August 2018

there’s something they’d rather be doing. When everyone’s happy doing what they’re doing, more work gets done.” “That initial movement can seem a little bewildering, and from an HR perspective, it can be chaos, but we want people to be happy,” Cho said. Internal promotions are helpful to retaining employees, too. It gives employees a sense the company is investing in its team, Cho said. “People know that most of our new position or midlevel management positions will almost always be filled by current employees,” she said. 5. Ration Your Products During delays, consider capping the amount of product you’ll sell – in some cases, below the allowable maximum amount of product a customer can purchase in your state – so you can keep supply on shelves and your employees busy, said Solevo’s Gullickson. “If there are delays, you need to have a crisis-management plan in place that outlines what you’ll do when or if there’s a product shortage,” she said. In Alaska, only a handful of culti- vators supplied product to the state’s first retail shops, which meant product was scarce and operating hours were scattershot. To provide some sense of normalcy, Pakalolo operated from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. five days per week and rationed product.The plan kept doors open, product flowing and employees paid, Hollister said. Pakalolo rationed its product by pre- packaging items in grams and allowing customers to buy up to 1 ounce of flower total. Unlike other shops, Pakalolo didn’t give price breaks for customers who purchased multiple grams.That strategy kept its retail shop open longer hours and more days every week, Hollister said. Limiting the amount of product cus- tomers can buy is a catch-22. It keeps a dispensary’s doors open and employees paid, Hollister said, but it can be frus- trating for customers. “We had to bear the brunt of the industry with the occasional angry cus- tomers who couldn’t buy their standard eighth or quarter (ounce),” Hollister said. “But their frustration wasn’t with Pakalolo – it was that there wasn’t enough weed in Alaska, that the prices were too high and that they weren’t get- ting a discount for buying in bulk.” To combat that frustration, Hollister trained his team to talk with custom- ers about why they were limiting the amount of product customers could buy. Most were understanding when Pakalolo’s employees explained that rationing product meant more consis- tent business hours and better prices and larger purchases down the line. Managing product flow and trim- ming hours of operation paid off for Pakalolo; at multiple points in the young market, it was the only dispen- sary open in Fairbanks. “We were very communicative with our customers to help them under- stand the supply and demand of the industry at that time and that if we ran out of weed, we wouldn’t be able to open at all, which would hurt the image of the industry as a whole,” Hollister said. ◆ Helen Cho is the director of integrated strategy at Aloha Green Apothecary, a vertically integrated medical cannabis business in Honolulu. Photo courtesy of Helen Cho Retail employees were encouraged to work in cultivation or production at Honolulu’s Aloha Green Apothecary when there wasn’t supply to keep the dispensary open, said Helen Cho, the company’s director of integrated strategy. Cross-training makes for a more flexible staff, because employees can be used in other operations, she said. Photo courtesy of Aloha Green 82 • Marijuana Business Magazine • August 2018