Someone will farm your ground and raise your cows after you’re gone, but are you doing everything you can to ensure it’s your kids and not that pesky neighbor?

Through my years working with farm families, I’ve realized one of the hardest parts is letting go. When you’ve spent a lifetime pouring time, money and passion into your business, it’s difficult to let someone else start taking control of it.

But I’ve got a little secret to share with you: None of us are getting out of this alive.

Someone is going to take over the farm. The question is, are you preparing your heirs for the role?

Farm succession is a gradual process. It should never be viewed as all or nothing — today the farm or ranch is mine, tomorrow I toss you the keys and it becomes yours. Instead, it should be a slow transition of management and ownership from one generation to the next.

Transitioning the farm to the next generation involves five phases, each including training:

1. Time off the farm. Encourage kids to go away before they are allowed to come back home. That doesn’t necessarily mean extra schooling, but they should learn additional skills to bring back to make the operation better.

They also need to learn how to work for someone else, perhaps a good boss and a poor boss, so they can see the difference.

2. Trial work period. This is a short period for testing your heir’s ability to manage both family and business relationships. Sometimes we discover that the friction between family and business roles is too much. If we continue to try to force the business relationship, we may destroy the family ones.

3. Beginning management and ownership. Your successor needs to start managing a small portion of the business and earning or buying an ownership share. It is both management and ownership.

For example, a large cattle producer in my area shared how his father came to him the day after middle school graduation and pointed to an empty pen, telling him to go buy some calves and feed them that summer.

The father promised not to tell him what cattle to buy, what to feed, or when to sell them. It would be his pen to manage. His father was there to answer questions, if asked. The producer admitted he made some mistakes that first summer, but his father allowed him to learn by doing.

Preparing your successor starts when you give your kids their first set of chores. Do you micromanage them or rather train them to be their own problem-solvers?

When it comes to ownership, your heirs must be acquiring a share in something. Otherwise, how do they know they are building their own future, and not someone else’s?

4. Advanced management and ownership. During this phase, the successor should be slowly taking more management responsibility, and it must include the finances. Many families get to Phase 3, but they can’t bring themselves to turn over the checkbook.

A successful farmer and businessman continually told me that his kids were going to lose the operation after he is gone. “They are just no good at managing money,” he would say. For years, I asked what he was doing to change that. Each time he replied, “They just can’t do it. They are going to lose it.”

The last time I saw him, I looked him square in the eye and said, “I think you may be right. They may lose it after you are gone. And unfortunately, it’s your fault.”

I don’t know if his kids lack financial management skills, but he never gave them a chance to learn. Now, they’ll face a steep learning curve when they inherit the farm, having never seen its finances.

5. Majority manager. In the final phase, your successors become the majority manager of the farm operation. Again, this does not mean tossing the keys and walking away. It means our roles change. We shift from focusing on our own success to helping our kids be successful.

Think about the future of your farm and ask yourself, do you really care about giving one of your kids a chance to continue your legacy after you’re gone?

If so, start the gradual process of working through these five phases to make the shift smooth. Then, everyone is ready for the change.