges must be addressed.
- And what the path forward looks like.
No advice is given until clarity exists.
TRAILHEAD: Elevate Your Lifestyle • Reduce Taxes
Trailhead is where your plan becomes intentional, flexible, and customized to where you are in life today. Rather than forcing every client into the same portfolio or “one-size-fits-all” model, we use investment and tax segmentation to align your money by time horizon, purpose, and risk.
Not every person needs every bucket—and not every bucket is needed at the same time. Our role is to determine which buckets matter now, which matter later, and how they should work together.
Purpose-Driven Investment Segmentation. We divide assets into distinct buckets, each with a clear role. These buckets are used selectively and strategically based on your goals, age, income, retirement timeline, and tolerance for risk.
Common segmentation buckets include:
- Emergency & Liquidity Bucket: Designed for near-term needs and unexpected events. This bucket prioritizes accessibility and stability.
- Income Bucket: Built to generate dependable, predictable income that does not rely on market performance. This bucket is often used to fund the early years of retirement and protect lifestyle during market volatility.
- Tactical Bucket (Mid-Term Time Horizon): Typically aligned with the next phase of income needs. This bucket seeks growth while maintaining a high awareness of downside risk, volatility, and sequence-of-returns concerns.
- Growth Bucket: Long-term capital focused on maximizing opportunity and participating in areas of the economy expected to outperform over time. This bucket is used when time and risk capacity allow.
- Legacy Bucket: Structured with tax efficiency as the top priority, with the goal of transferring wealth to the next generation in the most effective way possible.
The goal of segmentation is not complexity for its own sake, but clarity—knowing exactly what each dollar is responsible for and how it supports your life.
Tax Funnel Strategy. Alongside investment segmentation, we design your tax funnel — how and when your money is taxed over your lifetime. Assets are organized across three primary tax categories:
- Pre-Tax: Accounts that provide tax benefits today but create taxable income in the future.
- After-Tax: Assets that offer flexibility but may generate ongoing taxation.
- Tax-Advantaged / Tax-Free: Accounts designed to create tax-free income and tax-free transfers to family members.
We believe there are multiple tax-free or tax-advantaged account types that many individuals may be eligible for, regardless of age or profession. Our objective is to intentionally increase exposure to tax-free income where appropriate — especially for high earners and business owners.
What Trailhead Deliver:
- Match money to time horizon and purpose.
- Reduce reliance on market performance for income.
- Manage risk intelligently, not emotionally.
- Minimize lifetime tax exposure.
- Adapt your plan as life evolves.
- This is where planning shifts from accumulation to intentional wealth design.
Not every bucket is used by every client. The Financial Summit Map™ adapts to your stage of life, goals, and complexity. That one line quietly reinforces expertise.
OVERLOOK: Family Protection • Lifetime Security
The Overlook is where planning becomes deeply personal. At this stage, the focus shifts from markets and accumulation to the people who matter most — your spouse, your children, your grandchildren, and the life you want to protect for them.
The Overlook is about making sure that life events don’t turn into financial emergencies, and that your family is cared for — not just someday, but through every season of life.
Protection While You’re Alive. We address the risks that can quietly disrupt even the strongest financial plans:
- Incapacity due to illness or injury.
- Long-term care needs that can erode savings and independence.
- Loss of income due to premature death.
Our role is to design strategies that ensure:
- Financial continuity if you are unable to make decisions.
- Income replacement for your family if something happens to you.
- Protection of lifestyle and dignity during health-related events.
- Confidence that plans are in place before they are ever needed.
This is not about fear. It’s about preparation, control, and peace of mind.
Caring for the People You Love — Intentionally. Protection alone isn’t enough. The Overlook is also about providing for your family in meaningful ways, while you’re here to enjoy it. We help you design thoughtful gifting strategies that support:
- Education for children and grandchildren.
- Assistance with major life milestones such as home purchases.
- Opportunities to create experiences together—travel, memories, and shared moments.
- Financial support that aligns with your values and long-term plan.
Rather than ad-hoc gifts or reactive decisions, these strategies are intentional, structured, and integrated into your overall Financial Summit Map™.
Clarity for Today. Security for Tomorrow. The Overlook ensures that:
- Your family is protected against life’s uncertainties.
- Your income can be replaced when it’s needed most.
- Your loved ones are supported without compromising your long-term goals.
- You can give confidently, generously, and with purpose.
This milestone is where financial planning stops being abstract and starts becoming deeply human.
What the Overlook Delivers:
- Protection against incapacity and long-term care risks.
- Income replacement strategies for your family.
- Confidence that your lifestyle can be preserved through life events.
- Intentional gifting for education, housing, and family experiences.
- Peace of mind knowing the people you love are truly taken care of.
The Overlook is about protecting your family today — and supporting them in ways that matter, while you’re here to enjoy it.
HIGH ALTITUDE: Legacy • Estate Planning • Advanced Strategies
High Altitude is where your life’s work is preserved, protected, and passed forward with intention. This milestone is focused on what happens to what you’ve built — for your family, your business, and the causes you care about — both during your lifetime and beyond. Because not every family has the same level of complexity, High Altitude is intentionally designed in two layers: foundational planning for everyone, and advanced planning for those whose success creates additional considerations.
Foundational Estate & Legacy Planning. For every client, High Altitude begins with strong fundamentals. This layer ensures that your wishes are clearly defined, legally sound, and efficiently executed. Foundational planning focuses on:
- Distribution of assets at death, aligned with your intentions.
- Avoidance of probate, reducing cost, delays, and stress for your family.
Coordination of beneficiary designations and ownership structures. Clarity for loved ones so decisions are not left to chance.
This level of planning is about simplicity, certainty, and dignity — making sure your family is not burdened by confusion or unnecessary legal processes during an already difficult time.
For many families, this foundational layer provides exactly what they need: confidence that assets will be transferred smoothly and according to plan.
Advanced Estate & Legacy Planning. For others, success brings complexity—and complexity demands specialization. Business owners, C-suite executives, and families with significant wealth often face challenges that go far beyond basic estate planning. High Altitude is where we address those needs.
Advanced planning may include:
- Business succession planning, ensuring continuity, value preservation, and orderly transition.
- Estate tax reduction strategies designed to preserve family wealth.
- Advanced trust planning for asset protection and controlled distribution.
- Philanthropic and charitable giving strategies aligned with personal values.
- Family governance and multigenerational planning, preparing heirs for responsibility and stewardship.
- Advanced wealth transfer strategies designed to protect assets across generations.
For clients in this category, planning is not just about documents — it’s about structure, control, and long-term impact. Our role is to design and coordinate strategies that reflect the full scope of your success, while keeping the plan understandable and manageable.
Asset Protection as Part of the Legacy Conversation. When wealth grows, so does exposure. High Altitude planning often includes asset protection strategies for individuals and families who want to shield assets from unnecessary risk. Through advanced trust planning and coordinated legal structures, we help protect what you’ve built — without compromising access, control, or long-term objectives. Asset protection is not about secrecy. It’s about responsible stewardship.
Meeting You Where You Are — and Elevating from There. Not everyone needs advanced strategies. And no one is pushed into complexity they don’t need.
High Altitude is intentionally flexible:
- Some clients remain in the foundational layer.
- Others progress into advanced strategies as wealth, businesses, or family goals evolve.
The Financial Summit Map™ adapts as your life changes, ensuring your plan remains aligned with your success and your values.
What High Altitude Delivers:
- Clear, coordinated distribution of assets.
- Reduced or avoided probate.
- Protection of family wealth.
- Strategic business succession planning.
- Advanced tax and asset protection strategies.
- Philanthropic and multigenerational impact.
- Confidence that your legacy is intentional and secure.
High Altitude planning is designed for people who have built something significant — and want to ensure it lasts.
The BWM Summit Difference
How we help successful individuals and families reach clarity, confidence, and control over their entire financial life. It’s built on eight principles that work together to guide you forward—step by step—without pressure, guesswork, or fragmentation.
The Beacon Wealth
Client Experience
What to expect when working with us
There is nothing cookie-cutter about us. As an independent, privately-owned wealth management firm, we are free from both public shareholder demands and bottom-line corporate profits, which gives us the freedom to put you first.
We genuinely care about your success and well being. As your wealth advisory team, our core belief is founded on delivering a strong client experience while keeping proactively engaged in a personal relationship with you.
We understand people are constantly on the go and life constantly evolves. We realize everyone’s preference for processing information and communications are completely different. That’s why we feel it is more important than ever to make sure you have plenty of diverse and easy opportunities to stay connected with us.
Your Financial Summit Begins Here.
Guiding business owners, professional practitioners, high earners, and responsible savers who have reached a stage where their financial life is complex enough to require specialization — not generic advice.
Whether you’re in your 40s building momentum or in your 60s preparing for the next chapter, our Financial Summit Map™ gives you the clarity, confidence, and control to make the second half of life your best chapter yet.
