By Dick Haney Whether You are Entering or Exiting a Business as General Manager, Timing is Everything. “You got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” Probably many of you have identified these words as part of a song written by Kenny Rogers called... Read More
Category: Succession Planning
The Succession Saga - Part Two By Dick Haney The Prince Charles Syndrome is an affliction that affects not only Royal Families, but potentially your family business as well. The House of Windsor (The ruling English Monarchy) is arguably one of the most successful family businesses on the planet. Although the House of Windsor has... Read More
By Dick Haney Succession, or as some call it- Sucksession, the silent killer of small business, is potentially the Ebola disease of family business longevity. I am going to approach this topic from a different number of directions over the course of a number of weeks. This topic will be analyzed and dissected from the... Read More
It's no secret or will it shock you if I told you that I think farmers are terrible at succession planning. If most of you reflected on your own personal situations I would assume you would say that you agree. The question that arises is, if we know this to be true, why do we... Read More
By Shaun Haney It has always been the practice in agriculture if more than one sibling decides to take over the family farm that the farm will be split into separate entities. I know that in my own family's case in the late seventies, my grandfather and his brother split the farm into two separate... Read More
When we think about the threat to family farms we might talk about industry consolidation, farm commodity depreciation, access to qualified workers, rising input costs or market volatility. All of these things are threats to the survival of Canadian family farms but maybe the biggest threat was not included in this above list. In my... Read More
By Shaun Haney With the advancing average age of the North American farmer we have a critical situation at hand. We need to get more young people in the business of farming. Now I am not talking about getting more young people into the ag-industry. I am talking about getting them on the farm and... Read More
If you really examine the issues that family farms face you might conclude that they are set up to fail. I am not talking about challenges like low commodity prices or high input costs. What I mean by this is that families that farm together really face tough battles that are different than regular corporate... Read More