Below are some questions that you may use to begin a conversation with different farm succession coordinators. Some may be more important to you than others or you may wish to modify them to ask specific questions you need answered.
One thing to remember: the coordinator owns the process, you own the decision-making responsibility and outcome. They are there to help facilitate and coordinate your process in deciding how you are going to transfer management and assets of the farm business to further your goals, not to tell you what to do or to fail to hold you accountable along the way.
- Where are you from?
- Do you have farming in your family?
- What is your educational and professional background?
- What experience do you have working with farm businesses and the families who run them?
- How many families have you coordinated farm succession plans for?
- Our family [shies away from conflict / has a lot of conflict] – how comfortable are you facilitating that type of family interaction?
- What are some of the things you’ll have us do during this process?
- Will it only be one session or more over a period of time?
- How flexible are you with scheduling?
- Where would you like to hold these meetings?