Preparing a succession plan for your farm is a complex undertaking that requires many types of expertise. It’s imperative that the advisors involved in the process – like an accountant, financial advisor, lawyer, family dynamics advisor and any other required expert – are all collaboratively on the same page, ensuring your plan a success.

Blending family and finance

Many people, and even some professional advisors, consider farm succession planning an entirely financial process. We’ve discovered that actually considering family dynamics is the first step we take with clients. We need to determine who the key players in the farm business are right now, which children are involved and which ones are not. We also really need a sense of everyone’s goals. From there, we always talk to all family members who will be impacted directly or indirectly to understand their perception of the succession plan, even if they’re not in the business.

During this discovery discussion, we identify what we call “combustion points,” – sources of conflict that could cause trouble in the future. We need to understand the complexities of the family dynamic before we even start strategizing finances, accounting and legal. That way, we know if something needs to be addressed differently from the outset. We don’t want to make these discoveries when you’re about to sign final documents, wasting time and money on a plan that has a high probability of not being implemented.

Communicating as a team

Communicating as a succession planning team should also be a priority right from the beginning. We gather the entire advisory team together, so we’re all getting the same information directly from you. When meeting, we ask the questions that are pertinent to our respective area of focus, and all of the critical information is shared. From there, we make sure our information is accessible to all team members to assist with their respective planning strategies.

Expanding the team

Once family dynamics have been considered and the holistic strategic plan has been developed, discussed and approved by the family, it still has to be executed. This includes helping families establish distinct roles and responsibilities. For instance, how is a daughter or son going to know whether they’re performing up to mom and dad’s expectations? What is their five-year plan? In the past, they were left to their own devices to answer these questions.

Averting a crisis

In the past, before we created our Farm F.I.T.N.E.S.S. Program (a professional succession plan advisory team) we found the process of creating and implementing a plan was significantly more fraught, as was ensuring farm families had the best experience.

For instance, when we operated as independent advisors in a succession plan process we put together a very thorough, detailed plan only to discover it was not always implemented and documents were not executed. Family relationships were strained, agreements had to be renegotiated. In the end even though everything turned out well, the client experience was not what we wanted – this become the catalyst for creating our current Farm F.I.T.N.E.S.S. process.

So make sure you choose succession-planning advisors who possess the expertise required to get your strategy in place. With the right team on your side (who are all accountable to each other) you can pass on your family farm operation with peace of mind.