CANNABIS vs WalMart And Your Brand
The term "Walmart of Cannabis" has been thrown around a lot.
"This person is going to be the Walmart of cannabis or, that person is.. "It’s said with excitement and that boggles my mind.
Cannabis is a specialized field and legalization gives a "leg up" to the black market cultivators but says, "hey, do your craft.. but play by the legal rules that all other respected businesses play by and, we won’t have problems". Just don’t fight the process that is the change into legal operations and, you’ll be fine.
Legalization opens the cannabis industry up to a new (legal) specialized field, its an arm of the medical field, (jobs, jobs, jobs). This is, in fact, medication. Google is free, verifiable facts are there.
Now...You can’t just hire anyone for this specialized field, I can’t go stand in front of a judge and say, "I wanna defend this client"... Well, I guess I could, but it would be a bad idea for everyone involved.
Cannabis is used for human consumption and is a medication. It must be held in the highest regard from "farm to fork" by all involved in that process so, not just anybody should be working in this field.
Comparing Cannabis and Walmart
Don’t do that to your brand, please. I can think of a hand full of brands to model your business after. Walmart is not one of them.
When was the last time you were in a Walmart?
Do the staff look happy to be there?
How’s the quality of the Walmart product?
Walmart swept the country putting Mom & Pop and, mid-sized corporations out of business. Walmart pays their people just enough to get by, and in a lot of corners of the country, not even that, and the staff work their "ass" off for every penny of that minimum wage.
And, I’m not "knocking, digging, cutting down" or whatever term you want to use as disparaging towards anyone who works at Walmart, I spent thirty years in the foodservice industry and I know that survival exactly. I empathize with it.
The bottom line is this, cannabis is a specialized field, that must be taught and practiced with the highest of standards by all in its field. It's also a billion dollar industry and has the potential to provide to their staff world-class working environments and work-life balance and security as a benefit for their expertise, why not just do that!
Always remember, you get what you pay for. If you model your business after Walmart, you’re in it for the wrong reasons and you're missing the point.
Be good out there folks, make it about your people and your people will care about what they do which will produce top quality product, and there is no substitute for "top shelf" product in any industry.