Tommy: [00:00:00] I'm going to give you some quick questions about your relationship with cannabis, Hope. Are you a nighttime or a daytime consumer?
Hope Wiseman: Nighttime.
Tommy: Flower, concentrates, or beverage?
Hope Wiseman: Flower.
Tommy: Flower, Indica, or Sativa? When When was your first experience with the plant?
Hope Wiseman: See, I have to be honest, right?
Welcome to the KayaKast, the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.
Tommy: Hope, thank you so much for joining us today.
Hope Wiseman: Thank you, Tommy, for having me.
Tommy: So when did you start Mary and Main?
Hope Wiseman: Yeah. So Mary and Main, we actually opened our doors in 2018, but this has been a long time coming. I actually started this process in 2014, the year that I graduated from college. It's been a long time from 2014 to us getting operational in [00:01:00] 2018. And then we saw adult use in 2023.
So we've had a lot of milestones in the journey.
Tommy: So what initiated your journey into the cannabis industry right after graduation?
Hope Wiseman: Definitely. I think that this is the most unique part of my story. So I'll set the stage for you a little bit. It's 2014. I had just graduated from Spelman college with a degree in economics. I was pursuing a career in investment banking. And I had just started a full time position at an investment bank in Atlanta, Georgia.
And I was, just super green eyed and excited about, just beginning my career in a very difficult industry. At that time in 2014 I started to see cannabis become more mainstream and, I'm at work on the trading floor and I look up at, CNBC and I'm seeing them talk about the emerging cannabis industry and the, all the growth potential of the [00:02:00] industry.
And I just saw so much opportunity in the space and I'd say that I was first drawn to it, of course, by the economic opportunity. But I fell in love with this space from a social justice opportunity. As a black woman, I have encountered many people. Who have somehow touched the law when it comes to cannabis, what people in my family, friends even myself on smaller scale.
Understanding the true impact of what it has done to black and brown communities and being part of the industry, I've been able to understand that fully. It made it even sweeter to be a part of this industry, not to mention the science behind the plant. I love everything about it from every angle.
Also love how sophisticated it is to navigate. I'd say cannabis is one of the most sophisticated industries that you could be a part of right now.
Tommy: You know, it's funny in this industry. And what I find very common is there, there are really two battles that [00:03:00] you're, that you fight, one is the getting licensed battle. Everything up until opening the store and I tell operators all the time, don't use up all your dopamine because the fun starts.
There's another battle that's coming and this, this, this one's a war. So it took four years to get things opened. If you were to start over again, so the doors open 2018, you've opened. If you were to start over again, what would you do differently in 2018? What would be your first 90 days?
Hope Wiseman: So I'll tell you this. I'm a pioneer, right? So that means that I have. I've slashed down the jungle for you guys and I've made a little path. I didn't pave the road, but I made the pathway already. So it is now much easier to go through the licensing process specifically. Going through that is much easier than it was when I went through the licensing process.
I was a part of merit based, limited license, competitive application processes, where we were. [00:04:00] Having 50 page documents and, that's the answer to one question. We got 50 of those. And then you got to provide all these disclosures and attestation forms and all these things that you got to do.
And we were having to print out 10 copies of those and make them look cute. That's what I was doing back then. That's just not really the process now. So all of that being said, if I went back then, what I would do differently I think I would take my time even more vetting. Potential consultants, vendors, just our service providers, because especially then when the industry was even more new than it is today, still very new today we had, as you can imagine, there were even less people that were subject matter experts that really had the experience that we needed.
And a lot of people were just starting out, so I don't knock anyone but I found that we were doing, we were bouncing around from different providers. Or we were hiring consultants that, in reality weren't really worth the amount of money we were paying and all of that. So I think that we [00:05:00] did waste a lot of money doing that.
Also I just focus on the main thing. If I had to go back, I think I did a lot of and I am a proud Christian woman that God protects me from a lot of things and I don't understand why at the time, but now I realized that a lot of the day, the shiny objects that were being dangled in front of me, like new licenses or other opportunities and all these different things.
A lot of them didn't work out because I was supposed to focus on the main thing. And I think that a lot of people in this industry, especially because it's new and emerging and like these new licenses coming out, before you even finish one project, you're starting the next. I think that's something that like, if I had understood that, then I think we'd be even further.
But, I'm, I have so much faith in what I do and that has worked out for me so far.
Tommy: I love that you share that because. That is a consistent trait amongst entrepreneurs. We see opportunity and as an entrepreneur, you pursue it. And you know what really resonated to [00:06:00] me recently? Cause we're going to do the same thing, right? Every, every business, no matter how big you are, there's going to be shiny objects.
And I was listening to Warren Buffett's advice and his he talks about the T model and he says, okay, well. What is, what is your, can you list out 20 things that are the most important things for you to do to get to your goal, list out 20. And he says, okay, well, I want you to focus on just five and whatever you do, do not touch the other 15.
And there's a law of opportunity costs there that us as entrepreneurs. We have a hard time grasping, we can see the cost of what's in front of us and the opportunity of what is, of what's in front of us. But the opportunity costs of not going deep on your number one is significant and it's hard to measure.
Hope Wiseman: very hard to measure. I'm seeing it in this industry though. There have been a few MSOs that over the years have been able to scale really fast. [00:07:00] But in reality, the ones that are being successful even. They might be scaling fast, but in one market where they understand the rules, you, you saw a lot of consolidation of the bigger players in the past few years, they're getting rid of states that are lackluster to focus on the states that are doing really well for them or so they can prepare for some of these newer markets opening up.
I think everyone's just realizing like you can't spread yourself so thin. And you have to zero in. You gotta focus. It's just not as sexy, so it's just hard for entrepreneurs to grasp that. I, it was hard for me too. Definitely hard for me as well.
Tommy: Everybody, everybody shares that journey. I want to talk a little bit about consultants because you have over the court, I mean, 2020, 2014. So we're talking about. So over the course of 11 years, you've probably worked with some consultants that were great. And you probably spent a lot of money on consultants that you shouldn't have.
How would you, how do you vet consultants today?
Hope Wiseman: [00:08:00] Yeah. Today is much easier. Because one, my understanding of the space is much higher, right? This is part of the reason, we haven't gotten here yet, but this is part of the reason that I created Legal and License just so there can be more transparency within the industry and groupthink at the end of the day.
Now my vetting process includes me going to my peers who I also know, understand what they're doing. One, I go there first when I need help. Hey, who have you used? What was your experience? Now we have that kind of referral system that has, a foundation to it. It has backup versus back in 2014, there was no backup.
No one had used these people before or they've been very few or, you're being put in contact with a a resource that you don't know if it's true or not. You have no idea. So I think now just being able to vet people through, experience is our biggest thing. As well as, like I said, I know what I'm talking about now.
So half of the time I'm hiring people, it's I could do this work. It's more about delegation and where my time is best spent. I [00:09:00] can, real quick, we can vet whether or not, this is somebody that knows what they're talking about and that could execute the role.
Tommy: That's a really good point. You're you're sitting in a different position where you can go deep in a certain topic and really test and validate. Does this person know what they're talking about for somebody that is just starting?
Hope Wiseman: Definitely.
Tommy: They can't do that, but your recommendation rings true. The industry is very small and it doesn't take a lot of work to see reputation and whether or not that, that rings true.
Hope Wiseman: Yes. I'd say that, like you said, the industry is very small. I'm learning the more that I grow in different spaces, most spaces are pretty small and concentrated, you can travel all around the world and you're going to start running into the same people if you're going to the same types of conferences or the same types of events.
So within our industry that definitely holds true. And I think that reputations here, word spreads fast in our industry [00:10:00] too. So like you said, it doesn't take much work, go to a few industry events. You will click quick, quickly see the folks that other people look to as authority leaders.
And the other great thing about our industry, even the biggest players, pretty much you can get to everybody, everyone shows up to events most of everyone is at MJ BizCon every year. The industry is still not, it's not that large and out of touch yet, where it's like.
You really could run into Kim Rivers at a event and talk to her. You can run into her chief of staff, you can run into, you could potentially be in a room with five CEOs of major cannabis companies, as well as smaller companies like mine, small, but it may be in, in size, but not in revenue, so you really never know who you're talking to in this space.
And I think that's really cool that, it's still, we're still early enough in the space that you get to interact with these high level people. There will come a day where people are going to start to become untouchable, that will happen. There will be lots and [00:11:00] lots of millionaires in the space.
There will be a lot of people who are not as well.
Tommy: That's really good advice, actually, for anyone that's listening to. There's no harm in reaching out. Everybody's really accessible.
Hope Wiseman: Yeah,
Tommy: for the first 90 days. Like, let's say if you were to start, start over again, what would you focus on on the first 90 days? What's really important. I
Hope Wiseman: first 90 days, of course, get it, making sure you have adequate supply. Making sure your relationships are strong. Your first 90 days, you don't want to miss any payments. You want to make sure to be paying on time so that you can facilitate that relationship with your vendors. And I'm talking about your like cannabis product vendors where you're getting your actual cannabis as a retailer.
That's, I think that's probably your focus as well as being as lean as possible in those 90 days. I don't care if you have a year's worth of year run rate. In your bank account, you just need to stay as lean as possible in the beginning until you [00:12:00] get a flow going and you see some type of steady state in your revenue, in your monthly revenue.
You don't want to go out and spend too much money on anything, including marketing, all the things, you're gonna be sold a lot. And you don't want to take on more than you can handle. So I'd say your first 90 days. Focus on selling the product that you get as fast as possible and you do it.
Don't hire everybody. Don't go out and get 10 different managers and, 40 employees. You don't need all of that. In the beginning, it was myself, my mother, my GM, my now GM, my now assistant manager. And we had one more person. In the five of us ran this store for a good year.
All
Tommy: love that advice. I love it so much. You know, I always think to myself, it's really hard having an MVP in the retail space, in the, in, in the SaaS space, MVP, that's a, that's a very [00:13:00] common name, right? When we first started our business, we bootstrapped it. We're still bootstrapping, but it was just me and my two business partners and we eat pizza for lunch every day.
Hope Wiseman: right.
Tommy: In the retail space, it's a little bit difficult. You need money to start. You need but this is as close to an MVP as possible. So why is it important that owners operate in the business for the first year?
Hope Wiseman: Yeah. So I'll say this to start up in the cannabis space because of the regulation around it, it is going to be different than operating any other type of business. So even if you're an entrepreneur, you've had employees before you understand how to run payroll, you understand how to balance your books, pay your bills, all of that good stuff.
You have an extra layer of compliance now with reporting. Also software in the cannabis industry is not the most advanced. So even things that you might be used to using, you may not be able to use because you're now in a highly regulated [00:14:00] industry that is federally illegal. So it's just, there are so many different moving parts that, you know, within the first year.
You certainly need to be able to understand how your business actually works so that you can communicate with your vendors, with your employees and create operations and policies and procedures that actually work for your business because it's like, it's a layered approach. It's not just how you want to run your business.
It's also what you can actually legally do. And then coupling that with how you actually want to run your business. So for me, it's just much easier for me to make decisions, when I'm talking to my inventory manager, because I understand how intake works. I understand what you got to do. I've done it myself.
So when they make mistakes, I'm always like, I can troubleshoot much easier. Not to mention just the amount of to be in solidarity with your employees, to have the empathy, to understand what they're going through every day. very important to me. I'm not in the store day to day [00:15:00] anymore.
Not every day, but I'm not, working on the floor anymore. And I, sometimes the newer employees, I can see it in their face a little bit like, Oh, she doesn't, she just gets to travel and have fun and all of this stuff. And some of the older employees are like, no, like she really used to be here every day.
And now she has just transitioned to the next level of our business, which is growing. Wiseco, our holding company and other opportunities and other business lines outside of our retail brand, Mary and me. Yeah.
Tommy: mentioned something that is so critical in the retail space, having adequate inventory. So what should be the thought process of a new operator with regards to inventory? How much, how do I assess? How much should I hold in the beginning and all the way through?
Hope Wiseman: I mean your first thing is going to be, how much money do you have? When we first opened we didn't have much, we didn't have much. We bootstrapped it. When it came down to open, [00:16:00] we hardly had any money left. And it was like, all right, we're going to open up with the bare minimum.
We know we've done all the research. Our market is going to be a super a flower heavy market. We're not even going to buy too many concentrates in the beginning and all of that. We're going to go in and spend, we had about 75, 000. I was like, let's spend about 60 of that. On flour, we just had to make that strategic decision, right?
Also the cool thing it just it depends on your market But in most markets because I talk to people i've operated in different spaces i've consulted in different spaces most markets are ordering on a weekly basis sometimes people will deliver twice in a week that being said We knew, okay, yeah, we are only ordering, 75, 000 worth of product, but like we're ordering every week, we're ordering every week.
And we just had to do a lot of smaller orders instead of larger orders. Now that's what you have to do to survive when you're small. And then you start to [00:17:00] assess, Oh, how many people are coming in? And then you can start to be a little bit more strategic with your ordering. Once you get to a very steady pace, that's when you can really start to analyze your inventory, look at what SKUs are moving, like the specific types of SKUs.
You might notice that there are certain strains that do really well and certain strains that don't. Maybe you'll start talking to your vendors about, Hey, we really want to get more of this. We don't want to lower our spend with you, but we just want to have more of what works for us. How can we do that together?
And you just begin to develop those vendors relationships. But it starts with, one, paying your bills on time. A lot of people don't do that in cannabis. Some people don't pay their bills at all and then, all of a sudden they poof and disappear but I think that's like step one you order what you can handle Don't worry about what you think you need order what you can handle.
I would rather your store shut down a day early, then you're, 90 days behind with all your vendors. [00:18:00] Because what will happen is you're going to sour your relationship. They will never give you any deals, any breaks. They'll never do partnerships with you. And eventually might cut you off. And in a market like Maryland, where we don't have that many vendors, there's about 30 something between growers and processors creating products, maybe over a hundred or something brands between those.
30 people. There aren't that many. It's not like thousands and thousands. So you sour relationship with one. Not only did you sour that relationship, like you said, the industry is small. So people are talking, it's just not good. So I'd say just focusing on what you can handle and then starting to look at the data to make informed decisions.
And you'll start to see trends. You'll see daily trends for your store, time trends, all of these things so that you can make sure that your inventory is churning. At a good rate.
Tommy: It's funny you say that because I see it in mature markets. We have friends that are fairly big brands say in California, and [00:19:00] they will only work with specific customers. Because it's too expensive to have someone not pay you.
Hope Wiseman: Yeah, it's too much. And we've seen like in mature markets. That's where we see it the most. And every emerging market will mature one day, right? It will get there. Granted, some states have done a better job than others protecting the markets. I'll say that I think that Maryland has done an excellent job and it's just set up for success for a long time.
I've been calling us a silent killer. People don't see it, but like we're doing good down here a lot. We're doing pretty good. And it's because of the way the state rolled it out. But in like a California, a Colorado and Oregon, like you hear the stories about companies being three months, four months behind, and then all of a sudden filing bankruptcy, the brands don't get anything.
And the brands are the ones that put up all the money. They did all the work or sometimes that, they're just [00:20:00] operating on a limb and putting it out there and they're just never making any money. So it's very difficult, I think, to be a brand to be a white label manufacturer, I think is difficult.
Anything where you're working with the retailer can be hard. So as us retailers, we should be better business people only take on what we can. At the same time, I understand risk. I understand I don't have it today, but I'm going to go out and sell it and then I will have it. I get that, but I think also being realistic is important and also for just, the success and the respect that the industry deserves, we should pay our bills.
I feel like that's business one on one. Pay your bills. So
Tommy: Yeah, it's so, it's so true and it's, it's sad to see that. It's, it's really bad. I, I really love your advice of keeping it small. So in the beginning, you're turn over your inventory once a week. What was optimal for you? What's optimal now? Like how often do you turn over your inventory and how many SKUs do you hold?
Hope Wiseman: [00:21:00] 400 to 500 SKUs at any time. A lot, and that has definitely scaled up over the years. We didn't start out like that. And in fact, right now we're going through a process that we're trying to eliminate and get down to 350, 325. And just because we're seeing like at the end of the day, our most SKUs account for over 50 percent of our sales.
So it's like all these other SKUs, why are we even carrying this? We don't need, we should just double down on the things that people really like. And that's something that you can start doing the fun stuff later. Like I said, we're, we, we're about to enter year 7. We are in year, in the middle of year 7.
Think now is the time that we get really granular and all that. But, we're churning our inventory, like our flower inventory. We're getting stuff out every 10 days. And we've just gotten our ordering down really smart. We'll, but we do things like, okay, if a new strain came out and we have the opportunity to get 20 pounds of it, we're going to buy 20 pounds that day. So we can [00:22:00] get the price cuts and pass that on to the customer, run cool sales, do giveaways and things like that. And then maybe next week I might order from the same group, but I'm not going to order that shrink. I'll order something else and do something like that too. So yeah, we, now things are different and we get to participate in some of those price breaks and all that good stuff.
But in the beginning it was certainly just like. All right, let's get enough in the store today to make sure that, we can, that we can keep our doors open till five o'clock.
Tommy: So once you got over this, this, I like, I call it the survival stage of a business in the beginning, you're at, you're in survival stage and you don't really have an identity. You're trying to find one. And every sale matters. Once you were past this stage and you guys got your bearing straight and you knew that cashflow was coming in and we don't have to worry about not being able to pay rent.
What was next for you to scale in your business? [00:23:00] Where'd you turn your attention to?
Hope Wiseman: So after we became, a more cashflow stable company, I turned my attention more to being the face of the company. I'd say around that time is when, I really started being asked to speak a lot more. I was also being asked by a lot of different state legislatures to come in. And talk to state representatives about my experience as a cannabis entrepreneur as states were rolling out new programs.
So I was able to do that with Illinois, did lots and lots of work, of course, here in Maryland. District of Columbia, New York, New Jersey, I've talked to people in North Carolina. I've talked to people in Georgia. I was being at this point, I transitioned to more of Subject matter expert as and face of the company as well as overall strategic operations, I'm still on all the calls with our lawyers with our accountants all of the kind of like higher level business practices, not to [00:24:00] mention so around it was around 2019 2020.
We officially branded always was there, but officially branded and introduced to the world. Our parent company Wise Co. Because we were doing, we were out here vetting new opportunities to purchase other licenses as well as potentially create additional brands, invest in other licenses.
So Wiseco, is that entity where we're doing all of our additional projects outside of Mary and Main. Wiseco owns and operates Mary and Main. And that's where my focus has been. So I am a face, I am an advocate, as well as I'm truly, I'm the chairman of our board. I am still the CEO, I'm still helping lead all strategic decisions and that's what my days usually consist of now too, on, on calls with lawyers my CFO.
Potential investors, different different partners that I, vetting different [00:25:00] partnerships. And yeah it's a fun game, but it's definitely harder than it looks. This industry is not for the weak.
Tommy: Yeah. So that's, that's really, a lot of entrepreneurs have a really hard time stepping away from operations. And that's the, the story is as old as you know, the test of time. And how are you able to do that? So today, for example, you're not there on a day to day basis. What are the key metrics that matter to you?
And how do you know that the story is heading towards the right direction?
Hope Wiseman: Yeah. So I'd say the, before I get into kind of those KPIs that I'm looking at outside of the store, first and foremost, my GM. Was with me in the room when I was writing our original application back in 2014. This is somebody that I trust fully and, has been there with me and worked side by side every day with me when I was in the store [00:26:00] even.
He's just he's very tuned in. To how I like things done as well as the regulation. So it's just very easy for me to trust him. And it's been a while we've been together for a long time, not to mention he's a longtime family friend. So I call him my fairy godfather. But Dexter Parker, awesome.
Love you. Couldn't do it without you. But also, for me, we developed these KPIs and like what to look at are together, we we, before I left, we said, all right, this is what I'm, this is how I'm going to know we're okay. And so for me of course you look at top line revenue, that tells you a little thing, but honestly, that's a reactionary KPI, like you, you can't really do anything once you start seeing the revenue go down, you can, but you're behind, there's some other KPIs you could have been looking at to show you that.
For us, it's the number of new customers that we're getting I look at our average cart. We are now testing the idea of Single use sale or a single item sales [00:27:00] versus multi item sales. And that's something that I see move the needle a lot. I track a lot of employee stats who's late.
We have a system like a performance rating system. I look at that for any employees that I'm like, Oh they got a lot of points, like what's going on, and just looking at the health of that. Of course we have a system. Anyone can go on Google and leave a review, of course, and those are very telling and all of that, but we have a system where people rate us after every visit.
So I look at that. When I start seeing the rating be, it's a little different. We're normally around like a 4. 8, 4. 7. When I start seeing there's a week we got a 4, I'm like what happened? And then it might be, you start to just notice trends. With our inventory, we're looking at the number of discrepancies we get.
We're looking at, for me, I monitor all of our compliance logs because these are things that could get us. Our license taken away or getting fines. So yeah, those are the things that I look at in the back end. And it's interesting. That's [00:28:00] my focus of 2025 is like really taking a deep dive into our operations.
I'm an air table freak. So I'm about to, take everything that we do put it all in air table and try and create all these dashboards and all these different things for my company to operate. Essentially my own operating system. But yeah that's the name of the game once you get your things going.
Then you can focus on creating or buying systems to monitor your data and all these things that you're going to be trying. People are going to sell you on that the day you open. You're not even going to have any data. to analyze in the beginning. So just focus on your sales and eventually you get there.
But yeah, those are the KPIs I look at.
Tommy: That's really good advice because oftentimes people, and we see this a lot in businesses, you try to scale something that doesn't need scaling yet. It's not a problem yet. So don't worry about trying to scale your operations. Worry [00:29:00] about running it. Worry about understanding what are the things that make it drive.
And then later on, scaling may be a problem. Hopefully, if you're successful, it is a problem, and then you can scale it then.
Hope Wiseman: Yes. A hundred percent.
Tommy: You've mentioned something that I want to talk a little bit more in, and I think this is, it would be very helpful for operators to not just look at top line, but what are the leading indicators that you should look at to understand the health? Of your sales and you mentioned new new customers, how many new customers come in probably how many transactions that you have a day your, your basket size, your items per transactions.
When you see an anomaly a bad anomaly in one of these, what is your go to you know, what is automatic, automatic thing that you think about and how do you address these issues in your business?
Hope Wiseman: Okay. I'll pick one because I think that [00:30:00] every KPI has a different, solution attached to it. And then also, your business. So I think this is also where it comes in having worked in every part of your business Sometimes you're like, I know why that's happening or it's a let me go talk to my employees and figure out why this is happening But I'll pick one out just to give an example of how you know remedy so we talked a little bit about single item So we talked a little bit about single item sales versus multiple items in a sale and just the number of Items in general and we started to notice like, okay Our, average cart is dropping a little bit.
It's a little lower. And when we went to adult use, switching from medical to adult use, of course, that drop is going to happen, right? Volume goes up. So it doesn't feel like the revenue numbers. You're actually like, woohoo, this is amazing. But then when you start to analyze everything else, you're like but my medical patients are dying off.
And those are the ones that spit [00:31:00] more in a single transaction. Okay, what do I do to encourage my Rec customers to spend like my medical customers do and maybe for us what we decided was okay We're seeing people have a lot more single item transactions than we're used to Maybe let's add an add on campaign for a 5 or a 10 add on product that, just like when you're at the, at TJ Maxx and you're waiting in the line and you see all of those little things and then all of a sudden you done filled your cart with 30 more of small miniature items.
We began to offer products like that. Create in house pre rolls products that we're getting heavily discounted from our vendors because we have great partnerships. And they are attempting to get new products out to customers. They'll give it to us and say, yeah, you can sell this for 10. Those types of things.
And that's how we've been able to remedy that KPI. And yeah, I think it's just that. Some KPIs indicate other ones, like how I [00:32:00] said. We were noticing our basket size went down. So then we went and immediately looked at the number of transactions per sale, and we realized we could use that to bolster the other and both KPIs go up.
So yeah, I think that there's a lot of traditional retail Retail experience that you can apply to cannabis. It's just a little different just because we have a lot of SKUs and Also batches and you can't just like it's not like you can have your products on Just automatic reorder and it's very difficult and you got to keep all your batches separate it's a little bit more difficult than your typical retail I'll say that if anything is most probably like grocery so people coming from like the grocery business understand that also they deal with recalls and all that good stuff. So
Tommy: that's so how long say you look at your KPIs where you're probably looking at day over day and week over week How how long before you make [00:33:00] an actual plan on something that you don't like because sometimes it's very noisy Over a short period of time and over a longer period of time, you get to see patterns.
So what's the period of time for you to act?
Hope Wiseman: because we have so much historical data and i'll say that like at least for us We're very when I see any type of fluctuation, I'm like unless we were closed for a day or there was a major event that, that caused the jump either down or up, I'm always like, huh, because when I say that our sales are so consistent we, and then we have a steady climb to so even when things jump up really high, I'm always like, How'd that happen?
It's usually a holiday or something of the sort. So for me and for our business right now with one active location, a retail location at that, I act very fast, probably month. If I see it two months, [00:34:00] then it's a huge problem. One month, I mean, I'm attempting to to remedy it two months, it might become like a true action plan where it's like a project task in our task manager versus just Hey, can you make this small adjustment?
It's like project to overhaul our basket size, yeah I'll say that before though, it probably took me a couple more months before I would take action just because mainly I was busier one. Two, I didn't understand at first how those KPIs worked and I didn't necessarily understand like basket size is not going to, especially if you're continuously getting new customers, it's not going to affect your top line immediately. You get new customers all every day. You're not going to see it. It's going to be that one day though, where the new customers will slow down and then you're going to go, Oh, what's happening? And that's too late.
Tommy: Yeah. I want to pivot a little bit. I know we don't have a lot of time. I don't want to talk about key employee retention. Do you [00:35:00] mention that the initial team that you worked with is still with you? And that's that's amazing. So give our listeners some advice on how you were able to retain your key employees.
Hope Wiseman: definitely. I won't shy away from mentioning that most of my key employees are family or very close family friends. So I actually definitely encourage that, especially in the beginning, I would say. A lot of people are like, ah, you work with your mother and your brother and your mom's best friend.
And your mom's mom's, one of my mom's colleague is our co founder. They were both dentists and they practiced right next door to each other my whole life. All of these people are extremely competent and they can actually perform the tasks that I need them to and they could before I hired them.
That's part of, I have that double, not only are you qualified, but you love me and we trust each other. I will caveat everything I'm about to say with that. But I'd say key employee [00:36:00] retention, because there's a few employees that have been with us that are not family, that have stayed for a very long time.
It's just creating an environment that people understand that they can be happy in, one that they feel supported in and that they see growth. And that's been, I'd say the last thing for us has been the hardest thing to foster because we're one store, right? We're one store there, but so many positions, but so many roles.
But we've been able to foster our growth through the growth of the company as a whole, how we operate, we continuously upgrade our operations and our systems. Therefore, even for employees, we can offer a lot more to them than we could. We didn't offer benefits to our full time employees when we first started.
Now we have a slew of benefits. That, go way past just health insurance and dental insurance. We offer that. We also offer 401k plans. We also offer a lot of other small little benefits to local businesses and different [00:37:00] things that we do. We, I think that being able to, really lay out like a plan, a trajectory for people and have them buy into your vision.
So for us, everyone here at the company understands where we want to go. They also understand the obstacles that, we're having, we're facing to get there. So it was, no one's looking at us like, why don't we have 10 stores yet? They understand how the industry works. And they're excited to go on the journey.
So I would say that's it. Really having people buy into what you're doing, clearly communicating it. I think something else that we've learned over the years, like especially when you're essentially a startup, you hire people and you want people to be cross trained and be able to do all these different roles, right?
But as your company matures, you really need to make sure that people have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. That becomes very confusing when you just have people running around, doing whatever. And honestly, it doesn't provide for a happy work environment for folks. I know you [00:38:00] might think that having autonomy and all this stuff, but no.
People want direction especially in cannabis, which is so highly regulated. Something that a bud tender can do could get your business shut down. So you need to really provide clear resources. Onboarding and clear training and opportunities to be able to speak to your upper management and express yourself.
All of these things I feel like have created a culture that people are really excited to work here. And even we've had people take lower pay than they had before. And stay with us for years and years and they see, and they have grown with us. They have grown with us and they also are excited in being here.
Put forth the effort and really show us that they're here for us. They stay longer, come help with extracurricular events and all that. We have really fostered a family with our culture.
Tommy: I love hearing that. And that's so inspiring we, I, I see businesses in the [00:39:00] beginning and you've actually touched on this quite a bit, not directly, but for sure, indirectly of spending more than they should. And particularly through the, through the kindness of, of the owner. So, and I see it all the time Owners, some owners that I talked to that are just starting out, they want to offer their employees health. I'm like, you, you actually don't know if you can afford this yet. You know, the moment that you offer somebody health benefits, you cannot take that back. When, when were you ready for it? And how did you know that you were ready to make this leap? And yeah,
Hope Wiseman: Yeah. It was about year three. We began to offer it to our full time employees. And what we did was we said, look, we can't pay for it. Yeah, but we got a provider that'll work with us and, we will it's the here for you. So we had maybe two or three [00:40:00] employees opt in, this is back when I had 12 employees.
So I'm saying two or three, like that's not a lot, that was a lot. So then, fast forward now we have, so I have about 45 people on my payroll. Right now. Yeah. Anywhere, usually between 45 and 50 most are part time, but we have probably about 15 to 20 of those are full time and I'd say about half of them are on our healthcare program.
We match what our employees put in now. So yeah, I'm super excited to be able to do that. I think some of that's like part of the most rewarding part of my job. Knowing that, I'm providing salaries for people and, we're providing health insurance and other opportunities.
We're starting to, think about like bringing in investment specialists to come in and talk to our employees about different things because like I said, we really are a family. A lot of my employees are young people. And I know I [00:41:00] was, I've been privileged with a lot of information. A lot of my employees have not had a lot of the same opportunities.
So I want to think about benefits bigger than what's typically the employee, just like the employee benefits package. I want you to come here and even if you need help in life, that you leave a better person with more resources and tools. Yeah, and I feel like that's where the growth in my business comes.
Even if we never became more than this one store, which I know we will. But even if we never did, I know people leave here feeling Empowered in their life.
Tommy: that's awesome. You've started something that It's designed to really help entrepreneurs get started in our industry. Legal and licensed. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Hope Wiseman: Yes. Yes. So legal and license is a long time in the works I have been asked for years for people to you know, hey hope I'm interested in getting in the space. What do I do? Where do I go? [00:42:00] Hey, hope, can you point me in the right direction? I don't even know where to look so legal and license was designed to completely demystify a all of the things about the licensing process specifically.
And then once you get open and running, we want to create a community for you to, for group think, to share resources. So you don't have to do it alone. I felt very alone in my journey and it was like me and my team just trying to figure it out and we made so many mistakes. And I want to be able to share those experiences and stories with folks that are looking to get into the space as well as have a consolidated space where, you know, a lot of information is available out there on the Internet, right?
But sometimes it's just hard to find, especially in our industry. Definitely not the most accessible, to look up things, and sometimes it's even hard to find the state regulations. And then when they do come, a lot of people can't interpret them. All of these things we're looking to do in the community, in the platform.
I will be, it is a, so it's [00:43:00] a free community, you can join in for free. The paid version of the community, we're going to have monthly Q& A calls where I'm going to bring in different subject matter experts, talk about different things you can ask me anything on these calls, as well as I will have a series of mini courses and other resources that I'll be continuously dropping.
As a part of the community and all the paid members will have unlimited access to that. Free members and everybody else. You can always access any of this information whenever you want. There will be paywalls up that you could buy them. But you should just join the community and join the monthly calls because that's where all the real juice is going to happen.
You'll be able to sit here and ask me anything.
Tommy: So has this been launched now? Is it live?
Hope Wiseman: So it will be live on January 20th. So at the time, probably that this podcast is airing this will be live.
Tommy: Where can our listeners find legal and licensed?
Hope Wiseman: Yes. So you can very easy. Go to legalandlicense. com. [00:44:00] And you can register there.
Tommy: Before I let you go, I'm going to give you some quick questions about your relationship with cannabis, Hope. Are you a nighttime or a daytime consumer?
Hope Wiseman: Nighttime.
Tommy: Flower, concentrates, or beverage?
Hope Wiseman: Flower.
Tommy: Flower, Indica, or Sativa? When you're smoking, what are you generally doing?
Hope Wiseman: Watching TV.
Tommy: Watching TV. What's your favorite show?
Hope Wiseman: I'm a TV crazy person, okay, y'all? I love TV shows. My favorite show ever is Breaking Bad.
Tommy: Breaking Bad. How often do you consume?
Hope Wiseman: Probably three or four times a week at night.
Tommy: When was your first experience with the plant?
Hope Wiseman: See, I have to be honest, right? 15. That's probably 15.
Tommy: Actually, no, I think that's it. But is there anything, Hope, that you want to share to our listeners that we, we just didn't get a [00:45:00] chance to talk about?
Hope Wiseman: I'll close out and say that this space is very difficult to navigate. I cannot lie there. However, there's so much opportunity and I am super excited about the space still So don't let anybody, you know steer you away from it If you are interested if that fire is in your heart, I would say just educate yourself Learn all there is to know about the space so you can figure out how to be the most successful.
And I'm here for you.
Tommy: Thank you so much for joining today. You've dropped a lot of knowledge. And I, if I was starting a dispensary, I, I think I would probably save a couple hundred thousand dollars by just listening to what you've said.
Hope Wiseman: Oh thank you. And I believe that too, genuinely. I really would not make that promise or say that out loud if I didn't genuinely believe it. I have been through so much. So I appreciate you recognizing that.
Tommy: Thanks Hope.
Hope Wiseman: Yes. Thanks, Tommy.
Tommy: I hope [00:46:00] you guys enjoyed that episode, please. Like subscribe wherever you're listening. It really helps us out a lot. Until next time, take care.
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