Jim Casler
Jim Casler
North Coast Ag Advisors
Family Business Planning

231-218-7525

Know Your Numbers. 
Know Your Business.
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Hay Harvest in Northern Michigan

6/21/2020

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Harvesting Organic Hay

North Coast Farms

Northern Michigan

​June 2020.
Our friends at Swarey Farms provide the equipment and man...and woman...power for this endeavor. It is a neighborhood adventure.

This hay is used to feed pasture raised beef over the winter. Michigan's cold, cold winters inhibit year-round grazing, so we must supplement their diets with stored-up food sources like this hay.

As my friends Laura and Tim Swarey motto reads, "Eat More Beef".


​
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Today's Opportunity

8/20/2016

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​You read about it online, you hear about it at seminars…heck, entire books have been written about the subject.  The aging population of the average farmer makes it almost imperative that you should be participating.  Some in your family may be constantly bringing up the subject matter for discussion.  

BUT --- Succession planning just isn’t happening for many family-owned farms.  Is it happening on your farm…with your family?  

Developing your succession plan for your farm business is perhaps today’s greatest leadership opportunity.  “So what’s your point, JIM!”

My goal is to motivate you to get started with your succession plan if you haven’t, to encourage you to continue if you have, to jumpstart the process if you’ve stalled or to congratulate you if you are finished!

Some ideas about succession planning to put in your back pocket and ponder…and maybe one day, take action on include:
  • Succession planning is the development and implementation of a plan to transfer responsibility, operational control, leadership and ownership of the business from one generation to the next.  It is logical that since the farm business usually represents over 80% of a family’s net worth, there ought to be a succession plan to manage the transition of the management and ownership of the business from one generation to the next…no?
  • Succession planning is a complex process, both from an emotional and technical standpoint.  It varies with each business.  It is difficult because of different needs and wants of those involved – generally all competing for the same scarce resources.  It often seems easier to just keep things the way they are rather than navigate through the minefield of differences…let alone having to talk about it.  Yuck!  
  • At the start of the planning process the outcome is uncertain.  With each step it becomes clearer and uncertainty is reduced.  The added clarity helps generate more energy, thus providing the momentum to keep on keepin’ on.

Our experience suggests the following are helpful points to consider with any succession planning process:
  • Start with the emotional and personal side of things and finish with the financial aspects.  Confusion and ambiguity often cloud the process if done in the opposite order.
  • Involve EVERYONE in the process at some point.  Owners, managers, on-farm family, off-farm family…and yes, even the in-laws!  Your family and team will likely be more willing to accept the final outcomes if they have had some input into the process.
  • Don’t worry so much about where you are in the process but make sure you are moving forward.
  • Succession planning involves choices.  Choices can be characterized as perfect, acceptable or unacceptable.  If you don’t understand and accept these characterizations, decision-making can become frozen and the planning process will stall.
  • Stay centered up with what is best for the business.  This may or may not be what is best for an individual or one of the families…but generally, what is best for the business is best for the family…and each of its members.
  • If the process is stalled, look for the emotional rather than the rational reason why it stalled.
  • Listen, learn, and understand.  Don’t judge another person’s position.
  • Use financial information to take some of the emotion out of the decisions that need to be made.

Someday…maybe soon, or maybe many years in the future, there will be a discussion about your legacy and your contribution toward to your family and your family business.  Today’s leadership opportunity enables you to have the most positive influence possible on that legacy.  Think about taking it and leading the succession planning conversation and process.  Best of luck.  

Cheers!


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The Process

8/6/2016

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Successful family-owned businesses and especially those that have multi-generations of family members working together in a family understand it’s NOT the decisions they make together, the values they choose together, and the accomplishments they make together…that carry the most weight.

As one of my favorite client's like to say, "The food tastes so much better when everyone helps make it.".

True.
The skills and experience gained while working together… as family members and business colleagues…create far more value to you and your family members.  The process and experience are enhanced when you all seek answers together, talk together, learn together, struggle together, get to know one another better, grow more tolerant of one another and learn how to come to agreement as a group.  These are the kinds of things that happen when you engage in such processes as developing policies, doing collaborative planning or simply enjoying a family reunion.
​Because process is so important, successful families sometimes make the assumption that whatever policies or statements they create today can be changed three years or five years or a generation from now.  Some families believe that policies should have sunset clauses, perhaps extinguishing them every generation. They tell the next generation, sometimes in a preamble, “These policies are important to us and work for us, but if you just embrace them as they are, you will miss the most important part: going through the process of creating your own.”

Until next time…

​"Coming together is a beginning.

"Keeping together is progress.

"Working together is success."

              - Henry Ford
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I'm Baack

7/30/2016

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It has been several months since I've written a post. Why?  I have been busy.  Ha!  So is everyone else, right?

Last summer our family purchased an old farm-house and we have spent the last year remodeling.  By remodeling, I mean REMODELING.

If you have ever done a remodel before, especially of a 100+ year-old home, you already know what we learned. Everything takes longer and costs more than you expect!

Just for the sake of it and because this is my newsletter, I wanted to share just a few pictures.  I'll be getting back to more regularly posts as this summer winds down.  Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy some of our memories.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pictures of the several birds and dozens of mice that lived in the house before we began.

Yu-Uck! 

Oh, the name change.  The previous newsletter name was boring.  The new name, Road's End, was simply borrowed from an old sign that was on the barn at the farm.  No reasoning whatsoever.  Just did it.

​Have a great rest of the summer y'all.  
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Civility

8/15/2015

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A very simple post this weekend...
"Having wine every night is such a civilized thing."

                                                                              --Julia Child
glass of wine
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Character Over Credentials

7/31/2015

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While it doesn't always manifest itself, I still believe that character matters -- Doing right versus trying to look good.  

For those that are in positions of hiring employees or when seeking business partners and opportunities, today's post is a simple list of 15 traits that are generally not learned in college and worthy of your attention.

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A New Project

7/19/2015

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It has been exactly one month since my last post.  Many clients are in the middle of harvesting fruit, so it seemed like a good time to tackle a project that is way too big for me -- the remodel of a 103 year-old farm house!  

Enjoy the slide show a just a few small projects I have been working on lately.  It's been fun and I look forward to the finished project.  

I'll be back soon!
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Know Your Numbers.
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PO Box 2, Kaleva, MI 49645
231-218-7525
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Jim Casler - agriculture - family-business - family farm - financial management  - consultant  - advisor - succession, business and transition planning - real estate - Michigan