Branding Importance and Reinforcement Strategies – “Have a Coke and a smile…”
In these series of weekly blogs on the cannabis industry, I’ll explain why now, more than ever, it’s important to have an educated and caring staff at your dispensary. A Certified Dispensary Technician’s influences are extensive, and the spotlight is bright.
Prologue
I can recall the first “legal” dispensary I walked into after Colorado struck the first mighty blow against recreational cannabis prohibition. I was in a little ski town and I thought I’d go in and experience my first open and legal buy. I admit, even though it was perfectly legit, it kind of felt like sneaking in to my first R rated movie when I was underage. I was looking over my shoulder wondering if anyone was watching me as I entered the dark hallway leading to the front door. The shop was unmarked, for the most part, and rather unassuming. I had to do a double-take to see if I was in the right place. The only confirmation to my quest was a small logo on the glass door. I had arrived. I tentatively swung open the door and entered a dark room where I was greeted by a receptionist who kindly asked for my ID. After the due process, she walked me down a dimly lit corridor to the sales room. Again, another drably colored, dimly lit room that contained the earthly delights from flower to edible. Not at all the Willy Wonka factory, world of wonder I had playing out in my head. Possibly having a “special” brownie before I went in would have made this “theater of the mind” happen. Flash forward a couple of years and my Colorado small town added several new dispensaries. I ventured into the newest and low and behold, it was bright, airy, and with a pinch of interior design that would make Martha Stewart proud. It felt inviting and homey with a great staff and product selection. I’ve been going back to this store ever since. Now that’s branding!
Branding Importance and Reinforcement Strategies
Branding is defined as promoting a product, a concept, a company or an experience via a wide spectrum of means. Branding can include advertising, but it also means creating a unique name and image in the consumer’s mind.
Consider Coca-Cola, one of the most identifiable brands in the world. As marketer Aaron Agius pointed out a while back, the soft drink giant has ensured that “everything from the company’s packaging, its social-media profiles to its television commercials draws on the same colors, fonts, motifs and experiences. None of that is by accident.”
Identifying the employee with the brand
Branding is critical as the cannabis sector becomes more mainstream. Many cannabis companies are trying to make the consumer comfortable enough with cannabis that they will eventually see their local dispensary as a regular part of their lifestyles.
Brand loyalty is enhanced by making sure consumers easily identify with a company’s business logo, their color palette, their uniforms and their overall corporate culture. But the most important part of brand loyalty begins with the entry-level professional.
The CDT is an important part of company branding, in that they represent their employers, their companies, their company’s standards and their products.
There’s a growing campaign by many of the bigger cannabis brands to have consumers think about dispensaries in a similar manner that they might consider the big coffee drink franchises, as a place where the consumer stops between work and home and where, like in some coffee shops, they can transition from one part of the day to the next.
This change in customer perception is why frontline dispensary employees are so important, since they represent the company’s brand daily, in a one-on-one situation with consumers.
As cannabis dispensaries become a regular part of the consumer landscape, consumers are expected to end up differentiating between all these brands by considering several factors:
- The overall experience that they have at their local dispensary
- The availability of their favorite products
- The knowledge, reliability, and friendliness of the entry-level professionals they interact with
- The quality of both the products and the CDTs at those dispensaries.
Summary
Creating the optimal guest experience at cannabis businesses involves many different variables.
A lot of these factors rely on so-called “soft skills,” the personal attributes that help one person successfully and harmoniously interact with another. Soft skills are traits that can be transferred and used across different careers and industries, and are especially what the cannabis sector is looking for as it grows into a full-fledged industry.
Some of the more basic soft skills that will help the CDT with their consumers but will also help that entry level employee to succeed are: The ability to communicate, problem-solving, creativity, adaptability and a strong work ethic.
These soft skills need to become part of the CDT’s training and work persona, and consistency when it comes to working with and relating to both new and experienced cannabis consumers.
The entry-level professional is therefore responsible for the long and short-term success of the cannabis consumer’s experience.
They are the employees who set the tone and establish the reputation of their companies, who make customers at ease while educating them about cannabis, and who help the company establish a positive brand name in the customer’s mind and therefore encourage their return business.
By creating a positive experience, one customer at a time, the CDT is also strengthening the reputation of their company and helping to build a growing consumer base.
In next week’s “Blunt Talk” we’ll cover “Medical Advice and How Not to Give It”