Marijuana Business Magazine March 2020

March 2020 | mjbizdaily.com 85 NAME Jason Erkes POSITION Chief communications officer COMPANY Cresco Labs, doing business as Sunnyside LOCATIONS Buffalo Grove, Champaign, Chicago, Elmwood Park and Rockford What was your biggest win on opening day? I think our biggest win was keeping customers who were waiting up to six hours excited about making their first legal cannabis purchase. There aren’t many things that people would wait that long for. They wanted to be part of history, so we fed them, we entertained them and helped the time pass by until they made it in the door. What could have gone better? Having more state-approved staff on hand would have had an impact on how quickly we could fill orders—and also to provide some relief for our core staff the first week. We had minimal staff that were certified to work in the dispensa- ries, so that didn’t really afford them a break, and we were open 12-15 hours some days. We should have begun the state-certification process earlier for new employees. If we would have applied for those people to be badged earlier, we would have had more staff. We hired them, and we had submitted the paper- work, but there wasn’t enough time for them to get cleared to work by Jan. 1. What advice would you give other retailers to help opening day go as smoothly as possible? You have to plan for every possible contingency—from crowds to weather to technology to compliance and inventory—to make sure you’re prepared. We had a war room set up a month out and had daily meetings with every single department to update on the status, to make sure everything was being thought of and checked off. What should retailers be wary of as potential problems on opening day? The two big buckets are crowds and technology. Those are the two things that can really ultimately impact how your Day One operations go. If your tech goes down, you’re basically out of business, and all the other planning you’ve done is meaningless. Making sure you’ve tested and done dry runs is critical—and having a support team standing by is an absolute must. Do you have any tips on what types of products to stock—or howmuch—to avoid shortages? Stocking as much flower as you can get your hands on is critical, because it’s the most traditional form that consumers are familiar with. So flower is what new consumers are going to know to order, and vapes and edibles are right behind that. Fill your vault to the brim. NAME Abigail Watkins POSITION Marketing director COMPANY Dispensary33 LOCATION Chicago What was your biggest win on opening day? Having a customer base who—even though it was New Year’s Day in Chicago and freezing—were all so happy to be a part of it. People were understanding about standing in line for hours and really appreciated any time we handed out coffee or hot cocoa. I counted that line—it was 500 people long—and people were still choosing to get at the end, even though they knew there was a decent chance they were never getting in on opening day. What could have gone better? We had to make a choice: Did we want to figure out a strategy to mitigate the lines, or did we want that community feeling of having the lines? For any business, they have to decide ahead of time what they want to do and how they want to put it into action. We decided at 9 a.m. that we were going to go from having people in line to having a text- based system, like restaurants, so people wouldn’t have to keep standing there. The problem was that by 9 a.m., we already had 500 people lined up. So, by getting to that process so late, it slowed everything down logistically in terms of moving people through the shop. And that line is going to start forming hours before you open. The first person in line at our shop got there at 10 p.m. the night before, so whatever your line- mitigation strategy is, it better go into effect in the early hours of the morning or even the night before.