Episode 1 - Introduction to Wealth Management

Want a clearer way to think about money decisions without the noise, hype, or quick fixes? We open the doors to Azalea Wealth and share how we help people plan for the future by starting where it matters: your outcomes. Instead of pushing products or chasing trends, we focus on trust, patience, and a process that turns big life goals into practical steps you can follow.

We talk through our different paths into financial advice and why that balance of technical expertise and real-world perspective shapes better conversations. You’ll hear why wealth management is more than bills and stock tips, and how outcomes like retiring at 60, funding a child’s future, or planning a business exit guide every decision. The tools come later: pensions, ISAs, investments, protection, and estate planning—all chosen to serve the goal, not to fill a brochure.

Along the way we tackle common myths: that advisers sell products, that quick wins beat discipline, and that you should feel embarrassed about your financial past. We explain why honesty is essential, why annual reviews catch life changes in time, and why sometimes the best advice is to do nothing. If you’re preparing to meet an adviser, you’ll get a simple checklist: define goals, gather statements, map timeframes, and be ready to talk about what really matters. That prep turns a first meeting into a focused, useful session.

If you value plain speaking, thoughtful planning, and steady guidance, this conversation will help you reframe money as a long game you can actually win. Subscribe for monthly episodes, share this with someone who needs a calmer plan, and leave a review to tell us your top long-term goal—we’d love to hear where you want to go next.

Transcript

Meet The Hosts And Mission

Andrew Bowden 0:14

Right, welcome to episode one of the Azalea Wealth Podcast. My name's Andrew Bowen and I'm Operations Director at Azalea Wealth Management. And this is Harrison Smith. He's the um director of Azalea Wealth. Um it's going to be a monthly podcast. This is going to be the first of uh probably a series of 10 or 12. Um this one's going to be mainly based around what is wealth management or financial planning. Basically, just an introduction to ourselves and an introduction to what we do, what we offer, what the wider variety of financial planning is, and just to give everybody a little bit of a background as how financial planning can help them and different avenues that can go down to explore. Um that's about the crux of it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um so firstly, I'll just sort of like to introduce ourselves, really, I suppose. Firstly, I'll let Harrison um sort of introduce himself, his background, what he why he started this business, why he got into this business. Let me take the floor, eh?

Harrison Smith 1:16

Thank you very much. Um yeah, personal background. I mean, I

Personal Journeys Into Finance

Harrison Smith 1:20

won't go back to school and all that, but um, you know, in terms of my background, really, you know, financial services has been kind of probably the last five or six years, really. Um, you know, I think like a lot of people when when COVID happened um was kind of a bit of an epiphany for me, to be honest. Um, you know, worked in a few different sectors that just couldn't quite find what my calling was, to be honest. And you know, COVID was obviously a very, very difficult time for a lot of people, but I think it was a fresh start for others.

Andrew Bowden 1:48

Yeah, I think I think that's how a lot of people got into new jobs, new careers, isn't it? And um, yeah, I suppose knowing you for a long time as well. I think the personal side of this job and meeting people and speaking with people probably suited you down to the ground, didn't it? Yeah, absolutely.

Harrison Smith 2:01

You know, and and I I always say that. Um, you know, technical knowledge is only so much of this role, it's it's it's it's dealing with people.

Andrew Bowden 2:08

Yeah, it's it's the because it's the trust aspect, isn't it? It's um that's the that's the main thing, and when you're dealing with something as important as people's money, pensions their life, um you need you need that trust, don't you?

Harrison Smith 2:21

Of course you do. I mean, you know, outside of you know, family, there's probably not many things that are much higher on people's importance list.

Andrew Bowden 2:29

I think that's something because I mean, sort of I mean, I was a client, obviously I was a friend of yours, but I was a client of yours before I got involved in the business. And I think one thing that filled me with confidence was that you uh you weren't shying away from getting friends and family on board. And that's sort of because there there's always a bit of a suspicion of financial advisors that the the I mean you hear horror horror stories, don't you? Yeah, of course.

Harrison Smith 2:53

I think that's to be honest, that's you as you rightly say, that's probably a I don't know, probably a misnomer now, but that is the historical view of the of the industry in general, yeah. Absolutely. That it's quite mistrusting and everyone's kind of at arm's length, which you know, as you say, my my only you know, only outcome that I've tried to achieve in my time doing this job is exactly that. It's you know, we we want to work with our clients for the next 20, 30, 40 years in some respects. You're not gonna do that without a level of trust. Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Bowden 3:20

I suppose my background's completely different. I mean, I I always had an interest in um the financial side of things, and I probably always always felt as though I knew everything about us, which I obviously don't, and um the average person sort of thinks they've got control of their money, but in reality they don't, and they think, well, I don't need something that's saying I don't need a pendulum, I don't know either, I'm fine, etc. Um, but you realise when you're within that space that that's not the case, really.

Harrison Smith 3:53

I think the big thing with yourself, again, it's not gonna blow smoke of anyone's backside or anything like that, but you know, uh you know it's very, very easy

Trust As The Foundation

Harrison Smith 4:00

for me doing what I do to get so swallowed up in thinking that exactly what you've just said there, that everyone knows everything, yeah, and that's just not the case. Um, you know, I think with Azearlier, the balance that we've got is that I focus very heavily, obviously, on the advice side of things. That's that's my job at the end of the day. I am a financial advisor. Your job is to put some real-world perspective on that. You know, you've been a local business owner, you know the struggles of what that brings, you've scaled a business in another industry, which again is not an easy fit, you know, feat to do. And I think that's where the balance comes in quite nicely.

Andrew Bowden 4:31

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Because it can be it can be a very closed book kind of the financial world. It's sort of people like to keep very tight knit and they don't let it sort of outside influence because I think just because you come from a different sector or a different place, you can actually bring more to the table, can't you?

Harrison Smith 4:46

Yeah, and I think that's the thing, you know, it's it's not as black and white as people might think it is. There's there's a lot of grey um that that sits in the middle of of financial services, and I think that's exactly why, as I say, I wanted that balance because it's very easy for me to just look at it as I do it doing my job from a financial perspective, you know, from a business, then what's what's Azealia looking to do for its clients? I need that, you know, we need that personal touch.

Andrew Bowden 5:12

Yeah, 100%. Um, so yeah, obviously, we've we've covered our own background, we don't want to get too far into that because we don't want to bore people. Um being we've sort of touched on azalea itself. I mean, like I say, it's a very new company, but it's coming from something you established from a personal brand, isn't it, over the last couple of years. Absolutely. And it's enhancing that personal brand, existing clients who you've worked with, and just sort of rebranding that into it.

Harrison Smith 5:38

Yeah, that's it. I mean, Azalea, as you said, as you rightly say, there, it's not came from a from a standing start, you know, it's not like me and you rocked up one day at the innovation center in Harley and it's never going to build a wealth management business. Doesn't work. No, exactly. You know, the vast majority of our clients were existing clients for my time with a previous business.

Andrew Bowden 5:54

Yeah.

Harrison Smith 5:55

Um, and as we say, you know, the focus is on continuing relationships, and that's you know, that was key for me in starting azalea. If if starting azalea meant losing those existing relationships, then it was never going to work.

Andrew Bowden 6:06

Yeah, yeah.

Harrison Smith 6:06

We've managed, thankfully, to be able to keep those on, and that's been a you know a great start. And you know, Azalea's been created just you know, from a from a desire really to run a successful business that focuses on people. I think very, very often, particularly in financial services, but not specifically in a lot of industries, that you know, in a lot of service businesses, particularly sorry, that that idea of service is lost in in you know, in just doing the job. Well, realistically, when we just break it down to its bones, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, it's dealing with people.

Andrew Bowden 6:38

And especially in the day

Building Azalea’s Client-First Model

Andrew Bowden 6:40

people find it so easy, you know, we'll just do a Teams meeting, we'll just do this, we'll just send, we'll just send them an email. Like, all right, that's the easier thing to do, but that's a lot of the time that's not what people want, especially when you're dealing with something that's important as the money. No, I want to see the person face to face. There'll be some people who've never who don't even know what a financial advisor looks like. Yeah, I think what we want to do is we want to make sure that you're out in the open, you're in that public space, you're making appearances within the area, and to a larger scale, that's it.

Harrison Smith 7:08

I mean, uh we've we've said it before, and you know, we've we've we've been brainstorming about what is area, but you know, what good looks like, which you know we've spoken about a few times, that you know, it's it's about doing the basics really, really well. Yeah, of course, you know. Ver a lot of you know, at the end of the day, like again, a lot of industries, a lot of businesses do it very similar things. You know, at the end of the day, we are financial advice, uh, you know, advisors. That that is the big thing.

Andrew Bowden 7:32

I suppose that brings me into what what is financial plan because that's everybody says, Oh, he's a financial advisor, and everyone sort of gets a bit sort of misinterpreted. Oh, well, I'll ask him how I saved money on my electricity. I'll ask that's you know what I mean. They're getting sort of personal finance experts mixed up with financial advisors. Yeah, um, he's telling me to invest in Bitcoin into gold, into this and that. That's my fine. Well, no, that's not a fan, that's not a regular regulated financial advisor. No, wouldn't tell you to do that. No, I think Martin Lewis has got a lot of answer for it.

Harrison Smith 8:03

Um but no, it's I mean it's a good question, it's it's something I get asked a lot, you know. That I I think that is the expectation sometimes when people come to see me for the first time. I think that I'm I'm almost some sort of financial counsellor, yeah. Guru or a counsellor, and I'm gonna tell them where to you know where to have their electricity. Well, that's it.

Andrew Bowden 8:20

If if people if that's what people do want, there's information online, like you say, like you can find them things. You don't need to pay somebody out to save money on your electricity because you don't what what your what we do is we we might effectively manage people's wealth, so it's it it's a fatal situation.

Harrison Smith 8:41

I think there's a very, very simple way to put it that at the end of the day, financial planning is not about short-term fixes, it's about thinking about the longer term picture of what your aspirations are financially, what your goals are financially, and how we work towards those again over the longer term. Yeah, yeah, it's it's very difficult, and this is where people sometimes get it wrong when it comes to thinking about the right way to to invest and look after and growing their personal financial position. Everyone wants it to be done now, exactly. That's the society.

Andrew Bowden 9:11

100% that everybody wants everything straight away, everybody wants a nice house and a nice car and everything straight away. But unfortunately, you have to work for these things, and that's why I think pension I think pensions are getting taught about a little bit more now, but I think sort of more recently people just don't want to think about that. No, they want everything now, so all of their money

What Financial Planning Really Means

Andrew Bowden 9:30

they're happy just to throw into the nice car and the nice house, and they're not, they don't they don't care about but these things need to be.

Harrison Smith 9:36

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, I mean the original question was, you know, kind of what is financial planning? And it's it's exactly that. It's it's not trying to make instant quick fixes, it's about looking at the wider picture, whether that's you know, you as a business owner, how do we get the business where we want it to be in 10 or 15, 20 years for an exit? It's an individual who's looking, I want to retire at 60, I'm now 35. What does that next 25-year roadmap look like? Yeah, exactly. It's someone who's just had their first child who's thinking, you know, I I want to make sure this child's got the best possible start. How do I put them for university, cars? It's all those kind of longer term things. And I think sometimes, you know, we have it a lot where clients come in and expect, you know, all of a sudden from an hour sit down with ourselves that everything's gonna be hunky-dory and great in the garden again. Um, but you know, good financial plan and wealth management is about patience, yeah, it's about consistency and it's about patience. And if we can get those two things right, the chances are you can build a relatively good financial plan.

Andrew Bowden 10:35

Yeah, 100%. And I think the first thing to do, as we were discussing this earlier, is you need to sit down before you even think about going to see a financial advisor, you need to sit down and think, right, why do I why do I want to see one and what do I want to get from them? Yeah. Um, instead of just sort of making that decision and then turning up and thinking, oh, actually, I I I've got my priorities elsewhere. I'm in the middle of if you're in the middle of saving up for a house, for example, if you want to get on the property ladder, that's all right. The fact in certain sentences a financial advisor might be able to help you out. But in reality, you're going to want to make that purchase in the next two to three years. That's not long-term enough for a financial financial planning. You need to be thinking five, ten, fifteen years down. Yeah, absolutely.

Harrison Smith 11:17

I think there's nothing stopping people having those conversations. Yeah. You know, you know, ourselves included, you know, you can have no obligation consultations that like most, you know, most financial advice firms do. You know, having that sit-down and a discussion, there's no problem with whatsoever. But I think, again, like I said, there's probably a misnomer that people think that they're going to come and say, Yeah, and we're going to tell you how to spend your money. You know, that that's not the case. Yeah. The key word in financial advisor, not so much financial is advisor. Yeah. We're there to advise. You know, it's to guide you in the right direction. We we can never tell someone what to do, but we can certainly push them. Well, that's it, yeah.

Andrew Bowden 11:55

It's funny because the explanation of what one is is actually in the name. Yeah. Even though, but even though there is still

Long-Term Goals Over Quick Fixes

Andrew Bowden 12:00

a lot of people still get burned.

Harrison Smith 12:02

My job really is not the reason I love my job is because every single individual that I work with, every single business, every single you know, whatever it might be, is completely different. And not only is it completely different in terms of the personal circumstances, it's completely different every time that we see them again.

Andrew Bowden 12:19

Yeah.

Harrison Smith 12:19

And that's why it's great going back and seeing them every single year or every six months because things change. Yeah, because life happens and and life's not a straight line, and that's where the job really, really becomes interesting. Because you've got to run.

Andrew Bowden 12:32

And I think that's where the personal relationship becomes so important as well. Of course it does, because especially because if you if you've got a quick phone call and you didn't really have the time for your financial advisor, and it was like, oh, this is just our yearly meeting, um, how's everything going? Anything changed, you might be just sort of things, loads of things might have changed, but you might just say, Oh, yeah, for them's fine, yeah, just keep going. But if you have a half an hour conversation, if you're having a coffee with that client, yeah, then more will come out and you'll and you'll find out more a lot more.

Harrison Smith 12:58

There has to be that level of trust, you know, and and and I say this in nearly every single time I meet a new client, you know, really it's you know, there has to be a level of trust. First of all, you've got to trust us to to be to look after you and do the things that are in your best interest. But but second of all, we've got to trust you because if you're not giving us the full picture, we can't advise you. Yeah, we can't give you the advice that you need. If you're trying to hide things or run away from certain things that you've you know, I don't know, embarrassed or whatever, whatever it might be, that's not gonna help us. It needs to be that two-way trusting relationship. And you know, our clients are great with that. Yeah, and I would say that to anyone who's going to see a financial advisor, we've seen everything.

Andrew Bowden 13:36

Yeah, we've heard everything. And it's all and I suppose that touched on something I was thinking about there, about not being embarrassed as well, isn't it?

Harrison Smith 13:42

Oh, absolutely. Because you know, money has always been a taboo subject. What yeah, what do you get what do you learn when you're younger? You never ask someone how much the ear.

Andrew Bowden 13:48

Yeah.

Harrison Smith 13:48

It's one of the first things you learn.

Andrew Bowden 13:50

Which is which is quite a quite a British thing, to be fair. Yeah, it's it um some people love it, almost the year. To be fair, yeah, they do, yeah. Um but uh or maybe even it might even be a northern thing because I mean one thing I noticed the difference between the north and the south was it was it was quite open, people in the south seemed quite open to speak about waves and things like that.

Harrison Smith 14:08

But that might have just been and thankfully, to be honest, I think the world is moving that way a little bit more, which is great. You know, I don't think anyone should be hell-bent on keeping things to themselves anymore. The the world's moved a long way, but you know, I think that's that's the important bit to anyone who's thinking about seeing a financial advisor, be all very honest with them because there's nothing to be embarrassed about. There's nothing it's a bit like going to see your doctor. Well, yeah, no, I think we've seen it all before, yeah. Exactly. And less, of course. Um and I think that kind of answers the you know the question about you know, most people think, you know, is financial planning, is seeing an advisor for me, do I need it? Uh obviously I'm gonna say this, but uh rightly so. My personal opinion is that yeah, absolutely you should. Because as I've said you know earlier on in this podcast, there's there's nothing to stop you going and getting that second opinion. You know, that's the way that I look at my role. We're almost kind of that you know, that pit crew for your

Preparing Before You See An Adviser

Harrison Smith 15:00

financers. If there's something wrong with your car, you turtle mechanic, you don't just keep driving it until it go bang, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so we we have we act in a very, very similar way.

Andrew Bowden 15:07

So I suppose we'll just touch on specific products because I suppose the question I would be asking if I was sort of hearing this, um, we've explained we've explained what it is, but if I if I came, for example, I'll give you a few scenarios. Let's say so I come, I'm 29 years old, I've been serving into a nest pension, for example, which is the government auto auto pension, isn't it? Um and I've got 30 grand in there. What could you what could you do for me? And I was leaving that job, for example, what could you do for me?

Harrison Smith 15:38

I think this again, this is probably a good time to kind of you know put this across that first thing I would say is that that on its own is again asked similar questions all the time. You know, they give me a little bit piece of information and say, What would you do? First of all, my answer would be I couldn't tell you. Yeah. Because there's far too much other things that need to play into that personal picture before we can make any sort of assessment or judgment, which is which is the first bit. The second bit is what people again probably should understand from particularly from us, because this is how we operate. Some others may operate slightly differently. We don't come to our first meeting to necessarily discuss our products and services. No, there's a million and one things we can do, the same as there is with every other financial advisor, pensions, investments, retirement planning, trust planning, estate planning, a million different varieties of protection that you know you think of it within reason, we can probably do it. But uh what we need to establish at the outset of a good financial plan is what is the outcome and work backwards. Yeah. Now, the outcome is the important bit, the journey is what you see financial advisor for. Now, in some instances that might be a pension, and in other instances that might be an ICE and it a million and different, you know. The the point I'm trying to get across is that I think people focus so heavily on the product side of things, they forget the important bit, which is why you're doing it.

Andrew Bowden 17:02

Yeah, yeah. And I suppose that that's the perfect answer to that question because that's sort of shown how everybody's situation is different, 100%. And with that one bit of information, uh, there could be 10 people in a room who are all in that situation, have 30 grand and different outcomes, and there could be 10 different outcomes. Absolutely, and that's and your answer could be leave it there. Yeah, it could it could be you know people might think, well, why would why why would you do that? Because that's benefiting, but you you uh you benefit if the client benefits, so you only want to give you only want to give a client advice if it's going to benefit them as well as yourself.

Harrison Smith 17:40

You know, this this is the thing, then this is it again, probably a historical misnomer about the industry in general, thinking, you know, I've heard it all before, do you get paid more for putting people in certain places? The honest answer is no, you know. Again, it comes back to that job title. It's a financial advisor. We're not we're not financial salesmen, we're not selling things to people.

Honest Conversations And Annual Reviews

Harrison Smith 18:00

What we're doing is we're advising them in the right direction, and by doing that, you will get good outcomes. Um, and I think that's you know, that's the thing that I I pride, and really that's the reason that it's early built. You know, I pride myself on that advice and outcome focus first. Yeah, that's that's for us, and if anyone takes anything from the day, that's what you should look for in a financial advisor. It's it's what is their what is their focus? Is their focus talking about how much they're going to make, yeah? Or is the focus about what the outcome is? Because for me, regardless of how you get there, the the outcome has got to be the focus.

Andrew Bowden 18:35

Yeah, no hundred percent. I think I think we've we've touched on the trust of a financial advisor already. But I suppose the difference is 99% of the financial advisors aren't going to sell you the world. If you are getting sold the world, they probably are, they probably are uh Yeah, yeah.

Harrison Smith 18:53

I mean again, probably something that everyone's heard at some point in their lives that you know trust isn't given its end. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's that's what people, you know, need to but you know, even for me sometimes, you know, you you you don't just get it just doesn't just happen, you know. There's there's a bit of a process that you've got to build up with that. Um and that that's just about that's just about time, you know.

Andrew Bowden 19:17

It's tied, isn't it, playing the long game, isn't it? Because people again, what we were touching on earlier, people want people want to get rich quick skiing, that's always been the case. Yeah, people want to find ways to make money really quickly. And that's speaking to a pro speaking to a financial advisor is is the most sensible and the best thing to do at the end of the day.

Harrison Smith 19:35

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'm obviously gonna say that, but yeah, but no, you know, it's financial advice is is about putting the building blocks in place to achieve long term success. If if I was to kind of nutshell it, that that's how I would do it. Um and I say this to a you know, a lot of people, if if people come to me expecting very, very immediate results, it they they're talking to the wrong person. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, wealth management, as I say, is it's just about you know being patient, being consistent, and having that too much trust. If you've got those things, you're in a pretty, pretty good place.

Andrew Bowden 20:14

Yeah. Right. Well, I think that uh hopefully covers it. And hopefully I give it a little bit of background. Like I said at the beginning, we'll be trying to be trying to do sort of one of these a month, with different subject matters. So by all means, pick and choose the ones that suit yourself. Uh hopefully this one's given a bit of a bit of an introduction. Um, but no, thank you for that. Um you might be able to lovely stuff. Thank you very much. Thank you.