Program Descriptions

A Kayaker’s Guide to Risk Management: How to Stay in the Boat

Kayaking in the 50° waters of Puget Sound, miles from shore and in rough conditions is all about risk assessment and incident management. In this often funny and always thought-provoking session, Linda shares insights learned (and earned) from her paddle adventures and applies them to your bank.

  • Discover the ‘hidden’ steps to reduce your risk in rough waters
  • Assess and improve your team’s approach to ‘confused seas’
  • Deconstruct a ‘near miss’ to learn, and then share, the lessons

Turbulence is ahead in banking, by definition. Prepare now for your next trip into choppy seas.

[back to top]


Calm Seas or Rough Waters: The Ten Essentials for Success at Work

Scouts know to take their ten essentials on every hike even if it is a sunny day. Weather can change, you can get lost or a fellow scout can be injured. It is no different in business. Just when things are looking up, disaster can strike.

In this upbeat and entertaining presentation business owner, bank trainer, scout mom and kayaker Linda Keith helps you:

  • Develop your customized ‘Ten Essentials’ list for survival and success
  • Select the ‘Essentials’ to work on that will most quickly improve needed skills and preparation
  • Create teams to brainstorm ideas and evaluate your progress

Rough waters? No problem. Adopt this ‘Ten Essentials’ strategy and apply these solid ideas to your job next week.

[back to top]


What Did you Get Yourself Into?
Responsibilities of Board Members in the ‘New Normal’

Economic challenges, the regulatory environment and government actions have changed the skill-set needed of a Credit Union Director. Is it time to up your game to meet the current challenges? What is new and what should you have been doing all along?

Linda Keith CPA will cover the new realities, responsibilities and liabilities. You will learn:

  • Why no job you had before adequately prepared you for this job
  • The danger to both management and members when Director’s learn solely from management what they should know to oversee management
  • How to create and maintain a positive, balanced relationship with management and still do your job

Question authority…the rally cry of the 60’s or the job of a Director? Linda believes it is both! After this session, you’ll fulfill your obligations more effectively and with more confidence.

[back to top]


Self-employed Borrowers in Rough Waters: How to Say YES

In the best of times, consumer and mortgage lenders may find it difficult to qualify self-employed borrowers. As the 2009 tax returns come in it will be even tougher. Linda Keith CPA draws on over 20 years working with banks to help lenders say “Yes” to good loans.

In this entertaining and upbeat presentation, you’ll gain the information you need to:

  • Find the taxable income adjustments to calculate recurring cashflow
  • Dig deeper for legitimate adjustments when the first result is a ‘no’
  • Reduce dependence on software for cut-and-dried answers
  • Watch for red flags and recognize when they aren’t red after all

And you’ll answer the question:

Are you going to be lending to the wrong self-employed borrowers this year?

[back to top]


The TOP TEN Warning Signs for Business in a Recovery: Help your Lenders say YES

Every question your business lender asks, every document they check and every ratio they calculate is designed to answer these three questions:

  1. Will you pay this loan back if you can?
  2. Does it look like you can?
  3. What if you can’t?

Lending is still tight and regulators are still inflexible. Linda Keith knows what is hidden in your tax returns and financial statements that will make the lender nervous. Do you?

In this upbeat and entertaining presentation, Linda helps you:

  • Recognize the impact owner compensation (high or low) has on the loan decision
  • Explain dramatic increases (or decreases) in costs that make the lender nervous
  • Prepare for the questions about business expenses that look like personal ‘perks’
  • Refuse to let the lender assume your business is injured when you have been forgoing profits to take advantage of recession opportunities

You know that dropping revenue is a red flag. But it is the subtle warning signs that might sink your chances for the next loan. Know what they are and you can help your lenders say yes.

[back to top]


The Six Keys to Getting your Next Business Loan: Why the Lender says YES

Would you like your lender to say ‘yes’ to your next loan request? Would you like to know the one factor that will kill your loan before you even get started? Would you like to get into the head of your lender so that everything you say, every document you provide, and every discussion with your lender passes successfully through their three-question, six-filter process?

Now you can! Banking and business consultant, author and trainer, Linda Keith CPA presents the six keys to success in the Pass/Fail test, that stands between you and your next loan.

  • Understand the only three questions the lender has to answer
  • Learn the ‘Six Cs’ filter all of your information must pass through
  • Be prepared whether the loan is to you, the business owner, or to your business
  • Memorize the one phrase you will NEVER say to your banker again
  • Apply this information to your next loan application to maximize your ‘YES’ potential

You’ll find out why, according to a recent survey by Pepperdine University, bankers declined 72 percent of cash flow-based loans, 90 percent of real estate-based loans, and 46.7 percent of collateral-based loans. And you’ll find out what the businesses and business owners who gained approval did right. Linda Keith CPA trains business lenders throughout the country to say ‘Yes’ to good loans. She knows how the bankers think. Now you will, too.

[back to top]


The Triple Threat of the ALLL: Update on Challenges and Solutions

Do you agree with this CFO’s statement? “The problems with ALLL are not in the rear view mirror yet.” What would the world be like if the calculations for ALLL were clear and straightforward? If the tool you use to calculate and kick out reports was intuitive and transparent? If the Directors understood ALLL ramifications? If GAAP and examiners were on the same page? Or the same planet?

Linda Keith CPA will combine her insights and the results of up-to-the-minute conversations with examiners and CFOs to help you solve three problems:

  • Cumbersome calculations and spreadsheets that worked better when life was simpler
  • Conflicts between GAAP and Regulators and how to navigate between them
  • Complicated reports for management and directors and how to make it simple and clear

Armed with the latest, you’ll break into collaborative discussion with your colleagues to compare notes, challenges and solutions.

[back to top]


Finance 2.0 for Directors: Move beyond Check-the-Box to Good Governance

Directors all over the country are asking five critical questions:

  1. What do I need to know to fulfill my ‘Duty of Care’?
  2. How do I know if I know it…or know it well enough?
  3. How do I prove to the regulators I’ve made a good faith effort?
  4. When is it okay to rely on the financial opinions of other directors?
  5. How will I look the organization ‘owners’ in the eye, should things go wrong, and honestly say ‘I took personal responsibility to learn what was needed to provide financial oversight’?

Join Linda Keith CPA as she combines her insights with those of Examiners, CFOs and Directors focused on good governance. Even if your directors have recently attended financial training, come assure yourself that you have given this the ‘good governance’ test. And yes, Linda will provide a certificate of attendance so you can also check the box!

[back to top]


Tax Return Analysis in a Tough Lending Environment

Tax Return Analysis – Essentials and 1040 Review

More than just the 1040, this workshop is the foundation for cashflow analysis of any tax return. We cover how the information flows, how to tell if you have the complete return, a process to work top to bottom (even when you get interrupted) and the basic types of income, expenses, gains and losses you have to use to get from taxable income to recurring cashflow to pay debt.

Then we drill into the 1040 for personal lending and guarantor analysis. Rentals, sole proprietorships and capital gains get special attention.

You’ll learn to:

  • Convert taxable income into cashflow available
  • Spot red flags and troubled borrowers
  • Keep your train of thought
  • Ask good questions and develop customer relationships
  • Dig for dollars, when necessary, to say “yes” to a good loan

Beyond the 1040 – Corporation, Partnership and LLC Returns

Unless you have significant experience or training, be sure to attend the 1040 workshop with or before this one. Most lenders who skip it wish they had not since it sets the stage for all types of returns.

Picking up where the 1040 workshop leaves off, we cover Partnerships (general and limited), Limited Liability Companies and Corporations (both C and S). Before we jump into the tax forms we cover:

  • Each type of entity
  • Advantages and disadvantages
  • Tax perspective
  • Risk exposure of the owners
  • How the cash flows to the owner versus allocations of taxable income

You work with Linda, in small groups and on your own to:

  • Do a quick overview of any business return to get a feel for the business
  • Determine business cashflow available to pay debt
  • Spot troubled businesses and questionable expenses
  • Calculate cashflow available to the owner and what they really took
  • Discover what they did with excess cash or how they covered a shortfall

[back to top]


Tax Return Analysis for Ag Lenders

The same workshop described above is modified to use Ag Tax Returns. We’ll consider the nuances of farm lending, complicated entities and how to use consolidations and eliminations to get a clear picture of the farming operation.

[back to top]


Financial Statement Analysis: Understanding the Business Scorecard

{This description is for a class for lenders. The workshop can be modified for nonfinancial managers or business owners.}

This basic-to-intermediate class is available as an on-site, shared or local program. We also have the course in our Lender’s Online Training. You’ll learn the story behind the numbers.

  • Make better loan decisions
  • Have more meaningful and helpful conversations with business borrowers
  • Capture and retain more lending relationships

Linda believes in hands-on training to develop gut-level understanding. You’ll be calculating percentages and ratios, converting from cash-basis to accrual and creating simple financial statements from underlying information.

Yes, Linda knows that you have spreads programs to do that for you…back at the bank. After this workshop you’ll really understand what the calculated numbers are telling you. As those ratios and percentages shift from one period to the next, you’ll have a much better idea of what happened in the business to cause the change…good or bad.

You’ll be able to answer these questions:

  • Can I trust these financial statements?
  • Does CPA-prepared, compiled, reviewed or audited make a difference?
  • Is the company profitable?
  • What are the trouble spots?
  • Do they have enough cash?
  • Do they already have too much debt?
  • What else should I ask?
  • Should I make the loan?

You’ll learn to:

  • Distinguish between cash- and accrual-basis and reconcile one to the other.
  • Calculate and understand the most common ratios and percentages.
  • Create simple financial statements, including a Statement of Cashflows from the Balance Sheet and Income Statement.
  • Read the Notes to the Financial Statements to learn what questions they answer, and what questions they raise.
  • Write-up your analysis in narrative that goes beyond stating the obvious (elevator analysis) and explains the meaning behind the changes in the numbers.

[back to top]



Download the Global Tax Return Analysis
Quick Reference Guide

>