Archive By Section - Business Columns
Common IRA mistakes
You have worked hard all your life to build your retirement assets. And, you want those assets to work hard for you throughout your working career and your retirement years, and then for your family and heirs after that. IRAs are wonderful products, with lots of benefits and flexibility, but those benefits come with certain rules and regulations you need to keep in mind.
Only you should row your business’ oars
Ask yourself: Are you paddling or floating your canoe down the river of your business life? If you're floating, then you're on the defense. If you're paddling, then you're on the offense.
Keep your support payment receipts
What happens if you have faithfully paid all of your court-ordered child or spousal support but many years after the fact, your ex brings you back to court claiming you paid nothing at all?
Does gruesome retirement lie ahead?
I have been preparing a lot of retirement plans lately for clients. It seems that those who have been coming in for this service are the ones who have adequately prepared financially for their retirement years.
Twenty questions to improve your sales effectiveness
Times may be tough, but the people who are in sales for a living will tell anyone who is listening, "Times are GREAT!" but what they say on the inside and really want to say out loud is, "It sure is tough out there!"
Income solutions in retirement
Retirement should be a reward for a life of planning, sacrificing and saving. It should be a time to start a fulfilling new career, explore volunteer services, build a new home and travel to new places. It means getting involved with all those activities that there was never time for before you retired. But every reward seems to come with a challenge. Inflation, market volatility and ever-increasing taxes can erode purchasing power. And continuing good ...
Information highway saves gas, stress
It seems that I'm "banging the drum" a lot about entrepreneurs working from home at their own business, but with the high cost of gas, high food prices and high employee layoffs, it just makes sense.
How to prepare for retirement
One of the most common mistakes investors make in dealing with their IRAs is to name or change a beneficiary. In this changing world and with our fast-paced lives, many people overlook the important feature of passing on one of your most important assets. The IRA beneficiary designation form serves as an important estate planning document.
Decide: Short sale or foreclosure?
In today's housing market, many people are upside-down with their mortgages. Not to mention, many homeowners have an adjustable rate mortgage that has the payment skyrocketing.
Is your policy good to go for wildfires?
Fire season: Are you prepared in the event of a disaster? Most people would not be able to remember everything they own if they were asked to list them all out from memory. What would happen if they were destroyed by a fire? Now is the time to prepare an up-to-date home inventory. The inventory will help you get the back-up information for your income tax return, the processing and settling of your insurance claim ...
Reinforcement does an employee good
After 90 days or so on a new job, I pointedly asked my not-so-new boss, "I've been here for just about three months, how am I doing?"
What are characteristics of entrepreneurs?
To be a successful entrepreneur you must have patience, perseverance, honesty, fidelity and the personality of a self-starter. There are many who have fine staying qualities, but poor starting qualities.
Marriage: Yours, mine ... and now ours
In California, where spouses are concerned, property rights are determined by looking at the basic principle of "yours, mine and ours" - what's yours is yours, and what's mine is mine (separate property).
Consider naming a corporate trustee for your trust
The most important decision to make in establishing a trust may be the selection of the trustee. The trustee's role is to carry out the terms of the trust and fulfill its objectives. While there are several different types of trusts, this column will focus on the most common type, the revocable living trust, and the selection of a successor trustee.
Priorities mean better time management
Keeping a handle on our lives and time are key to being able to succeed. Many of us make "to-do" lists, but few of us take the time to weigh the things on that list for their relative importance, both professionally and personally.
Articles by Section - Business Columns
Bob Khalsa: Rising Home Sales Boost Economy
With the return of traditional homebuyers in ever-greater numbers, the powerful impact of an improved housing market on the local, state, and national economies is, quite frankly, palpable.
Ken Keller: Here are ten mistakes that business owners make
A former leader of a large Fortune 500 company was quoted in an interview that "People who do things make mistakes. The biggest mistake is doing nothing."
Ken Keller: Front line makes bottom line
Once a month, like clockwork, a gentleman comes to my house in the early morning and sprays for insects and bugs. We've spoken a few times and he always hands me his card, telling me to let him know if he needs to come back between visits. I think I have called him once in the last decade.
Bob Khalsa: Rising prices lift sinking homeowners
Local home resale prices last month hit the highest level in five years, with each leap up in prices rescuing legions of underwater owners, in effect, throwing them a life preserver and pulling them to dry land.
Ken Keller: Lessons learned in college apply to business
Thirty-six years ago this month I graduated from college. I didn't study a major that paid immediate dividends, meaning a job, and I wasn't ready for graduate school.
Ken Keller: Permission to argue is granted
Peggy Noonan wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal on April 20 about her attendance at Margaret Thatcher's London funeral service. She commented that Mrs. Thatcher was often frustrated with her staff. Thatcher once said to her aides, "I don't need to be told what, I need to be told how."
Bob Khalsa: Statewide median home price at five-year high
Heated market conditions fueled by a tight inventory and strong sales in higher-cost coastal regions drove California's median home price in March to its highest level since May 2008. Local prices, right here in the Santa Clarita Valley are headed higher, too.
Ken Keller: How one company turned it around
This week I'd like to introduce a company in a far different place compared to just a year ago. The organization has gone from despair to celebrating success. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, the owner said his company had "…Increased sales, reduced costs and improved our overall financial position in terms of positive cash flow and profitability, as well as reduced debt."
Steven Tannehill: What do businesses want, anyway?
This is part two of a two-part column.
Bob Khalsa: Feds ease loan modification rules
Some homeowners who are still struggling to avoid foreclosure may soon benefit from streamlined rules that offer an easy way to lower monthly payments and modify their mortgage without requiring financial or hardship documentation.
Ken Keller: Here are the vitamins a leader must distribute
Looking back on those individuals who were my bosses, a clear distinction comes to mind.
Holly Schroeder: New homes benefit more than just buyers and builder
The only people who benefit when a house is built are the family members who get to live there, and the builder who constructed and sold the home, right?
Steven Tannehill: What do businesses want anyway? Part I
This column is part one of a two-part column.
Ken Keller: Lessons to be learned from lack of feedback
In 1970 I started my first official job. I worked nine hours a week at a small grocery store. For the next two years I grossed $11.25 a week.
Bob Khalsa: Prices, sales rise as SCV’s housing market continues its recovery
The residential housing resale market in the Santa Clarita Valley continued to recover during February, with sales and prices up to their highest levels in years.
