Are you losing sleep worrying about the farm and its future?
First of all, we understand. And secondly, you are not alone.
Your farm represents a huge financial investment and asset, as well as being a reflection of your life’s work. Having conversations about its future is not easy, particularly when there are different voices and varying opinions at the table. How do you know what people are really thinking, or if your idea is the best one? What will it look like to hand over the farm, and what comes next for you?
These are all valid thoughts and concerns, and they are never going to be resolved inside your head. But how do you get the conversation started — and how do you ensure you see it through?
This is where we help families begin, often through the development of a Family Charter. The Charter creates a shared foundation for open conversation, helping everyone understand values, expectations, and how decisions are made before detailed planning begins.
If you’re feeling stuck or don’t know where to start (or you’ve had a false start and are feeling a bit gun-shy), we are here for you. Since 2009, we have been helping farming families unlock their current situation and take the next steps required (and then the ones after that too) to ensure future plans are discussed, shared, and ideally agreed and understood.
With everyone on the same page, it becomes much easier to provide clear instruction to your legal and accounting advisors, and to move forward together with family unity protected, respected, and intact.
Free Succession Planning eBook
In this booklet, we’ve drawn on our 100+ years of collective experience in succession planning to identify the nine most common mistakes that farming families make, and how to avoid them happening to you and those you love.
Simply fill out the form below and a copy of the eBook will be emailed to you from your local Coach.
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Our Process
Our Succession Planning process is based on a proven framework that responds to each family’s individual circumstances. Our independence is key to our success, alongside our experience, gentle guidance, and coaching for accountability and outcomes.
A core part of this process is the development of a Family Charter — a shared foundation that captures your values, expectations, and how you work together as a family. It becomes the reference point for decision-making and helps ensure everyone is aligned before detailed succession planning begins.
As part of our process, we will:
Establish trusted relationships with all family members. This is achieved via our discovery phase which is 100% focused on asking the right open-ended questions to capture insights and enable conversations to get started.
Help you to articulate the end goal, and then begin coaching with the end in mind.
Develop a shared understanding, so all family members can learn and appreciate what is important to one another.
Explore and develop options — using our professional experience to uncover preferred pathways.
Create a Family Charter and a formalised written plan, documenting agreed principles, decision-making approaches, and accountability steps.
Undertake regular reviews — to celebrate successes, identify changes, and adapt the plan as needed.
Each family’s needs will be different, and that is anticipated and expected. In terms of timing, there is no perfect time or timeframe, but it is critical that these conversations are held while there is sufficient time to think, discuss, and explore options. This allows a smoother transition, rather than decisions being made under urgency, high emotion, stress, or duress.
Family Charter: The Foundation of Good Planning
Often families begin these conversations without a clear structure — but with Rural Coach support many find that they naturally develop what becomes a Family Charter. A Family Charter is a simple, shared view of:
your values and expectations
how you make decisions together
how you involve next generations and partners
how you navigate the practical and emotional sides of business planning
Building a Charter matters more than the document itself. It helps families start early, normalise hard conversations, and build trust, confidence, and open communication before succession is even on the table.
When succession does come up, the groundwork is already there — people understand each other and have a shared way to make decisions.
The Charter then becomes the foundation for strategy and operations, turning planning into an ongoing process where decisions are easier because everyone agrees on what matters most.
Outcome
As an independent facilitator, we provide a platform for greater clarity and objectivity in decision making. For you, this means that succession planning risks can be mitigated, choices can be discussed and potential growth opportunities identified and optimised. Most critically, the measure of our success is that family relationships are strengthened and family unity retained, maintained or enhanced.
Duration
Developing a succession plan requires commitment from your farming business/family. To ensure mutual success, we ask you to undertake some preliminary work known as discovery (which requires all members to complete questionnaires). Thereafter, we will engage with you for up to six months (or more) so that a sustainable, equitable and satisfactory legacy is achieved and family relationships preserved.
Service Charges
We are a time-based service business which means the cost for succession planning will be dependent on the complexity of your farm/business and the number of family members to be consulted. We are happy to talk to you about your requirements, and advise costs before any work begins.
Rural Coach offers services that are registered with the Management Capability Development Voucher Fund. Small businesses may qualify for help to pay for services such as training workshops, courses and coaching that build the management capabilities of their owners, operators and key managers.
Moving Your Farm Forward
Watch as we discuss why Succession Planning is so important in this day and age, and how the discovery process can connect the needs and wants of both generations.
Testimonials
Inclusive Conversations
It's not often that we get a chance like this, as kids, or as the next generation, to have this type of conversation.
Son-in-law, married to 4th generation dairy farming family / Ruawai, Northland
