How to Start the Farm Transition Planning Conversation

Shay: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shea Polk and Chris Barron. And Chris, today's conversation is a result of a question that we get asked frequently. And that question is, how do I get started talking about transition planning? And a lot of times this question, as you can imagine, comes in from a point of frustration with a junior partner reaching out to us and saying, I don't even know where to start. Or the flip side of that is mom and dad don't seem to want to talk to it. Well, usually it's dad doesn't want to talk about it, or grandpa doesn't want to talk about it. If we're being honest here, you know, I guess to take that at face value, Chris, you've dealt with this for a long time. What's your— let's start with your number one thought around how do you approach the conversation of farm transition planning?

Chris: Well, I think it starts with just the basic communication in the operation to start with. I mean, is evaluating what is the communication already like just day to day, and if that day-to-day communication is iffy and challenging, I think you got to start to improve some of the, just the basic communication first. And I think you have to ask for, you know, are we having, you know, weekly or monthly meetings to know who's on first and what's on second and I don't know who's on third, you know, just getting things organized within the operation.

Assuming that that's good, and everybody's kind of essentially happy with what's going on in the organization, the operation and communication sufficient, then I think it's, it's literally being pretty direct and just saying, you know, and it depends a little bit on how old the junior generation is, too, you know, if, if they're 30 years old and, and been at the operation for 15 years, You know, it's like, and literally, you know, since they, you know, grew up there, whatever, and there's not being anything done, I think it's just asking the question very directly, what does the future look like? What is the plan for the future? Is this something that could be transparent so that we can, so that I can be informed as a junior member? And I think direct is the best. I, you know, I don't think you can really beat around the bush. With that respect.

I think the challenge though is, and I just got an email or a text, I had a couple of them last couple days where, you know, we've already started helping them work on a transition plan and we put the plan together of the process to get the plan put together, and then I get a text from the junior members like, nothing's happening, nothing's going on, you know. That's where it starts to get tough.

Shay: Yeah, and So, I want to back up to the communication. So, communication and then you said direct, but I think also what that means is being open and having a plan. A lot of time we talk with junior partners that know that they need to start the transition planning conversation and know that things need to happen, but they're just saying, "Mom, Dad, Grandpa, we just need to go do it." But then there's no plan in place. You know, they haven't really thought through what does that look like. And that's where our role comes in, or, you know, farm transition specialists, whoever. That's where that role a lot of times comes in from a facilitation standpoint of, okay, what do you want? Where are you at now? Where do you want to go? How do you get there? Let's build that bridge of what that path looks like.

So I would say that that directness probably requires having somewhat of a plan in place or somewhat of an idea of how that would occur. But what if the communication just sucks to start with? You know, we've, we've worked with some people, they referred to it as we just farm mad, we just farm pissed off all the time, which is not fun. Where do you start there?

Chris: No, and it's not sustainable either over time because eventually you'll— somebody will get burnt out and it's— and then you're done. And I think, you know, just when you were making those comments there, I think a lot of it has to do with third-party perspective, to your point, of, you know, let's say it's a father-son, or let's, you know, I've talked, we've had a couple of farm operations we've worked with where there's two brothers farming together, and now they're entering the cousins phase where the next generation's coming in. And, you know, you might have to have a conversation with your uncle, or you might have to, you know, have conversation with a grandpa or whatever it is. And there's those generational differences.

And sometimes what happens is the younger generation will say something to the senior generation, and whether it's intended or not, it goes in one ear and out the other, and they don't listen to each other. So it's being aware of the fact is, are you being listened to? But conversely, it's the other way. Are you listening to them? So it's a two-way street. And so I think it's important to demonstrate if you're the younger person and you're the one that's struggling is make sure that first of all, you're listening to what they're saying. And if they're saying, "I'll get to it, I'll get to it," then start documenting what they're saying and then come back and say, "Hey, you know, a month ago you said you were gonna do some things. I just wanted to follow up and see how you're coming with that or if you're making any progress." And probably they aren't.

So the next step is to say, okay, is there anything you need help with? Is there anything I can do? Or would you like to talk with me about it? Or whatever. And it might be a 7-month thing because most people need to hear things 7 times before it, before it sets in if you reach to them every month. So you might not fix it in a day or two, or you're going to be really pissed off and frustrated because you're not— it feels like you're not getting anything done. But the only way you're going to get anything done is be consistent with follow-up. You don't want to bury them bugging the holy crap out of them, but you need to consistently follow up and say, okay, how's it coming? Where's it going? I don't want to be bugging you. It's been a month or it's been 6 weeks or whatever it is, and I want to make sure that I can carry this legacy on.

I mean, you've worked so hard to get to where you're at and to do these things. And I want to take some pressure off of you. You know, I want to, you know, so what is the benefit for them? Because typically the senior generation wants security, the junior generation wants growth and revenue. And so it's understanding the difference and the difference of the wants, desires, and needs of each generation because they're kind of different. So if the junior generation can say, you know, hey, I I want to make sure you're secure, you know, and the only way I'm going to do that is if I understand what you got planned and what you need and what you want. And if you're starting to help them understand their why and what they need, it'll start to come back your way. I mean, you kind of get what you give.

So it's kind of— it's a little bit of a psychological game sometimes with the other side if you can't— if you have to try to get them motivated.

Shay: And I want to speak directly to the senior partners that are listening to this because our goal is for you that are junior partners listening to this. We want to give you a resource to be able to send to your mom or your dad or your uncle or your grandpa. So if that's who you are and you're listening to this conversation, I want to make sure that you know 99.9% of people that we work with that are junior partners looking to transition with a senior partner absolutely want what is in the best interest of everybody. And that needs to be the baseline assumption, that the, the partner that's transitioning in wants what's best for you They want what's best for the family. They want what's best for them. They are here to do the right thing and carry on the legacy. So treat that as your baseline, and it makes a lot of these conversations a lot easier.

With that being said, it's okay to disagree, and you should, you should be open and willing to the fact that they may want different things than you do, and you may want different things that you're not going to get. It's not going to be your way or the highway. That's not how a partnership works. That's not how professional successful businesses are run. There is some give and take that's required there. The last thing that I would say around your comment of the accountability piece really is what it is, is transition planning is hard. It's like having, it's like having another job if you haven't done that before in your life. You know, you focused on the farm or maybe livestock or other entities that you've had there.

Transition planning is like having another job because it requires different deadlines, different structures, different meetings, extra time that it takes, and it takes time to do. So when they're holding you accountable, take that as, take that as a feeling of the fact that they respect the process and respect you so much that they want to do it right. They want to take the time to do it right, to go through the correct steps. Very few times do we see people, do we see people try to rush through a transition. They're not trying to get it done in 3 years. They're just trying to make progress. They're just trying to, to get the ship sailing in the right direction. So I wanted to mention that, like, the baseline is everybody wants what's best in the farm transition plan, the junior partner, is figuring it out just like you are.

And maybe in order to level that playing field, maybe you need a third-party perspective. That could be a trusted friend, that could be a friend of the business or a friend of the family. But typically it takes someone that has experience, expertise in that field in order to navigate those conversations. And that's not us saying that as, as the facilitators of it. That's just, that's just the truth. It's the fact of what's needed. For the number of transitions that we've done, you need to have some outside perspective.

Chris: And a lot of operations, what they'll do is they'll start with the attorney, and that's fine. But a lot of times what you and I have seen, Shay, is if you start with the attorney, the attorney's going to look at the family and say, what do you want? Or going to look at the gener— you know, the, the, um, senior generation and say, okay, what do you want? If you show up without a plan, they'll create one for you, but it might not be the right one. Because they may not have the proper context or understanding the whole complexity of the whole operation and all the personalities and stuff.

And furthermore, I would say that a lot of these that we've gone to and helped, when we get there and we start looking at business structure or the lack of, that makes it really hard to transition if, if there's a little bit of chaos going on, you know, multiple ownerships of equipment you know, just not a concise strategic plan for the business portion of it. So it makes— so if the business portion isn't— needs some attention, sometimes that complicates the senior generation's ability to figure out how in the heck do I even transition this because I already got chaos going on. And so, you know, it becomes avoided, right? You just— it becomes this avoidance of it. And then a lot of times, you know, and I know you've seen this when we go to some of these operations, you know, we'll ask the senior partner, so where are we at on the estate plan?

In other words, when's the last time that was updated? And a lot of times it's, you know, 5 years ago, 10 years ago or whatever, and it's completely irrelevant to the current situation. And so I circle back though to the third party because sometimes it is hard for the junior generation to say, Do you have your estate plan done? What's your estate plan look like? You know, and that's where, you know, bringing a third party in or, and, you know, and we've done a lot of these, just do like a, like a half hour Zoom with a family and talk about what are the important components of transition to just educate both the junior and the senior generation on the important components of it. Sometimes we'll open up the mind or motivate that senior generation too. To where it's not the young generation saying, here's what I think we need to do. It's like, could we listen?

Could we reach out to this firm that's going to tell us about, you know, we've done how many of those? We've done lots of those where, you know, we just do a half-hour, you know, video with, you know, or a Zoom meeting or something with the family and just say, here are some of the things that you need to think about and that you need to consider. And then it's not the junior generation saying this is what needs to be done. Instead, they're saying, should we learn about what some of the key things are that we need to make sure this legacy can continue on? So a lot of times it's about like how you say something rather than what you say. You know, it's like how, you know, you're saying the same thing but in a little different context, if that makes sense.

Shay: And I would add, you cannot avoid this conversation no more than you can avoid death. It's gonna happen.

Chris: Yeah, not if you want the legacy to go on.

Shay: Yeah. And, and every— pretty much everybody we've ever worked with does want the legacy to continue in some form or fashion. They either just don't know how to express it, or I think what it really is is they don't know where to get started. And, and I would, at this inflection point, for those listening, if you've sent this to your family, whatever, we have a list of 6 resources. They're totally free. That we put together of here's how to get started. It's financial planning. It's writing down your goals and vision. What's your timeline? And then what conversations need to be have? I mean, we put together a family meeting template that allows you to just sit down with your family and get this conversation started of things that we feel are important that before we would even start working with an operation, we like to have them think through Okay, what is it that we want?

And have those conversations. So if you want those resources, email me, it's shay@agviewsolutions.com. And I'll send that over. But I would say, don't do disservice to the junior operation or the legacy of the operation by not thinking about these things. And by not getting started. It doesn't take long to sit down at your desk and write down, what's my vision for the farm operation? What's my legacy that I would like to see continued? What are my goals financially for me and my spouse, for my children, for my grandchildren? You could do all of those in an hour. I would also encourage you, if you're not the type to sit down and write, you can get on you know, the AI tools, ChatGPT, Grok, whatever it is, and just say, give it a prompt and say, I would like to put together an overview of what my desires are for farm transition planning. Here's where I want to start.

And you can literally talk to it, you can hit voice and talk to it and say, I want this to happen, I want this to happen, I want this to happen. Please put this in a 2-page format, and then I can go through and edit it. It's amazing what that'll do just to have a foundational document for these conversations that you can hand as a senior partner or as a junior partner, frankly, you can hand to the partner in the business and say, here's my thoughts. This is a starting point. This is where I want to get started. But all that to say that we have resources available for that. And I think the starting point for most operations, Chris, is you have to get your financial house in order. For the senior partner, 90% of the time, In addition to what you said of where's the estate plan at that we come in and ask as facilitators or as a third party, a lot of times that's 5, 10 years old.

What's even more daunting that even fewer people have prepared is how much money do you need when you step into retirement? What are your sources of income? Are you going to be financially stable? What do you need to be financially stable? What do you need as a requirement from the next generation. And a lot of times, it's not as daunting as they think because the senior generation has done a great, great job of investing, putting money away, purchasing land that's going to provide rental income, other businesses, Social Security. But you have to factor all those things in so that the junior partner knows what reality looks like. And they may not feel comfortable asking those questions. Like you said, they may not say, Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. How's your estate plan? You know, what's going to happen when you die? Not everybody's comfortable with those conversations or being that direct.

So, don't do them a disservice. Get those thoughts put together and reach out to us if you need those resources.

Chris: Yeah. And Shea, I think, you know, the big thing is just communication. It goes right back to what I said in the beginning. A lot of times we, we do a couple different things. We, we avoid it, so then never nothing ever gets talked about. So we're avoiding it. And then the second thing is, is we tiptoe around the topic instead of just, to your point, just any, even if it's a document and you sit down and just say, I have these concerns, can we, can we please just have this conversation around this? And then you tell me your concerns. You know, what are— don't just tell them what your concerns are, but ask them what their concerns are and what their thoughts are around it. And one thing that really can't be an excuse is we'll do it tomorrow or we'll do it next month or we'll do it whenever. Okay, then what is the timeline? When will we do this?

Shay: And Chris, I'm going to interrupt you right there. Yeah, yeah. Part of the reason that we talk about this and I was going to ask you this question, but I'm just going to say it as a statement. The right time to start transition planning is as soon as possible. As soon as you have young kids or thinking about the next generation, if you're 30, 40, 50, go ahead, start your transition plan, start establishing your business structure and your estate so that it makes it easy when you get to that point. And if you haven't done any of that, you need to start yesterday because it takes time to do it. And the reality is, and I don't mean this from a fearmongering standpoint, is, but you and I have seen it time and time again. It is so much harder for families and for businesses when a key partner of the business dies unexpectedly. And it happens.

People pass away in their 40s and 50s and 60s and early 70s that the family and the business were not ready for. And I'm here to tell you, you are not immune to that. The number of people in your community that you know of that have passed early you are not immune to whenever your ticket is called. Don't make it hard on the family by not having any sort of a plan in place.

Chris: Well, and, you know, we've, we've had podcasts. They can go back and listen to the 4 Ds. I know Alyssa did, did her Friday Rewind on, on the 4 Ds. And, you know, the contingency planning is, is part of that, right? Just exactly what you just said is You know, what are some of the things? And disability is one of those things too. We also a lot of times talk about what if somebody gets hit by a beer truck? But what if somebody gets hit by a beer truck and they're still alive and they need to live and they need resources and they need all these things? You know, thinking about, you know, a lot of the contingency planning is a part of that transition plan.

To your point, Shea, just to kind of add to that, because I think it's, you know, when people are not motivated to do things, all of a sudden if somebody's health gets bad, the motivation changes, you know, or if a spouse's health gets bad, you know, why not just be proactive, you know? And that's— and part of why not is because we got a lot of stuff going on, right? You know, the economy is not real good as we record this in July of 2025. You know, the— you know, there's all these other day-to-day things. Life happens, you know. I mean, you've seen it. We put these meetings together and then some operations hammer down on the action items instantaneously and they get a bunch of stuff done. And there's a few operations that are really super slow at getting things done, and it's just a motivation thing. And, you know, the quicker you can get at it, like to your point, Shea, the better.

Shay: The mental solvency that it requires to do this effectively is also something that I think we need to talk about a little bit more. And, and I'll just be pretty straightforward on this. I've, I've noticed here with a lot of operations we've been working with over the last couple of years, and people can throw rocks at me and I don't mean this personally, but you start to see forgetfulness and inability to focus as long on a subject or require the commitment and brainpower when folks get into their upper 60s and into 70s. And, and again, I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just an observation of transition planning becomes harder. As you get older because it takes more brain power, it takes more time. It's just the natural aging of our brains for most individuals that it requires a lot more time and effort to do.

Or you start having things like, um, early onset of dementia, or you have, um, other disease, Parkinson's disease, or other things that now you have implications of mental wellness creating an impact on the effectiveness of a transition plan. You just made it 4 times as hard as it needed to be than if you had started 8 years ago. And things change over time. Uh, transition plan is not one and done, set it and forget it when you're 52 years old and assume that that's going to be what you still want when you're 70. It's an evergreen plan that needs to change over time. That's why I kind of said it's It's like having an extra job because you need to set meetings, you need to be thinking about it constantly.

Maybe not constantly, that's a little daunting, but you need to be thinking about it with a frequency that ensures that it's adaptable and able to survive into the next generation appropriately. But don't, don't strain yourself more than you have to by waiting until it's much harder than it needs to be. Hopefully I said that okay.

Chris: You did. And I think, you know, the other thing is, you know, we always talk about the state of the business address at the end of the year. That's a good time to review, you know, when you're looking at the financials, you're looking at year-end stuff, you're, you know, that's the perfect time just to add that in as part of that day, you know, 'cause it should be a day when you do your state of the business address, how are things going, and get everybody together, make sure everybody's on the same page, clear communication, all that stuff we talk about all the time. Great time to review the transition plan and the contingencies of the what-ifs. What if this happens? What are we going to do? What if that happens? What are we going to do if this person's out of the picture? What happens?

Having that conversation, you know, who's, who can sign what stuff, you know, who's, who's got powers of attorney if this person's out of the picture, you know, how's out of those, what are those contingencies? And, and, and that leads itself to keeping it evergreen, like you said, but it It's a minimum once a year type of deal, you know, and I like what you said there.

Shay: I want to speak to both generations here that are maybe listening to this and hopefully this isn't the case, but a lot of times what we'll see is there's a senior partner that just, they won't do anything. They won't plan. They won't think about what needs to happen. And they end up being people that we don't work with because we can't help you if you don't want to help yourself or if you don't want to help the situation. But we get a lot of those phone calls from the younger partner just being like, "Dad won't talk about it. Dad's not the talkative type. He's not the type to talk about emotional matters or he's never been financially minded." And how I think about that, this is my personal opinion that I'm okay sharing because I think it's important. I think people deserve to hear differences in opinion. I'm 31 now, and we do this full-time with clients across the US and Canada.

If I was 40 years old and didn't have a transition plan in place, and I'd been working at the farm for any period of time, meaning 2 years, 5 years, 20 years, and there wasn't a transition plan in place by the time I was 40, I would leave. And I'm not saying that's the right case for everybody, and that doesn't cover all situations. But there is a reality that the junior partner leaves, and then what? You just lost someone that cares about that business probably more than anyone in the entire world that is willing to help you transition the business financially, and they're leaving because you're unwilling to have that conversation. But I would leave. And I think the flip side of that is, is what do you, what do you really have to lose, or what are you afraid of or scared of? Or unwilling to admit to yourself that you're not open to having that conversation as a senior partner.

And Chris, what I think it is a lot of time, I don't think people know how to express this, but I think it's the feeling of inadequacy because they don't know how to do it. Well, guess what? Transition planning is hard. You shouldn't know how to do it. It's one thing that you have to do once in your life that's probably one of the hardest things you'll have to do. So if you have that feeling of inadequacy or insecurity, or you're unsure on how to even get started on it, reach out and seek help from an expert. Reach out to someone in the community who has successfully conducted transition planning. Take in the resources that the people in your operation are trying to share with you to get started, but don't wait and and just be open and honest with yourself and admit that, hey, if I have this feeling of inadequacy, how do I overcome that?

And how do I make sure that we don't lose the opportunity to transition this in the family effectively? Mm-hmm.

Chris: One thing I would add to that, Shay, too, what you just said is, you know, if you've got a generation that's really adamant about not talking about it and really just super resistant, I think one key question is, is do you see this operation as finite or infinite? And if, if you would like this legacy to go on and be an infinite opportunity for future generations, your great-great-grandkids, 3 more generations down the road, we gotta have this conversation. If we don't, that's a finite business, and this is the last generation. It's your, you know, it's a choice, right? I mean, doing nothing is a choice, just like in marketing or anything else. Do nothing if that's your choice, then that's a choice that you're choosing that. But there's a consequence to every choice we make and there's a benefit to every choice we make.

And so if, you know, and so that's why I like to ask that question. And that's a question that I think a junior member can think about is how do you, how do you see our, our business? Do you see it as a finite thing that is gonna, that does have an end? Or do you see it as, you know, this being multiple, multiple generations down the road And the only way you get to an infinite business is back to what we just started the whole conversation about, is, is transparency, conversations, planning, building, and working on it.

Shay: So we've hit on some of the, the key aspects here. Just to review, it all starts with communication. It has to be good communication at an operational level. It has to be good communication between family members, and it has to be good communication with the partners that you have in and with your business. So, insurance, CPAs, attorneys, facilitators, whoever that is in your business, you need to have good communication there. There also has to be an underlying level of respect and an underlying level baseline understanding that we're all in this for the good of everybody. We're all in it to do the right thing. We're all on the same team. Why are— you know, you don't fight the people on your team if you want a successful team. You're all on the same team, so don't fight with each other. That's stupid. The next thing is just having a plan in place.

And maybe that plan starts with the junior operation expressing what they want. Maybe it's the senior operation expressing what they want or a combination of both. Maybe it's getting a third party involved to help figure out what do we want? You know, what do we collectively want as a team? And how do we get from where we're at to where we want to go? And then maybe just as a reminder of, you know, it is okay to disagree. It's also okay to have accountability in the process. So it's not going to be all Dad's way. It's not going to be all Junior's way. You're going to have some give and take and you should have some give and take as that process occurs. But also, and I would say this is probably more particular for the senior generation, it's okay to be held accountable. It's okay to be held accountable to timelines, to dates, to commitments that you've made.

And that's, that's the level of respect that I mentioned earlier that you should owe your future business partner, that you should owe your kids or your grandkids or whoever's taking over. Give them that level of respect that you would with any other business partner. And, you know, finally, I guess what I would wrap up with is you can't avoid this conversation and you shouldn't want to because As you get older, it gets more difficult. There's more challenges, there's more dollars involved that makes it harder to transition. Time is your best friend in this process. And the earlier that you can bring in the next generation into key management decisions and across training into ownership levels of opportunity, the better off they're going to be. You're setting them up for success. So we have resources. This is what we do for a living.

But this conversation is more so based on you know, where do we get started? How do we ensure that we're doing the right thing? And maybe just as a message for really the junior operations here, I would say is who the target audience is, but for them to be able to send this podcast and this audio clip to the senior partners to help them understand that we want what's right for the business. We're here, we're committed to the process. Let's get this thing started. So Chris, any closing thoughts?

Chris: Yeah, uh, just something I thought of here for a second, and then also just wrapping it up in the sense that, you know, we all have influencers, right? So the senior generation that's listening to this, if this gets passed along, who influences us, you know? And to the junior generation, it's maybe having a conversation with that senior member's influencer. It might be a spouse, it might be a sibling, it might be a trusted friend, to your point of what you said earlier, that maybe you have a conversation with them to coax the senior generation along a little bit too, just as a motivational tool. Because I think it really comes down to motivation for the senior generation. You got to decide. You got to decide, I'm going to do this. And the junior generation isn't trying to budge in. They're not trying to butt into this whole thing.

They're just trying to figure out what does their future look like and how do they carry the legacy on. And so I think it's as simple as that. Back to your communication. Just talk and work together. You're all on the same team.

Shay: So that's all I got. And if you, if you need help with this process, first of all, reach out for the free resources. Again, shay@agviewsolutions.com.. I will send you over those resources. If you want to talk about your situation, give me a call, 309-264-3090. We're, we're here to help you with this. And even if it's just, how do we get started? How do we have this conversation? You know, that's— this is what we do for a living. This is what we find value in, is probably one of the most rewarding things that we do as part of the Ag View Solutions team is help people figure out what the next step in their farm or their ag business looks like. So that's what we're here for. We're here to help. I hope this has brought value.

If it has, please share it with, share with your friends that are in similar situations, share it with your parents, the senior partners, and make sure that you share the message that we want to be here to, to help you and your business, to help your team, and we want to help your family and your business kind of thrive as we move forward here. So Chris, thank you for the conversation today. I really appreciate it. Yep.

Chris: Thanks, Shay.

Shay: And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. We will catch you next time.