OUR PROCESS

Retirement & Tax Assessment Process

We have a carefully designed process to help you make an educated and informed decision about working with us.

Free Retirement & Tax Assessment

WHY: To help you evaluate the value of our services and make an informed decision about hiring our firm.

WHAT: A free Retirement & Tax Assessment. We will show you how to improve your retirement success and reduce your tax bill before paying us a single dollar.

WHO: Diligent savers over age 50 who have accumulated investment & retirement assets of $500,000 or more (excluding real estate).

No cost, no obligation

You'll know exactly how we can improve your retirement before you pay us a dollar.

Answer the 4 big questions

You'll finish knowing exactly where you stand in the 4 key areas of retirement success.

15-Minute Call

We have found that the best way to start is with a quick 15-minute phone call.


The Six-Step Process


Our Retirement & Tax Assessment Process is a six-step process designed to help you evaluate our services to see if our firm is the best fit for your needs.




Step 1 - Initial Phone Meeting

Before committing your time or ours, this 15-minute phone call will give us both a chance to make sure your situation matches our expertise. After all, you wouldn’t see a knee surgeon if you needed shoulder surgery.

If we aren’t a good fit for each other we may be able to introduce you to a firm who is better suited to your needs. 

Step 2 – First Meeting

Prescription without evaluation and diagnosis is malpractice

The goal of this meeting is to get perfectly clear on your goals, concerns, and unique financial situation.

Your answers to our questions, along with the documents we requested you bring, will guide our analysis, which will result in plain-English answers to four critical questions.

Step 3 - Our Analysis

This is where the magic happens

We will apply over 20 years of experience and hundreds of hours of training and mentoring by the industry’s top experts to help you answer the following questions:
  •     Can I afford to retire?
  •     Am I overpaying in taxes?
  •     Can my portfolio be improved?
  •     Can I eliminate, or at least reduce, threats to my retirement?
Step 4 - Second Meeting

This is where the proverbial rubber hits the road

During this meeting I will explain, in plain English, exactly what you need to do to achieve your financial goals, including the answers to the four questions we asked during our analysis.

This is where you will see, in dollars and cents, how our firm can improve your finances.

At the end of this meeting we will ask you to think about if and how you would like to begin working with our firm and to sleep on it.

Step 5 - Sleep On It

Having been in business for more than 20 years, we are in no rush for you to make a decision. Prior to deciding whether we should work together, you will want to answer the following questions:
  • Do I like/trust/respect the adviser at Echols Financial Services?
  • Will the benefits I receive exceed the cost?
  • Do I understand and agree with their retirement planning and investment philosophy?
  • Do their recommendations make sense to me?

Step 6 - Paperwork

After sleeping on it, we will follow up to answer any additional questions you may have. If you decide to work with our firm, we will complete the paperwork and start helping you achieve your immediate and long-term financial goals.

This carefully designed process helps you make an educated and informed decision about our firm before paying any fees. This process can also be used to evaluate other firms you may be considering.

 How Do I Know If I'm a Good Fit?

Our clients are ready to clarify, simplify, and organize their retirement planning. They also seek professional knowledge, expertise, and support to align their investment strategy with their financial goals.

Our clients want to avoid costly mistakes and enjoy retirement with greater peace of mind. They want to know they are achieving their goals with less personal time, worry, and effort. They are:
Retired, or close to it

We specialize in people who are retired or very close to it (typically 5 years or less). This allows us to tailor our service and expertise to the unique needs of retirees.

Diligent saver

While our clients would hardly consider themselves to be “rich”, thanks to a lifetime of diligent saving and frugal living they have accumulated a retirement nest egg of at least $500,000 (excluding real estate).

Looking for a trusted adviser

Our clients understand that the success of their retirement is too important to be doing it themselves, and they understand the value of having expert guidance.

Schedule Your 15-Minute Call
Click Here to Schedule

 We intentionally limit the number of new clients we take each year to ensure we are delivering the highest level of personalized service to our current clients, who are our top priority. If our calendar is full, please email us and we will respond immediately to let you know when we will be taking on new clients again and will be happy to add you to the waiting list.  

Still have questions? Keep Reading...
  • HOW DOES ECHOLS FINANCIAL SERVICES MAKE MONEY?

    We are a fee-only (a.k.a. commission-free) retirement planning firm. Our fees depend on the complexity and needs of the client and are a transparent line item on every statement.


    Some financial advisors are commission-based, which may cause fees to be hidden or create conflicts of interest. Not Echols Financial Services.


    One transparent fee includes the management of all your investment accounts + ongoing retirement and financial planning. Our goal is to lower your taxes, reduce risk, and make sure you can retire without worry.


    Scheduling your first phone call with us and going through our process will help you make an educated and informed decision about working with our firm or any other firms you may be considering.


  • DO YOU OFFER AN HOURLY OR ONE-TIME PROJECT FEE OPTION?

    Good financial planning is a process, not an event. Therefore, we do our best work with people looking for a long-term relationship.  


    Our firm does not offer an hourly fee schedule or a one-time project fee option.  The exception is if you are interested in hiring our firm for long-term retirement planning and investment management but are within just a few years from being able to rollover your retirement nest egg. 


    If you need help locating a financial planner who offers hourly or one-time project fee options, send us a note and we will do our best to get you in the right hands.

  • HOW ARE YOU DIFFERENT FROM OTHER FINANCIAL ADVISORS?

    There are three really important things about our firm that separate us from others:


    1. All we do is financial planning for retirees and people who are close to retirement. We are retirement specialists with the simple goal of helping you experience your best retirement.


    2. We limit the number of new clients we take on to deliver massive value and personalized service. We are engaged with some of the best financial planners in the country to apply best-in-class practices for our clients.


    3. We study hard so we can recommend creative, well-researched strategies that will make the biggest impact on your retirement success. This is why we are so serious about forward-looking tax planning, where lifetime savings from these strategies alone can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.  

  • WHY SHOULD I CONSIDER HIRING ECHOLS FINANCIAL SERVICES?

    Great question! But first, let us explain why you shouldn’t hire us.


    If you’re looking for an advisor who will trade stocks to “beat the market,” you’re in the wrong place. Why? Because we only focus on what you can control. Predicting if the stock market will go up or down, or guessing what interest rates will do next, are not things you can control.


    But if you’re interested in things like lowering your tax bill, investing smarter, and creating a retirement income stream, you’re in the right place.

Schedule Your 15-Minute Call
This phone call will give us both a chance to make sure your situation
matches our expertise.

 Not Quite Ready to Schedule a Phone Call? That's OK!

You can sign up for our complimentary emails about important financial planning strategies related to retirement.

You can also call our direct line at 770-889-8887 if you just have a few questions for us. Our short PDF guides, short PDF books and our longer paperback books might also be a great resource for you.



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