Kansas City Cannabis ‘Propels’ Team to Leadership Roles

Since launching adult-use sales in February 2023, the Missouri cannabis market has taken off, with dispensaries generating more than $1 billion in revenue last year. Kansas City Cannabis Co.’s four locations were some of the first of now more than 200 stores operating in the market, requiring the company to transition from a customer base of Missouri medical patients to consumers not only from within the state but also from nearby Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

To meet demand from customers in Missouri and those in border states without full legalization, the company nearly doubled its team and has made several other changes to keep pace with the new and robust market, including promoting people who started as budtenders into leadership roles. The company has also partnered with local job fairs that are specifically targeted to historically disadvantaged communities in the area. 

Dan Nelson, co-founder and CEO, and Corey Martin, chief of staff of Kansas City Cannabis Co., a two-time Best Cannabis Companies To Work For – Dispensary winner, describe how their approach to hiring, onboarding, compensation and more has helped them retain and engage staff in an increasingly competitive space. 

On professional growth, development and training:

Corey Martin: Over this last year, we've modified some aspects of our management structure. We've added in a couple different layers of leadership to give our store managers the support they need through district managers.

With our rapid growth and expansion, we had to increase deliveries, which means more back-end work, more inventory control that we have to do. Inventory control is a very important, critical part of the cannabis industry. That's the compliance piece, making sure we're keeping track of everything, that everything's being labeled properly, things are being shipped properly. So we saw a huge need for some sort of management over that. We also saw another need for a management position that focuses on leadership development.

We've structured a path to leadership within the company by building those roles and training our own people to fulfill those roles. We've developed these opportunities because our people are looking for growth.

We have only hired from within up to this point. Most of our management team started off as budtenders with us two years ago, and they've proven themselves to be great leaders along the way.

On preparing team for adult-use expansion in Missouri:

Dan Nelson: There are people that do want to grow and excel in this industry, and bolster their careers, so we started developing these opportunities internally. And then also, the leadership team, myself included, we’re continuing to always educate ourselves, getting some outside coaching, because if we're not learning and continuing to develop, we're not going to gain any ground as a company.

On important interview questions to ask/what you’re looking for in a candidate:

Martin: When we do the interviews, I really want to find out, "How did you handle certain situations before if you had a conflict, and how did that conflict resolve?" We’re also very interested in how someone works as a team and communicates effectively. Ultimately though, we are looking for people who have a heart for cannabis and helping others. Compassion, kindness and empathy are things that can’t be taught.

On setting the tone for company culture and onboarding:

Martin: We've just updated our employee handbook and wanted to realign our guiding principles and values with the culture that we foster. One of the things we highlight is selflessness.

Nelson: We’ve fostered a culture of supporting each other in our faults and gains. This culture begins at the top with our corporate staff, the backbone of KCC that everyone should know as they are constantly reinforcing mutual support and recognition. We are all here to propel each other, emphasizing accountability and selflessness.

During onboarding, I play a small role in discussing Cannabis 101, sharing how I learned about cannabis and the industry. Much of the positive feedback from new hires revolves around being trained by the CEO on the basics of cannabis, a unique experience for many. My goal is to equip them with essential information for encounters, where discussing their roles as budtenders might be met with stigma.

Our discussions cover various topics, including cannabis history, plant anatomy, and notable figures in the current market. This provides an opportunity for me to connect with new hires, listening to their personal stories, aspirations, and how Corey and I became friends, along with the inception of KCC and our journey in growing the company. Previously, one person handled all the training, but now we have divided the training into modules, giving new hires the chance to interact with nearly every person in the corporation for at least two hours.

During our initial conversations, I share that I am a father, discussing the challenges and experiences my family has faced, including the loss of a family member due to an overdose. I maintain an open dialogue in the first hour, allowing me to learn about everyone's unique journey into the cannabis industry.

RELATED: Kansas City Cannabis Co. Prioritizes 'Massively Inspiring' Growth Opportunities for Team

On reviews/performance assessments:

Martin: We always stress to our managers, praise early, praise often. Tell people what they're doing well, and if something's not going well, then you need to make sure you identify that and correct course as soon as possible. Usually if something's not working or if there's a thing that needs to be corrected, the longer it goes the worse it's going to get.

We are about ankle deep into starting 360 assessment surveys with our managers, and that's going to be another tool that we use, getting feedback from supervisors and peers and [staff] and then, on the back end, sitting down and going through some coaching on whatever areas are identified.

On taking and implementing employee feedback:

Martin: Prior to going into rec, we polled our employees and figured out what kind of work schedule they preferred, and overwhelmingly, they wanted to go with the three twelves schedule. So three days, 12 hours a day is what our budtenders schedules are. And I think most of them really enjoy it because they have four days to do whatever else they need to. Work-life balance is a very important aspect, and we’ve paid close attention to make sure that people aren’t getting burnt out.

Nelson: We've also maintained working with local veterans resource groups for job placements in our security department. We internally started our own security outfit to help boost that morale. It was a little disjointed working with the third-party contractors. They are part of our staff; they’re part of the family.

On rewarding company success:

Martin: We’ve been very fortunate that the Missouri cannabis market has been so strong, and we’ve been riding that wave as well. We try to share that success in various ways. Through our expanded partnership with Cable Dahmer Arena, we’re able to offer employees free tickets to various concerts and sporting events. Creating promotion opportunities for our staff has allowed our brightest stars to shine. We've also been able to give out bonuses the last two years to all employees.

On opportunities to connect outside of work:

Martin: We host a company picnic every summer, and we just had a big Christmas party this year, the biggest company party we've ever had. It's just an opportunity for everybody to get together from all of our locations.

Store managers have their own autonomy to plan what store outings make sense for their teams. Right next to our Excelsior Springs store is Inside Out Escape Room. Our staff wanted to do it as a store, and we gave them the budget, and they went and all did the escape room together.

Nelson: There’s a number of other cannabis events around Kansas City that we either promote or sponsor that give our staff outlets to socialize with other cannabis employees.

Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for length, style and clarity.