Economics Finance

Farm succession and planning is such a never-ending process that what was said during your first conversation with your spouse or another family member can take place weeks even months before you share what was discussed with your advisers.

If you don’t write down what is said, in an order that makes accurate recall possible, your communications will be like those described by Lewis Carroll, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” in Alice in Wonderland.

Writing down what people say when they say it is important, because in the end what you are trying to achieve and create is a sort of “relationship agreement” that spells out how you and they all see the future together. Maybe what comes out of these farm succession and planning conversations is a collection of relationship agreements on simple issues as well as your mutual ideas for the big ones.

Whenever two or more people are involved in a long term interdependent relationship there is likely to be disagreement. In a family business these disagreements are often more acute because they are never just about business – they are always tinged with something personal, everyone has a history and a future that gets lumped into whatever infraction of the code is observed by the others. Continue reading ‘Farm Succession and Planning Key – Write Everything Down’ »

For a farm succession plan to succeed there must be a timetable for specific actions to take place. Everyone involved must be able to see when certain benchmarks are reached. If there is no agreement on when certain elements of the process will be put in place – why should they believe you are really serious about farm succession planning this time either?

Remember the first time you told someone that you’d do something, like clean the shed or wash the pickup, when you get around to it. And they whipped out a wooden coin that was stamped “Round Tuit” across it. Ok, so now you have the round tuit – when are you going to start on the shed?

Farm succession planning lends itself perfectly to being put off doesn’t it? If you hadn’t been putting it off all this time you would have no reason to read this would you?

Let’s face it, we all spend far too much time living on “someday isle” and since the farm succession planning issues reside there as well – we’ll get started on the discussion after the crops are in, after the holidays, after the crops are planted, after vacation, after the association meeting, or worst of all – after we have everything figured out.

It does not seem to occur to people that the process of farm succession, passing down the farm – is really about figuring out what we want to happen. It’s about getting clear on what’s important to us, our spouses, and our families.

Farm succession is 90% knowing what you want the future to look like and 10% having the documents and contracts in place to see that it will all come together in the end. Continue reading ‘Farm Succession When You Get “A Round Tuit”’ »