Episode 16: Building a Team Structure That Works

Episode Summary

Let’s talk team structure, friends. I’m walking you through how Julian Leaver Events grew from just me and a binder into a team with dedicated planning, design, production, and operations roles. I share when I knew I needed help, why we separated planning and design, and how our team works together to support the client experience. I’m also excited to talk about our European expansion and the partner helping us build relationships on the ground. Every business does this differently, but I hope sharing what’s working for us sparks a few ideas for yours.

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julianleaver.com | @julianleaver

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello friends and welcome back to Mind Over Matrimony. Today we are going to just talk about the evolution of a team and every business kind of goes through evolutions. There's times that you need more people to do the work. There's times that you need less people to do the work. Hello COVID. There are times when it's just you and then there's times when you have a lot of people. And Julian Leaver Events is actually celebrating 10 years this year in May, I looked it's May 18th of 2016 was the actual birthday of Julian Leaver Events. So I'm very excited. Next month is is 10 years, which is a wild thing to think about.

And in the beginning it was just me, right? It was just me and my computer. And really, frankly, at the very beginning was, was a binder, right? Yes, there was some documents, but there really weren't all of the systems that we have in place now that can do all of the different things. And really probably, honestly, I think that first year, like towards the end of that first year was really when Aisle Planner was built in its first iteration. And so you could put some stuff online. I was like, oh, this is a cool tool and it could help me and I wouldn't have to do everything all myself.

But yeah, so it was just me. And so it in that way, like when you're a solopreneur, there's only so much that you can do, right? You can only do so many weddings. You can only do a certain size of weddings because you cannot be in all the places all at once. And so it continued on like that really in the 1st year, probably into the second year. And in the second year is really when I started to just hire things out to help me, right? And instead of adding like a permanent team member, I hired someone to help me write my blogs or I hired someone to help me with the accounting or I hired someone to help me on the business coach side, right?

And start to piecemeal those pieces out and buy myself back a little bit of time so that I could stay focused on the client experience and the client journey and working through that piece of things while allowing the business side of Julian Leaver Events to start to run with other people's assistance. And then really it came to it came to 2020 really. So the first five years was pretty much me. And then like bringing on an assistant in the summer or like having an intern or all of those things in terms of just the day-to-day was really just me and maybe one other person, but not on a really permanent basis.

And so then in 2020 came of course, and we know the world just blew up and shut down and all the things. And so I thought what a great time to be able to, instead of doing the day-to-day work on the client experience and journey and decision making because we weren't really doing any of those things. Now I have a little bit of time to really focus on everything else. Rewrite my website and rewrite my blogs and curate my galleries and all of that. And I hired someone to come in and really help with all of those things. And so then five hours a week turned into 10 hours a week, turned into 20 hours a week, turned into 40 hours a week, really over a period of time.

And as we all know, the year after, like that initial 2020 year, the 21 year, the 22 year, the 23 year was really some kind of crazy pent up demand and growth in the wedding industry because everything had really been put on pause. And so it just grew. It grew into an actual more full time contractor who was with me and really helping with all the things. And it got to a place in 2022 that things that summer were really just a really, I guess it was really the spring. I just remember sitting at the Tower Club and we were like feverishly working and working and, and we had another girl helping us with the day-to-day stuff, but she wasn't really full time and she couldn't be full time and she had kids and schedules and all the things.

And so she had said, I think that morning, hey guys, I can't help you anymore, you're going to need to find someone probably a little bit more permanent because this is becoming a larger job. And so that was really when I first met Julie Fried, who now works with me as our operations manager. And she came on board and she's been really with me ever since. So around now, I guess four years, three years, four years really, which is wild. And really rode through the last of that pandemic craziness with me. And having kind of someone who was helping with the planning and the design and then someone who was helping with all the systems and all the operations and adding in all the systems to make sure that everything flows smoothly, right.

And we were just doing a large amount. So for wedding planning, a lot of firms really are like more kind of bespoke and smaller, and they do four or five bespoke events a year. But here at Julian Leaver Events, we do usually around 15 events a year. And the reason that we do that is because I consider doing events like going to the gym. It's like doing reps, right? You're doing reps The more reps you do, the better at it you become, the more in tune you are with what's actually happening in the market. And you can forecast for your clients very effectively because you know exactly what's going on because you're always in the space.

You're doing the work again and again, and it makes you better and better. I think that's a mentality I learned from just coming from the hospitality world, right? Coming from Rosewood, from hotels. You really do have this desire to do as much as you possibly can because you're always learning, you're always doing something different and it expands your horizon. And on we went that way. So basically myself and then another planner designer and then an operations manager. And then we got to 2024 and business had been growing and growing. And we added in a kind of fourth team member named Grace Whitlock, who's still with us today.

And she really came on as a production manager helping cross all the TS and dot all the I's when it comes to the rental orders and the and all of the different logistics that have to do with producing an event. I know we've talked a little bit about on a previous episode about like Planner Designer and how all of those pieces work together. So if you're just tuning into this one and you're curious about how planning and design works and the hybrids and all of that, go listen to that episode because I feel like it pretty clearly gets it. And then you can come back here and finish this out with me.

But because we are doing more design work, we added someone to come in and help with all of this production and keep all of the trains moving in the right direction. And I think that having someone who helps us with all of that really allows it us to be a lot more creative because we're not just relying on the design houses to come up with all the ideas. We can come up with all the ideas. We can actually manage the execution of those ideas. We can go out and find the cool little lamp or the little tiny bit of fringe that you love, or get the custom napkin made for you and monogrammed and all of the things that really make a wedding super special and unique in in its own little way.

And so Grace was with us all through 24, all through 25. And then in 25, we've made another shift, right, like we're going into year 10, where is this business actually going and what are we, what are we scaling to do and how can we make the client experience a little bit better? And so what I realized was that in having kind of design and planning live in one person's purview was not serving that person. And it was also not serving the clients in the best way because who would you put first? The chicken or the egg? The chicken or the egg?

The chicken or the egg, right? And so what I realized was we needed to split that job really into two jobs. And so there needs to be like a dedicated planner who's with you on the logistics side and is helping you with the dress and helping you with all of the little things that are decisions that are on your plate technically. But we're guiding you through all of those decisions dealing with all of the vendors who are not really design related, photography planning. What is the entertainment going to look like? What is the transportation going to look like? What is the logistics of a situation look like?

And that needs to be one job in and of itself. It is a full time job. A second job really is a designer. And so what was great is that Grace, who's been with me for quite a few years, has been able to be promoted into that design role and really leading that charge for you. So you know that there's someone who's paying attention to all the little details from the stationery all the way through the entire design process so that it feels correct and right. And that it all tells your story from the beginning when you let us know who you are and how you like to entertain.

And telling that story all the way through. And then we added on Kate, who is working now in that production manager role, and she came from a rental background. So she already had this really great understanding of how rentals work and how that entire industry works and how they make their dollars and how we can best serve them and be the best for you, our client, and also the best for you, our vendor team and really show up and show out. And then of course, Julie is still here keeping us organized, making sure that the trains are running, managing the schedule and ensuring that we are all moving in the right direction.

And then that leaves me because I what do I do if some of these pieces have all been managed into their different buckets? And the beauty of this is that it now allows me to sit back a little bit and look at the whole scope of your wedding and make sure that we really are telling your story exactly the way that you want it to be told. And to help with the etiquette and the protocol and the little nuances of the budget and managing all of that from a kind of larger global view so that the ladies can work on like the minutiae of the day to make sure everything is being set exactly the way that you want to.

And then what's beautiful about that is that that we all walk into the wedding weekend on the same page, knowing exactly what's happening with every single wedding because we've all been in it from the beginning all the way through to the end. And then we get to add in the contracting team. That's very specific to your wedding, right? Is your wedding super focused on food and beverage? We're going to bring in a bunch of more food and beverage people. Is it really super heavy on transportation? We bring in the people that we know are the best in front of guests who understand exactly what their role is and how all of that is going to roll out.

And so we can build a team in really this bespoke manner for every single wedding that we're doing, no matter where it is in the world. And that's pretty amazing. And then what's also been really cool in 26, so even one more addition is that we actually have added a European planner. And because we've been doing so many weddings in Europe. And so we added on a team member who is really just dedicated to building relationships and making things happen in Europe, mostly focused in France, she's based in Paris, but we're also focusing on Italy and Spain and the UK.

And what's great about that for our clients is that you can be an American client getting married in Europe and still benefit from the Julian Leaver Events experience of having our team design it, our processes in place, us in your similar time zone. And then we have a European partner who's been working overnight to ensure that all the details and the small pieces are being handled on the European side. And then just depending on the size of your wedding, we have to send a much smaller team, right. So we have a European team who already has all these relationships with the European vendors.

They know exactly what's going on. They are going to be able to execute it to the level that we have come to expect and that you have come to expect from us at Julian Leaver Events. And you get the benefit of both worlds, which is amazing and has always been a dream of mine. And so I'm just excited. It's nice. The thing about this business is that I've been doing a long time, right? So how do you stay? How do you stay interested? How do you stay relevant? How are you continually growing and learning and changing and, and growing? This team has been one of the highlights of of my career, to be honest, and getting to work with these amazing ladies who really dedicate their all to to making sure that your day is as perfect as it possibly can be is pretty awesome.

And also going back to that episode that we talked about my essential intent for 2026, it's how do I support these amazing ladies in the work that they're doing for you and allow them to be with their families and grow as individuals outside of this business. And that has been just really one of the coolest things to watch as as this all unfolds. So there's the team structure, friends, that's just a little breakdown. This is the way we do it. It doesn't mean that it's the right way for everyone. Every business in this business is different, but this is really what's working for us.

And we'd love to hear from you guys in the comments and the feedback. How do you do it? Have you found a better way? What could we be doing that's different? It's all about sharing and rising together and just having fun. So thank you guys for being here.

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