We sat down with Charlotte Melia, the founder of Dazzle & Fizz, to discuss her very impressive journey building her team as well as some key learnings she’s picked up along the way.

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Dazzle & Fizz, is the upscale events company Charlotte has built over the last 10 years, with the challenges of starting the business with just £47.50 and a newborn baby to take care of, followed by the pandemic shutting down the events industry, Charlotte continues to grow through the most unlikely of circumstances.

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As a business, they’ve transformed over that time into a digital creative studio for both in-person and online events including their edutainment app for children. As the business continues to grow and expand to new heights, Charlotte gave us some great food for thought on the topic of building a powerhouse team.

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Check out the full conversation on LinkedIn, and read on for our top takeaways:

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⚡The evolution of growing a business from £47.50 to a multi-million pound valuation

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In their early stages, Charlotte found the workload overwhelming being a one-person team. Handling all operations on her own, she didn't have the expertise or numbers in place to determine the specific hires she needed.

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Charlotte, like many founders, often found it difficult to expand a team with a start-up budget, and so sought out new graduates. As a young brand without any financial backing, Charlotte simply had the brand's vision and personality to attract new recruits. She understood she couldn’t bring in experienced hires, and so new grads were the right investment for Charlotte as she could cater to her budget while spreading her workload.

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This was a great and resourceful way to grow her operations. As a young brand figuring it out, this also meant that less experienced team members could grow in tandem with the business itself.

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Now, with high aspirations and huge achievements post-pandemic, Charlotte is still intent on building a team that not only sees the business as the brand it is now, but also has the potential to see and align themselves with the brand’s vision, setting a precedent to ensure future hires have the right qualities to join a hive-mind team.

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⚡Team building isn’t just recruiting…

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For Charlotte, in growing a business with a range of diverse people and personalities, finding new talent is less about getting more skilled people on board and more about people who can work well within the team.

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One lesson Charlotte has learned over the years is to hire people that fit the team, not just people that interview well. She’s learned that people that work well on paper may not necessarily thrive within your specific team.

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As founders, it can be exciting to find what seems like the perfect fit in the interview stage, only to face the disappointment of realising a good interview may not necessarily translate to a good team member. As a result, Charlotte has made a habit of creating trial periods to see new talent on-the-job, helping her figure out early on whether new talent is the best fit for both the company and the talent themselves.

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⚡Creating an open space to fail and learn quickly…

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Something Charlotte has made a point of over the years is creating an environment where failure is welcome. As bizarre as it may sound, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

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Regardless of your skillset, joining a new environment can be daunting. From learning how to communicate to clients specifically, to creating new ideas, as a founder it's very unlikely that a new team member is able to immediately adopt the nuances of how your business is run.

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Allowing people to make mistakes when starting out not only creates a sense of trust and responsibility from the onset, but it’s also a great way to establish an environment where innovation is encouraged.

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⚡The importance of OKRs to focus and bond a team

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As an events company, Charlotte is aware of the fact that there’s an added pressure on her sales team to determine the overall performance of the brand, while other team members may be overlooked, causing a disparity.

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To prevent this, along with every department having their own specific financial targets, they’ve also got non-financial targets to help achieve wider goals to ensure a cohesive approach to Dazzle & Fizz’s strategy.

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For example, her warehouse team’s weekly logistics targets logistics contributes to the quality of Dazzle & Fizz events, which in turn contributes to more sales and, ultimately, an effect on the overall financial targets. Every achievement or target has a knock-on-effect on their overall success, and this helps give the team a sense of belonging, giving people a sense of pride in what they do.

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What have your greatest team building learnings been? Would love to hear!

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PS: To learn more about Charlotte, follow her entrepreneurial story on Linkedin, and visit Dazzle & Fizz for edutainment for your little ones:

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