Create a Winning Dispensary Business Plan: Follow These 10 Steps

[ thank you once again for taking the time out of your day to join us today's webinar we're going to be talking about how to create a winning dispensary business plan we're going to give you 10 easy steps to follow a lot of content to cover today but it's going to be really really instrumental if you do intend to be successful in the dispensary business in many ways we're going to be covering how to create a winning dispensary business plan plan with 10 easy steps showcase your unique vision throughout the plan let's get right into it for our agenda today the key components your dispensary business plan needs to include surprising pitfalls to avoid when launching a business in the cannabis industry when to toss out your plan and pivot to take advantage of a new market opportunity a little bit about myself my name is eduardo silva i will be your host for today i have 18 years of marketing and sales experience have been part of the industry for over five years now and i'm really really excited to be uh your host for today's webinar foot traffic is a dispensary digital marketing agency solely focused in the cannabis space for the last five years we're really proud to have become partners with some of the biggest names in the industry and happy to share some of our lessons learned along the way let's take a quick moment here to just prepare ourselves for all of the content that we're going to be sharing today in some housekeeping items first and foremost cell phones they're a great tool they are really instrumental in the digital marketing space but we do ask that we put them face down for the duration of this webinar for the next 28 minutes also if you're joining us from the zoom interface take a moment to familiarize yourself with the q a button we do have live uh panelists on staff here that can answer your calls and your questions at any point in time let's jump right in first things first we have an amazing resource for all of you if you have headed over to the foot traffic dot co website you can actually download our free dispensary ebook it's a step-by-step fully integrated digital marketing strategy tailored to cannabis businesses you will learn about the key digital marketing strategist to boost your revenue and scale your business so go to foot traffic dot go and in our header navigate to about us and scroll down to the download ebook button if you want to open a dispensary and succeed in this industry you will need to create a business plan that helps detail your path to success at the same time you will want to have every aspect of your business thought out before you begin putting pen to paper if you're never written this type of document it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with some examples before you start drafting your very own when you look over business plans you will notice that components can differ from plan to plan and in the street industry you will need to use your best judgment to decide which elements to include and which parts to leave out of your dispensary plan the sba website can be a huge help here though we're going to cover the essential elements today so you can begin drafting your notes and doing the required research to create a winning business plan although it will take some effort to write the perfect cannabis dispensary business plan the hard work you put into it will pay off major dividends entrepreneurs with a solid business plan are more than twice as likely to secure funding and grow their business than those without one and a great business plan will make securing local licensing a lot easier we have a lot of ground to cover so let's jump into the first step in creating your business plan step one research the industry before you get too deep into planning your perfect dispensary you will first want to research the industry the legal cannabis industry is a huge and fast growing industry in the united states and it's projected to add 92 billion dollars to the economy this very year to get started research in the industry start start by checking out trusted cannabis media outlets that focus on the business finance and entrepreneurship angles from there you will also want to look at different industry analytics and reports there are companies like headset.io and new frontier data that create useful reports with plenty of insights into the industry basically you want to make sure you have a clear understanding of how the industry works so you can showcase how you will position your dispensary within it if you don't understand how things happen in the industry and what's projected to occur over the next few years your business plan may have a lot of huge holes which you certainly don't want finally you will need to spend some time researching the regulations regarding cannabis businesses sometimes municipalities in legal cannabis states don't allow dispensaries or limit where they can be located there are also limitations regarding where you can deliver so if you're thinking of offering that as an option be sure that you can actually do that before spending more time and money on the idea that may not be legally feasible analyze the competition in order to create a successful business plan you need to know what others are doing you may be competing for the same market share so you will need to identify what the competition is doing who they are targeting and how they may affect your potential business ultimately your business plan should have a list of competitors and what makes them competitive so getting this out of the way in the beginning and allowing it to help you shape your business can make the process run more smoothly consider how your dispensary differs from the competition and how you will succeed in the face of potentially saturated market what makes you stand out why will your target market choose you over the rest which brings us to step number three understand your unique value proposition step one and two have given you further insight into the market what's happening in the industry and who you may be competing with before completing these steps you may already have an idea of what you want your dispensary to be now though you can take that information and formulate what is truly going to set you apart and allow you to capture market share no matter what the industry every profitable business finds success by providing a solution to a problem you will want to identify a problem and describe how your dispensary offers the perfect solution maybe all of the dispensaries in your area sell the same product and your dispensary will offer more variety for advantageous customers or perhaps the dispensaries in your area aren't considered high-end and your dispensary will provide a touch of luxury and exceptional customer service figure out what sets you apart and how you will provide a solution to an issue your potential customers are facing while you're at it consider your location location has a lot to do with what your target market will where your target market will be and how you can serve them it's also an essential factor when it comes to locale state laws about cannabis dispensaries you need to know where you can legally operate in your area and this will take some research into zoning policies and just because an area is compliant with local zoning laws doesn't mean it's a perfect location for your business you will need to make sure you choose a place where the community will be accepting of your business is the area right for your target market are there many other dispensaries in a close proximity your dispensary business plan needs to address every aspect of the location to avoid potential pitfalls step four research your audience now that you have explained the solution you're offering your next step is to identify who the solution will benefit your target market a target market refers to a group of potential customers that your dispensary will sell to and where will they direct your marketing and branding efforts the idea is that you can't target everyone so you will want to identify specific group of people with similar characteristics like geography demographics buying power and income this is also known as identifying a buyer persona think of a character that represents your ideal customer what do they need what do they like how can you provide them with an experience that will keep them coming back time and time again some examples of customer personas that are common to most dispensaries include medical cannabis consumers younger cannabis consumers seniors and older adults and health conscious cannabis consumers segmenting your customers into categories will make targeting and personal marketing much easier those are just broad overviews however you will want to delve a bit deeper into what makes your ideal customer tick also you will know that i said ideal customer plural because you will likely have multiple customer segments that you will want to target so maybe one of them is mary who is in her late 30s has a professional job and once she used cannabis for wellness to get better sleep focus more and relax then there's joe who's just out of college he likes learning about what he puts into his body and is environmentally conscious but he's also a bit on a budget he wants the high-end experience without the high-end prices these are little stories essentially to help us envision who will be walking through those doors these personas are who you will be trying to reach and marketing to once you understand your customers you can get a better idea of what motivates them to spend money what they like to spend on and they're interested in as well as how to best communicate with your marketing messages to them and people like them connect with distributors as a dispensary you will be selling products unless you are growing or making your own products you will need to cover how you will be sourcing products and who you will be searching from ideally these are the types of products that help reaffirm your unique value proposition right they are products that your ideal customer wants to buy to ensure that you understand what it takes to success those products and get them into your dispensary you want to start communicating with distributors learn about their timelines their purchasing requirements how much everything will cost and how and when you will need to pay them that last bit will tie into a later step so keep that in your back pocket step number six dial in your marketing strategy in steps one through five we talked about the market what you will be offering that sets you apart and who you will be targeting it to now we need to talk about the how how are you going to position yourself in the industry and actually reach your target audience this is a big question it's essentially detailing how you are going to be profitable as a business since you know your unique value proposition it's time to flash out your brand identity a brand identity should consider what your brand says what your brand's values are and what you want people to feel or think when they interact with your brand once you have established a brand identity you can start thinking about how to position it and grow it just remember to keep your target audience in mind as you are working on this step so you have your brand identity and you have your target audiences right next up is thinking about which strategies you want to use to communicate with them strategies like search engine optimization email marketing sms marketing social media marketing and dispensary loyalty programs can help dispensaries attract new customers and build their brands even in regions where you have restrictive cannabis marketing laws then there is google ads display ads which get your message right in front of the potential customers for your plan consider what the marketing funnel for your dispensary looks like and where along the funnel each different strategy can work to capture and direct those leads different goals different customers and different kinds of content and promotions will need to exist at each level of the funnel take some time to sketch out your marketing funnel in order to identify where different strategies will be needed and where they can be integrated to work together towards that common goal of getting the new customer once you have these components in place it's time to discuss how you will measure the effectiveness of your strategy revenue attribution is key for making sure that your efforts are actually paying off how are you going to measure whether your marketing strategy is working what metrics will you be monitoring and what do those numbers need to be for you to feel that you have become successful i want to take a moment to note that while you are putting this down on paper it may feel concrete but in reality your business plan is a living document it can be changed and he should be changed whenever you have new information you should look for holes in it and you should address those holes you should amend it regularly so that it actually reflects what is going on in real time calculate your financials the financial section of your dispensary business plan is one of the most important why because you will be using your business plan to secure financing so the numbers matter a lot this is the section of your plan where you do not want to be vague or over promise on what you can deliver to investors draft a financial plan complete with financing you already have operating cost revenue forecast budgets projected profit and losses and cash flow statements and break-even analysis don't forget to focus on cash flow as many big companies struggle with cash flow issues especially in the cannabis industry then include information regarding profitability what type of timelines and metrics will you use to gauge the success of your dispensary set start and finish dates and targets for specific milestones for before and after the launch of your business try to set achievable milestones that emphasize growth and establish metrics to check the health of your company as you're doing this make sure to take a look at the regulations for running a dispense rate include everything you will need to institute for compliance under your operational costs for example if you need to have a pharmacist on site you will need to make sure that this is accounted for in your staffing expenses if you need to have a particular type of security setup that will also be needed in your operational costs consider every aspect of what it will take to run your business so that your numbers are as accurate as possible now that you have laid out all of the aspects of your business plan it's time to craft the executive summary the executive summary will start with an overview of your business and the goals you will be achieving it is the place where you summarize all of the key information so that the reader will have a quick reference without having to search you will place this piece on the top of your document right underneath your title page the executive summary should only include the most important key points of your dispensary business plan keep it short and straight to the point but make sure it shows that you have put in the work to design a business that will succeed and if you're going after funding include how much money you are seeking how it will be used and what you can offer in return for investors who are unfamiliar with the cannabis industry you can include some information on the growing demand for cannabis in the industry trajectory but make sure to keep this concise and easy to read you should also need your mission statement if you haven't already created one your mission is your why and your mission statement should basically share why it is that you do what you do do you want to help people access more natural medicine do you want to get great products to people for less are you concerned with social equity in the industry spell it out and make sure the vision you share in your business plan aligns with that it is time to detail who will be taking part in your dispensary who are the people that will make your business successful this includes the day-to-day staff as well as those in for the long term describe everyone who will be involved in your business including owners consultants employees partners vendors and extended staff include information about how your team will use their experience and expertise to make your business success share an organizational chart to help make it easy to understand who will report to who you can add in your r in your hiring plans positions that you will need to fill what type of experience an education you're looking for how much you plan to pay your employees and how you plan on filling in those positions your recruiting strategy very important finally we've reached step 10. thanks for sticking around with us now that you've done all of the heavy lifting it's time to put it all together start with executive summary then your marketing competitive analysis next step is a description of your business and your unique value proposition followed by your organizational information from step number nine and in your product in customer information followed by the marketing strategy next you will want to share your financials but lastly you can add an appendix that features bios on key stakeholders more details from your market analysis and copies of any business related documents like leases and licenses once it's all together review it try to poke holes in it and see if it floats look at it from the eyes of an investor have you minimized risk are you compliant look for any challenges or opportunities and then address them until you feel confident that you have a winning business plan there are two things that often go overlooked in a business plan the first is the marketing budget you have the plan but you need to support it with an investment when you're first starting out your instinct may be to only put a little bit towards marketing but this is the wrong approach you need to invest in getting your business seen and noticed from the outset this means that you may need to invest more before you and after you launch then you may actually have to invest later down the road if you don't generate enough interest in your dispensary at the beginning then it's going to be harder to carve out a niche for yourself when there are more established players in the game the second thing that often gets overlooked is the ask now that you have just spent all of this time putting together a comprehensive plan detailing your business and everything that you're going to do to make it profitable you have these beautiful financial statements and then what investors don't know what you want to actually ask them for if you are just looking for funding you need to be clear about it if you're willing to take on partners be clear about that you can have a great business plan and have it fall flat at the finish line because you didn't make it clear enough that you needed funding or people to join your board one more thing i want you to mention about compliance as you brainstorm your business and how everything is going to work keep that in your the back of your mind and make sure that your plan aligns with what's allowed in your state and prop or province so we've talked about all of these business plan as a living document and sometimes it evolves over time did you know that polaroid actually had one of the first digital cameras in production yet they never brought it to market because their original business model was focused on selling film they got so tied up in the idea that they were in business of selling film that they almost let the entire business fail they're still around today but they aren't as big as they once were because they weren't able to pivot they didn't have the open mindset necessary to expand or spot new opportunities so the point here is don't be polaroid you know if something isn't working or if you're following industry stats and trends and start seeing new opportunities or challenges pivot to meet them businesses are malleable and they have to be you may start off with one thing and end up as a completely different business entity and that's a completely okay and it's better than going bankrupt as polaroid did maybe you have this vision of creating a space that supports artists and does talent shows but then discover that your delivery component is much more profitable than your in-house experience it's okay to rework your original vision it doesn't make you a sellout it makes you a business savvy owner so we would love to help you get your dispensary off the ground and here foot traffic we work with thousands of dispensaries including single location shops and multi-state operators we offer a variety of services tailored to our clients and all with the same goal to help our clients succeed by connecting them with new customers we can help you get established online with the new website in exciting content in fact we're running a special deal for today's attendees only schedule a call with me at foot traffic dot me forward slash call by may 19th to get a free dispensary website with the six month digital marketing plan or fifty percent off a website built with a three month digital marketing plan your digital marketing plan will include everything you need to succeed online including search engine optimization to make sure your website ranks well and gets found easily google ads to quickly get you on the top of search results and display ads to help you connect with new customers wherever they are to drive them to your website and store front this will help kick start your dispensary and make sure you can really establish yourself online we also offer revenue attribution and reporting so you can see how well your digital marketing efforts are performing so schedule a call with me at foot traffic dot me for slash call and let's talk further about how foot traffic can help you build your vision and start generating revenue i want to thank you very much for taking the time today if you have any questions you want to just take five minutes to talk offline as well once again you have the link here to schedule a call with myself once again i appreciate your time for joining us today have a wonderful rest of your day ]