Everyone’s got an opinion about what a dispensary is. Most of those people have never owned or operated a dispensary.
The answer’s pretty simple. A dispensary is a store. When you actually own or operate one, economic reality will drive that point home for you, whether you like it or not: dispensaries exist to sell weed, and selling weed is how you make payroll, keep the lights on, and keep your doors open.
One of the best things about the internet is that it has democratized information. One of the worst things about the internet is that it has democratized information. For all you bright-eyed idealists with opinions about how to play the game that have never played the game, here’s 5 things most of you get wrong about the game.
In case you’re wondering what makes me an authority, I founded Tropicanna, one of the most successful dispensaries in Cali, in one of the most competitive markets in Cali. I’ve also worked with another 60+ shops as CMO of Deeproots Partners.
This is what that experience taught me.
5 Things People Get Wrong About Dispensaries
1. Budtenders are not Yoda
There’s so much noise in the cannabis space about why budtenders must educate. Typically, that noble bluster is all about responsible use, how good weed is not just about high THC, cannabinoid & terpene profiles, and the endocannabinoid system.
Well, f*ck that noise. BTs are not Weed Yoda. Customers are not weed Jedis in training.
The BT’s job is to sell weed and provide extraordinary service. If someone asks for an 1/8th that tests over 30%, their job is to offer a few choices that fit and try to upsell. Their job is not to tell the consumer they don’t know sh*t about weed and to launch into a 20-minute diatribe about the entourage effect and how to trust the force.
To be crystal clear before planet cannabis loses its hive mind, I’m not saying BTs don’t need to know their sh*t and should never educate.
- Some customers will come with questions.
- Some customers will ask for recommendations.
- Some customers need help.
You must train your BTs for all that, but that is providing education as customer service. It is not providing general cannabis education because someone who doesn’t pay your taxes has decided your mission is to educate the world and change false perceptions of cannabis because you own a dispensary.
That person can pound sand.
People will eventually find their way. Let them. So, no more Yoda noise. Please. All it says is you don’t know, and you don’t know that you don’t know.
2. Give the people what they want
At the risk of redundancy, the way you sell weed is by giving the customer what they want and making sure they have a good time while you do it. Yes, answer questions if asked, but don’t run your dispo like an indie record store in 1992 with a bunch of weed snobs offering unsolicited advice to customers between eye-rolls because those tools don’t know limonene from caryophyllene.
Your customer probably has a day job. They don’t spend all day at the weed store looking at COAs. They just want to roll through, share a smile, score, and get high. The dispensary’s job is to help them enjoy that journey.
Before any of the weed education zealots lose it and come for me with pitchforks and torches like I’m a capitalist cannabis Frankenstein, I’m not saying dispensaries have no responsibility to educate.
- Answer questions when asked.
- Offer classes.
- Invite brands to your store to talk to your customers about their products.
All of that is good. Great. Fantastic. Bueno.
But it doesn’t change the fact that job #1 is to sell weed. It’s how you make payroll. It’s how you keep the lights on. It’s how you pay your taxes. It’s how you feed your family.
3. People don’t go to dispos for the weed
Fun fact: You can buy weed anywhere. There’s the “traditional” market. Traditional delivery. Hemp products. Legal delivery. And the 20 other dispensaries within 5 miles of your store because your city restricted zoning to a tiny industrial district devoid of human life and street traffic.
People go to dispensaries because they want a cannabis experience. The kind of experience you provide is a big part of your brand. Branded retail is how you win the dispensary game.
Yes, you still need a banging menu, but if you can’t answer the question “Why should someone shop at your dispensary?”, don’t open your doors. You don’t have a brand. You have a license, inventory, and infrastructure. Guess what?
That ain’t enough.
This is a kill-or-be-killed world, you’re already dead, your store is a zombie, and your customers are down the street at the dispensary that understands shopping for weed should be fun, not a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
4. Shelving fees and budtender incentives suck
If the only brands you stock are ones that pay you, you stock brands for the wrong reasons. Quality, consistency, value, brand recognition, and marketing reach are the criteria a dispensary should use to evaluate a brand.
Think about it this way: if your customers found out the criteria you used to build your menu was whether or not a brand paid you, why would they ever shop at your store? You’re not giving them the best product at the best price. You’re not taking care of them. You’re taking care of you.
Same same for budtender incentives. If you pay a budtender to make a recommendation, that’s not an authentic rec. It’s bullsh*t. As a consumer, if I knew my BT was just cramming something down my throat for payola, you would never see me at the shop again unless I was there to chuck a rock through the window.
Brand values matter. Integrity matters. Build a real brand that forges long-term relationships and earns loyal customers because you do things the right way. Stop with the short-term cash grabs, you greedy little pigs. Oink oink.
5. Almost no one gives a f**k about sustainability, organic, or anything that’s good for them and kind to Mother Earth
This is a big one, and it‘s really vexing. It seems like it shouldn’t be like that, but it really be like that. Most consumers are on the hunt for the highest testing weed at the lowest price point or exotic indoor craft, and they don’t care how the farm made their dream weed happen.
As a lover of planet Earth and a total whore for organic farmers’ markets, I wish this weren’t true. But the fact is that almost no one at my counter ever asked a question about sungrown, sustainable, or organic.
The strength of the “traditional” market is also solid evidence that next to no one cares. Most of that weed is hosed with Avid and marinated in Eagle 20 before you pick up that dub sack, and that sh*t will kill you.
What’s even more strange about the lack of environmental consciousness in cannabis consumers is where the environmental concern that exists is focused: disposable vapes.
Really?
That’s like sitting in the middle of a house fire and complaining that the stove puts too much CO2 in the atmosphere.
I’m not saying disposable vapes are not a problem, but every large-scale indoor commercial grow is an environmental disaster that consumes as much power as a small city. If you really gave a sh*t, you’d quit smoking indoor weed that came from a grow that does as much environmental harm as Chernobyl.
If you’re looking for some sustainable, sungrown weed brands, ask your BT. There are some great choices.
Final Thoughts on Cannabis Dispensaries
I do think that cannabis consumers will eventually catch up on the environmental and sustainability front. It’s in our DNA.
That’s why I also think outdoor and greenhouse are the future of cultivation.
In the end, most of that will happen in Cali once interstate commerce opens because the climate is ideal, which means greater efficiency. Cali is also the birthplace of cannabis culture, and authentic Cali brands will steamroll once the walls come down. (Sorry, not sorry, Michigan. I’m from the mitten.)
But the question I don’t have an answer for is what retail brand will become the “Farmers Market” or “Whole Foods” of weed?
There will be one. It’s coming.
Somebody should get on that sh*t.
Now.
About the Author
Stoned Ape is an ex-Army Ranger, graduate of St John’s Law, member of the New York State Bar and the Writer’s Guild West, and a produced screenwriter. He is also a 15-year cannabis cultivator, the co-founder of Tropicanna, Ex-CMO of Deeprtoots Partners, and the founder of Stoned Ape.
He currently resides in Costa Rica because it’s one of the safest places to be when the bombs drop, it’s f**king beautiful, no one cares what color your hat is, and they leave people alone to live their lives.
Pura Vida.
