What Does International Strategic Advice Actually Give You? Clarity For Australian Business Owners Moving Offshore

• WATCH EPISODE 11 FIRST
• This article is based on Episode 11 of the Complete Wealth Control System – “What Does Strategic Advice Actually Give You?”
• If you prefer video, watch the episode above for the full discussion with Virna White.
• The article below expands on the strategic questions Australian business owners, founders and investors should consider before making individual decisions about their international future.

Before There Is An International Strategy, What Are You Actually Trying To Create?

If you are a business owner considering becoming internationally based, the first question is not where you should move, what company you should establish or whether you need a trust.

The first question is: what are you actually trying to create?

Maybe you are:

• building an international business;
• looking for greater freedom over where you live;
• thinking about how your investments and wealth should be positioned internationally;
• preparing for the future sale of your business; or
• giving asset protection or succession planning more weight as your wealth has grown.

Or perhaps you are thinking much more broadly about what you want the next ten or twenty years of your life to look like.

That is your vision: what you are trying to create across your business, wealth, investments, family, location and longer-term future. And I think this is where international strategy should actually begin.

Because until we understand the future you are trying to create, we cannot determine what the architecture supporting that future should look like.

Your vision gives the architecture something to design for. And that is where Strategic Advice begins.

Why Your International Vision Has To Meet Your Current Reality

Having a vision for your international future is one part of the picture. The other is understanding where you are today.

Because you are not starting with a blank sheet of paper. You already have a business, investments, assets, existing structures, an Australian tax position and family considerations.

So Strategic Advice has to connect two things: where you are today, and where you are trying to go.

The architecture has to work between both. It has to take account of the position you already have, while being designed around where you are trying to go.

That is where generic information can only take you so far. You can research what is possible. But the strategic question is: “Given my circumstances, what should my overall position actually look like?”

What Strategic Architecture Actually Means

This is what I mean when I talk about strategic architecture.

Architecture is not simply a company. It is not a trust. It is not a country. And it is not a collection of individual recommendations.

Architecture is the complete strategic design of how the different parts of your financial world need to work: your residency, your existing Australian interests, your business, your ownership and control, your assets and investments, your income, your international structures, your banking, and your asset protection and succession considerations, all designed to work together.

Why Your International Architecture Should Be Designed Around You

That is why two business owners who appear very similar on the surface can require very different architecture. Their circumstances, objectives, existing position and future vision can differ.

Because the architecture is not being designed around a product. It is being designed around you.

Why Individual Answers Don’t Necessarily Give You A Strategy

And this is where Strategic Advice becomes much more than answering a series of individual questions.

You might be able to answer:

• Where should I live?
• What happens to my Australian company?
• Should I establish an international structure?
• What happens to my investments?
• How should I think about asset protection?
• What happens to my Australian assets?

But answering each question individually does not necessarily give you a strategy. The answers can each be right and still not fit together.

Why Nothing In An International Strategy Exists In Isolation

A decision about your residency can affect your business. A decision about your business can affect ownership. Ownership can affect tax. Your investment position may affect structuring. And your family and succession objectives may affect how assets should ultimately be held.

Nothing exists in isolation.

That is the strategic work: not simply answering each question, but determining how all of those answers need to work together around the same client, the same facts and the same vision.

That is where the value of Strategic Advice lies: bringing everything together into one coherent strategic position designed around you.

What Strategic Advice Should Actually Give You

At the end of Strategic Advice, you should have clarity. Not simply more information. Many business owners have already done substantial research and understand many of the possibilities available to them.

You should understand the architecture designed for you, why it has been designed that way, and how the major elements of your position fit together.

That is the difference between collecting information and having a strategy.

Information can tell you what’s possible.

Strategic Advice determines what makes sense for you.

Conclusion

Strategic Advice should not simply give you more information or a collection of individual recommendations.

At Wealth Safe, we do not start with a product or a structure. We start with you: where you are today, where you want to go, and the architecture required to connect the two.

Your international future shouldn’t be a collection of disconnected decisions.

It should be designed.

That is another important part of achieving Complete Wealth Control.

If you have a number of international decisions to make and want to understand what your overall strategic position should look like before acting on the individual pieces, you can request a complimentary 15-minute Suitability Assessment with Wealth Safe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Disclaimer: This information is general in nature and provided for educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. You should obtain independent professional advice before acting on any information in this article.