Cover page article in the Australian Journal of Financial Planning about the work we have been doing in providing financial planning and advice services to Australian expats

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Volume 11 Issue 04 I 2016
THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL PLANNING• FS Advice

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Volume 11 Issue 04 I 2016
11Cover story
FS Advice THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL PLANNING•FS Advice THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL PLANNING•
ADVICE FROM
ABROADBrett Evans, managing director, Atlas Wealth Management
FS Advice spoke with Atlas Wealth
Management managing director Brett Evans,
an adviser who thrives on providing advice to
expats all over the world.
Photograph by Hayden Brotchie

3. 12 Cover story
A
n expat, a father and lover of all things social, Brett
Evans is not your average financial adviser. From an
early age Evans knew finance was the right place for
him and flourished in the uncertainty and challenge
of each day.
“I love the industry because it’s dynamic, it’s different every day,”
Evans says.
“When someone asks what’s ahead for the day, I’ll say ‘I’ll tell you
at the end of the day’ because it’s so different, there’s truly nothing
mundane about it. I would be almost a wallflower, or shrivelled up, if
I didn’t have the ability to have that dynamic environment.”
Obvious to all who have met him, Evans is a man that thrives on
social interaction and knew that financial planning was the right ca-
reer for him from his first client interaction.
“I love dealing with clients and I learnt that after getting about four
years of experience in the industry,” Evans explains.
“Getting on the client facing side and hearing the stories are what
took it to the next level again, amazing people, hearing about their
life and then gradually gaining their trust – that for me was a massive
part because they’re relying on you to give them advice.
“I was a bit nervous in the early days of my advice career because I
knew clients were relying on me to give that advice. It was quite em-
powering to say well there’s a husband and wife sitting across from
you and they’re coming to you to find out what they should do.”
Evans started Atlas Wealth Management (Atlas) five years ago as a
financial advice firm that specialises in providing financial advice to
Australian expats across the world. Through starting Atlas, Evans was
able to follow a lifelong passion having grown up as an expat himself.
The business was born out of a gap in the Australian financial
advice market and took shape from a combination of feedback from
expats and increasing focus on financial regulation from Australian
and international governments.
“Over the years I was getting more and more questions from col-
leagues overseas and friends and family about what they should do in
certain situations,” Evans says.
“In 2011 that’s when I decided righto we’re going to go an inch
wide, mile deep and straight into it and specialise in expats only. We
absorbed the area and took in as much as we could to try and deliver
advice in a way that saw everyone learning, understanding and mak-
ing the right decisions. Time and time again we keep seeing people
make the wrong decisions for the right reasons…they’ve got good
intentions but they go off and they execute incorrectly.
“In the past expats could sort of wing it when it came to finan-
cial advice but now just because you get on a plane and go overseas
doesn’t mean you leave behind your obligations.”
Approach to advice
The niche nature of Evans’ practice means that his delivery of finan-
cial advice has been tailored to understand and nurture his target
market. For Evans it is truly important for his clients to have the
connection between moving and working overseas but also having
something quantifiable there too.
“Our target market is different to domestic clients, incredibly dif-
ferent,” Evans says.
www.fsadvice.com.au
Volume 11 Issue 04 I 2016
THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL PLANNING• FS Advice
The quote
Now we can have these
conversations at scale and virtually
broadcast that to the world ... Social
media is everything to us.

4. The quote
xxxxxx.

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Volume 11 Issue 04 I 2016
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THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL PLANNING• FS Advice
“They don’t need help to save up for the first house or help to
pay off the credit card, it’s a matter of managing their wealth and
maximising their opportunity overseas. The biggest thing we like
to say to clients is that we want you to come back to Australia with
something to show for it, as opposed to just stories, photos and
having a great time.”
“It is very important to us that they have something they can
put their hand on and say my time overseas was great, it was good
for my career, my family, great from a cultural experience and
I’ve also got this money saved up and can improve my financial
wellbeing from here.
Working with expats means Evans and his advisers must work
through a two-dimensional advice process, taking into account Aus-
tralian legislation, Australian tax law and Australian issues as well as
those in each client domicile.
“We need to be cognisant of what’s
going on there to give the most appro-
priate advice,” Evans says.
Clients in multiple time zones is an-
other challenge Evans faces on a daily
basis, but the adviser notes he and his
team make it a priority to ensure cli-
ents wake up to a response. If a client
emails overnight his team will be sure
to respond in the morning, allowing
the client to respond in the afternoon. Improvements in technology
have been extremely helpful in overcoming time zones.
Between 30 to 40% of Atlas’ clients are in Asia, with the vast ma-
jority currently residing in China. Evans believes the combination of
the China free trade agreement and the country’s dynamic growth
have made it a natural place for Australian expats to move to.
“We initially had a serviced office in Shanghai but we closed it
down and now we work out of the Australian Chamber of Commerce,
which we have found to be our strongest connection. That’s because
they’re trying to provide value to their membership and we’re trying
to provide education – there’s no sales, these are just workshops and
seminars for expats to expand their knowledge.”
For Evans the reality of having a digital connection with clients
has become more important than having a physical office to meet at,
the inherent nature of his clients means that on any day they could
be in a new country.
“We’ve found not having a physical presence in China but having
a digital presence there is more important,” Evans says.
“When it comes to working with expats the other thing to note is
that they’re incredibly mobile. They’re often travelling for work, so a
lot of the time I want to catch up with a client from Shanghai but we
catch up in Singapore because he’s in Singapore for work.
“I think I’ve always joked that the world is my office, I’m not pin-
ning anything down.”
Embracing technology
While some firms focused on domestic clients are only just introduc-
ing digital platforms and signatures, technology plays a vital role in
the Atlas client experience.
“To us the use of technology is a matter of making the process as
easy as possible. We shouldn’t kid ourselves it’s a very dry subject, it’s
a very boring subject,” Evans says.
“We’ve got to use technology in a way that makes the whole process
more palatable and digestible, I will never say fun, because finance
isn’t fun, but it’s something that helps them get through that pro-
cess. Once we get clients on the other side and they’ve gone through
the process they’re like wow I’ve just freed up so much mental space
because I’m not worrying about all these issues now. It’s all set up.”
Improvements in and the acceptance of technology have made the
process of providing financial advice to expats not only more efficient
but also less taxing on the client’s involved, especially those in op-
posite time zones.
“The idea of printing off a PDF, signing it and sending it back
sounds like a very simple process but the client is in NY they’ll think
‘oh yeah I’ll do it this weekend, I’ll do it next weekend,’” Evans says.
“To overcome this we had to embrace digital documents and
digital signatures, to make the pro-
cess as easy as possible. Now when
we get clients to complete documents
they can click on a link, they fill it in
online and do a digital signature, so
it increases the speed of turnaround
but also there’s no anguish with cli-
ents. They no longer have to convert
family time on weekends to convert
financial documents.”
Technology has allowed Evans to
work quickly and efficiently with any of his clients around the world
and help break down geographical challenges.
“The speed that you can work at now is just so much quicker with
any sort of digital device,” Evans says. We can do anything towards
six to eight Skype meetings a day in six different countries, now that
is amazing. You’ll have a call first thing in the morning with New
York, a call mid-morning with Shanghai, afternoon Dubai and just
roll through the day.
“That type of efficiency would not have been possible without the
technology that enables us to do it, whether it’s a call, an email or a
text message, it makes life so much easier.
“One of our clients in Shanghai said the other day she speaks to me
more than she speaks to her neighbour and she’s in Shanghai and I’m in
Australia – that to me says that we’re doing the right thing. We’re giving
excellent advice; we’re breaking down the geographic distances and ena-
bling them to have that one on one interaction wherever they’re located.”
Social media
While some advice firms are just posting their first tweet or creating
a company LinkedIn page, Atlas is a leader in industry best practice,
embracing the full force of social media to increase client engage-
ment and ease of access.
“Social media is everything. If you wanted to get access to some-
one in Sydney, you take out an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald;
you can’t do that with expats,” Evans says.
“The one common thing all expats have is social media – so
whether they’re on twitter, Facebook or Instagram – we’re connected
with a lot of people in a lot of different countries.”
Talking to the proposed changes to superannuation put forward
by the government in the 2016 federal budget, Evans and his team
were able to share and send updates to all clients within 45 minutes
of the initial announcements.
Cover story
In the past expats could sort of wing it
when it came to financial advice but now
just because you get on a plane and go
overseas doesn’t mean you leave behind
your obligations.

7. “There’s no other way that you could get that in-
formation out there to such a broad range of people
than by social media,” Evans says.
He and his team have recently upped their YouTube
game, using the Atlas YouTube channel to host an educa-
tional series to discuss issues such as where you accumu-
late wealth as an expat, where you manage super as an ex-
pat and how to manage your super in a market like the US.
“We’re not going out there trying to get every single
expat as a client but we’re going out there and educating
as many people as we can,” Evans says.
“Some people will come to us naturally because they
recognise our skills and need our services, but if we can
get the message out there then we’ve done our job and
social media is the only way.”
Atlas has gained 49% of its clients from social media plat-
forms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
“We’re never surprised now. Atlas could not have ex-
isted 10 years ago because social media wasn’t there at
the scale it is now and also the adoption wasn’t there by
the expats,” he says.
“Now we can have these conversations at scale and virtu-
ally broadcast that to the world. As long as you’ve got inter-
net and a social media account we can get in front of you
and inform you with say the change of tax laws in respect to
holding investment properties. That’s where we see 70% of
what we’re doing as educating and 30% as execution.
“Social media is everything to us.”
A family affair
Evans is dedicated to his clients and understands working
Monday to Friday, nine to five doesn’t really work with his
client base. However Evans is also a man who is dedicated
to his family and ensures his schedule doesn’t impede on
the quality time he spends with his wife and two daughters.
“I’m almost embarrassed to say it but when you have
a client base which is global, you don’t have set time
frames,” Evans says.
“As the business grows and as we improve our func-
tionality I’m hoping to bring back more of my weekends
but right now clients love the fact that they can email
me on a Saturday morning and they can get a response
pretty quickly.
“At the moment, selfishly or not, I’ve put everything
on hold and am demarcated by time where I’m always
home by 6pm and I will spend those two to three hours
with my wife and my children and then I will jump back
on the computer again.
“I want my two daughters to be a big part of the Atlas
journey. I want them to look back as teenagers and say
‘oh I remember when dad started that business.’ Family
is the important part. I want my kids to be as invested
as I am in what I am trying to do. I don’t want them to
resent it.”
With a father as a pilot and as a former expat, Evans is a
lover of travel and hopes his daughters will be able to have
the same experiences.
“I want my kids to see the world, my wife is a former
expat too and at last count we’ve been to about 25 coun-
tries,” Evans says.
“When I went to school in Hong Kong I had 20 na-
tionalities in the class, as a result I came out of school
with an incredibly well rounded view on the world.
You’re sympathetic to a lot of different cultures and a
lot of different thought processes and I want my kids
to have that.
“I don’t want them to be myopic I don’t want them
to be very one sided when it comes to how they view
things I want them to look at things from different an-
gels and have a true understanding of the world.” fs
16 Cover story www.fsadvice.com.au
Volume 11 Issue 04 I 2016
THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL PLANNING• FS Advice
The quote
I think I’ve always
joked that the world
is my office, I’m not
pinning anything
down.