BUSINESS PLANNING SERIES – Part 1

The starting point for any effective business plan is to gather the right team of advisers around you. This obviously should involve the following:

• all relevant family members
• your accountant
• possibly your banker & solicitor
• your farm advisor if relevant
• if the plan might involve expansion through acquisition, this team could be augmented by all sorts of experts such as valuers, engineers, financial planners, real estate agents etc
• its not possible to prescribe the exact pool of people you will require as each project will be different, suffice to say, it should be multi disciplinary.
• one professional I think who needs a jumper is someone with a psychology background or an expert in communication facilitation
• the business planner should be the central facilitator who can bring in the expertise needed whenever it is required for the family and the process which could take many months to complete
• the old adage that underpins business planning is ‘it is a PROCESS not an event!!’