#315 Brett Evans – Transcript

Ben Nash
Hey guys, Ben Nash from the X Y advisor team and I’m pumped to be back here chatting with the one and only Mr. Brett Evans. We’re just having a bit of a banter offline. And we spoke almost three years ago, shortly after Brett moved over to the Middle East to set up his business over there clearly is now that amazing timing going into a global pandemic. But his has managed to, to thrive. So I’m keen to unpack a bit about that journey. But for anyone that hasn’t come across threat before, which would probably be pretty much no one but Brett’s the founder and managing director for Atlas wealth of the E M. e eight, which is Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Regis is of his business. Didn’t know that that was a thing. But Brett, welcome, buddy. Good to have you, man.

Brett Evans
Thanks for having me on and good to catch up and a bit of water’s been under the bridges since since I last catch up. You know, who knew that six months after your last quarter? We’ve been dealing with a global pandemic.

Ben Nash
No. Totally. And, and clearly a bit of a Yeah, like more of an issue for for you in that, you know, you’re just setting up camp over over in Dubai to deal with all of these people that are jetting around the world, into the Middle East. What how did that how did that play out? And what was the impact from a from a COVID perspective clients and how that worked?

Brett Evans
I think yeah, it wasn’t ideal. We got our so we’re dual regulated, obviously air sec, and then other regulators, the Dubai Financial Services Authority, who worked very closely with ASIC, both and build on common law principles. And the interesting part was we got our license on the 27th of February 2020. And, yeah, here we go. And then this little thing called COVID, started popping up on the screens. And fast forward, the world goes into chaos. And you could put your head in the sand and think, Oh, my God, what are we done, you could certainly run back to mama, or you could just go radio, this is what’s been dealt, let’s get on with it. So we sort of COVID didn’t really change anything in terms of what how we operated. You know, we’ve been operating digitally since 2011. When we found it will Skype back then at zoom now. Now on which adventures which is good back then was a lot of wet signatures. So used to take six weeks for mail to arrive with application forms. But the interesting part was as a great test for Atlas because nothing really changed. Our our BCP plan, our business continuity plan was go home, and nothing changed. You know, we’ve got everything’s well and cloud based, and the only thing that changed from a client’s perspective was the was the image behind us. So then you could sort of go into care and maintenance. But one thing, you know, it’s scary to think I’ve been doing this for 2526 years now, having gone through Asian financial crisis tech boom, tech by September 11 GFC. Now, the pandemic, one thing I learned from that was actually sometimes it is the greatest opportunity when you are building a business, because people need that hand holding that need that governorship or stewardship by a professional to help them get through this situation. And whether it’s making decisions or deciding on what to do or taking advantage of opportunities in the markets, whatever it might be. So we started running weekly back to back webinars, live webinars, these things will go for two and a half, three hours long with q&a at the end and everything. And yeah, we had over 500 people per session on these things from over 50 countries dialing in. And to us, it’s more about cutting through the bullshit what we know this is what’s happening. At that time, there was a very large piece of punitive tax legislation going through that was going to affect experts with respect to main residence exemption on their properties. So people will read nervous about that, are they going to defer, we will busy running, you know, change that org type petitions to try and petition Canberra to give it 12 months extra because people were locked in locked out of the country. They couldn’t manage their assets, they couldn’t do anything. So it was really just a scramble through the early part of 2020. By mid 2020. Dubai had taken a very much a practical commercial view on things they spent the lockdown periods, building procedures and policies for the long term. So we were back in the office early July 2020. And had been back in the office ever since then. So then it was a matter of, okay, how do we integrate this Australian office in the Dubai office and the easiest way is to have separate systems and separate policies and separate everything. So the jurisdiction but the with The B BHA G and the B hag the big hairy, audacious goal was always to have a global firm with polarity of systems across the board. So people could move between offices, and there would be no difference there. But you sit at a desk that’s typing a login and got everything at disposal that they had at the previous office. So that was certainly a big, a big push. Because even though our regulator here is common law, like, like Australia, and the UK, there’s probably 85% crossover in terms of regulations, so they do some things here a little bit differently. So it’s, again, how do we bake that into existing procedures and make it you know, very similar. So that’s what was about and then obviously, Australia, having the borders closed, that create a lot of problems for us, because I, I’ve been back to Australia since June 2019. So that’s a big one for me. But also, too, as we ramp up, because we are so busy, we couldn’t hire anyone out of the strap, no one wanted to leave, everyone was very concerned by what was happening overseas in and know, what was happening overseas probably wasn’t as bad as what was being portrayed by the Australian press.

So but there was that fear and concern, thank God on the first November last year scomo, signed the paper to remove the quota system. And things have changed a lot since then, you know, there’s been an exodus of people moving overseas, there were those who were planning on being an expert through COVID, and had to defer those plans plus people who just need to get out. And now in that sort of situation of just trying to, you know, trying to play catch up?

Ben Nash
Totally, yeah, look, I think for us that we had to do a lot of adapting with the COVID situation, which was challenging enough with all the uncertainty and you know, new dynamics of of everything I can only imagine with with trying to do it in a in another country, as well, and sort of picking things up over there. But the one of the things that you touched on there, which we’re chatting a little bit about is around legislation, and you know, you’re working across a couple of different legislative frameworks with your business and clients and obviously, working with the big expat client group that you’re, you know, familiar with different jurisdictional rules as well, more broadly than just the financial advice, legislative requirements that you’re working to. But how do you go about tackling them? And I know that you’re big on trying to stay ahead of legislative change? As much as you possibly can? How have you gone about that, in your business?

Brett Evans
When there’s a lot of research to be done, you don’t just decide to set up an office overseas and just do it, you know, there’s like about it, probably two or three years, build up to that process of research, research, understanding the metal parts. Unfortunately, even with an absorb a massive amount of research, you probably only understand 30% of it until you get there. And then you get on the ground. But then, to me, it’s about surrounding yourself with people who do have the answer and do know, you know, the the answers, that’s a big one, you know, it’s it’s funny how clients will often source an advisor or planner, by referral. And when you’re overseas, you’re doing the same sort of thing, to find an accountant who understands how to handle VAT in the UAE and GST in Australia. So there’s a unique skill set to get to find that person and surround yourself with those people. And they become invaluable. Because once you have that, then you get fast again, because rather than you spending two days trying to find an answer to a problem and not getting anywhere, it’s one email sent off and five minutes and they come back with the answer concisely exactly what you need. So the hardest thing is, how do you integrate two licenses together, while keeping the client experience the same, and not trying to have different rules and regulations. So once again, you know, spending a lot of money, a lot of time talking to people about what we can get away with sometimes pushing back is a big one. You know, we always talk about, you know, sometimes if people will tell you the easiest answer and sometimes it’s what you don’t want. So you just got to find someone who gives the answer that you you need. And then you know, just putting it into into the process and make it part of your procedures. And I think that’s what we’re really proud of, you know, James and I spent just stupid amount of energy and resources in getting to this point of visually, someone can land on a plane from Dubai today. And as long as they’re on the Australian Financial Advisor register, they can come in bang it’s we call the Dubai office, the embassy because it’s full of Aziz had an officer CSM compliance officer myself, you know, and NFIB, we’re all ASICs. So I think it’s key Being at North Star and keeping true to that legislation is difficult to cope with. And they always change. So, once again, keeping your ear to the ground. And sometimes he anticipates something, sometimes you can’t, but just having good people in your network who will share informations, that is the big thing. That’s people bill.

Ben Nash
And how much has it helped, though, because I know that you guys have been like fee only since early on in the piece. And some of those things that are maybe not as legislative but like, compliance requirements D was that I actually haven’t asked you this question before, but like, was that part of that done in the with the intention of, you know, creating global offices? And, you know, I suppose, how’s that tied in together?

Brett Evans
To me, it’s what felt right. You know, and look, I get the whole premise behind commissions and stuff and subsidizing you know, different people’s cost and advice, and most of it is for us, it felt natural to us, it was felt that, you know, we make a t shirt, we sell a t shirt, we get a price, but in this case, we build an SOA, we provide an SLA, we get a price for it, it just felt like a a more of an attribution on the work that we provide, you know, our SLA s can go from 40 pages to 140 papers. We want people to see that value. And that’s why we started charging personally so early on the piece. To me, the big one has never been about losing your path in terms of different legislation. You know, certainly coming here, I remember sitting down with a diva say the first time and I explain to them, sometimes we provide advice and don’t recommend anything, no products, and that is going to be cross site. But at the same time, they’re excited about it. Because this region here like Asia, it’s still the Wild West, when it comes to a lot of the Cowboys the offshore IFA is selling the 10 year old man bond license that hadn’t been sold in Australia, UK for the last 2030 years. Because they’re so crap. The big thing we talk about is, you know, when

you’re selling that client to, you know, to a platform, whereas for us, you know, we’re talking about executions, probably 20 or 30% of the device process. There’s a big strategy piece there. And you know, we call it two dimensional advice, you know, where your assets are, which is Australia, where you are Dubai, France, UK, Germany, doesn’t matter where you are, and how those two commingled together. The more clients you build up in a certain country, the more match fit you are. So, you know, to ask these hubs, you know, Dubai, obviously, Saudi and places in the GCC region, there’s not a lot of tax considerations there. But when you go into France, where there’s a lot of Aussies and UK, there’s a lot of politics in Germany, a lot of it is, you know, you can talk about it, look, it does, and nine times out of 10. You learn it by providing it for the first couple of times to a particular client. And then the next client comes on, it’s just like, bang. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you, if you, if you go into Copenhagen, and you hold Australian ETFs, they’ll do a mark to market on an Australian ETF and tax you on unrealized gains. So whereas if you hold direct shares, they don’t. So for particular clients going to cut Nagin, we don’t recommend ETF portfolios. Otherwise, there’ll be tax on the realized gains. So it’s those sort of things, but you don’t know unless, you know, and our clients, they come to us because they don’t know what they don’t know. And for us, it’s just been doing it for 1011 years now. We’ve seen it all.

Ben Nash
Totally. And what are you taught? think more broadly across your business? You know, you’ve been in been at it for over a decade, what have been the biggest things that have changed for you guys, in terms of what you’re doing for clients, you know, how you’re doing it, and how you’re working as a business?

Brett Evans
To me compliance? Yeah, and I’m sure everyone out there is not surprised when I say that the advice side hasn’t really changed, the type of device has to a certain degree with legislative changes. But it’s the compliance side, and how we try and find the highest level of compliance but not the highest level of burden when it comes to resources. So trying to be smart on that sort of stuff. And to me, it’s revolved a couple of changes with respect to company structures, you know, we get the power plan is to do more than what a normal power planner does. We want the advisor advising we might advise a client facing. So when you look at an onboarding process for the client, there’s very low touch points from the advisors point of view, when it comes to sending out the SOPs and doing all those things. The actual paraffinic does that and we do it for two reasons. A, because once the advisor signs off, you know paraplanner can can sort of send those out but B, we know that that SOA going out is sent out properly with the appropriate PDS as an all those sort of things sort of attached in mind, because that’s the paraplanners job. Whereas the advisors as we know they have to send stuff out there get excited. And oh, sorry, I forgot that I’ll pull up this, you know that.

Ben Nash
I know, I’ve never done that before

Brett Evans
you and I both kind of have advisors. So you sort of you pay homage to your, to your roots, and then look back when you were just a pure service and your buyers and their business ownership, you know what you did right what you did wrong, and then try and work out a way that makes their job that process a lot easier. Whereas, and that’s the thing, I think compliance is here to stay. And I remember working for a group called Salomon Smith, Barney back in 2001, is now part of Citigroup. And we could open up an account, as long as the person was on the white pages, we could accept the million dollars. If that person is on the white pages, or electrical, no SOA nothing. And then the FSR came through. And all hell broke loose, we have to do one or two pages away about the risk profile. And what we’re recommending thereby. One thing it’s taught me is that there’s always a better time in the past from a compliance point of view, and it’s always going to get harder in the future. So rather than just reacting to every change, get ahead and go above and beyond what they’re requiring now set the bar a lot higher. So you sort of almost get five years of breathing space, you can just just put your head down and go.

Ben Nash
Yeah, yeah, totally. I know that for us, when when I started pivot in 2015. I did I was pro, I did feel that charging a fee for service for insurance advice was was probably better for clients. I know that there’s a lot of different ways that people deliver great advice when it comes to insurance. But that was my view. But I at the same time, I did also see the writing on the wall with the life insurance framework, the review coming in, that was happening. And I think for talking to a lot of people that did get a significant portion of their revenue from Risk Insurance Commission, that then they went through a period of like four years of uncertainty, you know, people trying to fight change, what does it look like different companies, different policies, different approaches, different transition plans? And, you know, for me, it was so didn’t have to think about that at all. It’s like now, you know, charging fees from like, bank accounts as opposed to products, because they’re just different companies got different requirements for these product base fees. And I think that that’s only going to increase over time. So for us, I found it really helpful to go okay, well, something’s in the water, we know where it’s sort of heading like may as well just do it. And then like you say that at least Yeah, and then you’re in front of it. And things will need to change over time. But hopefully, you get the main things in like you say, you plan ahead so that you’re not trying to do it or trying to turn on a dime.

Brett Evans
I think also to put building a system back from the client, you know, something that’s really held us in good in high stead with them. And when I say that I’ve never been part of the dealer group. So I got my first day for sale in 2009, it was 10 days from the bottom, the GFC, I thought I was either the dumbest guy or the smartest guy still don’t know what that answer was. But one thing it taught me was, because you have a blank piece of paper on how you want to build your systems, you can take the legal approach and build them as rock Polit, rock solid business in from a compliance point of view, you’ll never get any clients. So by taking the client first approach and working backwards, what it did do was, you know, sort of triage the necessities versus the nice to haves. And, you know, if you’re sort of my dad’s apartment, you always used to say, when he was flying a plane, he’d always imagine that myself, my brother’s mom went on that plane. So I’d always do the right thing on that plane. That was his mental space. And I think if advisors sort of took the same approach to their grandmother, or their parents, you know, this is I’m sorry, my parents here, and I want to do the right thing. But what would I do along those ways, and taking that sort of approach and just really changes the narrative. And to me, it really comes back to client first policy. And once you do that, you often find that you actually supersede the requirements from a legislative point of view. Just because you just want to do good shit.

Ben Nash
Totally. I’ve actually noticed with some of our our younger guys, when they first start, like associate advisors that are coming into that advisor role, that it’s interesting how people think about it that you say, like, what do you think that the client should do trying to get them to critically think about what the strategy is and they say are, you know, I think this or they should have a, you know, 5050 portfolio and then I’m like, Okay, well, what about that? You know, would, and then you ask the question, like, if that was your mom, or if that was like, what would you do if it was your money and then all of a sudden, the shift is different and it’s not like an ethics thing or saying the investments are not good But people think about it go. Oh, yeah, actually, if that was my half million bucks, maybe I wouldn’t put it into a bond fund that’s returning, you know, point 5% Or something like that. But it’s right. You think about it as your financial plan? And what would what should the financial advice be? It’s different. So, yeah, I think it helps in a lot of scenarios. Brett, you’re you’ve grown a business, you will you’ve grown multiple businesses in, you know, different different countries and jurisdictions, what, what have been the big lessons are that around? Team and? Yeah, what can we take away from from that for you,

Brett Evans
one thing we’ve tried to keep was a very flat management structure. We know we can only do that for so long. But to me, keeping the coalface close to the decision makers is an important part because those people whether it’s an admin officer, or CSO, or paraplanner, they are doing a very specific and specialized job, that if you really sit down with them, given that time, they’re full of fantastic ideas, you know, some of the some of the most simple things that just would smack in the face, you might see, look, I don’t want to say this, but this is why he told me that a year ago, you know, to me, that’s a big one. And, you know, I think I try and get my door open as often as possible. That’s the big one. And people say I’m sorry to bug you. But it’s like, never apologize for that. Yeah, my doors closed. And that’s what I don’t want to be, you know, so communication in that regard. But being available, I think when your people are part of that decision making process, and when they’re emotionally invested in the business, good things happen. You know, you don’t have a high turnover of employees, you don’t have, you know, lagging problems that just keep popping up, because you fix them, you nip them in the bud. And to me, it’s that being running a business that’s dynamic is important, because things are changing the world, then what the code has told us is the board keeps turning, you know, we go through a pandemic. But guess what, it’s still, you know, Tuesday, and we’re still sons rising, yes, and setting the West. So if you want to put your feet up and rest on your laurels, that’s fine. But to me, I think you need to work out whether you’re building a business and what style of business and what type of business versus Yeah, whether you’re just trying to buy yourself a job, because I think that’s the biggest thing we’ll look at is running teams. And now we’re in two countries, it’s quite easy. Yeah, we’ve got Microsoft Teams, we’ve got zoom, we’ve got WhatsApp is a big one, you know, we’ve got different WhatsApp groups, they go along, and both for the company and also the different offices. And just keeping a dialogue going. And the good thing is technology data these days that it doesn’t matter. And that’s why the location agnostic advisors is, is taking off, because you can do the job from Timbuktu if you wanted to. In our case, we’re just doing it from Middle East. So I think

Ben Nash
for us, one of the lessons that I’ve learned and I learned this the hard way, but with our teams in especially when you think that things network, you realize that things need to change with one part of what you’re doing or a particular area or whatever that yes, you definitely get good insights from the different team members that are the ones that are on the coalface doing this work day in and day out. But for us, I found that before we used to go, Okay, well, I’ll realize that there’s an issue here. So we’ll go away and I’ll work on it, or I’ll get someone in the in the leadership team to work on it. And then we’ll go back and say, Okay, here’s the thing, I’m trying to save people time and say, here’s something that’s almost done. Let’s give it a go. And we can we can fix it as we go up. So it was about and it’s probably like only in the last year that we’ve started going, Okay, well, maybe do some of the research and thinking around it, but saying to people, Hey, guys, we’ve got this thing that’s happened, we reckon that this is an issue because of this, this is what we’re trying to achieve. What do you guys think in terms of how we can get there and half the time that you know, maybe up to 80% of the stuff that we’d come up with would be the same. And then there’s a couple of bits that they add on which make it even better, but then they own 100% of all of what’s getting done as opposed to you know, me saying okay, now we need to be doing this and then people can feel like they haven’t had their voice heard or their opinion wasn’t important as part of that process. So it’s not massively changing the the outcome, although it is changing a bit for the better, but it’s Yeah, from the team feel much more like their voices is heard and that they are driving the changes that I think needs to happen, especially when your business is growing.

Brett Evans
Now, one of the things I think the biggest things from a from a leadership point of view that I’ve really embraced and learn almost by accident in the last sort of 10 years, was people often have a stigma in terms of how they are to operate in a workforce. And I’ll come to you, and the natural thing is they come to you with problems. You’re trying to turn around, say, Okay, that’s a problem. How would you fix it? So what I want them to end up doing is coming to me and saying, here’s the problem, here’s what I think we should do. Can I do it? Then suddenly, from your point of view, it’s it’s either yes or no. But they’re empowered. They’ve been empowered with that job. And also the result, but also to from a leadership point of view, less time.

Ben Nash
Yeah, totally. I actually had David Dugan on the podcast the other week, who’s the coach that I’ve worked with for a long time. And he he is this thing, which is, they call it 131. So it’s like one problem, three potential solutions was the one option that you think we should follow. And I use that with our team. And it’s great, because then they exporting anything critically, a few different options, save you time, then you pick and move forward, instead of going, Oh, here’s an issue. And then you need to spend time on packing in and addressing it. So

Brett Evans
because the problem is if you’ve got four employees and four employees bring you four problems, you’ve got no time for yourself.

Ben Nash
Plus, from a development perspective, I think for your team, it’s great to get them thinking about problems. And sometimes the solutions that people are coming up with a different to the ones that we would as

Brett Evans
well. Yeah, no, you’re spot on. And that’s why you’re hired. Yeah, you want their athlete.

Ben Nash
We had totally, Brett, what’s coming up for you, mate? Let’s, let’s get your focus over the next little bit.

Brett Evans
No, right now, now that we’ve built right now, it’s a matter of putting our heads down and seeing how far we can take it. I think the big thing for us right now, is we’re getting key clusters of new experts in areas which we’re tapping into there. But to me right now, we’ve now got a problem where, like we discussed in our last last episode, you know, we get a lot of inquiries a lot. And it’s servicing those inquiries. And right now we do it by doing long hours, and those sort of things to us. It’s now 2.0, we’re looking past COVID It’s a matter of getting bums on seats. So we’re starting to talk to folks who are interested in moving overseas and doing some pretty cool stuff. You know, we talk to people who, you know, from a client base, these people are fascinating. They are some of the coolest people ever make your life and you’ve never heard of them. The latest client we’ve got coming out right now, which is a famous shoe design in Paris, and part of our SLA talking about, there’s a Milan Fashion House trying to poach her, you know, how do we design to finances so she doesn’t have to worry about which country She’s based in. So that’s the sort of, you know, that’s what exercise look like, they’re very different to, to what people write back. And it’s even though there is it’s an acid compliant format, everything, but just the content is quite different. So, you know, to us, it’s a matter of, you know, we’ve grown the business, but also making sure we adhere to no decayed rule. We don’t want to kill our culture. You know, our culture is one of very much a flat management structure and teammates, not employees. It’s a real cohesive type of, of offices on both sides, both in the Australian office and Dubai office. And we just want to work with people who want to do a brilliant job, want to be a specialist, if they want to really delve deep into, you know, when we’ve had advisors come in, in the past, the first thing I tell them do is read our website. And they go which part and they see all of it. And because there’s so much content on there, that they will pick it up. And then as part of our training, my job is then to help them join the dots. You know, they had that basic knowledge as a financial planner. But when you add the cross jurisdictional dimensional advice into it, you know, that’s a big part of what we what we’re trying to achieve right now is the advice that I provide to a client in New York is different from London, which is different from Dubai, which is different from Hong Kong. There’s a lot of moving parts. And now that we’ve got the Common Reporting, standard data sharing and those sort of things people stop trying to hide money squirreled away in far corners of the world, they need now be more compliant, so they’re coming visit Same, how do I optimize from a tax point of view my assets, but don’t get in trouble with any regulators. So it’s been a great result for us from our point of view, because people want to do the right thing. But they also want to do make sure they’re not paying excessive tax. So to me, now, it’s a matter of, you know, we’ve built the whole systems were built this system, so that, you know, we’re talking to one gentleman right now he’s looking at coming across to Dubai, and he wants to come across for 10 years. And then after 10 years you want or five or 10 years, not sure yet. But then he would like to return to Australia work and serve another five or 10 years, and then retired. Yeah, he’s able to do that. By working throughout us, he comes in join the Dubai office, we work there. And then guess what, when he wants to retire, and we’ll turn to Australia, goes back to Australia, works in the Australian office still got his client base, still everything, nothing changes, just his tax status, and how much tax he pays and stuff. And then then he retires. But, you know, that’s been the goal, you know, that we’ve added a mortgage arm to the business last year. That was fantastic. That’s been a real, real success for us. Because once again, like a financial planner, an expert mortgage broker is different from a mortgage broker, because you need to know which banks are talking to and based on a jurisdiction, you know, if you’re from Hong Kong, talk to this bank, or if you’re from Dubai, talk to this bank, because there’s haircuts they take on salary, haircuts, on taxes and those sort of things. So the mortgage business is going really well. Really, really pleased with that. And Jeremy Harper has been doing a fantastic job without really just getting great outcomes for clients, we can’t, can’t thank him enough for coming on board with us, you know, down the track, looking at bringing a tax on internally, right now we provide a insane amount of tax return referrals out there.

And it’s not twice about the money, it’s about retaining the delivery of the service, those those key points that we’re very proud of, in terms of how clients are handled, not to say that the people we work with right now are bad, but it is a little bit disjointed, because the different firms, whereas, you know, experts, one thing experts resonate with all the time, they say, we just want someone to make the problems go away. And if we can have in house mortgages, which will now go up in our tax in as planning, you can see where, where we’re sort of heading where each office, we have will have embedded specialists. And using a sort of a hub and spoke mentality like we’re down here in Dubai. You know, in a given day, I can talk to someone in Saudi Arabia, Germany, France and gola and then back to Dubai again. And that will be just a day for us. And it’s, it’s pretty cool. Because what it means is, you’re if you’re like solving problems, then expert advice is exactly the sort of work you need to do. Because you need to think three dimensionally sometimes in terms of how you deliver something, you might have a client in Dubai working for a US firm, who has a 401 K from the US, and we got one and we don’t want him to redeem that 401 K back in Australia, because it’d be double taxed. So we get them retired Dubai, redeem the 401k then we will repatriate that 401 K money back to us. So that’s the sort of thing with it. You know, to me, it’s, it’s, you know, from a chronology point of view, and really just mind mapping out their expert journey, and then putting the financial advice around each component and timestamping

Ben Nash
from pretty interesting problem solving there. I can’t actually see what shoes you’ve got on but I’m hoping that that client hooked you up with, with with some good designer shoes off the off the back of your so

Brett Evans
there’s lady shoes, mate, so no, no. Yeah, judge you in a safe space here. But it’s it’s interesting. You know, I’ve got one client who’s the head of security for the UN. And he’s the guy that flies into the worst places at the last minute. So when Kabul Afghanistan was falling, he flew in to manage those last few days. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he his WhatsApp messages are hilarious, you know, how’s it going, Oh, it’s not too bad. By the way, how’s my portfolio going? Should I contribute to super I’ve got a bit of positive cash flow, and then this guy is in the middle of a war zone. And he’s talking about this and in he’s talking about concessional contributions, because he’s running positive cash flow on his property. So that’s

Ben Nash
well made, I really appreciate you sharing your insights for anyone listening in that’s that’s keen to learn a bit more about the opportunities because I know that you are looking for great people for a handful of different roles across the group. What’s the best way for them to learn more to reach out?

Brett Evans
I’d on our websites got everything. So it’s the w’s Atmos wealth at Las wealth.com. We’ve actually got A careers page on there that people can sort of send through their details if they want us to have a look and have a chat. The big thing for us is, you know, with any business that’s growing, we need to talk to everyone from bottom to the top and everything in between. So if you do have an inkling of wanting to get into space wanting on the show, it’s a growing space, even with COVID. And a lot of expats coming back to Australia, there’s still probably 607 or 2000 Australians still living overseas, even after the pandemic. So it’s a business that, to me, it’s I would say it’s infinite. But there’s a lot of opportunity there for people job for life. 100%.

Ben Nash
Awesome, mate. Well, I’m sure you guys have plenty of fun at the embassy along with all that problem solving as well. So get around that for anyone. That’s interesting, Brett mate, so good to watch you kicking some so many goals, who knows when we do the next podcast, you might be in Amsterdam, or New York or, you know,

Brett Evans
it’s to us will be quite directed to me, now that we’ve done the first episode of CS, it’s a critical mass issue. It’s all about dollars. And you will be if we get past a certain number of clients in a certain jurisdiction, and we’re able to do it in the same way. 100%, we’re always open to offer you know, every new offices, we’re talking to a gentleman the moment he is considering coming in, as a partner, who will inject a bit of capital will come in as an equity partner with him, and we’ll help him kick it off. To me, it’s, you know, I’d probably be embarrassed if I told you what my real goals are, how big they are. But, you know, from our point of view, we just keep on marching. And as long as we’re making the headway every day. Who knows what will be in the next couple of years

Ben Nash
or so may well it’s great to watch. So really appreciate you sharing your your insights. And yeah, I look forward to the next time.

Brett Evans
Thanks for having me on and look at yourself.

Ben Nash
Thank you, mate. I’m a bit sad that we won’t get to see you the next x y event but no doubt the homecoming will come at some point and we can catch up and talk about the sandpit then,

Brett Evans
man I enjoy the virtual exploits because that was great because I could actually dial in for those.

Ben Nash
Yeah. Nice one.