Tommy Truong: [00:00:00] So you have you're, you are in one of those really lucky positions. You have a dispensary opened in New Jersey.
Michael Ziegler: Yes. Quite a bit of of hard work to get there, but we're there
Tommy Truong: You're in a fairly unique position. You have a background in accounting. You have your own practice, you help dispensaries operate efficiently, but you're also an operator. So any tips on budgeting? If I'm a, if entrepreneur, I'm starting up my store. What are some things that I should be on top of when I'm budgeting for the buildup as well as the first six months?
Michael Ziegler: That's a great question. The budgeting is key. Making sure that you have a good business plan and understand what your investment is gonna look like is very important. In, on the onset when you're building, don't overspend on certain fixtures. there are a lot of overpriced companies out there and you really don't need to spend, too much for good quality out there.
You just have to search for it, and it's out there. So that's one part. When you're operating, don't overstaff when you're when [00:01:00] you're opening up because the customers are coming. They're not lining up at your door. It's gonna take time for that customer base to grow and develop.
So I wouldn't overstaff and I definitely hire properly. One of the other areas on budgeting that is very important is don't over-order, over-ordering can become a tremendous problem for someone just starting out, because if you order too much in 30 days or 60 days, or COD, you're going to need to pay for that inventory.
And if you're gonna overorder, you're gonna get into a position that you're gonna need to liquidate the inventory to to pay for it. And it can create quite a bit of a problem for yourself as well as when you're over-ordering, you can get stuck with expiring inventory. So make sure that when that inventory comes in.
It has a good shelf life. It has plenty of time before expiration.
Tommy Truong: Did you have a forecast? Let's say, Hey, my sales, I'm forecasting it's gonna be. Call that a hundred thousand dollars a month, [00:02:00] right? First month, whatever that is. How did you come up with that forecast, and then how much inventory did you order to begin with? Did you order one week out? Did you order two weeks worth of inventory?
What was your strategy?
Michael Ziegler: You know what? I, in my store, we we ordered whatever was available, to be honest with you. 'cause it, like I said, there weren't that many excuse available at the time. But we ordered, I would say, conservatively about $200,000 worth of inventory being the size of the store that I have that isn't that much.
But it worked out pretty well because, and one more thing, when it comes to ordering. Don't order over order too much 'cause the inventory is available within a week. You'll have whatever you need, so don't feel you need to stock up for a whole month. So the inventory is always out there.
And now that there are more cultivators, the inventory is even much more so readily available for you. So I would definitely recommend someone manage their ordering levels, in the beginning [00:03:00] and as they, as the business develops at a light amount that they do not need to stock much because the inventory is out there and cultivators are getting more and more aggressive on pricing.
So you don't wanna also over order and watch the price go down.
Tommy Truong: A lot of operators, they struggle when they're first starting out with forecasting. How do I forecast accurately when I don't have historical sales data? How did you start with 200 to order? What was your basis for that?
Michael Ziegler: The basis for that is the, you know what there was, I, like you said, there was no history to gauge it by. We have, we had heavy expectations, but expectations are just wishes. And and we felt that 200,000 was a decent size order for for us. And we didn't know that the inventory is gonna be available so quickly.
So we ordered what we could and we luckily went through it. So I wouldn't recommend someone start with that kind of a high volume. I would recommend someone start with 50, $60,000 in inventory [00:04:00] and work on terms with those vendors because they're, the vendors are much more open to terms today.
Tommy Truong: That's really good feedback, like really good feedback. I've heard operators talk about their, their suppliers saying order 500,000 order 300,000. That's just, it's such a crazy amount of inventory to hold,
Michael Ziegler: you don't know. You don't know your revenue. You don't know where your, where that that growth is gonna, how fast it's gonna come. And and you don't want to get over, you don't get stuck with inventory. So don't over order. Again. It comes within a week. You get it more. You'll get more in. So you don't have to worry.
We
Tommy Truong: You spoke about hiring properly. How did you forecast your, the staff that you needed, what was your, what was the starting point and how many people did you hire to operate a 5,000 square foot facility?
Michael Ziegler: honestly, we made a mistake. We overhired [00:05:00] and. We expected the lines to be out the door. We expected many people. So we hired, I'd say 35 people. And and you know what, when we were hiring, not with the experience in the industry, we also hired the wrong people in many instances. We needed to go through that experience and turnover to find the right balance of people of quantity, and also the quality of people.
Tommy Truong: If you were to do it all over again, how many people would've you hired or what would've been your analysis on how many people to hire, as well as what would you change on who you hired?
Michael Ziegler: I would've hired half the amount of people and I would've been much more selective with the kind of people I hired. When I say the kind of people, the kind of people that work at Indigo today are welcoming, friendly, warm, I. Inviting. They naturally do this with a smile and they're happy to be there.
And I would be much more selective. And I have to say, I have the best crew in the world today to just yesterday [00:06:00] cannabis Business Times named my dispensary, one of the best cannabis dispensaries to work
Tommy Truong: That's amazing.
Michael Ziegler: Yeah. Very proud of the people. It's about the team that we have is incredible.
Tommy Truong: I always give operators the starting point and, okay, if you think about your store, how many hours are you gonna be open? So that's a really good starting point. What are your operating hours? And I. What do, when do you think you only need two people to work? When do you think you only need one people to work?
When do you think your high times are? And then you can start jotting down how many hours you need of work per hour of the day. And then from there, that's a really good foundation for you start on how many people you need and then you can play around with full-time, part-time, et cetera. And what's a healthy mix?
What your thoughts on that as a starting point.
Michael Ziegler: A hundred percent. And the data, watching the sales per hour, by day, by hour is very important to be able to understand when are your heavy light [00:07:00] times, so you staff lower and where are your heavier times so you staff accordingly. Very important to watch the hours and the customer volume during certain times.
Because you don't wanna understaff you don't want to create a line. The cannabis industry, the customers have been familiar with the line, but that's not the best customer experience. You wanna be able to get people in and out quickly, as quickly as they wanna be. Some people like to talk, especially in this industry, I see that and some people wanna get in and out quickly and.
Being able to accommodate both angles is very important and very tough at times. But my watching the data, watching the volume per hour per day is key.
Tommy Truong: You mentioned something that you mentioned a KPI that's very insightful. Sales per hour, but also sales per Labor hour as well. Do you look at sales per labor hour in total as well as the, sales per Bud tender hour.
Michael Ziegler: that's a great question. I have budtenders that can see [00:08:00] 1300 people a month, and another budtender working the same number of hours, could see 700 people a month. And you have to understand is what is one person doing different than the other? So is one person lazy? Is one person not as engaged or is it something else?
And you have to understand a few things. Number one. The days that person's working. If that person that sees 13 hour, 13 pe hundred people are working on weekends, okay, that there's a reason right there. The person that sees 700 per people a month, what is that person doing? So understanding what's happening is very important.
And what that person that person that sees the 700 people a month may be spending more time with each and every customer. I don't mind that at all because they're building relationships in this industry. It's so important to create customer loyalty and build that relationship with the customer.
So because they do have a lot of choices today, more dispensaries are opening up every day and [00:09:00] creating that customer relationship and loyalty building, it is not a one-time thing. You have to work on that day in, day out.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. You mentioned that you started the store with too much staff, you were overstaffed. What were the metrics that you've, that you used to now optimize your staffing levels? I.
Michael Ziegler: Like I mentioned, the sales per hour the customer account per hour, per day. Very important metrics that are used to be able to see what are the busy times, what are the light times and also that data is not just to adjust the, the headcount. It's also to understand your business further.
To say, okay, maybe there's an early bird special that I should do. Maybe there's high volume on Fridays right after business hours, and we should staff accordingly. There are so many things that that can be found in that data.
Tommy Truong: What is, do you have a metric in terms of labor to sales that [00:10:00] you hold your managers accountable to?
Michael Ziegler: I hold them accountable to gross profit percentage. It's very important that the gross profit percentage is key. I also hold them accountable for average transaction value. Average transaction value will indicate whether where the bud tenders are able to upsell and offer something additional to what they initially came in for.
So those are the two main metrics that I hold them to. That is a tremendous importance reviews. When someone comes into our store, our budtenders are trained to ask, how's your experience today? Would you mind leaving a review? And that's result, it's given us amazing results.
We have over 12,000 reviews in the 16 months that we've been open.
Tommy Truong: That is a, I actually, I wanna dive deeper into this 'cause what you've done is so amazing that I feel like that's the key to SEO in our industry. There's a lot of restrictions that we can do. The [00:11:00] one thing that we can do and execute right on is Google reviews.
Michael Ziegler: So you're a hundred percent right. The marketing is so difficult in this industry and we had an Instagram built up to 5,000 followers overnight, lost it for no reason whatsoever. Built it again for another 5,000 customers, and again, we're shut off and very frustrating.
But our strategy of reviews has been very important and very helpful because when people come in and we ask, how'd you hear of us? We saw your reviews, and that definitely helped our business tremendously.
Tommy Truong: So did you not, A lot of people, even though they want to execute on high Google review counts, they can't. How did you start the process and enroll the team to get more customers review? Was there a, did you bonus, did you pay employees out? How did you motivate them to
Michael Ziegler: No I never paid them out for reviews. It's about training. It's about [00:12:00] educating the employees under, having the employees understand the reason why they, when the employees understand why the reviews are important. They work with you and of course, treating your employees your budtenders is very important.
And they give back. They're very good people.
Tommy Truong: So did you incorporate this from day one?
Michael Ziegler: Day one. Day one, absolutely most important thing is reviews. And they executed flawlessly.
Tommy Truong: I've I'm really interested in habits, like habits of people, and how often does somebody need to do something in order for you to go, no. Okay, this person's got it for you. Did you look at, Hey, a bud tender? Can you get me five reviews in your first week? Was there a threshold where you looked at and you're like, okay, it's autopilot now.
Michael Ziegler: Yeah, A budtender can, it again, it's, it becomes second nature to them and they know to ask and listen as the business develops. The reviews are not as as the quantity is not as [00:13:00] much as it used to be because you're getting repeat customers that have already been there and have already left their review.
But having a focus on new customers getting reviews. New customers in our store get 20% discount. And that's great. Off the bat, they're very thankful. Many of them don't even know that's coming. And when our budtenders do share that's helpful. And it's all about that customer experience.
When the budtender knows at the end of the transaction, I'm going to ask for a review that encourages that ante even further to give the great customer experience.
Tommy Truong: That's amazing. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that because that's, that tidbit is so helpful for operators to understand that this is, it's tremendous when people Google Cannabis Store near me and it definitely impacts the ability for you to get traffic.
Michael Ziegler: Yes, definitely.
Tommy Truong: If you had to build your store all over again, what would you do differently? What would you take out? I bought [00:14:00] this, I should not have bought this. And what did you buy since opening your store? What did you add on? I. That you didn't buy initially?
Michael Ziegler: I added more showcases to the store the store, like I said, 5,000 square feet, so you have plenty of space. And it also created a better customer flow by having showcases as opposed to stanchions around. And it gave you, gave us the ability to to have more product available for customers. I'm talking about the accessories not cannabis, but accessories,
Tommy Truong: Got it. Yeah. Accessories are, they're, the profit margins are so much higher than product.
Michael Ziegler: but they're only one or 2% of the revenue of the store. So it's not the money maker,
Tommy Truong: yeah. No,
Michael Ziegler: it's just it just compliments the store.
Tommy Truong: yeah. You mentioned a few KPIs, gross profit. Why is that important and how do you measure it?
Michael Ziegler: I'm a person that looks at gross profit as key because having sales is useless if you're not gonna have profitability. So that very important to make [00:15:00] sure that you have healthy margins because if you just have turnover of product and you're out pricing the guys around the corner, it's not healthy.
You don't have to be the cheapest, you just have to be the best experience. So that's very important.
Tommy Truong: If gross profit reaches below a certain level, what do you do? What is your action to Oh, I was talking to Naomi. And Naomi, she's the founder of NACAT. She gave me some really good insights on herself as an accountant because she helps companies and she said when she first started out, it was. to her. That numbers mean something, but you have to marry it with operations and what's going on in the business for it to really help the operator. So you know when you see sales gross profit diving below your expectations, how do you diagnose what's wrong in the business?
Michael Ziegler: You manage your gross profit, you manage your your pricing, and you [00:16:00] manage it, it doesn't go below. We calculate the gross profit, what should be, and it doesn't go below. The only time it'll go below is if you're stuck with the aging inventory that's going to expire, and you have to decrease the the price because of that.
And understanding your gross profit on the outset is very important and your margins on the outset. You're going to have to bring down your margins just to get through it as to keep your your cash flow, right?
Tommy Truong: What should, what is a healthy, inventory is, it varies, be depending on SKUs. How do you track inventory turnover and whether it's healthy or not? I.
Michael Ziegler: I like to keep three weeks worth of inventory on stock. The way I track it is I'll take what my cost of sales has been divide that by the inventory I have, and it creates the ratio for me to understand, okay, I have, I'll make up a number, 300 thousand dollars in cost of sales for the past month.[00:17:00]
I have 250,000 in stock. I don't have a month's worth, I have three weeks worth of inventory. I'm in a good place.
Tommy Truong: Oh, okay. That's insightful.
Yeah, through my experience, what I've found is that oftentimes when inventory isn't moving, it's not the product. It may be just the bud tenders aren't talking about it enough and they're not trained enough, or maybe the supplier isn't coming to the store and giving everybody why, what this product is about is that what you found too?
Michael Ziegler: A hundred percent customer the budtenders appreciate the vendor, the cultivators coming in, walking them through the products, explaining the specific unique characteristics of the products. Getting samples to the budtenders, very important for the cultivators so that the bud tenders know what they're selling and feel comfortable selling it.
Very important to make sure that the customers that the bud tenders know the product. Absolutely.
Tommy Truong: I want to pivot just a little bit to 420. You've been through 420 [00:18:00] before. It's around the corner. What was your experience the first go around and what would you do differently this time to prepare for it?
Michael Ziegler: So 420 was an incredible day. It was an amazing day for Indigo. We had well over 1500 customers come in that day. And one of the things that we knew and we did right on 420 was understanding that 420 is not about making a lot of money. It's about a day to appreciate your customers.
We heavily discounted that day to create a good community experience, to make sure that the customers felt good coming in. They're appreciated that day. And we also, this year more so than last year, we are working closer with the cultivators to create great deals for the customers for that day.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's amazing.
Michael Ziegler: Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be a weekend thing. We're not just doing 420, 'cause 420 is also this year, Easter. And Passover and it could affect the traffic. So we're trying to [00:19:00] accommodate everyone by doing it a whole as a whole weekend.
Tommy Truong: So you taking 420 as a customer appreciation day. Now thi this year, weekend,
Michael Ziegler: Exactly.
Tommy Truong: when do you start communicating with customers on what's gonna happen that day and the deals that they should expect?
Michael Ziegler: We start teasing it out a week before, because if we do it more if you start announcing it earlier than that, then the customers are just gonna wait for the sale day
Tommy Truong: Oh
Michael Ziegler: a week. Natural
Tommy Truong: And then employees, how do you get your team ready? Do you double staff? It's a pretty big event.
Michael Ziegler: all hands on deck. Everyone's working that day.
Tommy Truong: Got it.
Michael Ziegler: Everyone's working. Or the entire team of 35, 35 to 37 people will be in stock in store that day.
Tommy Truong: Do you start training them, say a couple weeks in advance on promotions, what to push, et cetera.
Michael Ziegler: No. No. It they, my team is have well [00:20:00] trained that I don't need to train them much at all. Just they do understand the higher volume. And again, our supervisors, we have four supervisors that are gonna be in store that day. Our assistant general manager, our general manager, everyone's gonna be in store to make sure that the customer flow is right.
And the customer experience is as good as it's every day is
Tommy Truong: Would you do anything differently this year other than what you mentioned and is it just another day? I'm, I can't say it's just another day. It's a massive day. It's the biggest day in, in the industry. But it is, do you approach it as this? This is a day that's gonna be four times the volume, and we just have to prepare for the volume.
Michael Ziegler: Correct. Correct. And and order inventory appropriately so that we have, like I always say. Full variety for all the customers. And because Inventory Indigo is such a high volume store, even if I over order for that weekend, it's, I'm gonna go through the inventory very quickly
Without being concerned about getting stuck with inventory.
So it's not that it's a just another day. It's a very high volume day that [00:21:00] we're preparing for, but we, I have all the confidence in my team.
Tommy Truong: Michael, when you started your store, how did you plan for the cash flow of the first six months? Like, how did you budget things out and can you tell, talk a little bit about that and also how you help businesses that are just getting into our industry, master budgeting, accounting and operations.
Michael Ziegler: Sure. I do, I, when I when I help the my clients out, I I. I give them guidance on the entire build out process. I help them from from ordering the fixtures. I have the re vendors that I've worked with, and I've vetted many of the vendors that are out there to the POS stations, to the POS provider, to the payroll service, to all the different vendors that they're gonna work with.
I help them and guide them with the pluses and minuses on all of them. 'cause I've had the experience with them all. [00:22:00] And when they're, one of the most important parts that you touched on was the the ordering. Making sure that they don't over order is very important. Now there is another business that we're be going to be launching, which is authorized dealer.
Authorized dealer is going to be a wholesaler. A wholesaler where many retailers coming into the market. Are going to be challenged with having the full variety and the authorized dealer as a wholesaler is going to be purchasing from cultivators in the state and being able to offer better terms than cultivators can.
And also the smaller volume that a store that's just opening up needs to order. They don't need to order large cases of everything. So whether as dealer is going to be an opportunity for them to be able to budget appropriately by not having to get too many of one vendor and not be [00:23:00] able to afford another, they're going to be able to order less and have the variety.
And variety is absolutely one of the most important things. So I would guide them to definitely work with a wholesaler if they can't come to terms directly with a a cultivator on the volumes. So I would help them with that budgeting. I would help them with telling them not to over hire, making sure that they staff accordingly.
One of the keys is that when when I go to dispensaries, I don't always see owners in store. And when you're successful, when you're hands on, owners are always the most successful. I see that day in, day out. The, if you look at the largest producing dispensaries in the state, their owners are there day to day.
So very important, not just leave it for someone else to handle the business requires, but quite a bit. And that guidance I give my clients once are off and running. We work monthly with them to give them a balance sheet to, for them to understand their [00:24:00] business as well as a p and l. I give them my insight from my own experience, as to where they are as oppo compared to others, how they're ramping up and where when they're going to be profitable based on the numbers that they're showing me.
I help them by explaining to them the importance of the gross profit margin is very important. The average transaction value, key numbers, watching your gross profit margin on a monthly, on a weekly basis is very important to see that your business is continuing to grow. And if it isn't why isn't it growing?
Like I said, I walk them through with the sales by budtender, understanding why is one budtender here and why the other one's there. They need to understand their business as intimately as I do, very important. I give them the data. A lot of the POS softwares don't give you the reporting that's easy to understand and follow.
I've been able to extract the data from the POS software and be able to create our own reports for our clients to give them the [00:25:00] information that I use for myself. Like I said. The sales by Tran, by budtender, the hourly sales, the gross profit margins, the purchases by vendor. When you, have the detail of understanding how much purchases you have by vendor, then you can go to your vendors and say, Hey I'm buying 30, $40,000 a month from you.
Is there a volume discount that you can offer me? You one of the most important things ask 'cause they are those discounts are there, those promotions are there. So I would definitely recommend that. Also, I also guide my clients with understanding, just like I understand my expiring inventory on a weekly basis, they need to understand that as well.
They don't wanna be caught off guard and then have something zero to 30 days that they have to liquidate a 50% discount. So I guide them through it. I also guide them through what's deductible, what isn't what do you need to watch out for? What is cost of good sold really mean? So I give my [00:26:00] clients the guidance from the business aspect as well as the accounting side.
Tommy Truong: That's amazing. You've mentioned some key things there that prelude to operational inefficiency. Why? Why aren't you more profitable? Why is your gross profit and your net margins not growing? What are some of the things that an operator can do to diagnose these problems or unearth issues that are in their business, leveraging KPIs and
Michael Ziegler: Look at those reports, look at the data. Some people are overwhelmed by reports and they don't understand numbers. Numbers are tell you everything. I know it's coming from an accountant, but you can't numbers don't lie. So understanding your numbers, understanding what is happening in the store, understanding the the volume.
Understanding the outside as well. There is a company called Lit Alerts. I don't know if you're familiar that tracks the volume of dispensaries and you can see what the [00:27:00] dispensaries around you are doing. Are you, is, are you at par to them In term it's estimated numbers, but you are part to them.
Are you ahead of them? What is, what are they selling as opposed to what you're selling? Are you selling the right products? Are they selling something that's moving very well and you don't have in stock? All that data is very important.
Tommy Truong: Awesome. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you think would help an operator start today? I.
Michael Ziegler: Yeah I definitely think there's there's one more thing that we should touch base on. Loyalty. Loyalty, building a customer's loyalty. Loyalty is very important, especially with the number of dispensaries opening up. Making sure that the behavior of the bud tenders builds that loyalty. We created a model that it's called care model in our stores.
We connect with the customer, understand what they're looking for, understand what they're, they're there for. Ask them questions. Ask questions to understand their [00:28:00] needs. Recommend what you feel will guide them best. Not about upselling, not about making the most right now. It's big about making the best relationship possible.
Creating that loyalty, building that loyalty and encourage the sale. Encourage them to try something that may make sense for them. So that is one of the most important things that we work out in our store.
Tommy Truong: So you've you emphasize something that's really important is repeat customers. And I've been, I try to visit stores often because that's my job and I get bud tenders that don't necessarily care or try to understand the reason why I'm buying. Like what mood am I trying to get into, and, or they recommend a product that's not useful to me
Michael Ziegler: I've seen that many times.
Tommy Truong: and I never go back to that store.
Ever. And as you hit the nail on the head on how important it is for bud tenders to understand why customers are coming to the [00:29:00] store and what they're looking for. So how do you marry this approach of, Hey, let's make sure that we give our customers the best advice possible, but well as, as well as let's make sure that we have our average transaction size healthy and is trending in the right direction.
Michael Ziegler: It's a balance. You don't want to be over pushy, but you wanna offer them a couple of options, not just say, okay you need to relax. Here's an indica. But you can offer them a couple of different options. It could be a pre-roll, it could be flour, it could be a vape, could be an edible.
Some people don't want the smell don't want certain areas, so it may work for. It, they work to offer them something else than they came in for. Maybe they came in just for a pre-roll, offer them an interval as well. Our budtenders are pros at all
Tommy Truong: That's amazing. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head,
Michael Ziegler: It's about fitting the customer. And if it's not about the the upsell and the average transaction value, it's about that relationship, which [00:30:00] is more important than the value, the transaction value.
Tommy Truong: And there's so many ways to upsell. There's, understanding the customer's budget, understanding there's small things that you can upsell that will also meet the customer's needs. And at ultimately, at the end of the day, you have to meet the customer's needs.
Michael Ziegler: Our upsell is the experience we create the best experience in that transaction.
Tommy Truong: What loyalty platforms are you set up with and what was the strategy to get people to adopt the platform initially that you guys selected?
Michael Ziegler: We work with Alpine and the strategy that we use to have people join Alpine the 5% discount, we, with those points, that definitely helps customers build, it helps, it definitely helps build loyalty. But that's a small part of it. It's about the experience. I'll say it again.
And giving them and walking them through what that loyalty means in terms of the points structure was definitely [00:31:00] helpful. So the customers know, okay, I spend a hundred, I get $5 worth of points. That's wonderful. And I could use it towards, in $5 increments, towards anything I'd like in the store.
That definitely helps by explaining it through to the customer. And that definitely helped build that base by walking the customer through it.
Tommy Truong: And that's something really insightful that you've mentioned is how engaged are your employees and do they care? Do they treat your business like theirs and do they care?
Michael Ziegler: They treat their, my business, our business incredibly they truly care. I see it every day when I walk into that store. I see how much they care. And it's not fake. They truly care. You can tell when they're cleaning, when they're doing it on their own. You don't have to ask them to do anything.
These people are, I can't say enough about them.
Tommy Truong: That's amazing. Before I let you go, let's talk about this because this is something that I think about a lot and I, at the end of the day, your business is made [00:32:00] up of the people and without the people, you don't have a business. You can't talk to every single customer yourself. It's your team that does.
So what does that employee experience look like for your store? What is the first 30 days of somebody when they first start your business, what do they experience? What do you have that's structured?
Michael Ziegler: First of all, there's we use c talent for training of the of them with the products. And that's one thing. But when someone comes to work at at Indigo, they're joining a family. It really is a tight-knit family. We all look out for each other. No one's, trying to go around anyone else.
It's all one big family. We don't we, it's very important, number one. The, they shadow a bud tender for the first few days till they feel comfortable enough. Then a different bud, a bud tender will shadow them to make sure that they're comfortable. That's the, I'd say that's the first week. They get to know the fellow coworkers.
There's some, the, in this [00:33:00] business there's a lot of downtime and and busy times. It comes in waves. At times you could be empty for a half hour, and then you'd have a line out the door suddenly. And during those down times they bond, they do very well. They connect with each other and everyone's very warm.
And that's part of the of the success of hiring the right people. It
Tommy Truong: Yeah. How do you know that the person that you're hiring has the right personality to fit in with the team?
Michael Ziegler: they go through three interviews before they're brought on by the sales training manager who understands exactly the, he's hired every person that's walked into our business. The sales training manager, the general manager and assistant manager, we all interview the person to make sure that the right, they have the right temperament and te to attitude towards customer service.
Tommy Truong: That's amazing. That's, there's a a nuance to that actually that you've mentioned because [00:34:00] salespeople are outgoing, they're outgoing personalities, but you are looking for just kind people.
Michael Ziegler: Correct. Correct. And it translates to more revenue. It translates to a great experience and it translates to great work environment.
I appreciate every one of our employees and they appreciate us back.
Tommy Truong: And you've, you mentioned that you are interviewing these Bud tenderers. They go through three interviews, which shows actually a level of commitment that somebody wants to work for in your business. Because this role is, it's an entry-level role, and sometimes it can be very transactional. So is that why you've decided, hey, three interviews, it's enough to get to know an individual on whether or not they're kind, but also it shows that this person is committed?
Michael Ziegler: correct. Exactly. And also, when someone comes to work at Indigo, our turnover is extremely low. Extremely low. I've lost [00:35:00] one person in the last I'd say four or five months, which it's unheard of in retail, in the retail industry, people go float from one place to another. I. People won't leave because we treat our employees right.
We treat them right. We we make sure that the employee, it, we look to help change their lives, honestly. And we have, and we it's so self-gratifying to see how happy our employees are. That's one of the best parts about this
Tommy Truong: You mentioned that you look to change their life, meaning that you've, you put in place an infrastructure that, hey, what can, how can the business improve a person's career life? What do they want in life? And do you leverage your business as a vehicle to help 'em achieve that?
Michael Ziegler: Absolutely. One of the things that I know as an accountant is important is saving for retirement. 401k we contribute to their 401k. Many many dispensaries don't even think of a 401k. Absolutely important. We [00:36:00] contribute a very heavy part of the health insurance. I. That's one of the biggest challenges everyone faces.
Health insurance is one of the most important things that we pay a very large amount for them to put that stress aside for them.
Tommy Truong: When did you understand from a budgeting perspective that the business could afford these initiatives?
Michael Ziegler: that's a great question. That's a great question. I'd say six months into the store being o operational, I saw that the the revenue in the store is growing consistently. The employees were fully engaged and I felt that I don't need to take it all home. I'm happy to give it so that it'll come back.
So I'd say six months in we started implementing these these
Tommy Truong: And did you gradually do it or in, in that, had you offered this amount and as the store continued its success you added on things that, to ensure it's sustainable.
Michael Ziegler: Correct. First I started with the 401k plan and then on the anniversary of the renewal for the health insurance, when I'm able to [00:37:00] make a change, I made a substantial change for them. And then the beginning of this year, we increased everyone's pay,
Tommy Truong: You open that door, you don't close that door. Let's make sure you never have to close that door. So what was your assessment in that? Or if any, was it a percentage of profit that, or a level of profit that you had to hit in order to, ensure sustainability?
Michael Ziegler: It was, we had to grow into it. Like you said, it was a level of profit that the store was making, that we felt the store is doing very well. It's healthy. What will this extra expense of a hundred thousand dollars a year resulted, it will result in more, employee satisfaction, employee comfort.
And that will in turn continue building the business. So if that's how we definitely thought it through. And if it was a hundred or 120,000 didn't make a difference. It was about building the business, building the employees.
Tommy Truong: Michael, thank you so much. Before I let you go, how can our listeners find [00:38:00] you,
Michael Ziegler: Sure. The name of my firm is Cannabis Advisor. There, it's a website called cannabis advisor.com. They could find us there. I'm very reachable. I'm also at the store every week. At least once a week, probably twice or three times is what I try to be. But I'm always around and my I give my cell phone out freely.
(646) 932-4222. I'm very approachable. I'm very comfortable working with people and enjoy working with people. I'm doing so I'm doing something I love.
Tommy Truong: That's awesome. That's amazing.
Michael Ziegler: Thank you.
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining us today. You dropped a lot of knowledge and this was a good one.
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