Odds are that your farm business partner has thought about succession planning too. So the topic isn’t going to come as a shock to them.

Before you bring up the topic, prep yourself first by answering some basic questions:

Why is succession planning important to me and/or the farm? Find the words to share these reasons with your business partner. It might be your age, your interest in a post-farm life, or your hope that the farm passes to the next generation of your family. Name it and state it clearly.

What do I want from the conversation? It seems basic but many people don’t think about the outcome they want when they start this conversation. You don’t need to be too specific on this but have a general outcome in mind. Maybe you want your business partner to commit to succession planning for the farm, or maybe you want him/her to share their perspective on it. You might want to get a sense of if they have potential successors in mind.

Now it’s time to have the chat on succession planning with your business partner.