Six Questions To Ask Your Family Tonight

Published on 18 December 2017
Categories: Succession, Farm Advisory

Ok, so you don’t have to ask all of these questions tonight, but do ask them sometime in the near future. This can be informal, and make it clear that you won’t necessarily have an immediate response, but that you will take their answers seriously. Try not to debate the answers you receive, although further questioning to gain a better understanding of the initial answer would be fine. No response should be dismissed out of hand – there are plenty of successful businesses around that have grown on the back of ideas that at first might have appeared dumb.

The Six Questions

1. Ask your spouse when you last went away on a holiday as a couple. (You probably don’t remember do you)? And then ask when and where she would like to go on your next holiday together.
2. While you are at it, ask your spouse where she would like to retire to and when.
3. Do you know for sure which of your children would like to continue farming? (Even if some of your children are already off the farm, are you sure of their intentions)? Ask them.
4. Ask your children if they feel that their efforts towards the farm business are appreciated by you, and if not what you could do to make them feel appreciated. Note that this applies to on-farm and off-farm children.
5. Find out what your off-farm children feel about inheritance.
6. If you have a married son or daughter living on the farm, ask their spouse if all their needs are being met.

You may well find that some of these questions provoke further questions. Ask these too.

And so to Action

So now you need to do something with all those answers you’ve got, although you may actually feel like you’ve got more questions than answers! If you feel a bit overwhelmed at this point, that would be natural, but you are in a better position than you were before. (Ignorance isn’t always bliss and many of our life plan clients feel this way at this point in the process)!

You’ve made a start, and you will gather momentum as you get going with the process of creating your life plan. At the end of the day, the answers to all the questions are obviously important to everyone concerned, but at this stage, so too is the fact that you’ve asked the questions!

Well done!