5 Expert Approved Tips to Streamline Dispensary Operations with Eleanor Lynch, Kurt Isenberger, and Ray Riley

{}Introduction and Panelist Backgrounds

Host: all right, well let's kick it off everyone, this is the MediaJel podcast, I'm your host, today we'll be covering five expert-proof tips to streamline dispensary operations, with Eleanor Lynch and Ray Reilly, thank you both for joining us today.

Eleanor Lynch: great to be here, thanks for having me.

Host: yeah, a little background on MediaJel — MediaJel connects cannabis brands and retailers with consumers through our ad network of mainstream publishers, mobile apps, games, and TVs. a little background on our guests here — Eleanor Lynch is the CEO of Kiaro, is that pronounced correctly?

Eleanor Lynch: yeah, Kiaro is a publicly traded cannabis retail MSO, headquartered in Vancouver, BC.

Host: we also have on the line today Ray Reilly, he is the CEO of Progress Retail, a retail employee experience platform transforming the way store teams are trained, execute initiatives, and delight customers, welcome to the show, Ray.

Ray Reilly: thanks, Guillermo.

Host: well, let's just start with a little bit about your background, Eleanor, we noticed that you have eight years experience running retail at Lids, and almost four years at Kiaro, how has the experience from outside the industry been influential in scaling operations within cannabis?

Eleanor Lynch: well, I've been in the retail business for about 25 years, so a very long time, and my previous role was with Lids, and the operations here in Canada. so I think, like a lot of — well, it wasn't a lot of people that made the transition when I did, I transitioned in 2018, right before legalization in Canada, in preparation for legalization, and so I would say that for most of us that transitioned in the early days, there wasn't a lot of infrastructure, a lot of the things you're used to having — some of the great things from Progress Retail, for example, that you get exposed to over time, learning management platforms, point of sales — there were a lot of companies that weren't in the game yet, for various reasons around regulations and legalization in other jurisdictions, so I'd say that's probably the biggest challenge if you're coming from outside the industry, you're used to a lot of service options, but things have certainly proliferated, they've changed a lot in the last four years.

Transitioning from Traditional Retail to Cannabis

Host: I'm sure, I'm sure this industry always keeps us on our toes, and, you know, between compliance, innovation on technology, on products, it's always changing.

Eleanor Lynch: it's always changing.

Host: Ray, outside the industry a lot of best practices can be applied to cannabis, what inspired you to adapt the platform to cannabis retailers, and what problems were you trying to solve?

Progress Retail's Mission: Empowerment and Enablement

Ray Reilly: yeah, you know, I'll kick off with our mission, you know, Progress Retail, that really revolves around the empowerment, enablement of frontline teams, so how can we make retail as easy as possible for those that really do matter the most, those on the front line. so we started focusing on cannabis, I'd say early 2020, recognizing that it was a retail category likely dealing with some of the same challenges as traditional retail, and so getting back to that empowerment and enablement side of things, on the enablement side, I'd ask all of our listeners to tally up all the different tools that their frontline teams engage with on a weekly basis, so, Eleanor mentioned some of those tools, right, you've got your point of sale, HR, payroll, scheduling, sometimes that can be three tools in one, or three tools on their own, a tool for training, maybe a second tool for product knowledge, which I know we're going to talk about later, a tool for communications, tasks, and then there's email, it's just insane. so we expect teams to deliver an exceptional customer experience, and for store leaders to develop their teams, but there's never going to be one app for all this stuff, but for us, you know, we replace anywhere from three to five tools in one, really designed for retail. now on the empowerment side, there's a race to the bottom with some cannabis retailers as it relates to price, and that's not a winning strategy, and so in-store experience becomes a competitive advantage, and that's really where, on the empowerment side, our retail partners are able to leverage a really large library of retail education that differentiates on human connection, trust, and experience.

Host: that's great, that's great, and, you know, I know historically, what was it like running communications and training before Progress Retail, for a dispensary retailer?

Store Communications vs. Training

Ray Reilly: yeah, I mean this is a big one, and I'll sort of split the store communications from training, because they're kind of two different initiatives. on the training side, it's usually a tale of two camps, and that really has a lot to do with where that organization's at in their life cycle, so are you a five-store chain getting off the ground, are you reaching some degree of retail critical mass — cannabis is still in its quite early innings, particularly in North America, so the majority fall into that initial camp, so there could be a lot of learning content designed there, there can sometimes be an ambiguous way of communicating standards and expectations, so I like to use the example of SOPs in a Word doc format, right, that's great, but words don't teach.

Kurt Eisenberger: yes, Kurt joined, what's up, Kurt?

Host: apologies everyone, I looked at my calendar, I saw the wrong time on there, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm letting everybody down —

Ray Reilly: nice and serious apologies, no —

Kurt Eisenberger: it occurred, my apologies, I've been traveling, here I'm in Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest, and my calendar was wrong, so you can blame it on me on this one.

Host: then just a little background on Kurt Eisenberger — Kurt is the learning development manager, and influential in retail operations, at Lume — Lume is the largest vertically integrated single operator in the United States, welcome to the show, Kurt.

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, appreciate it, thanks for having me, I'm looking forward to connecting, and, you know, I know Ray fairly well, it's always great to have a partner there and demeta — Eleanor and yourself also, so thank you so much.

Host: yeah, thank you as well, and Kurt, you have eight years of experience at Apple, how has that experience been instrumental in your leadership role at Lume?

Kurt's Path from Apple to Lume

Kurt Eisenberger: oh gosh, I'm thankful every day, I'll just start there, I think, as I reflect on my time spent with such a large organization, at the scale they are globally, and I bring it back to kind of where we are, current state as an organization — we've been scaling extremely fast, so with that comes along some key aspects of, how do you deal with all that ambiguity, and how do you remain extremely agile and accomplish what you want all at the same time, while growing so much throughout the states as well. so I pay homage to my skills that I've developed as a leader, and some of my operational prowess within retail as well, to really be able to influence and support and lead teams or individuals across them, so I'm extremely thankful for the past opportunities and kind of where it's led me to now.

Host: well, that's quite impressive, and, you know, your experience is instrumental in what's needed in the cannabis industry, really to legitimize and scale these businesses, and what role does cannabis education play in the day-to-day operations, and what does your onboarding process look like at — Lume?

The Role of Cannabis Education in Onboarding

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, it's a great question, it's like, what role doesn't it play, you know, within retail, right, I think it's a huge segment, something that we're hyper-focused on day to day, and I know Ray and I have had this conversation many a time, and I continue to have it, let it be at the store level or with executives, that there's the piece where we want to legitimize it, you know, and I think also still pay homage to the culture that's come from the past, also at the same time, how do we create this space that's really open to everyone. so we've been extremely focused, obviously, from a product knowledge standpoint, with the products that we carry, essentially what cannabis is and what it can do, but then also, how does that come back to how we interact with the customers and the consumers, because we've got those folks that have been embedded in the culture for decades too, like, hey, I've never done this before, I'd like to give it a shot though, and, you know, you guys look like — sound like a great starting point, so it's extremely important on the day-to-day.

Host: agreed, agreed, and Ray, how has turnover — before and after implementing your retail employee experience platform, Progress Retail?

Reducing Employee Turnover

Ray Reilly: yeah, and I think, getting back to those two themes of empowerment, enablement — we have a case study, we're running a new case study right now, but our retail partners in the first year of implementation were able to decrease their employee turnover between 28 and 79 percent in the first year of implementation, it's a real wide gap, of course, right, when we aggregated the data, not average, but aggregated, it came out at about a 61 percent reduction. so we're not a silver bullet, we like to say that, but this is really a combination of the right tools, the right learning, and, of course, committed execution on the part of our retail partners — when teams optimize, teams deliver optimized outcomes, and that's just what it's about.

Host: agreed. again, Eleanor, how do you streamline internal communication across multiple stores, regions, and states — we'll be provinces, I'm in Canada.

Streamlining Internal Communications Across Locations

Eleanor Lynch: so we are a multiple retailer, fully federally legal in Canada, and despite the legalization across the country, there is still definitely a stigma issue — I think Kurt, you mentioned that, I think that was a great point — the issue of stigma can't be underestimated when you're dealing in the cannabis space, and so making it a comfortable place for patrons, because most of our employees that work with us are team members, we call them cannabis consultants, they love the plant, and they're super comfortable with the plant, and most of them use the plant, some of them are close to the plant in other ways, and so they have to learn how to create that comfortable environment for somebody that's new to enjoying cannabis. and so what I love about tools like Progress Retail, and working with Kurt and Ray, is certainly the ability, as Ray said, to optimize, bring people together on the journey, and have them understand the different levels of where people are at, and allow that to be consistent across the chain, because that's the other issue we have across retail, is that as technology and tools have exploded, most executives have gotten a little bit far from the experience of the associate, and for the associate they've got like five, six, seven tools, and, you know, that's easy to manage — well, maybe not, if you only work two five-hour shifts a week, that's challenging to remember all that stuff, and go to school, and/or be a mom, or be a dad, or whatever it might be. and so what I love about trying to find ways to optimize onboarding, to optimize experience, is it really becomes about where the journey starts, and the journey starts between your customer that's external and your customer that's internal, which is your team member, so it's definitely very helpful to help bring those things together.

Host: and how do you manage the execution of changes in policy at a company-wide level?

Managing Company-Wide Policy Changes

Eleanor Lynch: I think the same mechanism — this allows you really to make things simple, there are other tools that are in the ecosystem that are also helpful, but there's an expectation for immediate information digestion, and you got to be really careful about that, because that expectation leads to confusion over information, I mean that's a big problem in our world today, is just too much information. people that sit in executive seats really need to think about, turning a ship as it gets bigger takes a lot more effort, and you have to be a lot more thoughtful as you're scaling your business — and maybe Kurt this resonates for you — when you have just a few stores and you're starting, you can turn things on, turn things off, change policies, it's relatively simple, but then you get to scale — we've got a retailer sitting at a thousand stores, Lids Sports Group was certainly at around a thousand-store mark across several countries, that's a lot different, and so all of these tools help you on that journey of change that you go through.

Host: Kurt, anything you'd like to add on to that, as far as the journey and streamlining internal communications across all of your stores?

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, absolutely, I think I would definitely echo Eleanor's points, and I think for us, and my success especially, personally, you got to keep it simple too, right, there's so much stuff that you could easily just get in front of your store teams, your bud tenders, or luminaries, as we like to refer to them here at Lume, and they can just add a lot to their plate and also create a lot of confusion, and, you know, sometimes even mix up certain priorities that you want to try to accomplish, let it be at the retail space or the individual level as well from that story. so I think it's extremely important, how do you simplify the message, it also still has the biggest impact for your team members as well. now in terms of learning and development in the journey, it is just that, it's a journey, and we always like to say, it's something that's also not done alone, it's not a matter of we have teams or bud tenders whatever you call them just sitting there, we give them a bunch of manuals, here you go, read through it, and it's like a silver bullet, and all of a sudden, like magic, you can do it at the best of your ability, right. so we like to emphasize the partnership at the leadership level within our locations, along with the employees, and how does that partnership and that relationship really work in synergy with each other, to help the development and strive and get the best for our teams, and obviously how that translates to our guest experience as well.

Host: that's been fantastic, fantastic, and as far as communications, Ray, how do you communicate changes from HQ to each store?

The Three Questions Before Sending a Store Email

Ray Reilly: yeah, well, you know, I hung my retail ops hat a handful of years ago, but I'm never saying never, I'd love to get back at it someday, so I can sort of give you some context as to how our retail partners do it, and I love what both Eleanor and Kurt just shared, I love what Eleanor shared around that empathy for that internal customer, that employee, that cannabis consultant, or luminary, in the context of today's talk, and then also Kurt around streamlining, keeping it simple and effective. so for us, when we're talking to retailers, we say, ask yourself, before you send a store email, right, because there's always — anyone in retail knows, Monday or Tuesday, those are big store email days — before you do that, ask yourself three questions: one, is it a task, meaning does this have contextual information, a due date, requirements, relevant recipients, like the store manager follow-up, do they need to send photos or something — then don't email that, create a task, and obviously our platform enables that. is this an update, so like a notice, or some good news, or praise, group communication if you will, but we have an integrated communications tool to funnel that type of communication. but then last, and definitely not least, is this a learning initiative, so do we need to lead teams through a concept or process, a way of working we can then quiz or assess, whether they've absorbed what they need to know, what they need to do, so especially when we talk about regulatory stuff and compliance, right, that's really really important, so let's make a quick course. and so what we've found is when retailers get in that habit, and structure these cadences of communications, the results are astonishing, goes back to, optimized teams, optimized results.

Host: wonderful, and Eleanor, in your opinion, what is the most important thing about communications when it comes to managing a retail chain?

Best Practices for Retail Communication

Eleanor Lynch: gosh, I just really love the way Ray puts it, I think, you know, we had kismet when we first met, because that's exactly how I would say that is the best practice, and I don't know that in retail that is always the way we do things, and so it's great to have a partner that reminds you to compartmentalize and to categorize what you're trying to accomplish, and the stream that would best accomplish that, because then it helps people think about what their outcome is, and then they deploy it in that manner — so if it's a learning initiative, you have to go slow, and you have to make sure people understand it, but you also don't overcomplicate it and give too much information. so I can't really follow that answer with Ray's answer with anything more, because I think he hit the nail on the head, definitely categorize, and be clear and consistent in your communication.

Audience Q&A: Training Budgets and ROI

Host: we have a question from the audience here — what is the average annualized cost of training for retail businesses, what percentage of the total cost should be technology tools?

Ray Reilly: that is a very good question, I don't know if I should tackle that one — as though anyone — I'm teasing. you know, it's funny, we — I don't have the data anymore, we, about three years ago, I think we started to look at this, we started to take our retail partners at the time, their annualized revenue, and we looked at their investment, and came up with — it was a fraction of one percent, like in terms of investment. now the question becomes, though, what are you getting, right, and I think that this is something that, particularly prior to meeting with the retailer, we struggle to articulate, is the value that we provide — it's not just a tool, you also are getting access to this renowned library of education, and so you take L&D as a department, and, I know, we have Kurt here who's really spearheading that for Lume, alongside Dan and a lot of the other folks there — there's a great infographic where there's actually 22 roles that sit within an L&D, so what retailer can afford 22 salaries, not many, and, of course, there's some jack-of-all-trades, like Kurt out there, but even still, where do you need to partner, and where can you focus on your core competency as a cannabis retailer, to be able to drive the most amount of value. so it's a difficult question to answer, there are a lot of variables, but, of course, we've got two partners on the call whose insights would be more insightful than mine.

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, I'll share this, you know, for someone that's been with Lume now for a little over a year, if you think about it, if you're a retail organization just getting started, the one bit of advice I would say is, take advantage, put yourself out there, and see what's out there to use, right, and there's something to be said for the face-to-face value for a small startup and an entrepreneur that has a single store operation, where they're side by side with their team and having that interaction, that relationship, but then, as you scale and grow, you definitely need to look at some resources or organizations that can be great partners to help you broaden your influence and your impact when it comes to L&D. in terms of monetary value, gosh, it's a hard question to answer, kind of what Ray was speaking to, but I think the one thing you have to be thoughtful about is what makes sense for you and your brand, as it relates to what you're trying to accomplish, and I'd say, listen to those closest to the action as well, how do you solicit feedback from your teams and your leaders around what they need and their wants and desires, in many cases it can steer you on the correct — the desired — path that the organization would want to go.

Feedback Loops and Continuous Improvement

Host: and Kurt, you brought up a good point there as far as feedback, how does Progress Retail take feedback from employees, from management, and then implement that within the system and improve on their operations?

Ray Reilly: yeah, absolutely, I think at face value, with what we're trying to accomplish, it gives immediate feedback in terms of scale learning opportunities at the store level, and, of course, at the district level, in terms of accomplishment, and being able to gather the data, so to speak, and see how teams are able to absorb the data and learning, right, you've got different ways you can measure that from that standpoint. I think, on the other side of it too, we use Progress Retail, and the content that's provided, they'll also ask some great questions when I'm in stores, asking about their learning journey, and just some opportunities or successes they're seeing at the store level, what can we do maybe a little bit differently as well, when it comes to enhancing their environment and their abilities to create a great experience for guests. and how — Ray and I have these conversations at times, I'll just shoot a random email, because a random thought would be like, yeah, we thought about this before, I've heard this from a couple of our team, and we'll banter back and forth, and in many instances it can lead to some really good "aha" moments, like, hey, maybe there's something to this, or maybe if we think about it a different way we can still get the same bang for the buck, and add value and really provide what our teams are looking for.

Host: that's phenomenal, and kudos to Ray and the team for building such a valuable resource, this library of education, of retail tools, and Kurt and Eleanor for implementing these and putting them into action with five, ten, twenty locations, it's quite impressive.

Kurt Eisenberger: as far as the essence — oh, good, guys, throw something in there — of course I'm a promoter of Progress Retail and their brand and what they do, and I'll just say, they're just getting started with what they have available already, and some things in the pipeline, and I think about what's on the horizon for Lume, and what we want to try to accomplish, and so ideally some things that probably resonate with others in the cannabis industry, it's pretty fantastic, and it's not — obviously it's about cannabis, but I think, at the end of the day, when we think about it, it's more so about people, right, it's about our teams and also our customers and our guests, at the end of the day.

Host: agreed, great job over there, Ray.

Ray Reilly: oh, well, thanks, but I can't stress this enough, we're retailers, we're not technologists, we're retailers at heart, and it takes — we're in our early innings, but we would be nowhere if it wasn't for — I will use the term not lightly — visionary operators like Eleanor and the Kiaro team, and Kurt and the Lume team, that want to go about cannabis employee experience in a new way, right, there's a lot of old tools out there, there's a lot of old ways of doing things, and they both, and their teams, get that it is 2022, and there is probably a new way to do things as opposed to how retail was run in 2005, and so I can take very little credit, because without them we would not be able to continue to invest and grow this product, so I'm very appreciative.

The Future of Retail: 2050 and Beyond

Host: so you mentioned how retail was done in the past, how it's done currently — crystal ball, what do you see, 2050, how's retail gonna be, how's that experience going to be different?

Ray Reilly: well, yeah, I mean, 2050, gosh, I think the trend with retail is, it's splitting in two, the term that's been thrown around is "bifurcating," right, so you've got your high-touch experience, your low-touch experience — I don't know, Kurt and Eleanor could speak much more eloquently about probably the cannabis side of that — but I think there's going to be probably drones delivering your pre-rolls and edibles, okay, probably by 2050, but who knows, there's the old saying, we wanted flying cars and instead we got — I forget how that quote goes. so yeah, I think there is always going to be a degree of retail that is going to be high-touch, and require incredibly talented and skilled individuals in those stores, they're gonna have to be highly empowered and enabled, and that's obviously what we, Progress Retail, are betting our futures on, that that's gonna be the case, so that would probably be my answer.

Eleanor Lynch: I love the question, I think it's a great question, I get asked the question a lot, I'm sure Kurt does as well as Ray, and no one has a crystal ball, so I'll say something bold, which may or may not be true, it's just certainly my perspective, my experience from being in retail for so long. I think you're going to see a lot of big retailers very disrupted, because retail — the center of the experience, if you're going to do brick and mortar, certainly there's still a place for brick and mortar, I mean I find it funny when people are like, oh, brick and mortar is going to go away, it's never going to go away, it's always going to be there, but you're going to get disrupted because — I don't know if — a big company, and the center of the experience is community, and we have all of these tools now that allow us to connect with our communities in different and more meaningful ways, really. what do you have to pay attention to? you have to pay attention to the experience of those that deliver the experience, and I think that when you are running in a world that was maybe less complicated, where there was less to disrupt your business, it was very hard to get your — I don't know that that's the case anymore, I think it's really easy to be disruptive in the space, with all of these tools — there you go, that's one of them — and so you better really be thinking about how do you connect in communities and make meaningful moments.

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, I agree with Eleanor wholeheartedly, and I think, in terms of how do you predict the future, what's on the horizon or around that corner — the longer you try, the further out you try to look, it's almost like looking down the road at night, the vision becomes a little bit more blurred, right, just because so much can change. if I look a little bit more short-term, I will say a couple things that come to my mind — I think our culture, and the consumer in itself, can set the standard to a certain extent as well, as things evolve, you're holding up your smartphone there, we know what that did to us as a world, and when you tie those things and start connecting the dots, it can go in a lot of different directions. I think, for me, when you think about the heart of retail and cannabis retail, these dispensaries are really at the forefront of how everyone within the communities can come together, experience this product firsthand, and there's something to be said for, depending on the type of industry you're in, digital retailers might have a distinct advantage, but when it comes back to people, we're all social creatures, and we like to come together, especially around cannabis as well. so I think as we look towards the future, I don't necessarily think that's going to be going away at all, at least in the short-term or if ever — I think the thing we want to think about is, especially for a state like Michigan that I'm in, we're still in its infancy, so things are going to continually rapidly change, and I think we need to, as much as possible, stay ahead, be innovative, be relentless, have that grit, and sometimes, when we think, we don't know if this is going to work, and try something new, try it, the worst-case thing that can happen is maybe it doesn't work in the moment, but it can also be a learning opportunity to lead to some discoveries that you never thought you could have before as well.

Host: yeah, it's really — set yourself apart from the competition, right, being an innovator, and you know better than anyone, right, working at Apple, it's a company known for its innovation, and really set the tone and really dominate the global market. so, transitioning a little bit, I'm curious, Ray, Kurt, do you think we're going to be shopping in the metaverse in the next —

Shopping in the Metaverse

Kurt Eisenberger: oh gosh, I'll say this — I think, with companies like Facebook and the work that we're doing around there, I think it's a great start, I think the tricky thing for that kind of technology is it can catapult very quickly, or it can have a very long road. when it comes to cannabis in our industry, there's probably certain things that you'll be able to experience that folks will probably want to, especially when it's new, shiny, and bright, right, but what I personally think about, like, cannabis, and what really attracts or gets folks excited about it, is the intimacy of it as well, and someday maybe we'll be able to fill that gap in the metaverse or with these certain technologies to be able to overcome that, but in this day and age, we see someone coming in and taking that flower and smelling it, and a smile getting on their face, and sharing personal stories around how it helps and enhances their life, or even their go-to socially to connect with their friends, it's hard to beat, it's hard to beat. and then, if we get over that hill, it's going to be an exciting thing, I don't know if it's going to be anytime soon — I dabble a little bit in the VR stuff, just on occasion, and I'm a little bit of a snob when it comes to that, just because I'm like, ah, this is kind of too blocky, it reminds me of, like, the Nintendo version of tech, you know, even though it's at its beginning, versus something like that, but I would probably personally gather more towards augmented reality first before virtual reality, if anything, where they can come together, potentially, within our retail spaces, future state.

Eleanor Lynch: yeah, that's really well said, I think we're — Kiaro here in Canada, with 17 locations, e-commerce, omnichannel, reserve online pickup, and store delivery, that's last night — we're big on integrating tech and improving the experience, in terms of how you get the experience you want, but I'm super curious about how others, like Kurt and Ray, see the real forward-thinking changes that are coming, because the landscape has already changed so rapidly.

Host: that's great feedback, thank you for sharing that, I think it's a great question, I also — it's interesting to see how technologies are always used before they're fully understood, and you look at the example of Walmart that put out that video a month or two ago of shopping at Walmart in the metaverse, and that's like a very linear way of thinking around this, and I don't think that's probably going to be a very large use case for the metaverse — but when I think about retail and luxury retail, and even cannabis, I mean, I think we all saw the Mike Tyson ear edibles that came out the other day, and I think about that, and I say, all right, well, is there some metaverse application, like something similar, potentially, to an NFT, where you have a Mike Tyson autographed, Evander Holyfield ear gummy, right, like, is that then a way, a store of value, maybe — I mean I'm 32, so I was just past the generations that were really gaming a lot and collecting all these things in these digital worlds, it wasn't really what I grew up with, I'm not knocking it because I just don't personally fully understand it, but I definitely think there's a large segment of folks that are largely operating in these spaces, and I think that true human connection and experience, though, in person, is going to — I think, especially with what people have gone through the last two years with Covid, I think it's going to really explode over these next few years, so how that impacts the metaverse, I'm not sure, but it's definitely something I think is really fascinating, to see the excitement around it. and I am here at South by Southwest, and I did attend a panel with Faith Popcorn, on her five predictions for 2050, and she was sharing that when it comes to the metaverse, and what you expressed, Kurt, as far as the limitations, as far as smelling, tasting — that in the near future you will be able to taste, smell, and feel from the metaverse. so when that changes, then how is that going to impact our experience in these different applications — and another example that was given is, we can go back in the metaverse and go back to prohibition times, and see how it was to live in the 1920s, and go through history and experience that, in person, first-person, immersed in that whole experience, as opposed to just reading about it in a book. so those type of immersive — I don't even know what you call them — but just different media, those experiences will make an impact on us, and be able to see — go to a farm, go to one of your producer-processor's farm, go to Kiaro, go to your — allow someone in a retail store to go to the actual farm and grab a plant and get a tour of the HQ or anything that you liked. so it's just really connecting that experience in store too, as you said, omnichannel, across all platforms.

Creating and Managing SOPs

Host: I think, Kurt, as far as SOPs, what's the process of creating — how do you manage, how do you implement these across the company?

Kurt Eisenberger: oh yeah, gosh, it's a great question, it definitely looks a little bit different now than I'd say even a year ago, when we're only at 13 retail locations, to a certain extent. I feel what you kind of have to do, especially starting out, is not create what's referred to as these little "hot teams," right, especially if you're an up-and-coming retailer, and you want to standardize some best practices to create alignment operationally across your locations, so we've tapped folks that work directly in the retail, in terms of leadership, and sometimes we'll have these cross-functional teams and have someone on our ops excellence team partner with that, from that standpoint, to come together, because the one thing that we've uncovered, since I've been in this industry, at Lume and actually others, is we need to hear the voice of those closest to the action, and value their opinions and ideas, far be it for me, as the L&D leader for Lume, to just sit behind the desk and have these grandiose ideas and just say, all right, here's what we're going to implement, send. so I think that's going to be extremely critical, from creating standard operating procedures and how you get things done, but I think also there's that piece of those teams, and I think the other piece too is, you got to really think about — at times you can have competing priorities as an organization as well, which I'm sure, Eleanor, you're especially familiar with — what's most important, how you prioritize that, and really having those teams come together from an SOP standpoint really drives those conversations, and accomplish what needs to be accomplished, that's going to have the biggest impact across most entities, and kind of go from there. so I'd say, think big, then funnel down, and have laser focus, but also bring the right people along with you, as opposed to maybe sometimes just the one or two folks that you wouldn't want to only make the decisions.

Audience Q&A: Training Resources and Libraries

Host: wonderful, we have a question from the audience here — what are some of the best training libraries we can subscribe to, do these touch into cannabis training, or soft skill?

Kurt Eisenberger: I'll say, well, Progress Retail first and foremost, in terms of some of the cannabis care, and actually, the great thing that I love about that platform also, is it's the cannabis education, and there's some other things coming, but then also there's training in there for bud tenders around — some people say soft skills, I refer to them as hard skills, because sometimes interacting with people can be challenging, because everyone's different — so they've done a really nice job of teeing up focusing on specific skills when it comes to connecting with people and really how to create a great experience. and I think also there's the third piece too, with leadership development, also extremely important, our team members at our store locations heavily rely on great leadership to guide and support along the way, so Progress Retail, of course I'm a little bit biased, but for our organization there's been — and forgive me if I butcher this — the Ganjier program, that's been floating around a lot, we've got a couple of our managers in our organization have gone through it, it's almost like the sommelier kind of certification course, I've heard nothing but good things as of yet about that. but then also, if you're wanting to develop other skills outside of cannabis that you can segue into, and help you just as an operator, as a retailer, gosh, there's a lot of great stuff out there — philosophy, leadership philosophies for leaders, LinkedIn Learning has always been a good platform, even my leader also always promotes that stuff, and he has good takeaways from that standpoint as well. I'm a fan of podcasts and so on and so forth — a recent book that I read that I'd share is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing," it's something that came back from the 90s as well, but it kind of still holds up true, I found them fundamentally — anyway, I'm a big fan of that. but I'd say I can't pinpoint one for Lume itself, we have Progress Retail that we heavily utilize, and then, based off some of the connections we make either with leaders around Lume, and soliciting feedback from leaders at the store level, they usually are very forefront with sharing ideas around some opportunities for development and stuff too.

What Retailers Should Know About Learning & Development

Host: all right, and continuing on, Kurt, as the learning development head, what's something you want retailers to know about L&D?

Kurt Eisenberger: that it is a journey, is probably my biggest thing, it's never-ending, it's non-stop, and when you think about our industry in itself, it's ever-evolving, right, it's growing at substantial rates, so you really want to create a culture within your stores that's part of the journey day-to-day. obviously you've got the other components, in terms of taking care of guests, selling products, educating consumers around certain products or just cannabis in general, but even before you get to there, you've got to start with your own team, your internal customers as well, right, and really set them up for success. so I would say my advice would be, how do you incorporate and integrate learning opportunities, even on the day-to-day, they don't have to be grandiose, so, like, there's three hours of training everyone needs to go through around XYZ, it could be moments in time that your retail leaders can really make these connections, and add value that then goes to their team, then translates to the guests also.

Building a Learning Strategy for Cannabis Retailers

Host: wonderful, Ray, leaning on your expertise, what should cannabis retailers be considering when it comes to a learning strategy for their teams and organizations?

Ray Reilly: yeah, and I would definitely love to include Eleanor in this as well, because we've been with Kiaro now for coming up on a year, and they've done such an amazing job of implementation, Kurt and the Lume team we've been together now since about roughly October, November, I think, so a little bit earlier on. but I think to make it really really simple, what do you have in terms of learning now — it's sort of like that "how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time" kind of thing — I think a lot of retailers, it's a very daunting task to design an entire learning path for your teams, so how are your teams currently onboarded and inducted, is it a 50-page PowerPoint deck that takes hours for a store manager or another stakeholder to take a new hire through, okay, how do you measure that, how do you track that, what's it costing you in terms of execution gaps, etc., right. so we support our retail partners in developing that, but I think secondly, what do you need, right, is it really doubling down on experience and those skills that we really pride ourselves on, in terms of empathy, communication skills, being able to be a really advanced listener — that's the "what you need," and then, what do you need to partner on, and I think that, for a retailer of any size, really the question to ask. now that's all the "what" of it, but the "how" — I'm gonna put you on the spot, Eleanor, but I'd love to involve you in this more, you guys have done such an amazing job in the "how," and obviously Erin and now Sonia have been so instrumental in that as well, at the district level, but would love your take on sort of the rubber hitting the road, you can buy something, right, but then how does it actually work?

Eleanor Lynch: yeah, well, that's great, I love the way you broke that down. I think it starts — and Kurt, you probably agree with this — I think it starts with vision, you have to have somebody that houses the vision of what is important and why it's important, and if the why is really at the forefront of the what, then it makes the "how" super easy, because every time you empower — and I think empowerment is huge — I had the vision, really, from my experience of watching others do it poorly, I was super passionate about how people learn, and my son has a learning disorder, a visual processing disorder, he's had it his whole life, and so I really became very intimately aware of how people learn differently, people take in information differently, and I really started to apply that in my role in retail and operations, and he's now almost 18, so I've been doing that a long time, thinking about how people learn, and what they learn. but I think if the "why" is there, the vision, of your associates at the front of it, and their experience, and how they connect with the meaning behind the brand and what we're there to do — Kiaro comes from the word "chiaroscuro," which means from the darkness to the light — that's really easy to say, it's another thing to embed it into everything you do, and with Erin and Sonia, district sales managers, were amazing, they have been empowered to bring that notion of light, and how we educate people, and that includes both their internal customer and external customer. so it's a great question, I think it starts with vision, and making sure everyone knows the "why."

Audience Q&A: Hiring vs. Promoting for L&D Roles

Host: exactly, we have a question from the audience, it's probably good for you, Kurt — I have a new pot shop, do I hire an L&D person, or promote up?

Kurt Eisenberger: oh gosh, my first knee-jerk reaction is — yeah, I think for most organizations, if not all, there's something to be said about opportunities to grow your team internally, right, but you also have to be very thoughtful around what's going to be served best for your team at large, and then also the communities you're going to serve, right, we hear often, like, even now, it's like, I'd love to be part of the training team, et cetera, et cetera, so if those opportunities are there, how do we help them develop the appropriate skills to be successful in that role, versus sometimes, oh yeah, we're going so fast, I just put somebody there, and then sometimes it doesn't really set one up for success, and let them really flourish in that. so it's not a black-and-white answer, you should do internal or hire externally, you got to really assess the needs of what you have, and what you really need current state, and if there's someone that shows the ambition, has the learning agility and the positivity, and can represent the brand very well, and they're up for the challenge, those are all great things that I kind of look for and really think about when presented with that, but also at the same time, if maybe now it's not the right time, and you have to look at external resources, that's an okay thing as well. for us, all of us, I would say it's usually a gut check, right, for us to look inside and say, all right, so where are we at, and where we need to be, so it's not a one-sided answer, unfortunately, it's really about the people, and knowing your people and that capability, and kind of where they can flourish, and help that guide the decision, the thought process. I'm always a huge advocate for promoting internally, though.

Host: yeah, I agree. as far as operations, from your experience, team here, what operational processes have been the most challenging as a whole?

Succession Planning and Investing in Your Team

Eleanor Lynch: well, that's a really broad question, but the operational challenges probably always revolve around a question actually that was asked, which is succession planning, that's the number one most important thing you can invest in — if you're a small business owner and you're listening to this, invest, invest, invest in building your bench, because once you get that process down, everything is so easy, because you've got everyone involved, everyone's invested, you have people that are super bought into the vision and to the experience, and they become an investment, they have put in the time — the equity is often one thing people think about in terms of capital, but there's equity of my time and my skill set, and you have a lot of young people out there that are starting in your stores, and they're starting at the bottom level, invest, because they could be the best amount of equity you build in your business, for them putting in their equity of time and passion. so if you can get that right, you can get a lot of other things right.

Kurt Eisenberger: love that, Kurt, did you want to — right, I was going to add something to Eleanor's — bad luck, you did — yeah, go ahead — no, I just love what Eleanor said, I think something that can't be discounted here with cannabis as a retail category, is that there are operators that have no retail experience, and that's okay, but that is going to put the employee experience of frontline retail team members at a disadvantage, and so I think, as, if I was running a cannabis business, and this is why I love, obviously, Lume and Kiaro so much, is that they are a team of retailers, that obviously is a prerequisite in my book, in terms of being able to hire, being able to train, being able to develop, don't create opportunities — I mean that's so important — and cannabis, for a lot of reasons that we've got, a lot of attorneys, we've got a lot of bankers, and that's all good and fine, but if you don't organize the right talent on the retail side, your stores are going to be just at a disadvantage, and so, for us, obviously coming back to how we support retailers and decreasing employee turnover, that's how you have those succession opportunities, the longer your teams are in the role, the more optimized they are.

Ray Reilly: before I just turn it over to Kurt, I always — when we do talk to, and I've had this conversation with Eleanor, when we talk to a CFO or something, and they go, what's the ROI of this — and I, you know, early days I'd be very kind, now I'm sort of coming into my own, but I would say, okay, well what's the ROI of your mother, what's the ROI of having good parents, what's the ROI if you're Susie the bud tender, and she knows her schedule for the next three weeks, because her manager's trained, can manage time, and is effective as a manager and leader — you can't run your business off a spreadsheet, you know, and that's, I think, where retail has struggled, but also I think where cannabis retail is, in some ways, a bit more prone to thinking, due to where some of these businesses are originating, out of large capital groups and what have you. so I think, I forget who it was, but we've all been saying it, retail is people, and it's about really putting people at the front and center of the operation.

Host: well said, right.

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, yeah, and I would definitely echo all those sentiments, and to kind of go off of Eleanor as well, I definitely agree, you gotta have a strong healthy bench of very talented, passionate folks, they're really the foundation of every strong and successful business, right. I think the other piece too is, many times, let it be like you're at the very beginning, or you're looking to grow, or potentially in the middle of growing rapidly, we have this conversation, like, with different departments on occasion, is what's the next thing that we need to do to grow our business, and I use that term loosely, right, not in the sense of maybe just additional stores, but it could be making proper investments during training and development, or changing over systems from point of sales, et cetera, so I think what sometimes, when you have competing priorities, folks need to kind of take a step back and look at what makes sense now, right, do I need to raise capital so I can go and continue to grow more retail spaces potentially, or do we need to double down on our people focus internally, because that's actually going to be the precursor to some of these other elements, as we look at the next fiscal year. so I think we have to be thoughtful sometimes around that, because at the end of the day, this industry is moving so quickly, we can get caught up in all the noise that comes along with it, to where — and don't get me wrong, we do it unintentionally — make rash decisions. so my advice, though, would be, definitely take the time to have conversations with your peer group, your leaders, if you have other partners out there as well, when you think about learning and development, such as Ray and our partnership, and others also, because we help each other out, let it be directly or indirectly, to help kind of steer — there's a phrase that I heard long ago, sometimes, like, the ship sometimes might be heading in the right direction, but also is it taking on water, so slowly sinking, so to speak — the metaphor being that we want to make sure that we have our eyes open to what's going on around us, and stay focused, but also clear out the noise as well, at the same time.

Closing Remarks

Host: thank you for that, Kurt, and thank you, Eleanor, Ray, and Kurt, for joining us today and sharing your insights with our audience. thank you everyone for logging on today, on Zoom and across LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and beyond, I did share the LinkedIn accounts for all of our panelists here, so if you'd like to reach out — but team, here, if you'd like to share your personal handles, or how can people reach you online, this is your chance.

Eleanor Lynch: thank you very much for having me, and if you want to reach out, definitely check me out on LinkedIn, and you can always, if you're in Canada, check us out at Kiaro.com.

Kurt Eisenberger: yeah, same here, everyone, again, I'll profusely apologize for my tardiness, but thank you so much for being so gracious, it was fantastic to connect with everyone on the panel today, again, LinkedIn, similar to Eleanor, Lume.com as well, Michigan-made cannabis company, and I'll give you my work email too, it's kurt.eisenberger@lume.com, if you'd like to reach out on that platform also, so thank you again so much everyone, thank you.

Ray Reilly: yeah, great, so, Ray Reilly on LinkedIn, and everything else on Twitter, the company has all that good stuff too, progressretail.com. thanks so much, appreciate it, and thank you to Kurt and Eleanor for slicing out an hour of your day to join me.

Host: thank you, thank you, thank you everybody, well, have a wonderful week, happy St. Patty's Day, and we'll be in touch soon, cheers, take care everyone.

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