Turn Your Dispensary into a Market Game Changer

Episode Transcript

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the KayaCast, the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.

Tommy: How much inventory should you hold what's in inventory, exit strategy. If you're expanding, what are the things that you should consider before opening your second location? Richard McLean head of retail at Vibe by California joins us today to talk about cannabis retail. Vibe by California is a prominent brand in one of the most competitive states in the cannabis industry. This was a great conversation. I hope you guys enjoy. Richard, thank you so much for joining us today.

How would you approach retail strategy?

Richard McLean: The retail strategy, I think one of the biggest differences between regular retail and cannabis is is you really need to understand that cannabis is a grown product. It comes from the earth and it [00:01:00] takes 90 days or more to replenish your supply, right? And so the thing is, as a retailer, of course we have the ability to go to vendors and purchase whatever is available in the time, but you have to realize that If you have a favorite strain, let's say your favorite strain is birthday cake. I have no way of guaranteeing that any of the vendors that are out there have birthday cake, right? It's not like regular retail, where if you're selling Rubik's cubes, you sell out Rubik's cubes, you go and you buy more Rubik's cubes and you have exactly what you're looking for. This is very much a supply and demand.

What is available And the good news is that our customer base is very knowledgeable in what they want. And all they're going to do is look for something that is going to give them similar effects or have similar strains. And so they're, they're very flexible in what [00:02:00] they're willing to buy. But you have to be very understanding that this isn't a situation where you can just purchase what you want.

Like, that's not how it works. It's about what's available. It's about price and keeping up with the market, you know, um, we have just like all regular retail, we have ups and downs where sometimes the market is really driven on quality and they don't care about the price and they just really want something that's new or different or, um, high in THC or what have you. And then other times, like right now when the economy is a little more depressed. People are much more worried about bang for your buck. And so as a business model, you need to be able to address those changes and listen to your customer base and what they need. And you know, maybe right now we're purchasing [00:03:00] slightly lower grade flower, but we're able to give our customer a much better bang for their buck. Then later what's going to happen is as the economy gets a little bit better and people start to have a little more spending money They're like I've been smoking this boof for months, right? And I I really want something to treat myself with I want something bigger I want something better and you need to be able to have that available for your customer as well No

Tommy: That's, that's fascinating. Now I was going to talk about inventory strategy, but since you've mentioned it, what is, how would you approach inventory strategy?

Richard McLean: So inventory is actually a different animal as well because when you're in a Because it's a live or dried product, it actually has a freshness date, you know. It um, really is something that you need to sell from the time it was processed [00:04:00] and picked and dried. You generally, for most cases, have a year. Most consumers aren't going to want it. After three to six months. So it becomes one of these things that the longer it's on your shelf, the more, the less that it's worth. And so it really is one of these things where you want to buy in smaller batches and buy what your customers are looking for, but also always be thinking of your exit strategy for product that is starting to age. And how you're going to get through this product to make room on your shelf

for the next strain.

Tommy: Got it. So before you even purchase the product, you're, are you thinking about exit strategy too?

Richard McLean: Yeah. Uh, when I speak to my vendors, um, a lot of times that's part of the conversation is, okay, so what are we going to do if this [00:05:00] strain, this product doesn't sell? Are you willing to take it back and give me something new? Are you willing to give me credits on future purchases so that we can Sell this at a cheaper price. Right? A margin is always a big part of the game. And that it's always something we have to look at.

Tommy: I love that you mentioned that. How, how have you leveraged your suppliers? Cause this is a full, fully fledged supply And know, How have you leveraged your suppliers in helping sell their product?

Richard McLean: Well, that in itself is a new story, truthfully. Because In general, it's a partnership, and I have found almost every vendor is willing to help you with that, and they're willing to take responsibility, and they have a lot of pride in their product. So, they're willing to do things like give you promo items, so that you can offer more.

So, like, you can offer, like, you buy this 8th, you get this half gram free, [00:06:00] or something like that, right? So, they're willing to give you promo items to help push their product out. They're willing to give you rebates. On new orders, those pieces. But there's been a dramatic shift recently, uh, with the economy being what it is after Covid, a lot of farms opened and that created a lot of product availability in order to become attractive to dispensaries. The idea is to give the, give the dispensaries more margin, right? Like the cheaper that I can buy it for and sell it at a better price, the more money I'm making. Well, that caused this really weird anomaly where there's kind of a race to the bottom and a lot of the farms where they had marketing budgets and they would send you marketing materials or they help you pay for billboards or what have you a Lot of that's gone Because everyone's taken that money off of their prices to [00:07:00] be as cheap as possible To be able to stay valid in the market And so the problem is they're still great brands.

They are still good partners, but they just don't have the resources that they had because everyone is working so hard to stay valid, viable. And again, this is still a live product that has to be, that has an expiration date. And so whatever crop I take out of the ground in 90 days, I have to have a plan for. And so. And still have an exit strategy.

Tommy: Do you have a philosophy in how many vendors you work with?

Richard McLean: Okay, so this is one of those things about cannabis. So one of the things that I really need to bring to the market is you have to realize that cannabis came from An illegal standpoint originally, right? It came from a black market standpoint. And so, relationships were very [00:08:00] important because you could get busted. Well, that mentality has carried over into the legal market. And so, a lot of the vendors and a lot of retailers tried to build very strong relationships, and Keep certain brands because not only does our customer base want to know that they can get brand XYZ at my location consistently, but then I also build those relationships through the good times and the bad times with these vendors, and we're willing to do more for each other.

Tommy: You know, if I was a retailer, Richard, and I'm just starting out today, what would your advice to me be on my approach to inventory strategy? How much should I invest? Where should I invest it in? How many SKUs should I carry and what, what's around the corner that I'm not seeing? Mm-Hmm?

Richard McLean: um, That's a lot, but [00:09:00] I'm here for you. Um, so first of all, I think that you have to remember kind of like your Dungeness Crab idea. This is a live product, and so you don't want to take on more than you can push out in your amount of sales, right? You can always buy more, but it's hard to get rid of it if you have too much. So I would say make smaller purchases more often, Until you know what your rate of sale is

Tommy: How much inventory should I, should I carry? Like, should I carry a, a, a month's worth?

Richard McLean: Um never I no more than two months worth in your back room and Including your sales for qualities. You should never ever ever go above

90 days of worth of sales ever

Because, again, at 90 days is where prices start to decline. So, you don't ever want to put yourself in that situation.

Tommy: [00:10:00] Mm-Hmm.

Richard McLean: So, yeah, about, uh, I would say 8 to 10 weeks of product total is, All you'd want in your back room. Um, keeping your customers. It's a very, it's a very interesting dance. You want to keep them hungry for the newest hottest stuff and you want to be able to provide that, but at the same time you want to have it when they get there.

Tommy: do is do, would you then leave, um, leave it flexible. Where if do things, if things do change and you have some wiggle room to change your inventory strategy within the eight weeks.

Richard McLean: Well, you always want to change, but I think more than that, what the answer is there. So you have different categories and different categories have different sell through rates and different, you know, like the way I handle flour would be much different than the way I handle dabs or even more [00:11:00] different than I have to handle edibles, right? And so you kind of almost have to shop by category, know your location, know your sales history, and then um, use that sales data to project how

much you can sell. Right? and sales.

Tommy: How often do you look at how long your different SKUs Sorry, let me ask that question in a more clear Tommy, be more clear. How often do you look at the sell to rate on different SKUs?

Richard McLean: Weekly, at least. Um, I actually get a daily report on, um, my sales, ATV, UPT, and then at the bottom of it what I'm really looking for are SKUs that haven't moved. You know, and then I, at the end of every week, I challenge my store managers to find out why they haven't moved. You know, is it just a [00:12:00] bad strain people don't want? Is it because it wasn't, maybe we had it in the back room, but it wasn't actually on the sales floor? You know, um, or maybe we have something that is cannibalizing that. Like, did we have a sale that's so much deeper that people are ignoring, or Stuff at a higher margin because they're getting a better deal, right?

Tommy: Does this ever happen to you? One store really sells its product fine, and the other store, it doesn't move? Absolutely

Richard McLean: Um, our stores are completely different entities. Our store in Reading is very value driven and I can sell like outdoor, uh, low THC stuff out of there all day. But then my Stockton store They want high THC with, you know, much more, they're, they're much more into, they don't really care as much about the, the, the [00:13:00] cost, but they want the quality. And it really just depends. I mean, it, it, it says the people that are shopping are as different as you can get, um, and they're looking for different things. And so it really depends on your community and what you're shopping for, and you need to make sure when you're making your orders that you're shopping to fulfill that store.

Tommy: know, I wanted to, I want to follow up on our previous conversation about what happens when foot traffic goes down and what, what is your protocol? Hey, foot traffic has been slowing down over the past month. And you thought it was weather, but it's not weather. How would you go about diagnosing this problem and turning things around?

Richard McLean: Oh, well, first thing I always start with is, um, competition shops, right? It's like, okay, so did a new shop open up? Like, where are our customers going? And why are they, and where are they spending more money, right? [00:14:00] So, if it's foot traffic, because foot traffic is different than if, if we have less foot traffic, and that's affecting our sales, then I need to find out where those people are going. If foot traffic is near the same, but sales are really down, then I need to look at what

they're buying.

Tommy: Ah,

Richard McLean: is if the foot traffic's down, I need to find out like what stores they're going to and then why. Like are, you know, are we being undercut by another store that is doing some like really great sales and making better contracts than we are? Um, is it because something's new? Is it because, you know, people are being attracted and they're like, maybe there is a new bar that opened up in town and everyone's just going to that for a while. But then the other part becomes, okay, what do you do to drive that back into your store? So like if it's deals and I can just kind of [00:15:00] match those deals or do something more exciting than the other customers, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to leverage my CRM, um, like Alpine IQ or Spring Big. And we're going to send out emails and text blasts to all of our old customers that have shopped with us before and let them know, hey, something new, something exciting, come on in. We're going to, you know, heighten our marketing strategies um, on social media and make sure that, you know, people know that we have the best prices in town or that we have a price match guarantee.

So even if this other place is giving you a better price, we want We'll match it. Like, come on in. Come back to us.

Tommy: got it. So really you first diagnosed, okay, what is the problem? Because sales being reduced can be a lot of things.

Richard McLean: Right.

Tommy: And then from there, uh, what's really happening in the market?

Richard McLean: Right.

Tommy: How often, Richard, do you guys talk directly to customers for feedback?

Richard McLean: Um, we do that in a lot of different ways, [00:16:00] truthfully. So, one of the ways we do it is, um, we watch our, uh, reviews very closely. If you give me a bad review on Google, I personally am there saying, Hey, let's talk about this. What happened? Right? And if it's a problem with my staff, if it's a training issue, if it's whatever, I'm going to work with the store manager and we're going to resolve that. And I'm going to talk to that customer and let them know because we are very interactive and we, and we care. And it's, it's not one of those situations where you got mad and you left a review and no one ever talked to you again. Um, second, I really do rely on my bud tenders to build personal relationships with their customers and to be able to bring me the things that the customers talk to them about, right? So there's an open line of communication. We use, uh, um, Slack with like general channels where my entire team is able to like chime in and say, Hey, you [00:17:00] know, I had a conversation with a military veteran today who, you know, thought it would be a really good idea to have a special day for, you know, military awareness. And then we're able to take that feedback and be like, yeah, hey, that's a great idea. And then we can brainstorm that and figure out what that looks like and when we want to do it, and how we get that message out, right?

Now,

Tommy: Yeah, that's really awesome to, to hear. We have that philosophy too. I, I really do believe that you don't really understand your business at all, actually, if you don't talk to your customers.

Richard McLean: I couldn't agree more. Um, customer feedback and, but you also have to provide ways for the customers to give you that feedback that aren't hard. Because the minute you make things too hard, people just won't do it. Uh, there's an old, another idiom from retail. Only about 11 percent of customers complain. [00:18:00] So if only 11 percent of customers are going to give you feedback when something bad happens, how do you know when something good is happening? Or how do you know when all those people that had a bad experience didn't say anything?

Tommy: That's amazing. You've, okay, so you've managed one store and multiple stores. So one store, can you just, uh, we have a lot of listeners right now that are thinking about opening up a second location. So the first location is going well. They're thinking about opening up a second location.

What would be your advice and what they're stepping into and what they should have ready before they open, they magnify their problems by two.

Richard McLean: I think the first thing that you have to understand is opening a second location is like having a second child. You can't always use the same strategy and expect it to work the same with both kids. [00:19:00] The area that you open it in, the customer base you have, there's a million different things that are going to totally change. How it reacts and responds to you and the way that business needs to be handled. You know, like I said, if I went in to Reading and I tried to run it like I do Stockton, I would not be profitable. Because I would have a lot of very expensive product sitting there that no one in Reading wanted to afford. You have to understand that every location and every child is going to be different and you have to listen to them and figure out what the needs are and work around those needs, right? Um, you know, maybe you're in a location that has a lot of elderly and so your sales trends are going to change dramatically.

You're going to sell a little bit less flour, but a lot more in edibles. [00:20:00] And So you need to understand the area that you're opening up in, you know, maybe go to a few of the other dispensaries in the area and you know see what information you can get that from them as far as like what the product mix is like or what they sell a lot of and Once you can kind of come into that and even if you can't get the information from them The vendors that you're going to be buying from will know about the places that they you know, because they may not Know How much money they're making, but they can tell you how much they're ordering or, you know, how much they go through.

Tommy: Oh, wow. That's so

insightful.

Richard McLean: Right? And so it's

kind of reverse engineering, right? Where you're, you're, you're like, and then I can tell you, oh yeah, you know, club XYZ orders exactly this. They're going to say, yeah, they go through about a pound a month or whatever, but the thing is they're going to, and of course you always have to take anything a vendor says with a grain of salt. Right. Cause they're always going to try and pad their [00:21:00] own numbers, but it gives you an idea at least to work with and you know where to start. The other thing is every jurisdiction has its own set of rules and some areas really are inspired and like camp cannabis and others do not play well with cannabis. Um, I can tell you like Palm Springs, the government there, Loves cannabis. They, they are fantastic. They're, you know, they, they basically come to you and they're like, Hey, do you, can we help you? Like, what are we doing? What, you know, do you want to, do you want a street fair? Like, they're, they're really easy to work with and, and they're out there proactively trying to help us. But then you have other places like, uh, Salinas when, uh, that everything we did was micromanaged by the government. I've never had as many visits, and they didn't [00:22:00] just come as the cannabis control, they also brought the DA with them

every time. Right? And so there's, you have to find out before you start putting money into it, what do they want.

There are some districts that require a live scan for every person on your team. And then there are other ones that, Require live scans only for managers or no one at all. Like, so you really need to find out what your local jurisdiction wants. And that is also going to tell you a lot about what your

business is going to look like.

Tommy: okay,

let me take a step back actually. Let's say Richard, you are opening up a second location. What would be your approach on hiring a new team? Okay, well, um, I've actually done that, and the thing is, especially, if you are

Richard McLean: gifted with the fact that you are in the same city. One of the largest gifts you can give yourself is by creating a mixture in [00:23:00] both stores of new and people who have been with you for a while. So, like, I would probably ask my store manager from the first store to come open the second store. And that's because the first store, should all of the, the SOPs and everything else, they have it down.

They know how to run their business there. So if you take a store manager out of there, theoretically they still have the staff and everything that know what they're doing. So it's a lot easier to hire a new manager there and get them trained up than it is to have a brand new store with a brand new manager and just start from scratch, right? So I would definitely bring in at least a store manager, maybe one or two other key players. Um, in general, for a cannabis location, you need a store manager. You generally should have someone that understands metric enough to do intake so that you [00:24:00] can handle your, uh, product coming into the store. Um, That could be the same person that does your ordering for you or you could have centralized ordering.

It just depends on your model. Um, and then, you know, you're going to need a management team, right? And so usually with any place, whether it's cannabis or otherwise, I always start with the store manager and then we make sure we hire the management team. Again, if you have enough management from the original store to be able to bring one or two other strong players over, that's great because then you have people that have not only done. Cannabis and your business the way you want it, but also have their own synergy and have worked together before. And then, like I said, and then it becomes a lot less of starting from the ground zero and much more about just filling in the holes in both locations.

Tommy: Let's say you do have to hire a new GM. [00:25:00] What's your hiring philosophy?

Richard McLean: Personally, I truly believe that There are things that can be taught and there are things that are innate, right? We call it will or skill. I can teach you about cannabis. I can teach you the laws. I can teach you all those bits. I can't teach you how to manage a team or how to be a good person or you know, be polite and be a good customer service representative. So you hire for the things that you need strengths in your business for. And you train the rest. Um, I would, of course, you know, when we're hiring, I'm going to look for someone that has cannabis experience and the full retail package, but then I, it's kind of like, what are things that are things I can't get away with?

And then what are things that I can work with? Right. Um, [00:26:00] I, you can't lie to me and tell me that you've been a general manager before, but you've never written a retail schedule, right? Like, that's not going to help me. Um, so, there are, you know, I need people that have the skills to manage a team. I can teach them cannabis, or I can supply them with team members that understand cannabis. As a manager, you manage people, not product, and so as long as you have a good person with a good heart that knows how to manage their team, and instills the right values in them, you can train the rest.

Tommy: Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. You find the person with the right attitude and the will to, to learn. Um, everything just falls into place after

that.

Richard McLean: Right, right. Coming into cannabis, I had my own experience with cannabis, but I didn't know you know, the laws and the rules and everything else, and those are things I had to [00:27:00] learn. But that didn't mean that I didn't know how to manage people, or how to manage my product and my bottom line. So.

Tommy: You're in a position right now where you're managing multiple stores and managing one store versus multiple stores is vastly different. What are the KPIs that matters to you today when you're assessing store performance?

Richard McLean: Again, um, it's, For me, it's still kind of the same. The, the, the only thing that changes is the conversations and who I'm having them with. If I am managing a store, I'm looking at those and I'm going directly to my bud tenders and I'm talking to them and I'm, you know, creating store meetings and I'm talking to my management team and I'm being like, Hey, what can we do? You know, bring me ideas. Let's work as a group. What can we do to brainstorm and get this together? Whereas an executive manager, I rely very heavily on my store matches to do that. So what I'm going to do is bring them what I see. [00:28:00] Hey, I'm looking at your reports and you know, I, I see that your foot traffic is the same, but your sales are starting to fall. What can we do to talk to those team members, to get them to upsell or to understand, you know, the actual retail purpose. Like one of the biggest flaws I always find in sales is that Is a sale is a hook. It's to bring people in so that then we can sell them regular product and that we can introduce them to new ideas and things that, and products that they didn't know that they wanted or that they didn't know existed. But the sale is the hook. It's just something to grab their attention. And a lot of customer service agents don't think of it that way. Okay. They just want to give the customer the best deal they can and let them out of the store and Even [00:29:00] if they don't buy anything else The one thing a customer always leaves with is the experience so we need to make sure that they know we care about them and Absolutely, I'm not gonna lie.

This is one that one of those hard truths. We're in business to make money However, that doesn't mean that we don't have to, that we don't have a heart or that we don't do it in the right way. And the right way to do it in cannabis is to care about our customers and expose them to new ideas and suggest to them the things that get them to where they want to go. But we can do all of that without being money grubbing without being a used car salesman without negative implications and by going into it with curiosity and with training and giving them education on the new products and the things that are coming out and [00:30:00] Being storytellers and telling them about our experiences and how this affected me and how I enjoy it, right?

Tommy: I've had

awesome conversations before with bartenders, sales associates, where they've understood the reason why I smoked and introduced me to products that I've never, uh, never thought of, never seen before. And now I'm a regular consumer of this product, which I'm like, I thank you so much for introducing this to me.

Richard McLean: Absolutely. And that should be the goal and the plan is, is not just to be letting the customer be like, okay, here's the cheapest way to get out of my store, but to be like, Hey, I have some really cool products. What, you know, what is the reason you smoke? What, what is your, what makes you enjoy this? And let me show you ways to enjoy this.

Tommy: I've just learned recently through a conversation with, uh, last week about nano emulsification.

Richard McLean: Uh huh. Yep.

Tommy: Blew me away. I'm like, okay, I gotta, I gotta get

Richard McLean: One of the [00:31:00] other things that I love, um, so a lot of older patients, um, you know, they're looking for like CBD for the infl, anti-inflammatory for like their hands, stuff like that. And my thing is, so if you're ingesting a gummy, a regular gummy is about half an hour to 45 minutes to start getting a good effect from it. Nano emulsion cuts out about in half, but. Unless you'd like to suffer and wait for your medicine to kick in, you can smoke something and get immediate effects. So, the whole thing is if you have CBD in your system, and you smoke just the smallest amount of THC, THC activates CBD, and so, or you can smoke something that has CBD in it as well, and you're going to get immediate help with your problems, and And then as that wears off, the gummy will start kicking in. And those are the types of conversations that [00:32:00]

we should be having, right? It's like, I want to

help you now and later. I don't just want, I don't want you to suffer for half

an hour before you feel relief. so

Tommy: all, it's, you know, budtenders bless them. They have a really hard job because they're, they're consultants and product changes every week. So you got to be really on top of, on top of,

things.

Richard McLean: Well, and there's other parts that you have to be, like I talked about before, a good storyteller. Because, you know, maybe as a bud tender, I don't like sativas. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't have an answer for a customer that likes Sativa, right? And so, my answer should be something like, Hey, you know, I'm not really a Sativa smoker, however, my friend Tommy told me that this is fabulous because of A, B, and C. Right? Like, we still should have a story, we still should have a way to help those customers through stories and [00:33:00] shared experiences. Thanks.

Tommy: How do you guys approach employee training?

Richard McLean: Employee training. So, different people learn differently. And, um, generally what I do is I have a training guide that we wrote, um, that kind of gives you Budtinder 101, right? It gives you all of this information about the product, and it gives you a lot of information about customers and, um, Giving recommendations, and how to do that in a way, because we're not doctors. So if you want a recommendation, one of the first things I need to make sure you know, hey, I'm not a doctor. If you want medical advice, you need to go see your doctor. However, I can give you shared experiences, I can tell you I have customers that say this works really well for them, right? Because we need to make sure that the customer understands that The problem with cannabinoids are they [00:34:00] affect everyone differently, and I cannot guarantee the same results from person to person. So just because this worked really well for my aunt doesn't mean that you're going to get the same effects. I can tell you this worked well for my aunt and you should try it, but I can't tell you for certain

this is going to make this better.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, no, I, agree. I, I, we think about employee training a lot, just really because of the space that we're in and how important it is to take control of, not only is it, I, and you hit the nail on the head, it extends beyond Product training. And there's a foundation there on really how to be a really good consultant, how to tell a really good story, how to listen and, and what is the foundation of retail customer experience?

Richard McLean: And then, like I said, people learn differently, and so it's always [00:35:00] tell, show, and do, right? So the whole thing is, you can have it in writing, but I need to see what that looks like in the real world, right? I, I, I need to experience it for myself. And then I need to be able to do it for myself with someone there to catch me in case I stumble. And so those are generally the three aspects. I generally will not let a bud tender on the floor for their first three to five days. Um, of training,

Tommy: Oh, wow.

Richard McLean: they, they have to read through it all and get the knowledge that they can from the books, even if they've been a buttoned or somewhere else. And then I pair them up with a trainer and they're going to work with that trainer.

A lot of times, first, they're going to just shadow that trainer and they're going to watch the trainer sell. And then when the trainer feels that they are ready, they're going to let them, Hey, why don't you take this next sale? And they're there to help them if they start to say something wrong or they don't have the words for what they're trying to say, or they don't have the answers for the customer. That trainer is there to step in and help out. And [00:36:00] then as you become more comfortable, you get that verbiage and you understand the product enough. And it's, it's

beautiful. It's a

wonderful thing.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. It's always, for me personally, I, I try to visit a dispensary once a week and within the first two minutes of entering a dispensary, I can already tell how well this dispensary is ran in terms of their, Their sales environment. And upon talking to a Budtender immediately, do you have a robust training program as well as is the Budtender engaged, right?

Does he or she even care to be there or they are just order takers, which tells a lot about the company.

Richard McLean: and that's exactly what I was going to say that wraps back to what we were talking about before about accountability Because if as a store manager You are willing to leave someone on your sales floor that is not engaged That is not doing anything for your customers that is [00:37:00] not passionate about the products and the things that they're doing You are not only doing a disservice to your customer and to your business But you're allowing all of your other team members To see that that's okay because if you don't do something about it, you're approving of it

Tommy: Richard, as a person that oversees so many different locations, how do you, how do you get comfort that The A players are being rewarded and the C players are, um, just either being worked on or there's a, there's a plan to, to replace them.

Richard McLean: Well, uh, first of all one of the strongest Things that I do I have a weekly meeting with all my store managers Whether we need it or not more times than not. I have a lot of information I need to give them anyways, but even if I don't have a lot of information, we're gonna get together [00:38:00] for like 15 minutes And it gives them a place to come and air any of their concerns as well as they know that A, I care, and B, they know I'm going to ask, right? And so I start with, um, because there are reports that get run that I look at that will tell me, first of all, what, how the bartenders are doing, as far as their sales and everything else. So if I see that someone that's always been a top seller and they're starting to flip, I'm like, Hey, you know, what's going on with Tom? Right. And you know, they might tell me, Oh yeah, uh, he just started school again or whatever. And so, you know, sometimes we have to have that conversation with them and be like, Hey, you know, I know you just started school, but when you're here, I need you engaged or whatever. Maybe it's a mentoring conversation.

Maybe it's, um, understanding that like their grandmother just died or their dog just died. Right. And they need that little bit of space. Um, but aside from that. [00:39:00] I am very passionate about taking care of my people, and I try to transfer that onto my store managers and make them just as passionate about their people. And so, they know how much I care and I ask about them and their lives and what's going on with them all the time, and my expectation is that they're doing the same with their team. And so, during these huddles, these get togethers once a week, Um, I, you know, I'll look at the numbers and more times than not. Originally, if I'm seeing a problem, I'm going to hand it off to the store manager. I mean, you know, I'm going to be like, Hey, I'm noticing this. Can you give me some feedback as far as why you feel this is happening? Or, you know, tell me about what you think we can do to make this better. If it continues and the strategies they're coming up with aren't working, then I will become more and more personally involved until [00:40:00] we've figured out what the root cause is and preferably fix it or put it to bed. Um, and I've seen it all. It could be anything from you have, you know, two shift supervisors that were in a relationship and now they hate each other. You know, it could be. There's a plethora of reasons, and, you know, we're all human, and the

human condition is messy, but what can we do about it, and how can we ensure that the business is a place that everyone comes to because they feel safe there, and it's, if anything, That's the thing. I love hearing that people come to work because it gives them relief from being home or

being outside of work, right? Because then you know that you've done it. You know that you've created a space where people feel included and safe.

Tommy: Richard, this was such an, you know, we just got warmed up. We have to have you back. [00:41:00] You got to come back and, and, and, you know, flesh through this more. Before I let you go, where can our listeners find you?

Richard McLean: Well, I'm at Vibe by California, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out at Richard

m@vibebycalifornia.com.

Tommy: Thank you so much for coming on today.

Richard McLean: I appreciate your time, Tommy.

Tommy: I hope you guys enjoyed the conversation. If you did, and you want to support us, please, like subscribe wherever you're listening. It really helps the channel outer lot until next time guys take care.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the KayaCast podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcast app, or visit our website to access the full archive of episodes from the show.

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