Marijuana Business Magazine July 2018

• Know the Rules: Each state has its own set of health regulations, and it’s your responsibility to be familiar with them. Engaging with the local officials is also a great way to help shape new rules on retail cannabis operations, Hopper said. “We have to constantly put this in their face, so they know we’re real businesses,” she said. 4. Don’t Antagonize the Health Department Like it or not, working with state and local regulatory agencies is a critical aspect of running a successful marijuana operation, according to Stephanie Hopper, vice president of government affairs and compliance at Canndescent, a California grower, and founder of KSF Consulting. These agencies have the power to make life difficult. But if you follow a few key tips, you can make working with officials that much smoother: • Dress Codes Matter: In an industry that often prides itself on being more relaxed about things like tattoos and wild hairstyles, what employees wear in your retail store can affect how regulators interact with them. “Daisy Dukes and tank tops are not a favorite of the health department,” Hopper said. Workers don’t need to wear suits, but a neat and clean appearance will go a long way in making a good first impression. • Don’t Be Rude: “Employee behavior can affect inspection outcomes,” Hopper said. If the inspector comes in, and your employee bolts for the back room, that inspector may start looking more closely for a code violation. Train your employees how to interact with state and local officials – and keep training them, so they’re prepared for the eventual encounter. 5. Be First to Market In an emerging industry such as cannabis, it’s crucial to be first to market, according to Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve, Florida’s largest medical marijuana dispensary operator. In the race to be first to market, Rivers said companies should develop a solid product line to allow themselves to grow. She also emphasized the impor- tance of pricing products competitively to keep customers coming through the door. Being first to market requires inno- vation – but controlled innovation. For example, two of Trulieve’s products, TruClear and TruFlower, offer the com- pany’s own innovative take on common forms of cannabis, namely concentrates and flower for vaping. But she empha- sized that Trulieve didn’t want to spend all its time developing new products. “We didn’t want to give into ‘shiny ball syndrome,’” Rivers said, referring to chasing the next big idea. “We don’t want to crush innovation, but you have to manage it. You need a purposeful time and a purposeful space to discuss ideas to be vetted,” she added. In a medical marijuana market, getting physicians to recommend cannabis treatments is crucial for a program to thrive. Trulieve has built an in-house community education team to support registered doctors, which ensures patients get the recommendations they need to purchase MMJ. Having more doc- tors authorized to recommend MMJ also can help a market grow by boosting patient counts. “I keep hearing people say, ‘I’m going to wait for the market.’ Shame on you,” Rivers said. “We need to be out there. …Don’t be afraid to build a market.” Stephanie Hopper Kim Rivers 82 • Marijuana Business Magazine • July 2018