SILKIN MANAGEMENT GROUP: DO YOU HAVE A RETIREMENT STRATEGY?

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Silkin Management Group clients vary in demographics. In fact Silkin Management Group clients exist in every state in the U.S. and every province in Canada. And Silkin Management Group clients range in age from fresh out of professional school to close to retirement. No matter your demographic, no matter your age and no matter whether you are a Silkin Management Group client or not, taking a look at a retirement and an exit strategy is a smart thing to do. And the earlier you start, the more likely you will accomplish your goals.

When looking at retirement, the first thing any financial planner will have you do is to determine how much money you’ll need or want to live on when you retire. At Silkin Management Group we have new clients take a serious look at their financial and practice goals for the long term. The Silkin Management Group consultant then has the Silkin Management Group client work out a financial strategy in terms of how much production and net income do they need to produce in order to set aside enough money each year to reach their goals.

Silkin Management Group does not recommend any financial investments to invest retirement accounts into – a Silkin Management Group client needs to have a good financial planner and/or investment planner to help them with where to put the money. Silkin Management Group simply helps them work out what level of production and net income they need to be at in order to have enough extra money every year to make their retirement goals through proper investments.

Also, a top priority for any Silkin Management Group consultant to look at with new Silkin Management Group clients is how to build up the practice so its worth is as high as possible when the Silkin Management Group client is at an age he wants to retire. The practice itself can be a very significant portion of any retirement planning but if, and only if, the practice is a good producing, high net practice with established systems and well trained staff. After all, who would want to buy a low net practice or a practice that was not run efficiently?

That’s why Silkin Management Group concentrates with new Silkin Management Group clients on establishing the proper management systems and staff training that will result in higher production, higher net, a well trained staff resulting in less stress for the doctor and a very saleable practice.

If you’d like to know more about Silkin Management Group, visit our blog: http://www.silkinmanagementgroup.blogspot.com/.

Jack Hennessy
Silkin Management Group Consultant



WHAT IS THE HEALTH OF MY BANK

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Although Silkin Management Group is not an expert on the status of the banking system, we certainly are interested in the health of the banks we deal with and that our clients use. In fact we do get asked by Silkin clients if we know how to determine the health of banks given the record number of bank failures over the last year or two.

To that end we found the following information that we thought we’d pass along to Silkin Management Group clients and non clients alike. We hope you find it useful.

To check the health of your bank go to http://www.bankrate.com. Go to the section on the first page that says “Safe and Sound Ratings.” They have a service there that ranks banks with 1 to 5 stars. If your bank has 4 or 5 >stars, you should be fine; if it has 1 or 2 stars, you should move banks. If it has 3 stars, you are in somewhat of a grey zone frankly.
You shouldn’t be immediate danger, but keep an eye on the ratings or consider moving banks.

Although your accounts are insured, it could be a lot of unneeded trouble for you if your bank fails.

Dave McKevitt
Silkin Management Group Consultant

For more information about Silkin Management Group, visit our website at www.silkinmanagementgroup.com.



DID I REALLY HEAR THIS?

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As the President of Silkin Management Group I have written many blogs, along with our Silkin consultants, about a variety of topics including practice management tips as well as issues concerning current events such as the health care legislation. Because I like to write timely blogs I keep an eye and ear out on current events.

Yesterday, while driving, I was listening to the news on NPR and didn’t believe my ears concerning a statement made by President Obama. Note: I am a registered independent and have no leaning toward any political party. If anything I am liberal on social issues and conservative fiscally – a viewpoint that doesn’t safely belong with either party. Thus my amazement/bewilderment with what I heard has nothing to do with any political leaning. When I heard this statement I was so stunned that I yelled “you’ve got to be kidding!” so loudly I was very happy nobody was in the car with me.

Here’s the statement I heard. The President proudly said that there was about $700 billion in TARP money (the money that our government so kindly came up with to bail out banks, car companies and other needy corporate conglomerates) that it looked like these corporations didn’t need. So, he said, instead of lending it to the corporations, it could be used for other things including reducing the deficit. That’s right, reducing the deficit. Realize that this money itself came from the government borrowing money from the Fed and/or through issuing bonds bought mostly by China.

That struck me as a ridiculous statement and the kind of economic “slight of hand” that is the standard economic policy of this country. As an analogy it’s like borrowing money from one bank to pay for a house, then deciding you weren’t going to buy the house and instead using the borrowed funds to pay off another loan and now saying you are reducing your indebtedness when you still owe the same amount of money!

I hope he handles his personal finances better than this.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

For more information about Silkin Management Group, Silkin’s management programs or any questions about practice management contact us at: info@silkinmanagementgroup.com or visit our website at: www.silkinmanagementgroup.com

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THE LACK OF BUSINESS OWNERS IN CONGRESS How Does That Affect Health Care Legislation?

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I write some blogs from my job as a consultant at Silkin Management Group and, in doing so, I attempt to stay versed on matters that are both very timely and ones that can affect my clients.

The most timely issue of our day seems to be the various pieces of legislation being worked on regarding health care reform. In fact several of Silkin Management Group’s blog sites have articles on them about this important matter than affects all of us, whether Silkin clients or not.

In a blog article posted on November 10, written by Larry Silver, Silkin Management Group’s president, (the article can be found here: Health Care Bill and Small Business, he conjectured that most lawmakers had “never run a business themselves…” nor had to deal with all the issues that go along with running a business, especially during lean times.

Interestingly enough, I ran across the following New York Times article that supported his conjecture: Entrepreneurs in Congress Say No to Health Care Reform.

This article points out that only 11 members of Congress, whether Republican or Democrat, were recent business owners/entrepreneurs. 8 of them voted against the House bill, and only 3 voted for it. I think that lends further credence to what Mr. Silver was discussing about our legislators having little or no reality on what it takes to run a small business and how the proposed legislation could adversely affect these businesses. I think the facts that less than 10% of our legislators are business owners and 73% of the legislators who are business owners voted against the House bill, despite party affiliation, makes a strong statement paralleling the opinion outlined in Mr. Silver’s blog.

Anyone who is a business owner should take action and express your viewpoint and concern to your Congressperson and Senators so that they get some reality from business owners on this as well.

I invite your feedback on any of this through our comments link below this blog.
Also feel free to visit our website: silkinmanagementgroup.com
or email us at: info@silkinmanagementgroup.com

Bill Hickey, Management Consultant for Silkin Management Group.

Visit our other blog at practicemanagementblog.com