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FarmJournalLegacyProject.com/Tools

Succession Planning Tools Menu

A full menu of succession planning templates and resources for your family and farm. Click on each heading to open a PDF.

Succession Planning Action Guide

Gauge your progress by checking off each action step as you move through the succession planning process. From making the decision to secure your legacy, to following up with annual reviews, this step-by-step guide helps you achieve your long-term objectives.

Family Meeting

Are you ready to begin the succession planning process? The best place to start is with a simple family meeting. Here are tips on how to set up a meeting.

Family Meeting Agenda

Map out your family meeting and discussion topics. Who will be involved, what are the objectives and obstacles, and how will follow-up be ensured?

Conversation Starters

Your success at transitioning the business to the next generation depends on the quality and the frequency of communication within the family. Distribute the following conversation starters before the initial succession planning discussion to help family members consider and then share their goals and aspirations for the family business.

Goals Clarification Worksheet

Most farmers seem to have a good idea of what they want to achieve when they think about succession, yet their ideas may not be clearly defined. Succession planning means turning intentions into goals, goals into actions and actions into results. Using this series of questions, your goals may become more specific. Take a few moments, answer the questions, then ask other family members to do the same. Compare your answers, looking for common goals.

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Fair vs. Equal Exercise

This worksheet is simply a tool for exploration, and intended for conversation purposes only. The decisions surrounding equal versus fair can confound your best intentions. Though we can’t devise a simple worksheet that addresses every scenario, we feel this one facilitates conversation, and allows the family to engage in constructive dialogue around this sensitive subject.

Selecting an Adviser

Use this brief interview guide to help you identify an adviser who can facilitate the succession planning process for you and your family.

Succession Planning Self Assessment

As your family begins to consider succession planning objectives, these 20 statements will help to identify key priorities and potential first steps.

Ready for Succession?

Get started by ranking your succession priorities related to Leadership Development, Ownership Transition, Wealth Management, Retirement Option Design and Efficient Estate Distribution.

Business Plan Self Assessment

This tool should be used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an operation’s business plan. It should also be used to review the business plan on an annual basis. If a business plan does not yet exist, use this as a checklist for writing a plan.

Buy/Sell Review

With so many components involved, it makes sense to periodically review your buy-sell agreement. This review tool will help you assess the viability of your current agreement and identify those areas that should be updated. It can also be used to ensure any new agreement you draft includes the relevant points, provisions and mechanisms. (Caution: Legal documents should be drafted by a licensed attorney familiar with the laws in the specific state of residence.)

Operating Agreement Design Tool – Coming Soon

This worksheet is designed to help you, the owners and future owners of the operation discuss the common, and sometimes contentious, issues included in an operating agreement. Each question should prompt a discussion and encourage a decision. The completed worksheet should be shared with an attorney who will help you weigh the pros and cons of particular points and draft an operating agreement into a legal and binding document.

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Establishing a Family Employment Policy

A family employment policy:

Spells out the criteria for hiring and employing family members.

Helps to instill a business-like environment for all family members participating in the business.

Allows managing family members to base decisions on a written policy rather than emotional impulse.

Details minimum requirements family members must attain to be considered for employment in the family business.

Job Description Template

One aspect of effective succession planning and leadership development is to fit the best candidate to each operational role, and to ensure that everyone involved is clear about the position’s qualifications and expectations. Non-emotional, objective decisions promote rational, consistent and fair outcomes. Emotion as a motivator is necessary, but it must be tempered with prudent thought – committed to writing.

Merger Candidate Interview Guide

Use this interview guide when considering a merger. Utilizing a questionnaire to interview prospective merger candidates will standardize the process and prompt an informed decision about the prospective company.

Merger Candidate Evaluation

This tool is a list of business issues for you to consider when determining the suitability of a potential merger partner. Assign a numerical value of 1 to 5 (5 is most important) to each item. This will help to assess the opportunity, based on a consistent set of criteria.

Leadership Skills Inventory

Leadership may be the single biggest gap in any succession plan. Today the opportunity and obligation to run the operation belongs to the controlling generation. Tomorrow it may be sons, daughters, managers and/or key employees. How ready is the next generation to lead? Use this inventory to assess a potential leader’s skills, strengths and areas for growth. The results should serve as the starting point for building a tailored development plan for each aspiring leader.

Ready for Retirement?

Retirement planning takes time and contemplation. Many owners don’t, or won’t, retire due to an unstated lack of preparedness. This tool is intended to get you thinking and planning. In thinking about the right time to retire, it’s helpful to consider how much income will be needed and what you hope to achieve during the next phase of your life. When (and if) you’re ready to hang up your boots, everything will be in place to make that happen.

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Retirement Income and Expenses

Do you know how much retirement will cost you? Do you know if your income will meet your expenses? Financial security depends on an honest assessment of what you’re likely to have and what you expect to need. Use this worksheet to capture your estimated retirement income and expenses.

Life Insurance Needs Analysis

The potential devastation from untimely death is not worth the risk. This threat can be financially destructive to even the most sound operation. Planning for sudden contingencies is critical to agribusiness financial health, employee peace of mind and your family’s financial security. Life insurance is designed to provide money at the very time it is needed most.

Disability Insurance Needs Analysis

The potential devastation from an unforeseen disability is not worth the risk. This threat can be financially destructive to even the most sound operation. Planning for sudden contingencies is critical to agribusiness financial health, employee peace of mind and your family’s financial security. Disability insurance is designed to provide money at the very time it is needed most.

Trust/Will Review

This checklist is to be used for discussion purposes only, and may not be all-inclusive. (Caution: Legal documents should be drafted by a licensed attorney familiar with the laws in the state of residence.)