While Cannabis Business Times’ annual “Best Cannabis Companies to Work For” issue is a moment to celebrate businesses that support, engage and empower their teams, the excerpts of conversations from the people at the helm of the featured cultivation and dispensary organizations collectively provide an honest reflection of where the industry stands.
Many leaders interviewed from ranking companies on the “Best Cannabis Companies to Work For—Cultivation and Dispensary” lists noted how they are trying to find their way as the challenges of inflation, price compression, tax burdens and competition from the illicit market, among others, don’t seem any easier to navigate than when their businesses launched.
“I don’t really think we know who we are yet,” notes Jeffrey Herold, CEO of Garden Remedies, a vertically integrated cannabis company founded a decade ago as Massachusetts’ medical program was launching. “We’re still kind of infants, wandering around and trying to stand up. It’s a really hard time right now.”
Jon Spadafora, president of Colorado-based Veritas Fine Cannabis, also mentioned the persistent hurdles and tough questions he and other leaders are asking and trying to find answers to.
“We sat down as a leadership group and said, ‘Well, how are we going to get through this [challenging year] together?’” Spadafora says. “‘What are we good at? Where are the opportunities? What can we do better here? How can we reduce our expenses so we can maintain the quality that we’re accustomed to, but also be prepared in a market where pricing is going to fall?’”
While the companies that ranked on the “Best Cannabis Companies to Work For” lists come from different states—including Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, Massachusetts, Colorado, California, Utah, Michigan, Missouri and Arkansas—and also have different specialties, varying business models and distinct benefit programs, a common theme emerged. They are quieting the noise and the distractions, and concentrating on what matters most—people, plants and products, with an emphasis on people who can help them clear hurdles today and tomorrow.
“We came back and said we’re going to focus on two things,” Spadafora says. “We’re going to focus on people and we’re going to focus on products. We’re going to make decisions collectively as a group that benefit those two things.”
A quick search of each of the “Best Cannabis Companies to Work For” profiles shows that within the excerpted portions of interviews, leaders said “people” more than 60 times, crediting the individuals on their teams for being the foundation of their businesses and their successes.
“I don’t know everything,” says Matt Shansky, co-founder and COO of The ReLeaf Center, a dispensary based in Arkansas. “And I’m really trying to pride myself on surrounding myself with people that can lift me up and support me in areas that I’m lacking.”
It doesn’t have to be complicated, says Matt Morea, co-founder and president of Velvet Cannabis, a retailer based in California. But having a solid and empowered team is crucial to the longevity of a business in any industry, especially one as unpredictable as cannabis.
“There’s nothing we’re doing that anybody else couldn’t replicate,” Morea says. “We hire great people; we compensate ’em well; we train ’em; we develop ’em, we give them great benefits. We get to know them as people. We’re figuring out how we can improve their lives. They, in turn, do the same thing for our customers.”
