From ZERO to $5,000,000+ in 2 years with Cannabis Delivery

Right. What’s going on, guys? Back at it again with another episode of the Dispensary Marketing podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Quan, founder of Cannabud Marketing, dispensary marketing agency for all of your marketing needs for retailers all over Canada and the United States. And I’m joined here by the one and only Neo Cannabis.

You might have seen him all over YouTube. He’s been absolutely crushing it lately. Thanks for coming on the show. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Awesome. Awesome. So tell us a little bit about yourself.yeah, so,essentially I’m neo cannabis,essentially starting in the cannabis industry in 2018.we, me and my business partner, we got our license in the city of Oakland, California.

and we were able to get it through the social equity program where Oakland, California was one, I think the first city in America to roll out that program, which allows people who have been affected by the war on drugs to be fast tracked, to get their license,to, you know, get into retail distribution, manufacturing, cultivation, whatever business model they want to get into.

So yeah, we were fortunate enough to qualify for that and get fast tracked to get our license. And we,you know, started like everybody else from humbled beginnings.the delivery service that,we owned is called Royal Greens Delivery. Again, it’s in Oakland, California, started with zero customers, $0 in revenue.

And after two years we were fortunate enough, fortunate enough to scale that business into a,seven figure plus operation.currently serving over 15 regions within nor Northern California. And we have a customer base of over 10,000 individuals. So, yeah, that’s a little bit about me.definitely excited to,explore, you know, the podcast and just, you know, drop some free game, free gyms, free thoughts.

something that I like to say to, you know, your viewers. Yeah, man, we’d love to see it. We love to see it. I mean, the, the story from zero to, you know, even tens of thousands of dollars, right. And then being able to share your journey from, like you said, humble beginnings and then giving back, right? So that you can share your knowledge so that people can do the same thing that you can do, maybe at a faster pace and even when they’re younger.

Right? So that’s, that’s awesome. I really wanna dive into that. Cause I’m actually super interested on the nitty gritty details on how you did that.but let’s,talk a little bit about the YouTube channel. So, you know, blowing up, doing the cannabis delivery absolutely crushing it. You developed the systems and processes and then you’re like, okay, now how do I really give back? How do I educate? So you started this YouTube channel, so talk to me a little bit about the YouTube channel, what that’s all about, you know, what are the goals and what are the things you want to do with that in the future? Yeah, definitely.

so yeah, on this journey of, you know, growing and scaling the business,again, when we started in 2018, there were no YouTube videos. There weren’t no goo no way to just Google how to do different things and did, you know,execute different strategies within the industry. It’s kind of like you just had to learn yourself and, you know, find out through trial on error.

So, you know, and that’s really,unique compared to any other industry. You know, likes if I wanna start a bakery or a restaurant or, you know, a tire shop, whatever, whatever industry there is or whatever type of business I want to get into, usually there’s, you know, a lot of videos and a lot of resources,online,for free that you can get information and, you know, that will help you and fast track you to start your business and, you know,hopefully scale it.

But in the cannabis industry,the, the, the industry is so immature that there’s not really much information out there,even to this day. But yeah, after,you know, a couple years,starting a bus, you know, running a business, I’m like, man, there’s nobody really out here creating content, like regular people who are, you know, everyday owners and operators.

Yeah, there’s some, like celebrities and stuff like that, and, you know, some social equity ac activists, but there’s no, like, actual people who are actually boots to the ground, really,creating value within the industry and giving information back to those who are, you know, looking to start their own business or looking for more strategies on how to scale their existing business.

So I’m like, shoot, I’m gonna just, you know, start doing this to, you know, I’m gonna just start doing it today. So, yeah, me and,one of my friends, he had got a camera and we created my first video,how to start,cannabis delivery service. And, you know, after a few months, that video literally blew up.

And, you know, today it has over 50,000 views. So, yeah.you know, through the course of the year started, you know, just creating more content. And over this past year, just definitely fell in love with that constant creation. And as I’m, you know, able now to take a step back from the business and,you know, ddelegate roles to,people within my business and, you know, other,employees and things of that sort, so I don’t have to be so hands on.

I really been able to, you know, hone in and,really invest a lot of time into this content creation. And really, my whole goal is to be the biggest in the game, like the biggest cannabis personality in the game,really, you know, starting from nothing. So, yeah, again, I just, you know, invest a lot of time.

I’ve been putting a lot of effort into really growing this channel, just giving free game free information for those who are looking to break into the industry. Man, that’s, look,the way I view, you know, the way people give back on YouTube and all these contents we were talking about, like Alex earlier, you got Ryan Pineda, you got Gary V and all these guys, right? And I think one of the biggest, you know, problems that a lot of people like when they view free content online, they don’t view it as as valuable because it’s free.

They haven’t paid for it, right? But you’re literally a seven figure entrepreneur that’s giving away your wisdom online, and people are just kind of bypassing it, right? So whoever is listening to this podcast or go watching this channel, the way I want you to perceive listening to neo cannabis is pretend that you paid $10,000 for consultation from him.

What then happens is you then view his information, you then take more action on the things that he’s saying versus, Hey, I’m gonna put this on in the background, and then that’s it. Right? I would recommend that when you watch one of his videos and you’re interested in the delivery space, just watch it multiple times.

Don’t just try and be the person that watches a million episodes, but doesn’t take any action on it. Because when you build up a business and when you’re trying to do things, it’s not just about the good feelings inside your head saying, I’m productive and I’m listening. It’s about the execution of the things that you’re learning from, you know, different people online, right? Be it from us on this podcast or whoever else, or even if you’re not in the cannabis industry, right? When you’re listening to people who are at a stage that is greater than you and you want to be where they are, you have to listen to it as if they’re sitting on the couch and you pay for a one-on-one $10,000 consultation.

And that’s been the biggest game switch for me, for sure.so anyways, rent over ,on my side of things. So I focus more on the retail. So all of my clients, most of my clients are all, are, are all retailers. And I know in the sexy game of cannabis, that was kind of the main thing, right? People wanna own a store, they wanna then open up two and then open up 10 and then open up 20, and then, you know, become vertically integrated in all of these different things.

Right. Why did you decide to go did the delivery route versus the re the retailer route? Yes. So initially when we were first looking into, you know, getting into the industry, of course, like everybody else wanted a storefront, because that’s kind of advertised as what you said, the sexy thing. That’s what most people know about when they talk about, you know, getting in into the cannabis industry.

Like,I want a storefront. I want, you know, a, you know, a big store and big brick and and mortar and everything like that.but after doing more research and also,within the city of Oakland, there’s a lot of limitations as far as the amount of licenses they give out mm-hmm. for retail storefronts.

when we actually got all that information and started to understand it, and really took a step back and re-strategize and reanalyzed everything, we, we figured out that we can do the same thing as a storefront, but,do it in delivery. So that’s, you know, essentially the method to the madness and how we figured out about delivery.

And as far as delivery, the reasons why we, I think that delivery is, you know, better and more efficient than,actual storefront is first the overhead cost. So,you know, with a storefront, you have to, you know, get the real estate, which is extremely expensive.you know, you need security, you need,a bunch of staff, you know, front office, you know, the front,people at the front, you know, you need bud tenders, you need people in the back,you know, the insurance, everything about a actual storefront is, you know, just extremely expensive.

But when you compare it to delivery,a lot of those expenses are cut out because a lot of things that go into running a storefront are not needed in delivery as far as, you know,you know, a huge retail piece of real estate. You only need, when you’re first starting out, anywhere from 300 to 500 square feet, you just need a couple of cabinets to store your inventory.

And then as far as taking orders and things of that sort, you don’t have to worry about,you know, people coming into your real estate and, you know, transacting. All you need is a phone and a laptop, and you know, your p o s software in order to,intake orders and, you know, get ’em into your system and send those orders out.

So yeah, that’s the, the main thing as far as why we went the delivery route compared to storefront was mm-hmm. first the competition and the limit, the limitations that the city has on, you know, storefronts.because again, every year they only give out, I believe, eight to 10 storefront licenses, the city of Oakland.

And then,again, everybody and their mom is competing for those licenses, whereas delivery, there’s unlimited licenses, there’s no cap to it, as long as you, you know, get through the application process and fill out all your paperwork and, you know, get all the,the inspections and things of that sort, you can get right into the game and start your own delivery service.

And then again, the, the other big thing is just the overhead costs. A lot of entrepreneurs,and people who are starting their businesses, they don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest into a business before they’re even generating any revenue with a delivery service. All you need is inventory, a couple pieces of software, a cell phone, a laptop, a desk, a couple of,storage,lockers to,store your inventory in, and a small piece of real estate,that you can lease, which is anything under, you know, 500 square feet.

So,just the overhead expenses,alone, just make it a way simpler option. And again, you’re still doing the same thing as a storefront. You’re still a B2C business, so you are transacting with the customer. You still have all of that data. It’s not like you’re, you’re having a partner with a,a storefront.

You’re a standalone retail operator.it’s just you don’t have like a actual storefront bringing mortar location,to,you know, upkeep and, you know, get that benefit of the marketing and everything that comes with having like a retail operation. Right. So you mentioned a few things. You know, I, again, on my side, I’m very curious because like the, the things that the delivery company needs to do, you need to be much more operational sound, right? You know, you don’t have a physical location, so you need to make sure you have the space, the products, and all these different things.

So let’s touch on the, the spaces. So how do you go about leasing spaces? So just like everything in the cannabis space, you know, anything cannabis related has the higher risk. We won’t do this because it’s cannabis and stuff like that. Do you face those same issues with what you’re doing right now for leasing spaces? And if you do, how do you, how do you get about doing that? Like, if somebody wants to find a little warehouse to to house product and doing all that stuff, what is the process to do that? Yeah, so first,generally speaking, because every state and every city’s going to have different regulations, right? Laws, but generally speaking, the city will first give a zoning area as far as where certain certain cannabis businesses are allowed to have,you know, allowed to operate in, within the city.

So first you want to refer to the different zoning areas that the city maps out, because again, you don’t want to be locked into a lease. And then once you realize that you’re not even in the correct zoning area to operate, then you know, you’re kind of outta luck. So that’s the very first important thing, because I’ve heard, heard horror stories of that where they, you know, they found a property, you know, it’s a perfect amount of space they got in for the right price.

The, the landlord knows that they are, can a cannabis business, and they’re, you know, they’re cool with it, but then they don’t even fall into the correct zoning area. So they’re not even allowed to operate, and now they’re stuck in a lease and they have to figure out how they can wiggle out their lease.

so that’s the very first thing, the zoning areas. Once you figure out if you are in the correct zoning areas, then you need to search for properties that are allowing cannabis tenants in those zoning areas. So again, we’re not trying to go under the radar and trying to trick, you know, landlords that, Hey, we’re doing some other type of business, and then, you know, you’re actually doing cannabis again, that, you know, if you’re trying to shortcut things like that, you’re just gonna run into more problems and it’s just gonna create more issues for you down the road.

So there’s a couple quick tips that you can use to search for,cannabis friendly retail properties.one that is pretty,you know, it’s pretty widely known. It’s called green zone areas. So if you’re looking on Craigslist or,you know, any other commercial real estate,uh, website that where you can search for properties, you want to put in the keywords filter green zone, because that’s usually a piece of terminology that landlords use to sign or to,broadcast that they have a piece of property that is usually in the correct zoning areas, and that is cannabis friendly.

So they are allowing cannabis tenants,again, you want to make that very clear with your landlord that you are a cannabis business, you’re all licensed, or you are going through the correct licensing procedure. So that just puts a little bit of ease in mind. You’re not doing anything illegal, or you’re not in the gray area, or, you know, operating through the black market, you know, you’re all license or, Hey, we’re currently in the process of getting license.

and then you want to check with your city and state if before and say, if you’re in the process of getting licensed, we don’t want to,secure a piece of real estate. And then we don’t have any type of timeline on when we’re able to actually operate. Because sometime these licensing processes and things of that sort take, you know, six months, a year, two years, and imagine if you secure a lease and you’re just paying,paying, you know, a certain monthly rate and you’re not even able to generate any revenue from that piece of property.

You know, that’s, that can be really devastating to your pocket. So we want to see what the, we want to check with the city and state if we’re able to,get a intent to lease. So with the intent to lease, we are able to get a piece of,a contract from the landlord that states, Hey, once I get my property, I mean, once I get my,my licensing and approval from the city and state, or once I have a better timeline on when that’s going to get approved, then I will sign the lease.

And, you know, usually you can negotiate and you can put a, you know, deposit down so that the, the landlord knows that you’re serious and it can kind of like, hope, maybe save that piece of real estate for a few months. But again, this may not work in all cities and states because all cities and states are different.

Like I know in New Jersey, they do require you to have the property under lease and everything like that. But in the city of Oakland, you are, you’re able to use an intent lease. Well, during the time that we were getting, getting licensed. So we were able to go to the tenant, get that intent lease form, and then we were able to wait out the,you know, the process of getting licensed and getting all the city approval and everything like that.

And we’re not having to come out of pocket every month when we’re not generating revenue. So once we understand the zoning, we,we figure out like, you know, where we want to,lease this property, and then we see if we can utilize that intent lease strategy so that we can save some money and keep some money in our pockets before we’re actually generating any revenue.

Then once we have a better picture of our,you know, our licensing and we’re going to get it, then you want to enter negotiations with that tenant and figure out the best bang for your buck. So you’ll need to find comparable pieces of real estate in the areas that you’re looking for. And,when I say that, that allows you to get the best pricing for the piece of real estate, because how you are alluding to, usually when you’re a cannabis business, you’re going to have a, have to pay a premium on,you know, you’re gonna have to pay a premium to lease a specific space.

So you want to try to negotiate the best rate that you can get, or the best square footage,you know, amount that you’re paying. So again, you always want to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, try to get the lowest,the lowest amount of pricing per square foot that you can get for, you know, the piece of property that you’re leasing.

And you also want to make sure that you’re just not signing anything. So you want to, you know, have,you know, a commercial real estate agent, look over that piece of document and make sure it’s, you know, standard. It’s a standard piece of commercial,commercial real estate contract that is, you know, widely used within the industry and within your state.

Because, you know, with cannabis, a lot of these landlords, they try to put slimy in, you know, disingenuous, disingenuous things within the contract. And you also want to be negotiating, you know, your term. So your term is the amount of alloted time that you are expected to hold this lease for. So, you know, you can have a one year term, you can have a three year term, you can have a five year term.

I always,advise people to negotiate the smallest amount of term because there’s a couple reasons why you don’t want to be locked into a lease if you need to scale up or scale down. So if I’m in a three year term and then say after a year, I’m not, you know, we’re, the business is booming and I need a bigger space, but I’m locked into this one year term, I mean, into this three year term, it’s going to be, you know, extremely hard to, you know, get out of that space and try to upgrade to a bigger space.

So you want to try to put different clauses that allow you to upgrade in spaces,within that specific property. So like a lot of properties, they’ll have other pieces of real estate that you can lease within the, you know, the entire complex. So you wanna put like some type of clause in that allows you to, you know, transition that lease into another property.

But then again, you also want to check with your city and state, because usually that piece of,that address is going to be attached to your license. So sometimes you change addresses, you have to get a whole new license and start the whole process over. So, you know, there’s a lot of things,we can, you know, talk for days about it.

But I think those are some of the most important points that you wanna look into when you’re trying to secure a piece of real estate for your cannabis operation. Damn. All right. So for those of you who were doubting if this guy knew what he was talking about, we’ve touched on two things so far. Application, startup licensing, and then, you know,getting the space.

Like that’s, that’s insane.I think whoever’s listening will probably have to listen to this multiple times. As I said before, .so we touched on the startup part. You know, applying, getting the license, just making sure you got the okay from, you know, big government to say, yes, you can do it.

And then the next one we touched on was finding a space to hold some of the product, right? So now what about the product? How do we go about getting the, the product? Do we negotiate the same way? Do we need to provide some proof that we are a license,distributor? Can we just go to companies and just send them a DM and say, send me a bunch of product? How does that, how does a product sourcing process work now? So product sourcing, it’s going to be dependent on your state.

So,save your state where, you know, it’s cannabis is recreational, right?you’re going to need, you know, that specific state license in order to have access to license product from different distributors. So distributors are going to be the B2B wholesalers who get product from cultivators or other brands.

So they house them all into one, you know, one facility. And then they have all, like, you know, they have one,they have one,um, how do I wanna say they have, sorry about this. They have no, that’s ok. They have one, you know, seller sheet that has all the different brands and things that they sell.

so you wanna look for the different distributors that have, you know, a lot of different brands that allow you,to access different things and put them onto your menu. So basically when you get your license, you’ll be put on the,you know, the state website as you know, approved,license retailer.

And usually as far as, you know, getting product, these distributors are gonna, you know, refer to these,this, you know, this licensing master sheet mm-hmm. that’s on the same website and they’ll reach out to you.but a lot of the times, any, you know, if you contact a specific brand, sometimes brands distribute their products in-house or,there are, you know, larger distributors like Herbal,which is, you know, really big.

and you know, a couple other ones, you know, as I’m referring to California, that have a multitude of brands that they wholesale. So, and then as far as,negotiating,it’s all based upon volume. So the more volume that you’re able to buy, the more purchasing power, and the more I’m able to negotiate pricing, if I’m just buying like, you know, 12 ace, I’m not going to have as much leeway in as much,space to maneuver pricing in, you know,you know, yeah, just, just pricing to play with as somebody, if I were to order 10008th of a specific brand.

So it’s all, you know, it’s all dependent on dependent upon negotiation, relationships and,volume. So relationships is important,factor because with specific relationships, I can have access to deals and pricing discounts that other competitors are not going to be going to have access to.

So if I know a specific sales rep, they will tell me, you know, Hey, we have to offload these five pounds of cookie smalls or something like that. Yeah. And we can give it to you at this price before they actually broadcast that to all the dispensaries and retailers that they service. So relationships is really key.

Volume will help you with,you know, purchasing power. And then when you get your license, a lot of these distributors are gonna reach out to you because they have to make money as well, so they have sellers and things of that sort, right, that will reach out to you and, you know, you can create accounts with them and things of that sort once you get your license in.

So when you first started, how did you know what products you wanted to hold and deliver?as far as building out your menu, yeah, you really just look at, you know, what are your, what are the, the top dogs, the, you know, the competitor selling, right? And then also, you know, just figuring out,what are the hottest brands within the market? So there’s a couple ways to figure that out.

There’s a lot of analytic sites like bdsa Headset that will tell you, you know, what are the top selling brands in specific regions? You know, what are, you know, what are the different price points that these brands sell out? And, you know, after getting all that information, you’ll have a better understanding on what are the top brands within your region and what to price them at.

So pricing plays a key role because most customers want the best product at the lowest price. So you have to be competitive with your pricing within the marketplace. So a lot, again, going back to these analytic analytics providers,B D S A headset, these are, you know, some of the best in the game. They’ll give you all the analytics that you need to make the best decisions on what products should you be selling in region, how you should price them, you know, just what are the hottest brands.

and of course, it just always fluctuates depending on the year, the time of the year, you know, what is the product category. But you also want to have a wide variation, or at least a decent variation on the different types of brands, the different types of,pricing structures that you have within the specific product categories that you sell and the, the different categories that you offer.

So you don’t want to just only offer packaged flour. You wanna offer packaged flour, cartridges, topicals, edibles. You want to try to broaden the range of products that you have as much as possible. But again, that goes all back to, you know, purchasing power and just how much money that you have on hand to build out your menu and invest inventory.

Right? And then just also knowing yourself through, because you don’t want to be sitting on a lot of product because that is wasted money and you wasted cash flow that could be invested into other,resources or sectors within your business as far as marketing,employees and, you know, a host of other things as well.

So how do you, how do you,uh, cut up your product,variation? So in terms of like, let’s just say percentages, cuz you were mentioning you have your flower, you have pre rolls, you have edibles, you have tinctures, you have topical, like whatever it is.in general, how much of your menu slash inventory is like flour compared to edibles compared to, you know, the rest of the product? Like, how does that distribution pretty much like, or does it change according to season? And do you vary because you know what’s going on? Or is it typically the same? Yeah, so product categories have been pretty stable.

I mean, since we’ve always been in the industry. So of course, your number one seller is going to be package flour that sits around 60% of sales, right? So,you wanna load up most of your menu with, you know, package flour, different types of,pricing. So you wanna have top shelf, mid shelf, and then budget flower, which is, you know, your ounce deals.

It’s like, you know, a hundred dollars ounces or $40, $50 quarters or whatever. You know, you wanna have your budget flower for those people who may not have, you know, the price, you know, the, the, the amount of money to buy the best flower, but they still want something to smoke on that is decent quality and still will get them to that level,that they’re looking for.

But then you also have those co those connoisseurs who only smoke fire or top, top shelf flower. That’s going to be a smaller segment.and that just all goes into how you build out your menu. So you’ll start understanding on as you, the more that you sell and understand your audience base on what types of products and brands that you should carry, and should I, should you carry more top shelf flour? Should you carry more budget flour? And that also depends on your region, because say if you’re in an area like a,you know, Calabasas where, you know, the income is probably over six figures.

The median median income is over six figures, probably most,most of your customer base is going to lean towards, you know, top shelf products, the higher ticket items. So you may wanna load up on more of those products. But say if you’re in an area like Oakland, California, where,yeah, there is some, you know, big spenders, but most people that,live in Oakland, they’re just trying to get by.

They just, you know, they’re living check to check. So they’re looking for more budget products, more budget flour, different ounce deals, quarter deals,cartridges that are, you know, $20, $25 out the door. Again, there’s gonna be discrepancies on the quality, right? You’re paying 60, $70 a,a for mm-hmm.

for packaged flour, you know, there’s a, there’s a level of quality that that consumer is expecting, right? Compared to if I’m paying $10 for, for a, I mean, it’s just, you know, it is what it is, you know? Yeah, hopefully you get a little high, but it’s not gonna probably be the best tasting or the best smoking.

So it’s really just kind of understanding your audience and, you know, it just takes time. The more that you’re able to sell and the more customers that you generate and accumulate, you’ll better understand who your, you know, who your target audience is and what products that they, they like. But essentially how it goes is, you know, 60% of cells is usually gonna be packaged flour.

about, mm, I would say about 20% of cells is going to be contra,concentrates or more specifically like cartridges. Mm, okay. That sort. And then, you know, the rest is gonna be split upon mainly edibles, but then,maybe some topicals and things of that sort. And then pre rose was gonna, you know, fall into that patch flour, which is, you know, around the 60, 65%.

So right. When, I mean, I would start off with mainly edibles,vape cartridges, right? And,packaged flour, you can’t go wrong with that in, in pre-rolls as well.and then you can start exploring into the topicals and tins and, you know,drinks, you know, all those are gonna be really small.

But again, it, it can just depend upon who your audience is because, you know, teachers and topicals, those are really popular amongst, you know, the older generation of individuals who may not wanna smoke or get super high from edible, they just want something a little bit more meadow, or they’re looking for it to apply it to certain area that they have pain in, which is, you know, good as far as topicals and things of that sort.

So it just all, it just all depends on your audience, but those are some general guidelines on, you know, what you should expect. Right. So that makes sense. So the majority is the flower, you know, the pre-rolls and stuff like that. And then based on the specific market that you’re in, the percentage of higher tier versus lower tier will then differ based on the demographic section.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You signed it up perfectly. Yeah. .so, okay. So,for, again, everyone who’s listening, we touched on the licensing part, the startup,finding the space. We just spoke about trying to get product, what the product distribution looks like, the percentages of product that you have when you first start out.

it makes most sense, you know, to do majority flower, at least when you’re, you know, at the beginning. Then once you get some data and analytics on the back end, you can figure out what people like and what people dislike. So that’s awesome. So now,I’d love to touch on the, the, like the people, right? The hiring, right? So you did a really good video on this and it seems like you have a killer team, but again, when you’re first starting out, when you just have the phone or you just have the laptop and you have the very baseline stuff, right, the, the minimum, right? Maybe you’re even doing the driving going around, right? .

So what is the process of finding good people knowing that they’re not just gonna run away with all your product, or they have some friends that say, Hey, you know, I got robbed, and then next thing you know, it’s just their friends that took the product and they can’t do anything about it. Right.do you have any like, like kind of horror stories around, you know, your hiring or has it been relatively smooth sailings and, you know, how, how have you gone about doing that? Yeah, so with hiring is really interesting because that’s, you know, a, a a big question that I get, you know, from time to time.

Like, Hey, should, you know, I start off hiring somebody or you know, like I don’t have a lot of money, but you know, I don’t want to do anything. I just wanna hire people to run the business. What I tell most people is like, you should be doing all, if you don’t, if you don’t have the capital, you should, and you probably are going to have to do all the work.

You’re gonna have to wear all the hats. You’re gonna have to answer calls, take orders, dispatch the orders, probably have to drive.that’s what me and my business partner did. We literally did everything by the inventory. We had toyou know, set up all the systems, set up all the software, be familiar with the software, and learn how to input,all the data into the software so that we can,you know, keep track of inventory, count all the inventory, make sure that we have the correct amount of money on hand.

So you’re going to have to wear all the hats if you have a limited amount, amount of capital to play with.as far as hiring, I always say, and then if you do have some capital on the side, or you do start getting to that stage where you may need extra hand on deck, I say, you know, turn to the people that you can trust most.

It’s probably gonna be, you know, friends and family and, you know, reputable friends and family. Cause we all know that now family, we got, we always got somebody. Yeah. So,yeah, turn to people that you can, that you can help, you know, that, that you can trust the most definitely friends and family.

and when you start, when, when the time is right, you’ll understand when you need to start hiring mm-hmm. . Because say if you’re just doing three, four orders a day, obviously you could probably do all that yourself, but once you get to 20, 30, 40 orders a day, you’re not going to be able to handle 40 orders,by yourself a day and answer all the calls and take in deliveries of inventory and, you know, make sure the inventory is correct.

You’re gonna start to have to hire people so you’ll know when the time is right and when the,when it’s the right time to start bringing on people. And you know, initially when you start bringing on people, definitely turn the friends and family first. And then if, you know, you exhausted that, you know, you want to use a course like the, you know, normal job hiring sites like Indeed and Monster, you know, whatever there is.

But you definitely wanna run background checks. You want to really interview and understand what are the motives of the person that is, that you’re hiring. Like what are they looking to get outta it? Do they have like a long term plan? Are they looking to get into the industry, acquire some, some,experience so that they can start their own thing? Right.

You know, usually those are the best people cuz they’re actually going to be someone invested and really trying to gain information and experience and try to make the most out of their, their time with their business. Right? Or are they just kind of in it for a quick check? You know, those type of people,can be a risk because,those are the people that are trying to exploit your bi try to exploit your business, right? Find out, you know, deficiencies and ways that they can take advantage of, you know, things that you may be lacking on in, you know, trying to steal money or, you know, steal product and things of that sort.

So yeah, nobody’s gonna see if I just take one. Yeah. So yeah, definitely turn the friends and family people that you can trust and then, you know, once you have to, you know, hire and, you know, you exhausted the friends and family route, really take time and,really understand on who you are bringing into your business cause Right.

You know, one bad apple can affect the tra the trajectory of your business Yeah. And can be like a cancer, um Yes. For the people that are already in your business. Yeah.so yeah, that’s, that’s kind of the tips that I would give on hiring. Yeah.yeah, really just, you know, if you can implement that strategy, you know, friends and family, I think you’ll be good.

And then, you know, once you exhaust that, just,really take your time and really understand the motives of who you are hiring and who you’re bringing into your business. How many,interview rounds do you normally do?usually one or two. And then,we usually have a pretty extensive training program where we are,after we decided we wanna hire them, then depending on, you know, what they’re doing, if they’re like a driver where they’re out on the road by theirselves, we’re doing a couple ride alongs with them.

So like a manager or somebody who’s been in our business,and really understands like our processes, you know, understands our, what we’re trying to do and the service that we’re trying to provide to the customers, they’re riding along with them and then they are evaluating them at the same time and really understanding if and trying to get a better picture if they’re actually the right fit for our business and what we’re trying to do.

So,yeah, it’s, it is, it’s really like an ongoing process.we’re also,you know, doing,you know, quarterly evaluations and just trying to better understand, you know, who the person is and just like, what are their goals? What, what do they like about the business, what are, you know, some of the inefficiencies that they see in the business and how we can improve.

And then also evaluating them and seeing, you know, where, you know, maybe they’re not the best in and,you know, just giving them tips on how they can improve and, you know, know be a better asset to the company. So,you know, it’s definitely an ongoing,process Yeah. On, you know, vetting your employees and making sure that you have the right people because, you know, you don’t ever want somebody just to feel comfortable because once they feel comfortable, they feel like they’re kind of, you know, untouchable.

And then that’s where, you know what I said, they can try to find exploits within your business and, you know, try to backdoor things as far as cash and inventory and that’s, you know, where things can go wrong. So you always want to keep people kind of on their Ps and Qs and also make them understand that they are always being evaluated and that we are always also trying to find the best people that are going to, you know, be assets for a company.

So, you know, we’re just always trying to figure out the best combination and how we can better optimize and create more efficiencies within our business. Yeah. Yeah. I would say you gotta, you gotta find those A players and they’re out there, but yeah, that’s fine. You gotta find them. Mm-hmm. in terms of the, the,the hierarchy.

So, you know, another thing is like when you say you’ll know when you need to hire somebody, right? Like when the business starts hurting, at some point, you know, you know, you know who you need to hire,the order at which you typically hire, is it like a driver first and then a customer service person and then maybe like a product manager, like someone that takes in the deliveries? Is, would that be like the most, obviously there’s gonna be different circumstances based on the owner’s expertise in what they do,but is it generally along those lines like driver customer service than like product? Yeah, so driving is gonna be like the, the most time, the most time sensitive.

I mean, really it is driving is gonna take the most time. So you definitely want to figure out how you can get out of the driver’s seat and get somebody else in there so that you can focus on more. I’m not gonna say it is, driving is definitely important, but there’s other aspects within the business that you can focus on if you’re not driving that can better optimize your business and,you know, just create, you know, allow it to be more efficiently run.

So if you can get yourself out of the driver’s seat, if you know you’re starting from zero and you’re trying to wear all hats, that’s definitely the first place, like you alluded to, that you should try to find people to do, you know, do that task mm-hmm. . But once you’re done with driving, then you’re probably going to just focus,you know, focus directly on customer service and taking orders in and you know, more of the inventory side of things and,purchasing things of that sort.

So,usually after driving you’re gonna focus more to where you’re just inside of the office and you’re answering all the calls, answering texts, you know,you know, managing the weed maps, things of that sort. So that’s probably probably gonna be the second person that you find, or the second set of people that you find people who answer calls, texts,weedmaps orders, online orders, your dispatch team.

So,so first you got driving, then you find like dispatchers, then you’ll be kind of more of like an operational manager where your focus is mainly on how can I find the best deals and the best pricing to increase the margin and, you know, increase top line revenue. So then I would, you know, focus on, you know, really figuring out how you can create relationships within the industry, relationships with sales reps, with brands, with distribution companies,to, you know, increase that margin, increase mind power, increase the deals and offers that you can craft and run, you know, on your website and through your delivery service.

So that’s kind of like the role that, you know, me and my business partner played for a long time. Once we found drivers, once we found dispatchers, then we were mainly kind of like, you know, the operational manager. So that would kind of be like the last person that you’re alluding to,finding someone that can kind of replace you and you can kind of really just focus on the financials.

After that, you’re just really just focusing on the financials. You’re not really involved in a day-to-day.and again, that takes time. You have to find the right people to do all of those positions.definitely the last position that like, kind of like an operational manager that focuses on purchasing, focuses on,inventory reconciliation,managing the,software, the weed maps, things of that sort.

So that would be kind of like the structure and the process that I would give,advice on like how you can start hiring people to fill those, you know, tasks within your business. Right, right. Some crazy stuff, man. This is, this is a free sauce. This is a free game that you’re giving out right now, .

so I think the last thing, at least off the top of my head is, okay, so we have the license, we have the space, we got the product, we got the people. Thing that’s left is how do we get the customers? How do we make money? How do you, how do you get orders, right? You said, you know, as we hire people,you go from three orders to 20 orders to 30 orders a day.

How do you do that? Yeah, so for us,for us, luckily when we first started,there wasn’t much competition within the delivery space because again, everybody was trying to figure out how they can get a storefront, how can they get a dispensary? So delivery was like, kind of like on the back burner for a lot of people, right? So we were able to acquire a lot of customers really through what I like to say is the network effects.

So really kind of being the first to a lot of the different areas that we provide so that we,that we service in a lot of the different cities and regions. So for us it was really just weed map spin. So we were able to acquire,we were able to acquire high positions on Weedmaps. So again, Weedmaps is a really a marketing platform for delivery services, deliv,dispensaries where it is kind of like a play to pay to play game where you are a you’re, you’re spending, the more money that you spend, you can generate more visibility for your business and kind of be on the,you know, on the first or second or third whatever.

So it’s more so you’re just spending for more visibility on the Weedmaps platform, which Weedmaps has, you know, thousands, you know, hundreds of thousands of visitors a month that are paying people, you know, customers that are looking to purchase cannabis,from, you know, different retailers where if, you know, where they’re, they could be looking for a delivery or they’re looking for different storefronts in their area.

So again, for us, kind of long-winded,it was just really going out to different areas that were maybe outside of Oakland, but we saw there was a lot of opportunity because there wasn’t much competition. So a lot of these places, like, I’m not too, I’m not sure how familiar you are with Northern California, but mm-hmm.

, places like Dublin,like conquered,places that, where I like to call ’em like cannabis deserts. So there’s not really any storefronts, there’s not too many delivery providers, but if you go into these cannabis deserts and you,are able to provide the most value as far as maybe the fast delivery or the widest product selection, you’re able to provide some type of unique selling point mm-hmm.

or unique selling proposition that will enable you to attract more customers. That right, is avoid within that specific market, maybe you,have the best pricing,whatever that niche that you provide within that market, you can kind of utilize that to your advantage and get a lot of customers in these areas that don’t have a lot of attention.

Because, you know, like Oakland, it’s a huge city with millions of people that live there. So there’s going to actually be a lot of service providers. There’s already a lot of dispensaries, there’s a lot of delivery services because Oakland was giving out the licenses. But, right. The great thing about a delivery license or a delivery service is that you are not subject to only one area.

You probably know this because you have a lot of,dispensary clients. They’re kind of stuck. They’re just sitting up, they’re literally like, you know, there’s different marketing strategies, but for the most part, they can’t like, go out and get customers. It’s kind of like they have to kind of broadcast their marketing and hopefully somebody walks into the door, but with the delivery, we can kind of go out and find customers.

We can service these different regions that do not have,access to cannabis. They’re, you know, like I said, they’re cannabis deserts. So that’s essentially the approach that we took. We were able to get a foothold in a lot of these areas, like your Dublins, your Livermore’s, your Walnut Creeks that didn’t have a lot of service providers, and still to this day,a city like Dublin, they don’t have a dispensary.

So you, you know, now there’s a lot more competition. But in 2018, 2019 when we started, there was really nobody servicing those areas. So we were able to obtain a lot of customers through that. And then also, once you get those customers in your funnel, then you wanna, you know, get them, like what I say into your drip.

So you want to be providing them with different offers, different deals through text message, through email marketing, so that they will become re repeat customers and you can increase their lifetime value because those are customers that you do not have to pay for because Right, you’ve already acquired them.

Now you just have to provide them with the right deal or offer or the, the, you know, the correct level of service so that they will come back and, you know, purchase from you again and again and again, we have customers that spent that, you know, tens of thousands of dollars that we only had to pay for one time to acquire them.

And then, you know, for whatever reason that they like our service, whether it’s the certain products that we offer, the pricing, the, the, the level of customer service that we have, the,the ease of delivery or the discreetness of the delivery or the speed of the delivery, they come in order from us on a weekly or monthly or a biweekly basis.

So if that answers your question, that is the reason why I like to tell people in simple, the simplest form, find your unique selling proposition and then find different places where you can broadcast that unique selling proposition. Whereas where if it’s lead maps or through SEO or through,you know,programmatic display ads, whatever it is, figure out what your unique selling proposition is and then try to figure out how you can pro broadcast that.

There’s so many different ways.yes, you know, in cannabis you can’t advertise through, you know, through Google or Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or whatever, but, you know, you can run events, you can sponsor different teams or whatever. There’s so many different ways that you can broadcast who you are out to the world.

maybe it’s just hand to hand boost to the ground contact, you just going to highly populated areas and you’re just giving out a business card. So, you know, you have to get creative when you’re in the cannabis industry. However, there’s plenty of ways that you can do it. That’s man, .

Yeah, there’s a lot. But I, I, I think one of the most important points that I think people are gonna completely gloss over is the lifetime value comment that you made about getting customers. Because in the world of business, the sexy thing is to get a sale. You know, I got this sale, I got somebody and I, I closed them.

I was able to, you know, bring them in, right? But nobody talks about the backend. How do you ensure that that customer stays purchasing longer at your business and purchases more frequently? Cuz those things increase the lifetime value. Right? And the four things that you were talking about are the four things that I preach all the time to my clients about.

How do you increase L t V for your customers? Like you provide value to them, how do you provide value to them? You give them a good quality product, you give them a good price, you give them a good customer service, and then a good buying experience. So I personally,separate the customer experience in buying experience, because if you go and you look at any Google reviews, and for any retailer, they will fall under those four things.

But one of the biggest ones, it’d be like,you know, John remembered it was my birthday and gave me this really awesome discount. Or John was a complete dick, right? I hated the way he spoke with me. He knew nothing about cannabis. What kind of bud tenderers do you have? It’s a polarizing reason why people love your business and why people hate your business, right? Then when it comes to the buying experience, it’s like, do you have inventory in stock, right? Are you sold out all the time? Do you have the wide selection of product? Right? Do you have discreet delivery? Do you have fast delivery? Right? When it comes to retailers, do you have parking? Right? All of the, are you easy to find? All of these things play into why customers want to come in and purchase.

Right? And I think that that portion of people’s business gets glossed over so much because all the time we go on Weedmaps, and I just did a video on this and I’d love to hear your thoughts on like, if you continue using Weedmaps, despite it getting more and more expensive, but it’s tangible, right? You spend money and you get X amount of sales, and as long as you’re profitable, you know, you can keep on spending that money, right? That’s it in a general nutshell, right? But it’s not sexy to,survey your customers and ask, what do you like about our business? It’s not sexy to try and increase delivery times to try and optimize the delivery location.

So one, you spend less gas, and two, you’re able to get to places faster because it’s not as tangible. It’s not as, it’s not as, you can’t like hold it, right? .so exactly what you’re saying are, are a lot of the things that I try and emphasize for a lot of these businesses. It’s like the things that you can’t see are arguably more important than the things that you can see.

Because if you truly want a key differentiator for your business, the things that people don’t see are the things that truly matter cuz nobody’s really focusing on. Right. And those are all the big things that help increase ltv.so on the customer side,a big complaint for the weed maps is that like, it’s just getting super expensive, right? With paid ads, it can only get more expensive because one, there’s more competition.

So bidding increases more. So you have to pay more to get the same visibility. And then two, you market more and more to a colder audience. So in the retailer space, and again, you might not have this as much for you, but let’s just say, you know, you can spend $10,000 with weed maps and get x amount of dollars back, right? But now you spend $50,000 with weed maps and your area expands.

But that just means that your customers are now further and further and further away because you are now marketing to a colder audience. So a potential customer who is one mile away has a higher likelihood chance of buying from you than there’s a customer that’s 10 miles away. Right? So your conversion on that ad campaign is gonna be lower, meaning that you’re spending more money to make less money.

Right. So is your main customer acquisition strategy that you recommend, cuz I know you have a different customer acquisition, so you’re actually applying other businesses. But in terms of when you mentor people looking to start up, do you still tell them to use Weedmaps as like one of the main things? Or are the, you know, kind of gorilla forms of advertising handing out business cards? Like the main way that people do things? Or is it seo? Like what are the main things on that side? Yeah, so,so weed maps I think is going to gonna get you the fastest return.

But like you said, you can exhaust the audience out because there’s on, there’s only so many people that, you know, even though there aren’t hundreds of thousands, but there’s a, a cap to how many bi, how many people are going to actually go into Weedmaps and then pick your business out of the hundreds of others that may be in your area to purchase, you know, their products.

So right Weedmaps is gonna get you the fastest return, but over time, that amount of spend that you are using to acquire those customers is going to get more and more expensive because you’re going to, I mean,essentially when you first get on, you’re going to start acquiring customers, but then you’re going to start acquiring,customers at a more expensive cost because you’re going to eventually start exhausting out the audience.

Because again, there’s only so many, many people that actually go into Weedmaps. So yeah, some of those other tactics like, you know, gorilla marketing as far as just going out, handing out business cards at highly populated areas, you know, events,s e o, those are effective strategies, but they’re going to take more time.

They’re going to take more manpower. They’re, you know, they’re a little bit more expensive.as far as when you’re running the strategy, you know, when you’re, like I say, running the play, it’s going to take,it’s just gonna take more time. I, I wouldn’t say more expensive, it’s just, it’s just gonna take a lot more time, right.

As far as, you know, when you are actually executing it. So yeah, all the, every, all those work, I just feel like Weedmaps is going to give you, give you the fastest return. But again, Weedmaps is popular in certain states. You know, I think there’s some states where I don’t think there’s really any presence as far as retailers or as far as people actually going to Weedmaps,to find,cannabis products.

So it just all depends on the state that you live in. And then,it depends on the amount of competition because again, back in 2018, there wasn’t that much competition on Weedmaps, but there was still a lot of traffic because Weedmaps was really popular. But then, you know, you go to 2023, everybody and their mom is on Weedmaps as far as retailers, like that’s the first thing that they go to.

So the more competition it drives up the demand, which when there’s the more demand in the marketplace, the more expensive that there’s, that it’s going to be to use that particular service or product. So, yeah. Yeah, it just all depends on your region, but in most cases, Weedmaps is going to give you the fastest return on your investment, but then you have to use Weedmaps in conjunction with different Reed marketing strategies, such as SMS marketing, email marketing,you can you, you know, use the,direct mail postcards because now you have people’s addresses, so then you can use direct mail.

there’s, there’s a lot of different ways and different strategies you can do to,you know, keep people within the funnel and like you said, increase your lifetime,customer value and also the frequency that the customer is purchasing. Yeah. Yeah. I, I found that at least, again, with the smallest sample size of, of clients that I’ve had, the more,mature the market,the more expensive, like the weed maps and the leaf leaves and all that stuff are, and it typically is less viable, but the more kind of new the market is,the buyer behavior of how people purchase hasn’t caught up with how people actually purchase, which Ty which typically is Google.

So like, we had a, a client out in Montana who just switched over from medical to recreational, but the bulk of their sales came from the Leafly weed maps kind of connection. Cuz that’s, again, nobody really knows like, is this new thing that people are buying. So they just go to, you know, what’s the next thing in their head? Until so many people are on the, the that platform, then it gets way too expensive.

Yeah. Because essentially you’re just leveraging the platform because these platforms like Leafly, we maps, they already spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year to advertise, to get people to, to get traffic onto their platform. And they also have other resources far as, you know, seo, they have, they have content writers and things as far as to, you know, generate them more traffic through SEO and things of that sort.

And they’ve been doing that for years. Yeah. So essentially you’re leveraging the platform’s traffic to get you customers, which is, you know, a safe bet because again, these platforms are already spending hundreds of thousands of not millions of dollars to generate traffic onto their platform,especially in these newer markets.

But as the market, as you said, gets more mature and gets more saturated, and there’s more demand as far as retailers onboarding onto the platform, that’s, and the amount of traffic is not increasing because again, there’s a locked amount of people in these specific regions, you know, population sizes in specific cities.

They may go up a percent, they may go down per a percent, but unless you live in like Austin or Atlanta or Miami, you know, the average city is not, you know, gaining 10% of new,residents a year. You know what I mean? It may go up a percent, it may go down a percent, but you know, that’s, you know, it’s pretty much a capped amount.

So once everybody in that specific region, you know, it can take some time, it can take some years, but once everybody in that region is that purchase cannabis, they’re familiar with Weedmaps and they kind of already pick, you know, the few retailers that they go in, you know, order from,you know, there may be some leeway with, you know, if a certain service provider or a certain retailer,they give them a bad experience and then, okay, I’m gonna try somebody new.

But you know, that’s not gonna be that many people. But once there’s already, you know, a, a high saturation, then that’s where you’re gonna see the Aspen.um, on Weedmaps not getting the same amount ROI that it once did, then you need to experiment. But by that time, you should already have enough clusters in your database and enough data, you know, as far as emails, names,addresses, birthdays,phone numbers to use all that information to go and then remarket and retarget to them.

So that’s why you need to create those systems in place as far as when you are getting new customers, make sure that they’re leaving a review on your Google and your week maps. Make sure that they are signing up for email,subs, their email subscription and text messaging subscription. Make sure you’re getting that actual,clear,subscription consent.

Because I’ve heard horror stories where people, you know, retailers, they’re getting sued because they didn’t go and get that consent and they’re sitting out, they have the person’s text message, but through the t CPA rules and thelaws, you just, cuz you have somebody’s phone number, you can’t send ’em a text message last.

So before, once you get that client, or maybe after you seen them order, you know, a couple of times you already have that system in place where, hey, are you signed up for,or text message list? Through this text message list, you will only be only through this text message list. You’re going to get these exclusive deals and exclusive sales through the, so now there’s a sent, there’s a incentive for them to subscribe to your text message list.

Yeah. But you want to make sure that when you first start, you already have these systems in place. So once you need to, once you, you wanna shift over to more so remarketing and retargeting your customers, you’re already prepared. You already have that, you know, you already have your sword ironed and you, I mean, you already have your sword,sharpen, you know, you’re not, you know, scrambling like,we have 10,000 customers, but nobody signed up for, for a text message consent.

Like, I mean, it’s kind of pointless now . So now you’re, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re starting from, from zero when you already had, you know, two, 3000 people sign up for text messaging. Yeah. And then now you don’t even need to use Weedmaps. So the goal is use Weedmaps when it’s cheap to acquire customers.

Then once you have that customer base, you can start decreasing your spend on Weedmaps, or only you start optimizing your spending areas that are actually giving you return. And you start decreasing spending areas that aren’t giving you any return. And then you start shifting over a majority of your marketing to retargeting reyou know, retargeting strategies such as email, direct mail,sms, and then, you know, that’s way cheaper than, you know, spending thousands and tens of thousands of dollars with Weedmaps.

So that’s really the game, that’s the play. And that’s, you know, essentially what we, we have been doing. But again, once you’re able to, you know, put these systems in place, then like us, we have a team that is dedicated to just our Weedmaps. So they go in and every day they’re analyzing the sales, they’re analyzing all the analytics, and they’re moving up us up spots and moving us down spots to best optimize, you know, our weedmaps and our weed map spin.

So, but that’s, you know, some things that you can implement once you actually have the capital to put into place. Because if it’s just you, you don’t have time to be just staring at all the weed maps, analytics every single day and moving up spots and moving down spots. So that’s why you need to be able, you know, that’s how everything ties into place because once you’re wearing all hats, you know, you don’t have time to do that.

But as you start delegating tasks and finding the right people, you find the right drivers, you find the right dispatchers, you find the right inventory team, then you can focus on things that are actually more important and more,yeah. Really just more important to you generating more revenue. So.

Right, right. I’ll, I’ll just a positive feedback loop, and then you work on higher and higher leverage tasks. Correct. This was, this was a crazy episode. This was , this was filled with a lot of stuff.to finish up, last two questions.based on the people that you’re mentoring, right? And what you’re seeing out in the marketplace, what would you say to the owner of, it could be the owner of a dispensary, or in your situation it could be,delivery,companies, right? What do they need to do to take it to the next level, right? Like, what are they doing right now and what are you seeing, like where they’re, they’re sticking point typically is at, and where do you think they need to like, jump over and be like, okay, you know, maybe they’re making some money, but they don’t wanna invest an extra $10,000, you know, to get to this next thing.

Right? And that’s where you’re seeing the sticking point, but for them to get from level one to level two, that’s what they need to do. What typically would you say for people to get to take it to the next level, really taking it to the next level? It involves really taking a step back and analyzing your business as a whole.

Mm. Analyzing all the aspects of your business and figuring out what are the deficiencies. And the only way to do that is really being able to track those different KPIs, those key point indicators within your business. So how many orders are you getting a day? What is the amount of time that it takes you to complete a delivery? What are, how many service areas are you, are you,servicing? What are the average amount of skews that are in your menu every day? How much inventory of my buying per month? What is my cash flow? What is my profit? What is my, you know, total expenses and how much, what is my monthly expenses and how does that calculate to my daily expenses? Just keep, you know, just basic things on business.

It doesn’t have to do anything with cannabis. This is what every business needs to be able to analyze. And I feel like a lot of times within the cannabis industry, people are just so excited just to get into the industry. Yeah.I get to smoke weed and I get to just drive around, or I get to have my own storefront with my name on it that they, they forget that this is an actual business and this is a way that you can create generational wealth for your family.

Yeah. Like any other business. Yeah. So really to take it to the next level, you really have to understand all of your analytics. You have to understand what are the things that I’m good at? What are the things that I am, what are the things that I am not so good at? Me personally, I’m good at marketing. Mm-hmm.

, I’m not so good at, you know, the operational things, like the tedious things, like counting the inventory, counting the cat, you know, being at the, the delivery location all day. Like some people just love doing that. Yeah. You know, I don’t, I like focusing on marketing. I like on like creating different marketing strategies and things of that sort.

So really understand what is your passion, and then figuring out what are your strengths, and then understanding what are my weaknesses. And you have to really be honest with yourself because if you are the smartest person in the room, you’re doing something wrong. Yeah. You know what I mean? You have to be able to delegate delegate tasks to other people that may have strengths in areas that you have weaknesses.

And you have to be able to understand your business as a whole, because you need to be able to articulate what are these tasks and what is expected of what is expected of this person That is that I’m delegating this task too. So that’s where everything ties into creating SOPs, standard operating procedures.

These, again, these are just basic principles that you need to have when running a business. And a lot of times people in the cannabis industry, again, we’re just so excited,we got, I got my license, I’m gonna make a million dollar. No, you’re not, you’re not gonna make a million dollars. Yeah. It’s not that easy.

Yes, it is a little bit, you’re, you’re selling a commodity that kind of sells itself in some points. But again, we have to have a better understanding of the KPIs within our business as far as customer service, pricing, delivery, speed. If you,if you, if you have a business that, you know, in the delivery space, even in the, you know, storefront retail space.

If you have great pricing, great customer service, great speed about how you get people in and out the door, how you, how you can get product to into the customer’s hands, most of the time you are gonna be winning. So it’s really being able to balance all that. And then as you increase in volume, how can you sustain that same level of execution? So that’s, you know, right.

If I had to summarize it all up, that’s kind of like the best ways to do it. And that’s really is what’s take your, take your business the next level. Right. It, it’s interesting because when you, going back to the basics is the thing that typically takes people to the next level. It’s not about this. Like, there are no secrets, right? There’s no like, magical thing that, you know, we do.

but it’s, it’s executing on the simple things at the highest level we possibly can. Right? That typically is a game changer for, for everything else, but absolute simple. Sometimes people just take it too. They, they just, you know, they do all these crazy formulas and have all these crazy strategies.

If you really break it down, like bi, like the, like, again, my delivery business is simple. It’s really, people want great customer service. They want the best pricing, they want quality product, and they want fast delivery. Those are the four things that people want. So if I can create a business that allows me to provide those key things to my customers, then I know that my business will be able to generate the most amount of revenue month in and month out.

So that’s, you know, it is just really just breaking your business down to like the key principles. And again, it’s also knowing your why, being honest with yourself, knowing what are your strengths and weaknesses. Why do you want to do this? Are you just, do you just want to do this because you think you’re gonna be a billionaire? I don’t think it’s the right, I don’t think it’s the right business for you.

You know what I, I mean. Right, right. So it’s really, you know, having a mindset, knowing your why, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, building a team, and then understanding what are your usps. So what are your unique se you know, your unique,you know,your unique selling propositions.

You know, figuring out what is your niche within the industry? Do I want to sell only top self, top self pro product? Do I want to have the best prices on the market? Do I wanna have the fast delivery? Mm-hmm. Do I wanna have the widest variety of menu? You know what I mean? It’s just, it’s, it’s simple. It’s just sometimes we just, people just get so excited, you know, they just get, you know, they overcomplicate things, you know what I mean? I just try to break it down as simple as possible.

That’s sweet, man. You’re like I said, you’re an absolute beast. Absolutely. Crushing it. Yeah.where can people find you if they wanna get in touch? What was that? Where can people find you if,they want to get in touch? Man, just go straight to my YouTube, Neo cannabis. I’ve given out a lot of free game, a lot of free information, a lot of free sauce, you know what I mean? And I’m investing like a lot of time into that.

also if people are interested in really getting, it’s not gonna be like a one-on-one type thing, but if you are interested in asking me anything about the cannabis industry, I do have a patron in our group where we,we come together for one hour every week on Sundays. And you could ask me any question pertaining to the cannabis industry or, you know, starting your own retail operation, your own delivery service.

Any type of knowledge that I have, I’ll try to answer to my, the best of my ability. So yeah, that’s, you know, if people want to find me, go to the YouTube channel, join the Patreon group. If you join the Patreon group, you get my free ebook. How to Start Stabilize and Scale Your Own Cannabis Delivery Service.

it’s a lot of free gain. I mean, a lot of knowledge, a lot of information in that ebook. It’s over 30 pages of information in there, walking you through A to Z how to start your own cannabis delivery service. Let’s go. That’s sweet, man. Like, look, I, I don’t think there’s anybody else in the game right now that’s providing as much value than you.

this is what, almost an hour and a half, and I think we only got the 30,000 foot overview. We just kind of touched on the different topic. So I could just imagine the different things. You know, maybe you might have to run another episode, but, you know, , that’s it for me today. I, you know, like I said before, this is the Dispensary Marketing podcast.

I’m your host, Brandon Quan. If you’re watching this on YouTube, like subscribe, hit the notification bell, all that fun stuff. If you are a retail business,you know, definitely hit me up as well. We do marketing for all retailers, both in Canada and the United States. But that’s it for me today.

Thanks again for watching. Talk to you guys later.