When Louis Balcaen began to
look at advisors as an investment,
not a cost, the next step was to
build them into a team
Be sure you get yourself a quarterback, Balcaen says. It s essential to have someone with those talents.
You usually get what you pay for, Louis Balcaen says at the start of our talk. It s his summary of a dozen years of bringing together a team including his banker, insurance agent, lawyer, and accountant for annual meetings.
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One of the most difficult things for us farmers to accept, Balcaen believes, is that good advice is worth paying for.
Balcaen is the first to say that he was hard to convince too. For years, he hesitated at the cost. The thought of paying professionals to sit in a room and talk to each other just seemed unwise.
Growing into team meetings
For 40 years, Balcaen owned a dairy and grain farm in La Broquerie, Man. He grew the operation from a half section and 15 milking cows to 1,500 acres and 300 milking cows.
While growing his farm he also took an active role in what he describes as the politics of dairy. A former chairman of the Manitoba Milk Producers Marketing Board, president of the Manitoba Dairy Association, vice-chairman of the Canadian Dairy Commission and president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, in his characteristic low-key way he says, I was very fortunate that I was entrusted with those roles.
All was going well, so why should he need a team of advisors?
Two things brought the decision home. First, he had to change accountants and ended up with a firm that he hadn t carefully researched. The results weren t good. But they did open his eyes to the value of getting the best possible professional input.
Balcaen also recalls the frustration of running back and forth between advisors when setting up a farm corporation. The accountant would suggest something, but add that Balcaen should get legal advice. Visiting the lawyer, he d get another suggestion, along with the caveat that he should check it out with his accountant.
The meeting process
Using a football analogy, Balcaen describes the insurance agent as his quarterback. The agent, who worked extensively with intergenerational farm transfers, co-
