If you want to open a dispensary in an emerging market (like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, New Mexico, etc etc), listen up!
I’m Ashleen, I’ve been working in retail cannabis in Washington state pretty much since the industry legalized, and please, please, please we want you to LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!
One thing legal dispensaries didn’t do very well when the cannabis industry opened its doors in Washington in 2015 was to train the staff. We didn’t prioritize teaching budtenders about the products and product types they were selling. We were focused on compliance and regulation and making sure that when the point-of-sale system goes down, we can still sell a $10 gram legally and not get charged with felonies. :D
Maintaining educational standards amongst staff was not the priority.
But honestly, it should’ve been up there!
And that’s where you can learn from our mistakes, new emerging markets.
By not prioritizing education, we spent a lot of time looking info up on our POS tablets, when we could’ve been turning over customers.
By not prioritizing education, we unknowingly gave customers misinformation that could’ve caused harm.
By not prioritizing education, we didn’t understand how to talk about these products and why someone might like them.
I was lucky to work on a crew with other folks who LOVE CANNABIS, and so we lifted each other up, taught each other, and held each other accountable. But I know for a fact I made mistakes before I knew better.
That’s one reason we wrote Root Knowledge, our budtender training course! Root Knowledge: A Budtender’s Guide to Cannabis covers everything you need to know to be successful on the dispensary sales floor, discussing foundational cannabis science and product knowledge from a sales and customer service point-of-view. Root Knowledge helps turn any casual cannabis user into an expert, and teaches them to avoid some of the pitfalls we ran into in the early days of the industry.
Not only that, then we also developed a standard operating procedure for dispensaries to train and onboard new hires!
We divided the Root Knowledge content into 10 modules for a 10-shift onboarding system, and gamified it, designing interactive games a dispo leader can play with trainees to solidify the knowledge and match it to the real inventory on their shelves.
This companion guide is called A Trainer’s Guide to Cultivating Dank Budtenders, and it’s really what every new dispensary needs to hit the market with a bang!
If you’re opening a dispensary in one of the newly legal states, check out Take Root Training to see how our budtender training tools can elevate your game before doors even open. Schedule a call with us today!
(Psst…canna brands in emerging markets, we have tools for you, too! If you don’t have “Budtender training” on your pre-open checklist, you’re missing out on connecting with a major player in your sales process! Schedule a demo today!)