Gregory Kelly, Owner & Principal Advisor with Kelly Financial Partners, LLC

Gregory Kelly, Owner & Principal Advisor with Kelly Financial Partners, LLC Owner & Principal Advisor | Business Owner Planning | Non-Profit Planning | Executive Planning

I offer a variety of products that can help you meet a number of insurance and financial needs, including, but not limited to college funding, retirement, managing costs for extended periods of care and lifetime income strategies. Please contact me to help you fully analyze your needs and recommend appropriate solutions. In addition to a Financial Advisor offering investment advisory services thro

ugh Eagle Strategies LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor, I am also licensed as an agent to sell insurance through New York Life Insurance Company and may be licensed with various other independent unaffiliated insurance companies. Additionally, I am a Registered Representative of and offer securities products & services through NYLIFE Securities LLC, (Member FINRA/SIPC), a Licensed Insurance Agency and a New York Life Company.

8000 W Interstate 10, Suite 800
San Antonio, TX 78230
210.342.7878

Neither Kelly Financial Partners LLC, nor New York Life Insurance Company, nor its agents, provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Please consult your own tax, legal, or accounting professionals before making any decisions. Kelly Financial Partners LLC is not owned or operated by New York Life Insurance Company or its affiliates. Any testimonial on this site is based on an individual’s experience and may not be representative of the experience of other customers. These testimonials are no guarantee of future performance or success. Eagle Strategies LLC & NYLIFE Securities LLC are New York Life Companies.

09/08/2026

A retired executive and her husband recently hired me for one very specific reason:

Help organize and coordinate their estate plan with their attorney.

They had been working through several planning decisions when the attorney recognized that some of the questions extended beyond the legal documents.

Quarterly investment statements that look like ancient hieroglyphics to an attorney.
Life insurance policies with riders and benefits that need translating.
Liquidity positions that could potentially use some enhancement.
Beneficiary structures lacking continuity with their legal documents.

The attorney did exactly what a great professional should do...

They brought another professional into the conversation.

Now we're working from both perspectives to strengthen future settlement of this couple's estate.

Attorney --> determines legal structure

Financial Advisor --> support structure across accounts

Attorney + Financial Advisor --> coordination

That's what a professional advisory team should look like.

Not one person pretending to know everything.

The right professionals knowing where their expertise ends—and where collaboration should begin.

"Artificial Intelligence will replace financial advisors."I asked ChatGPT to create this portrait of us.And honestly... ...
09/07/2026

"Artificial Intelligence will replace financial advisors."

I asked ChatGPT to create this portrait of us.

And honestly... It did a pretty great job.

That looks like us. But it's also not... us.

It took existing photos and created an impressive rendition of the truth.

And that's increasingly how I think about AI in financial planning.

It can create an incredibly good *rendition* of your financial life.

But a financial plan isn't just information advisors feed into a computer.

There's fear.
Family dynamics.
Past experiences.
Unspoken priorities.
Changing goals.
And sometimes a non-verbal cue that tells me more than another 50 pages of financial data ever could.

AI will make financial advisors significantly more capable.

But understanding the financial picture and understanding the person inside it are two very different things.

That's the part of financial planning I believe will never get automated.

You don't win on Friday night. You win Monday through Thursday. Friday is when everybody finds out.The boring repetition...
09/04/2026

You don't win on Friday night. You win Monday through Thursday. Friday is when everybody finds out.

The boring repetitions were what prepared you for the moments that mattered.

Business isn't much different.

Neither is financial planning.

The important work usually happens long before anyone sees the result.

Preparation rarely gets the applause.

But preparation is usually what earns it.

Happy Friday, y'all. 🏈

09/03/2026

A local corporate executive met with me on Zoom last week.

His expressed concern about $1,700,000 sitting in his savings account, citing that it could be earning more interest.

He had a mental block that stemmed fear that the post-Great Recession bull market would come to an abrupt end. After selling all but $300,000 worth of ETFs in December 2019, he has been very hesitant to re-enter the equity markets since the COVID pandemic.

S&P 500 on December 30th, 2019: 3,221.29
S&P 500 on August 28th, 2026: 7,711.76

In other words, the S&P 500 Index has folded over 2.39x since the end of 2019.

The same $1,700,000 in 2019 would have been about $4,000,000 at the end of last week...

$2,300,000 that quietly evaporated because he had a legitimate concern.

Large cash positions are NOT the issue... The real issue is idle cash with no pre-determined job for the future.

09/01/2026

September is Life Insurance Awareness Month.

So let's talk about life insurance without really talking about life insurance...

~84% of Baby Boomer business owners surveyed did not have a written buy-sell agreement updated within the previous three years.

Think about that for a moment....

You've spent 20, 30, maybe 40 years building a company.

You have a business partner.
Employees.
Customers.
Families (including yours) relying on the value you've created.
..Then one owner unexpectedly doesn't come to work tomorrow.

Who owns their shares?
Who buys them?
At what price?
Where does the money come from?
And does the surviving family now own part of the business?

That's where life insurance becomes much more interesting than simply "leaving money when you die."

For business owners, it can be the funding mechanism that turns a legal agreement into an executable plan.

The agreement determines what should happen.

Funding helps make sure it actually can.

-------------------------------------------------------
Regardless of which generation you belong to, here's my offering for the month of September to ALL businesses (up to 4 active partners):

Complementary Buy-Sell clause or agreement review with the following 1-page, plain-English deliverables

1) Flow of ownership if death, disability, divorce, or dissolution occurs
2) Financial requirement of the business or partners as outlined by the agreement
3) Current funding analysis to determine existing resources and any shortfall
4) Coordination checklist with topics to discuss with your attorney, CPA, financial advisor or insurance professional

Just one page answering:

"What does the agreement say should happen, and does the current financial architecture allow it to happen?"

DM "Buy-Sell" between now and the end of this month to get your 1-pager.

08/31/2026

I had lunch with a business owner who casually mentioned, "I've probably got another five years in me, then I'm selling."

So I asked the obvious follow-up question, "What's the plan?"

He started his answer by giving me his back story to how he got started...

The struggles of his childhood and growing up in a single parent household.

Goals he set when he was a young adult to avoid the lifestyle some of his friends were heading towards.

And the eventual transition into business ownership in his early 30s after several years working a job he didn't enjoy.

Now, in his mid-60s, he's incredibly curious about life outside of this business he built.

He ended his story with, "To answer your original question, there isn't a plan yet."

Just... "Five more years."

That's something I hear more often than you'd think.

If you're a business owner who has put a lifetime of effort into building a meaningful organization, the 5-years before selling your business are critical to creating as many exit options as possible.

Another lesson life lesson from fishing: Never judge the fight by the size of the fish.A small shark can humble you pret...
08/28/2026

Another lesson life lesson from fishing: Never judge the fight by the size of the fish.

A small shark can humble you pretty quickly.

You hook into something that doesn't seem particularly large...

Then it takes off.
Changes direction.
Pulls harder than expected.
And once you finally get it close, the job isn't over.

Now you have to safely land it, handle it, remove the hook, and get it back in the water.

Financial planning can feel surprisingly similar.

Sometimes the biggest-looking problems are relatively straightforward.

And sometimes something that initially looks small creates a much bigger fight than anyone expected.

That's why the right advisor matters...Someone who doesn't panic when it starts pulling...Someone who knows not to force something because something else isn't going according to plan...Someone who knows when to give it some line...And someone who remembers that getting "close" isn't the same thing as getting it safely handled.

Some of the hardest financial problems don't look very big when you first hook into them.

08/27/2026

Someone in my network recently messaged me saying some of my content is only relevant to wealthy people...

He noted that the "average" person may never get there.

Fair criticism... or short-sighted?

The person with $1,000,000 once had $0.

The executive earning $300,000 once earned $30,000.

The business owner earning $300,000 may have started at ($30,000).

The landlord with 5 properties probably rented an apartment at some point.

The family writing a 6-figure tax check may once have celebrated a $5,000 refund.

We see where people are today and forget the years it took to get there.

When I was in high school, I worked at North Star Mall.
I made $7.25/hour.
I worked odd hours around school and sports.
And I had absolutely no idea what my life would look like 15 years later... I just knew I wanted to build something meaningful.

There have been resets.
There has been heartache.
There have been plenty of mistakes... but the dream never died.

So yes, I'll continue talking about million-dollar portfolios, business exits, estate planning, six-figure tax bills, and advanced financial strategies.

Not because everyone is there today.

Because some of the people reading today are still becoming the person who will need that knowledge tomorrow.

08/26/2026

The month of August was *accidentally* a huge month protecting business owners and executives...

We added ~$12,600,000 in life insurance coverage.

None of what came to fruition started with, "Greg, I need more life insurance."

Everything stemmed from genuine planning questions...

"How does the business's buy-sell agreement outline settling ownership with the deceased partner's surviving spouse?"

"Does your $200,000 group life insurance policy replace enough of your family's $300,000-a-year lifestyle?"

"What's the easiest way for us to divide your estate equally if one of your kids inherits this business?"

We asked questions that allowed these founders and executives to recognize that there's a legitimate way to calculate any shortfall or surplus.

Good planning NEVER starts with a product...

Questions --> Analysis --> Interpretation --> Solution

08/25/2026

An executive leadership director met with me at the end of last week to discuss his investment plan, but that conversation turned into something much larger than portfolio construction.

He openly admitted that his ~$2mm aggregate holdings have "absolutely no legitimate structure."

He made some pretty major financial decisions about 10-years ago that were ABSOLUTELY brilliant (I'm being dead serious).

However, his plan never evolved with the changes in his life over the past decade.

Both kids graduated university (one got married and recently became a parent).
He quit his job to start a new business.
They actively paid-down a large portion of their non-mortgage debts.
He experienced a similarly-aged neighbor pass away before he had a chance to retire.
His own parents' health took a turn for the worse.

Most business owners and executives with more than $2mm saved don't have an investment problem... they have a coordination problem.

The plan that worked in 2016 doesn't work in 2026.

We fix that.

Address

8000 Interstate 10 W, Suite 800
San Antonio, TX
78230

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 4pm

Telephone

+12103631029

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