Best Investment Group | Financial Planning & Investment Management

The BIG Financial Ecosystem

Three disciplines. One financial life.

Select a pillar to see how each part supports the others. BIG stays at the center so decisions can be made in context.

01

Grow with intention.

Build and manage a portfolio designed around your goals, time horizon, risk capacity, taxes, liquidity needs, and the assets you already own.

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Why coordination matters

Financial decisions rarely happen in isolation.

An investment decision can change your tax picture. A business transition can reshape retirement. Company stock can affect both risk and estate planning. Coordination helps reveal the tradeoffs before action is taken.

01

Investments & Taxes

Portfolio changes are considered alongside potential tax consequences and after-tax outcomes.

02

Business & Personal Wealth

Business value, cash flow, succession, and personal goals are viewed on the same financial map.

03

Retirement & Income

Assets, benefits, spending, and withdrawal decisions are organized around a sustainable plan.

04

Family & Legacy

Beneficiaries, estate documents, trusts, gifting, and charitable goals are coordinated with qualified professionals.

Grow · Investment Management

A portfolio designed for the life around it.

Investment management begins with what your money needs to do—not with a product. We build around your goals, risk, taxes, income needs, existing holdings, and changing priorities.

Relationship guideline: Investment management relationships generally begin at $150,000.00.

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Portfolio Design

Asset allocation and investment selection aligned with your objectives, risk capacity, time horizon, and liquidity needs.

Tax-Aware Management

Trading, asset location, gains, losses, and transitions considered with the goal of improving after-tax decision-making.

Ongoing Oversight

Rebalancing, cash management, portfolio reviews, and adjustments as markets, tax circumstances, and your life evolve.

Tax-Aware Investing

What you keep matters.

Taxes can quietly reduce investment results. That reduction is often called tax drag. A tax-aware approach considers the timing and location of investment activity—not just the return shown before taxes.

Tax-loss harvesting: selling an investment below its purchase price to realize a capital loss that may help offset realized capital gains, subject to tax rules.
Asset location: deciding which types of investments may fit better in taxable, tax-deferred, or tax-free accounts.
After-tax decisions: weighing the potential benefit of a change against trading costs and tax consequences.

A practical lens

Every decision passes through three questions.

1Does this support the investment plan?

2What are the likely tax and transaction consequences?

3Does the expected after-tax benefit justify the change?

Tax-aware investing may help manage tax impact, but it cannot guarantee tax savings or a particular investment result.

Direct Indexing

More control beneath the index.

Instead of owning a pooled fund, a direct-indexing account can hold many of the index’s individual securities. That structure may create more opportunities to customize holdings and manage taxes at the security level.

Ask whether it fits your situation

01

Own individual securities

A portfolio can seek to track an index while holding many underlying stocks directly.

02

Harvest selected losses

Individual positions may create loss-harvesting opportunities even when the broader market is higher.

03

Customize exposures

Specific securities or industries may be limited to reflect existing holdings, preferences, or restrictions.

04

Plan portfolio transitions

Concentrated stock can be evaluated and reduced over time in a way that considers diversification, taxes, risk, and liquidity.

05

Coordinate charitable gifts

Appreciated securities may be evaluated for charitable giving with your tax and legal professionals.

Optimize · Financial Planning

Turn complexity into a clear next decision.

Financial planning connects cash flow, retirement, taxes, risk management, benefits, investments, and major life decisions in one ongoing process.

Cash Flow & Priorities

Clarify what is available, what is committed, and how competing goals should be funded over time.

Tax Planning Coordination

Identify planning questions and work alongside your tax professional before key decisions are made.

Risk & Insurance Review

Evaluate where insurance may help transfer risk and where existing coverage may need attention.

Education & Major Goals

Model meaningful goals without losing sight of retirement, liquidity, or the resilience of the wider plan.

Retirement Planning

From accumulation to income—with a plan for the transition.

We coordinate Social Security, pensions, investment withdrawals, tax brackets, healthcare costs, cash reserves, and legacy goals so retirement decisions work together.

Explore retirement planning →

Income planningSocial Security timingWithdrawal strategyRoth conversion analysis →Healthcare planningSequence-of-returns risk

Who We Serve

Advice built around your source of complexity.

Different financial lives create different pressure points. BIG begins with yours.

Business Owners & Founders

Connect the value you build to the life you want.

Coordinate business cash flow, investments, succession, liquidity, employee benefits, and personal goals.

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Executives & Company Stock

Make informed choices around concentrated wealth.

Bring equity compensation, employer stock, taxes, diversification, and personal investments into one strategy.

Explore company-stock planning →

Individuals & Families

Give every goal a place in the plan.

For physicians, high-earning professionals, and families balancing wealth building, taxes, lifestyle, and legacy.

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Retirees

Turn accumulated wealth into a coordinated income plan.

Align investments, cash reserves, benefits, withdrawals, taxes, healthcare, and the people you want to support.

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Business Owners & Founders

Your business is part of your financial plan—not separate from it.

For many owners, the business is a source of income, identity, risk, and future liquidity. BIG helps organize the questions that connect business decisions to personal wealth.

Personal and business cash-flow coordination
Investment of excess cash and transition proceeds
Succession and exit-planning coordination
Retirement plan and benefit considerations
Risk management and continuity planning

The owner’s balance sheet

See what the business means to you.

We help frame decisions across four connected dimensions.

TodayCash flow, reserves, investments, and risk.

GrowthCapital needs, concentration, and opportunity.

TransitionReadiness, succession, timing, and proceeds.

LegacyFamily, ownership, gifting, and charitable goals.

Executives & Company Stock

A concentrated position can be both an opportunity and a risk.

Company stock may reflect years of work and confidence in the business. It can also make your career, income, and portfolio depend on the same company. We help evaluate choices without forcing a one-size-fits-all answer.

UnderstandMap shares, grants, vesting, cost basis, restrictions, and the role of company stock in total wealth.

PrioritizeConnect near-term liquidity, taxes, risk tolerance, and longer-term goals.

TransitionConsider staged sales, portfolio diversification, direct indexing, or charitable strategies where appropriate.

CoordinateWork with tax and legal professionals on rules, filings, estate considerations, and implementation.

Protect · Legacy Planning

Create a thoughtful path for the people and causes you care about.

Legacy planning connects what you own, how it is titled, who should benefit, and how your wishes may be carried forward.

Estate Planning Coordination: BIG does not draft legal documents or provide legal or tax advice. We help organize goals and financial information and coordinate with qualified estate-planning attorneys and tax professionals.

Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT)

A SLAT is an irrevocable trust created by one spouse for the potential benefit of the other spouse and other beneficiaries. It may be considered when a family wants to make lifetime gifts while retaining a possible indirect source of support. Access, control, tax treatment, and divorce or death risks require careful legal and tax analysis.

Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT)

A GRAT transfers assets to an irrevocable trust while the grantor retains a stream of annuity payments for a set term. If asset growth exceeds the assumed federal rate, remaining value may pass to beneficiaries. Results depend on investment performance, survival of the term, tax rules, and proper administration.

Dynasty / Generation-Skipping Trust

These trusts are designed to hold and manage assets for multiple generations, subject to applicable law and generation-skipping transfer-tax rules. They may offer long-term stewardship and controlled distributions, but require thoughtful trustee, jurisdiction, cost, tax, and governance decisions.

Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT)

An ILIT is designed to own life insurance outside the insured’s individual ownership. When properly established and administered, it may help provide liquidity or support legacy goals. Premium gifts, beneficiary notices, incidents of ownership, and estate-tax rules must be handled with qualified professionals.

Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT)

A CRT is an irrevocable trust that can provide an income stream to one or more noncharitable beneficiaries, with the remaining assets eventually passing to charity. It may be evaluated for appreciated assets and charitable intent, but it involves valuation, tax, investment, legal, and administrative tradeoffs.

Lifetime Gifting

Lifetime gifts may transfer resources, fund education, support family, or advance an estate plan. The right structure and timing depend on cash-flow needs, cost basis, gift and estate tax rules, control, family dynamics, and the recipient’s readiness.

Estate Coordination

Coordination helps align beneficiary designations, account ownership, insurance, business agreements, investment liquidity, charitable intent, and attorney-drafted documents. The goal is to reduce disconnects between the financial plan and the legal plan.

How BIG Works

A disciplined process that stays personal.

The plan begins with understanding and continues as your life changes.

Understand

Learn what matters, what you own, what concerns you, and where decisions feel disconnected.

Identify Opportunities

Surface gaps, tradeoffs, risks, and planning opportunities across investments, taxes, retirement, business, and legacy.

Build

Create an organized strategy with clear priorities, responsibilities, and next actions.

Adapt

Review progress and adjust as markets, laws, goals, family, work, and life evolve.

BIGBest Investment Group

About BIG

Independent guidance. A coordinated point of view.

Best Investment Group was built to help clients make better-connected financial decisions. We bring investment management, financial planning, retirement strategy, and legacy coordination into one relationship—then collaborate with the attorneys, accountants, and other professionals your plan requires.

Our work is grounded in fiduciary care, clear communication, and an understanding that wealth is not simply a portfolio. It is the financial life the portfolio is meant to support.

Clear

Coordinated

Personal

Insights

Ideas for better-connected decisions.

Plain-English perspectives on the questions that sit between investments, planning, business, retirement, and legacy.

Investing

What tax-aware investing looks like in practice

A closer look at tax drag, portfolio transitions, and why after-tax outcomes deserve attention.

Read the overview →

Company Stock

When your career and portfolio share the same risk

Questions executives can ask when employer stock becomes a meaningful share of family wealth.

Explore the planning framework →

Legacy

Trust strategies are tools—not the starting point

Begin with the people, assets, access needs, and tradeoffs before selecting a legal structure.

Review trust concepts →

Start a Conversation

Ready to See the BIG Picture?

Let’s talk about what you are managing today, where you want to go, and which financial decisions need to work together.

Best Investment Group LLC651-728-2386 lance@bestinvestmentgroup.netMonroe, Washington