Cannabis: Who's Teaching Who? Branding Bud Live Episode 15
THE SUMMARY
Arming retailers and budtenders with the knowledge and tools to create positive and memorable customer experiences is what cannabis retailing should be about. Join Branding Bud Live co-hosts David Paleschuck and Adriana Hemans, along with their guest, Danny Gold, as they discuss “Cannabis: Who’s Teaching Who?”
THE CO-HOSTS
David Paleschuck, Adriana Hemans
THE SPECIAL GUEST
Danny Gold, CEO & Co-Founder of Zoltrain
THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
David Paleschuck
Welcome to Branding Bud Live, the live stream that’s 100% THC and 0% WTF. Every week we speak with business people about the business of cannabis. I’m David Paleschuck, founder of Branding Bud Consulting Group and author of the first book on cannabis branding. I’m joined by my co-host Adriana Hemans, a Marketing executive with over 8 years in the cannabis space. Hi Adriana!
Adriana Hemans
Hi David. Thank you for that intro. I’m so excited to co-host the show with you. We’re bringing amazing guests from across the cannabis ecosystem to share their perspectives. What makes our show unique is that we focus on building a community - and we encourage audience participation. It’s not just about us talking, it’s about all of us building something together. So feel free to drop your questions and/or opinions in the chat, and we’ll share them too.
David Paleschuck
Thank you, Adriana. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We have a lot of hot topics to get into today. In an industry defined by fragmented state markets and increasing competition, today, we’ll be talking about “Cannabis: Who’s Teaching Who?”. Specifically, we’ll be discussing:
Who’s responsible for educating the cannabis consumer?
What’s entailed in a “positive and memorable customer experience”?
How do brand message and tone differ when speaking to a retailer, a budtender, or a customer?
Our guest today is Danny Gold, Co-founder and CEO of Zoltrain, an online educational platform educating cannabis retailers, budtenders and cannabis consumers. Danny is also a member of the Rolling Stone Culture Council, and all-around good guy.
We also have audience participation activities as well. We’ll throw a stat up on the screen, so you can test your industry knowledge. We’ll be sharing a few stats with you today, we think you’ll find interesting, so please stick around for the entire show. That said, let’s welcome Danny Gold.
Adriana Hemans
Hi Danny. Welcome. Tell us about yourself and what you’re passionate about.
Danny Gold
I just see in the chat that have you mentioned the bowed psaltery and you are in basically the home of that instrument, Adriana in Tennessee, I grew up in rural Tennessee, so we can talk about ancient boot instruments and dulcimers and bone psalteries as well. What am I passionate about? I would say at the core, I am the type of individual who is like the enhancer Maximizer type, I genuinely want everybody around me to have the best possible experience you'll see this if you know we eat at conferences and food are you into contract on the best restaurant for that specific drink is there you know an instrument or guitar How can I help find that and connect that, that really drives me I just feed off that energy, you know, maybe slightly like vampiric, like if other people are, are having a great time, and kind of you know, maximizing their selves like I that's where I get the best positive feedback loop. And I think that's a lot of actually like what we do with the core as Zoltrain when we when we map out our NorthStar, it's an educated purchase decision for a consumer, everything we do drives to are able to find the product, best match for your needs. And that's going to be a win for everybody. And I think that's what gets me excited about our mission is we truly have the opportunity to connect people with products they've never tried. And if we do that, in the right way, they're going to keep coming back, they're going to find something that enhances their life, or solves a need state and they're going to be in it, they're going to be, you know, repeat customers, for all of us in this industry and generally, you know, maximizing their life. So that's what I like to do, if you hang around me, and that's kind of also what we do in this old train world and 70s Japanese guitars.
David Paleschuck
Hi Danny. Let’s start off with the basics. Who needs to be educated about cannabis and why?
Danny Gold
It's everybody you could do like the smaller one of who doesn't because there's probably you know, nobody out there who doesn't fit that you know, ultimately it is the consumer right we're coming down to that educated purchase decision right that's what's that's what drives this industry is I'm looking for something can I get connected with that? Can I have the best possible experience with a meeting my expectations were set that's where education comes in. Right? If you if you two sides have a great purchase, repeat customer expectations were set. So I went in educated or I was educated in the right moment, right? That could be shopping online, they could be shopping, the budtender. So expectations are set well and then obviously the products have to meet those expectations. And you know that that can be outside of some of our control on the education side, but our job is really On that appropriate expectation setting an accurate expectation setting, right? With a product that is, you know, been prohibited. It's challenging because everybody needs to be educated, right? There's a lot of misinformation, misconceptions. And then there's just a lot of things in the supply chain where those gaps are filled, maybe inappropriately. So if you look at who needs to be educated, right, it's really going to start rolling back. But in a supply chain, we're going to talk about it and start with the buyer, right, the purchasing manager, the person who's selecting which products are carried, which is really the first step to Can I even get a product, right, there could be great products created, and you can never sell it into a store and consumers can't get it into their hands. Right? So you have to educate purchasing managers buyers on who this product is for how does it fit in their inventory? Mix? Why you should carry it, how is it differentiated? So we see a lot of education start there, right? If you're releasing a new product, to bring it to market, buyer purchasing manager education, then you're going to go down, you know, to the budtender, to the to the retail employee, you know, educating through whatever channels that you have available, that are proxies, that the consumer, we know, there's been a lot of work to cannabis support direct to consumer. And I think we've seen initiatives kind of come and go, and we're just not there yet. It's not that those channels don't exist, they're just not the primary purchasing channels yet. So you know, you could educate through online menus and searching they're direct to consumer, but so much of it comes down to the retail employees, right? This is a high influence retail channel, as high influence as even you know, costlier goods, if you're going to buy like a high end, mountain bike or some equipment or some things there where you expect that retail and blue employee to have all of the knowledge and be able to answer all of your questions. There's that expectation of you know, a budtender of a retail employee in a store. So I think the chain there, I would just simplify it to buyer purchasing manager, but to know that ultimately, we're trying to get it to the consumer. And if we can get education directly to consumers, Holy Grail, everybody wants that. The channels are just kind of limited.
David Paleschuck
Just a quick follow up question, and maybe even to leap from backwards for a moment. You know, when Adriana and I consult to our clients, one of the first things we always talk about is, who's your customer? And many of the cannabis brands, honestly don't even know who their customer is.
Danny Gold
Everybody, everybody, everybody.
David Paleschuck
It's not everybody, at least we could say initially, it's 21+, right. So, so, and we won't go into that. But how does the education start to the retailer, the bud tender in the consumer? If oftentimes, the brand owner doesn't even necessarily is it trial and error? Is it over time they figure out who it is? Or who or dare I say, do they hire consultants like us? Who, who know who cannabis consumers are and can start to pinpoint? Or do we help them point in the right direction?
Danny Gold
Yeah, I think you know, the, we see more of it now. And it's probably like Survivor bias in there, like the brands that are figuring it out are in the market and doing well. I just saw a statistic, you all might have seen this, it might have been released yesterday by headset and publication about the number of products that survived in 2022 new products that were released. And it was only 19%. So I would theorize that that 80% That was launched and didn't make it probably suffered from some of the problems, you're talking about David, not having a clear ideal customer not being able to clearly differentiate where they fit in the mix. So that purchasing manager buyer is your first gate, right? You have to tell them who this product is for, you have to understand their existing inventory. So you can find this is how we slot in on price point or customer needs, or, or any are just true differentiating factors, right. And that is, as you said, many brands struggle with. It's a place that we started as well. So one of the things we put into training is what we call the Fast Five. And you will this is the hardest thing we ever do with any brand, right? It's probably very similar to a lot of the work you do. And if brands have done pre work, there's still usually some insights that come out of this. But we think about it as what are the five sentence fragments, right five, five words, sentence fragments that differentiate this product line that you want somebody to know and then you hope that they remember to have it right. This isn't just the normal training man. I'm going to put this front of a button or have to remember two of these points. But can you break down your product line into five key differentiated facts, and then we'll build up training around that. And we'll reinforce those, and we'll put content together to just, you know, hammer that over the head and make sure those are the key takeaways. So when you talk about to that ideal customer, that's kind of be part of it. And we always push back as well and say, everyone just it's not a statement that's going to resonate. And it's unlikely to be true, right. And there are definitely products that are broadly appealing their products that are narrowly appealing, and you can play in these spaces. But we'd love it when brands come through. And we see brands really, really succeed when they have a strong point of view. And I love it, if a brand could tell me who it's not for right off the bat, right? Like that really helps with education. And sometimes it's actually what you need. Because so many of these products are not for bud tenders as a target audience, right, you get into, I'm going to overly simplify and you know, budtenders are as representative as any of us in a population. And we love it when we see, you know, diversity of usage habits and tolerances in there. But if we want to just really overly simplify, right, a budtender is more likely to be a heavy user to have a higher tolerance, the concentrates, you know, the really, really top shelf flower, these are things that are going to resonate really well, there may be a higher dosage edible, you know, a two and a half milligram ratio product might not be the top product for some of these bud tenders. And that's where in education, you have to say who it's for, because you have to tell that budtender because you don't want them to just learn it on their own to say, you know, we don't see this as much anymore. But oh, I tried one of these and didn't have any effect on me? Well, it's not for you, that's okay. You know, we have to educate you on who it's for. So you can ask the right filtering questions and connect somebody. And that's where that really comes in is, you know, left to their own devices, people are going to recommend the stuff that they like. But a good person, a person who is very well trained in there who understands is going to recommend the right product for the customer. And that's where they have to know who it's for. So if you can't, upfront, David, say something more than just for everyone, then how are you going to get that into education and training to make that educated purchase decision?
Adriana Hemans
Exactly right. The point you're making Danny, I think is so important that people are making recommendations about products with high potency, without understanding like who they're talking to, and what effect that person is looking for. I want to call out a comment that came in from Honey, I just returned from the Miami Cannadata at conference where none of the vendors selling their wares were really educated. They talked about the high the percentage, the smell and the flavor, not the compounds or effects for issues. And my question for you related to that. Thank you for your comment, honey is Why do you think there's so much misinformation or people focusing on the wrong things?
Danny Gold
This is the crux, right? This is the this is what our industry is kind of struggling with right now. You see this conversation coming up all the time. And it's unsolved. is right with the indica sativa divide, right? We know that consumers know that language more than other language, but it's not really based in any kind of scientific differentiated thing, right? It's a somewhat of a meaningless categorization. It's closer to what you're trying to hit that effect wise. And it has nothing to do with necessarily when either the planet right, so then you see this shift to educate on terpenes we need to educate on cannabinoids and ratios. This is all true. But also, we have overwhelmed consumers. Where how much information can you put on somebody? Right? How much expertise can you expect them to develop to make this and I think we see a lot of success with effect based products and products that have effect based naming. Because there is a desire for certain consumers to have like an easier path to this is what I'm looking for. Also, those effects can be questionable, right? Like we don't we're progressing with product development and cannabis far outpacing research because we have such like a research debt to catch up on from, you know, prohibition and from not being able to do this. And it really is a tough position. It's a tough position for new markets. Right? One thing that I try to remind people, for those of us in the industry in our own lingo, and we'll be talking about is when you go into a brand new market that has never been able to purchase legal cannabis. They don't know what the word flour means is a category. So we're talking about we need to educate them on terpenes and kind of break down this historical indica sativa divide and they're looking at a menu saying what is oh we're talking about weed is this what is flower like they've never used this term. This is this is an insider industry term that's developed right If and you go in, you know, launch in Alabama market, when that comes on board, like could look like you're starting from there. So I think understanding where the current education gap is. And infant misinformation is going to fill this in, like what we're trying to do is simplify things. And that's actually where indica and sativa played well, even though we know it's not accurate, it shows the desire for simple categorization. And I think we have to be careful not to overwhelm. And I did see some comments here. Definitely difference in adult use and medical markets, there's definitely, you know, things where, if you're going down and looking for products in the medicinal, you probably need to understand the compounds more you need to understand interactions there, we need healthcare providers to be able to speak to that. So I think that there, there's a place there where you just have to understand the audience as well, right, somebody coming in and trying a product for the first time. You're starting with just flower; I understand that ticket sativa. You know, we don't need to make them feel bad about their level of education, we need to meet them where they are, and try to simplify it, even if we know it's not the most accurate, how's it going to get them to be able to try a product and kind of going down that rabbit hole on their own?
David Paleschuck
You know, just the quick comments here. And, well, it doesn't get, it doesn't get us totally down the education path. But it certainly gets us far farther than indica and sativa I think when we use models that people are familiar with already, it makes it easier for them to learn. And so for me, I always describe this as aromatherapy. You know, typically if it's lavender, it, it's more relaxing. And if it's pine or citrus, it's more invigorating. Well, if you take a look at terpenes and look at lavender and linalool, you know, and then bring it over to the other side with pine and pinene or limonene there's lots of similarities there. And I think there's a model that we could use that if a budtender were to speak in those terms about aromatherapy. You know, we can talk about a lavender relaxing product or kava meal or something like that, where people understand it, I think it would be an easier conversation for newbies and in some of those emerging markets in particular, to talk about it in that sense. I know it doesn't get us all the way to where we need to be but at least it's broader and more familiar than indica and sativa.
Danny Gold
We have to take small wins right you have to do things like I I'm comfortable like air quoting indica sativa. If somebody said, Hey, I like you know, indica strain would really talk about indica like effects because you understand what they're saying. And then you can let you can kind of hey, by the way, you should go research and terpenes scan this QR code on the product, look at the terpene mix in the COA and note these things, right? And then let them come back and kind of take that journey from where they might be to learning really what they're looking for, and what's resonating with them and what's working for them.
Adriana Hemans
Yeah, that totally makes sense. I think that we should do an audience participation round. So this stat that we're about to take a look at comes from New Cannabis Ventures what percentage of respondents who buy from dispensaries or recreational shops report always following the bud tenders recommendation. This is self-reported survey. This is the percentage of people who say they always follow a bud tenders recommendation. And the choices are a 11% b 22%, C 35%, or D 69%. And take your best guess and drop it in the chat.
David Paleschuck
Yeah. Always. Okay. Always. So that's really interesting.
Danny Gold
That tripped me up too, because if we have stats that we quote, and my first skim of this, I would have come up with a different answer, except for thank you for underlining the always keyword!
Adriana Hemans
right. There, obviously, but dangers are extremely influential. And I think there's, there's sort of two sides to this, like some people are not self-aware that they are following what someone was recommending to them. And then So being aware that they are always following a recommendation and self-reporting, it would be a smaller number than the percentage of people who are just influenced by budtenders. We have a lot of guesses for D, and C.
David Paleschuck
Yeah. So we're skewing higher, to the middle or higher.
Adriana Hemans
Yep, that's it looks like we're about evenly split between 35% and 69%. John guess for B 22%. Let's see if any other guesses want to roll in?
David Paleschuck
And tips are encouraged? What's your thought on this?
Danny Gold
My so is the always tripped me up at first because I would have definitely gotten D or even push you a little bit higher. And I'll share that after we chat about it on where that comes from. I would have I would have gotten see here, you know, we talk about it. We build a lot of education, you know, we work with a lot of brands out there. And our team still takes butts into recommendations all the time will always see on our Slack channels. I just wanted to dispensary I came back. If you all try this product, a budtender sold me on it. Maybe we're more receptive to it because we want those interactions to happen. So I would have gotten firmly see after checking that always, always under always is a tough one. Right? You're always going to need a recommendation.
Adriana Hemans
Well, let's see. Let's see if you're right,
David Paleschuck
Let's reveal the answer.
Adriana Hemans
It's been 22%. Good guests, John. I think he was the only one in the audience who got it. Right. Yeah, smaller percentage. I mean, I think even just speaking anecdotally, I'm always receptive to recommendations. But you know, just what we were talking about earlier, sometimes I feel like potency comes into question, you don't always want to have something that's like extremely strong. And when I think that bud tenders have a tendency to recommend things that are strong or think that a quality product is an indicator of being really potent. I think consumers have the same opinion usually. But that's now starting to change.
David Paleschuck
Yeah. And just to comment on this, in particular, 22% of respondents who buy from dispensaries or recreational shops report, always following the bud tenders recommendation, and another 69% Seriously, consider the bud tenders recommendation, though they weigh other factors in as well. And this holds true for patients and consumers of all age groups, and for women and men alike. So
Danny Gold
I would add to the number I would have thrown out just and it's just because I have it, I have it in my back pocket is 92%. In the surveys, we've seen a lot of research, we've seen 92% of people who have purchased cannabis legally say they have purchased a product based on a budtender recommendation. And that's what brought that's not always. And that just means at some point in their journey, you know, they have taken a budtender recommendation, I think if you add up your two slices here, you're at 91. So, so that's kind of, you know, in line with the sometimes, you know, very likely to take a bunch of recommendation.
David Paleschuck
John also says I'd be curious to see the split in the percentage of when a consumer goes with the bud tenders wreck versus when they don't, you know, it's funny. Personally, I always buy things that I like, and then I'll add on, you know, the bud tenders recommendation is the add on for me. So, my go to Yeah.
Danny Gold
Cannabis, cannabis consumers, I think, by and large, you know, medicinal once again, we don't give enough attention to the medical markets, and that needs to be established. And there's a lot more consistency that needs to happen there. There's a lot more caution in education. If we're talking about more on the exploratory and people that are buying more regularly and adult use, it's a curious bunch, right? You know, there's new products, there's new delivery methods, there's new, you know, combinations and ratios and cannabinoids. So I think that upsell is actually a little easy to get people to try something new. If it truly is interesting and differentiated. I think we're all just a curious bunch that that wants to see what's out there. And it's evolving so quickly.
Adriana Hemans
Yeah, that's a really good point that you just made Danny about. There's different types of consumers and different types of needs. And we sort of just only scratched the surface. I'm hoping that maybe you could take a couple minutes and sort of walk us through like, how where does the knowledge train begin? Like, where's the starting place? And how does it evolve? And who participates in this, like, knowledge gathering? Are brands providing information about the products that they're bringing to market? Like, what are what are some of the sources out there?
Danny Gold
Yeah, and we'll acknowledge, as always, you know, thank you to at EA, nobody has enough staff and money to do proper education and dictate, you know, what should be done in there. We're just all lean, you know, we're all kind of all on the budget trying to try to do the right things. It does by and large fall in the brands, right? If you think about the brand is producing the product or formulating it, the R&D is starting there. They have an intention for they're creating something right. And education has to happen there. Of course, we have vertically integrated companies. So sometimes the brand in the store the same in there, right? But if we just if we ship that down to you got a package product, somebody had an idea for that somebody thought it needed to exist. You know, somebody made a plan on, you know who's going to purchase this? Who's it for? How are we going to differentiate it? All of that is where the education starts, right? Like you could roll it all the way back and say, has to start market research. Is there a need for this? You know, can I create something that people will buy? Like that's, that's commerce, it has to it has to work on both sides. So I'd say it starts really early in market research. So the different categories of education, right, there's general cannabis knowledge, there's consumption, there's, there's limits, there's all these things that are sometimes required legally by a dispensary to provide to consumers. So here in Colorado with concentrates, there's ever evolving regulations around what we have to educate consumers with, it's not done well. It's through like pamphlets that they just throw away, that create a lot of waste at the counter. But there's an attempt there to say, high potency products need education, the retailer has to provide that to the consumer. So sometimes you're dictated to by regulations, but by law just starts with a brand. And the brand is going to carry that through their product development, as they build out their materials, they go to market that, bring it into the purchasing managers provide, there's still an expectation that the brand is providing that training to the budtenders, whether that's in person, or in large room settings, or in leave behind materials, or digitally, the stores and once again, it's a staffing the store is going to provide some training, but the product knowledge is the expectation is that the brand is going to provide that because they're the experts on it, they created this, they brought it into existence. I think a lot of retailers, and especially ones that care about education will supplement that so that sometimes they need to dial back what is considered marketing and the educational materials, fine line, right. budtender training is trade marketing. We all try to make it as educational and try to thread that needle. But we know why the brand is educating, right? They're trying to drive sales here. So you know, when done right, and intentions are right, it's all, you know, it's all great. And everybody's participating in in trying to get that education of the consumer. But ultimately, it's the brand that is that is getting that back on product education, and then retailers are kind of providing the other required compliance training.
David Paleschuck
Yeah, it's interesting, and we just brought up this, this slide just to at least get everybody on the same page in terms of what we're talking about, you know, starting off with the brand moving through to the retailer, then to the buyer to the bud tender and the customer. You know, and I guess my question here really quickly, Danny is this is this is a cycle, this implies that the brand is actually getting information back, you know, then that they can reevaluate, redirect, this could easily have been, could have been drawn out as a spectrum or just something linear, with no feedback to the brand. So, you know, when we talk about your platform's old train, when we talk about this directional knowledge path, is there a cycle? Is there a way for, you know, the, I guess, the end user, the consumer to kind of come back and feed that information, whether it's back to the brand or back through the, to the bud tender to the buyer, to the owner of the store? And back to the brand? Does that happen?
Danny Gold
I love I love this question. And the honest answer is there are a lot of initiatives out there a lot of people trying to do it, ourselves included. The truth of the current state is it is much more linear. And I think any brand that joined this discussion would say we are not able to get enough feedback, we are not close enough to the consumer, we're not getting as much feedback as we want from the stores, the bud tenders, even though there are people chipping away at it, I would put it as chipping away. So there are, you know, great apps where consumers can log their usage and provide feedback, right, we see those more on the medicinal side that can be great for tracking effects and you know, how people are responding to it. And then maybe to get those back to the brands. We definitely rely on bud tenders as a proxy for the consumer. So what are the budtenders? Hearing? What are you hearing in the store? What questions are you getting that we need to address that we can upgrade the education the training for and flow through, right. But brands do not have many direct touchpoints with consumers? Right? I kind of mentioned you know, THC being very nice right now. They try to show up in stores and pop ups and patient appreciation days to get that time, but you know how many people stop and talk to them? How effective are those? Because of the lack of marketing channels. Surveying is hard, right? Where do we hear this a lot with market research? We were talking to you like how can I serve a cannabis consumer it's a hard list to build when you can just put an ad up somewhere about market research and surveys. So I think it's I think it's more linear than a cycle. I think the desire And the right solution it should be a cycle. And I think a lot of us are working on it. But I think most brands would say we're not there. And we're not where they would want to be in a true feedback loop.
Adriana Hemans
So question for you, Danny, who should be responsible for sharing more general information about everyone in here first get to work, everybody.
Danny Gold
Everybody here probably has experienced this. Right. I, I would posit that a lot of the true education in cannabis, especially bringing new consumers in is coming from peer networks. It's coming from when I'm at, you know, pickup with the kids on the playground and somebody's whispering over because they see I've got to share this cannabis related on they want to ask me a question. They feel comfortable doing it right. I think people are doing it grassroots more than other, you know, we have the budtenders. There. You have to get somebody in a store first. Right? So we've talked about like the Canon curious and the new consumers and how do you get people in the true education of this is safe. You know, this is legal, you know, this is this is how you can use it, here's a store you should go to that's going to have the best staff. That's where the best, I think education is happening right now. And it's just scrappy, and it's just talking about it. And it's the whole D stigmatization. Part of this is just coming from trusted friends and families. Right? That is how word is spreading. And that is how people are shopping for the first time. So we all have work to do that's on us.
David Paleschuck
It's funny, just to add to that, that's how it's normalized to because when you're with your friends and family, and for me, I'll always go back to the day I was on the playground with my son when he was very young. And a woman pulled out Moxie mints. And she called them mommy mints and said to the women, does anybody want mommy mints? And I was like, Oh, my God. So, you know, but that makes it more comfortable. And, of course, that's when I outed myself about being in the industry. And we all had a great chat.
Danny Gold
So I think the word starts there, I think brands are doing it, I think, retailers, you know, they are the frontline to the consumer. And they need to, you know, care about it, invest in it, even though that's just time and not money, and make sure that they're providing a base level of training to these bud tenders on how to ask the right questions on not just the compliance, you have to take once or twice a year, not just you know, whatever state mandated not just whatever is brand supply, that's kind of what's happening now. But everybody's getting. But that's also where retailer stands out to say, I'm going to be the Trusted Store that people come to that they're comfortable asking questions and getting the right recommendation, because I have the best trained staff, and just acknowledging that those people on the floor or you know, those kind of key influencers there and providing that training.
Adriana Hemans
Yeah, I personally feel like the best bud tenders and the best stores are ones that, that you can feel that people are passionate, and you know, that they're spending their time like researching and reading and learning about it, because they just care about it so deeply. And it's really obvious when that passion isn't there.
Danny Gold
And it's going to be obvious in unfortunately, the defining factor of like their Google reviews, right, which is going to be make or break for a retailer from, you know, from an SEO from a standpoint of if I pull up my phone here, and like have a cannabis product. I've got seven dispensaries I can walk to which one does somebody's going to go to if they're Airbnb in a house down the street, right? They're going to get the loan with a 4.9 not the 4.3. So it does impact their business when you provide that level of service. So you know, they should care with the money talking if nothing else.
Adriana Hemans
Yeah, it's competitive.
David Paleschuck
Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, we're going to jump to our next stat. Audience participation as we do. We go. So research shows, now audiences your chance to shine. So here we go. Research shows that what percentage of consumers are interested in personalized recommendations, making it essential that but tigers are fully prepared to deliver those experiences and recommendations? Is it any 12% b 29%, C 63% or D 77%? So really, that comes down to consumers are expecting to be delivered information and knowledge when they make purchases and it's up to those bud tenders to actually step up. And well, I guess it starts off with the brands, since we're talking about the brands put the information out, the retailer shared with the bud tenders, and train the bud tenders. And it's the consumers that are now starting to expect this, which Danny really goes back into what you just said a moment ago, they're going to look for the highest rating.
Danny Gold
Yeah, and I think, you know, this is interesting. From conversations we get into, right? We were just at a conference candidate, a con in Miami, a super small conference that was really diving into like a lot of cannabis data, it was very tech heavy, was a good time for people like us that work in the ancillary tech side and want to nerd out on cannabis data. And the thing that we always hear when we talk about recommendations is, they're definitely repeat customers, the largest best set size, the most repeat customers that don't want this. And that's also you know, on a retail store to offer multiple paths, or at least they say, they don't want it right. I know what I want. I'm an expert in here, I want to buy the same thing. I don't need you to recommend something else in here, I know exactly what I'm going to be lying towards. And maybe I'm annoyed that I have to wait in line behind people that want to spend 15 minutes talking to a budtender. So it's something you talk a lot about in like store planning, right? Do you provide a fast lane, I've seen this at some stores where I want to talk to a consultant, or I know what I want? And I'm just here for a quick pick up. Recently, you may have seen the news on some of these like vending machines. Here in Colorado turbine care station, they launched a very large vending machine, I think it's really servicing those high traffic, people that come in, that are buying the same products, they can stock those products there, you can kind of have a self-checkout experience actually sends a compliant bag to you. So you can go in and kind of do almost a no touch interaction. And I think you know, there are people that want the different paths in there and serving those. But sometimes we over index when we're at industry events, and we hear any recommendations, we're all experts. Well, we all live and breathe this every day for the last, you know, however many years?
David Paleschuck
That's right. Yeah, we're totally in a bubble. So and that really comes back to what markets are we talking about? Right? And if we think about, you know, an evolution of a market and the knowledge within that market.
David Paleschuck
Yeah. Let's see. Let's see what the answer is. Danny?
Danny Gold
I would have gone to the to the upper end of this one. So I'll say like, I'm most surprised to hear that, that it came in and lower. I think probably more getting recommendations than that based on, you know, the other stats of how many people have taken a recommendation. So that's an interesting one.
David Paleschuck
Well, it's definitely, I guess, the four answers, it's the third highest, so definitely false mooring in that direction. But again, this, it's, it's interesting. You know, it's interesting to see, and it's interesting to see where people fall based on their previous experience and some of some of the new things that they they're looking for me.
Danny Gold
And one last comment on this, I do think, and we know this from like, stats of the current cannabis consumer and you kind of you hinted at this with the markets, right. Uh, the current cannabis consumers that are that are providing a lot of revenue to the industry are heavy repeat purchasers. Right, that are that are that are likely buying the same products over and over, it's going to be different than a new market opening up used to be different than the consumer, a lot of us want to attract. So when you're serving existing cannabis consumers might not be the consumer, we see in five years, maybe it will hold it down for the for the next 10. it's one of those realistic stats that people need to know that a lot of people want consistency, and they want to find that product and go through, we definitely see that in markets like California, where they're buying the same products over and over again.
Adriana Hemans
That's a really good point we have to build for the consumers of the future, the market that we are envisioning, not the one necessarily that we have now. And we know it changes really quickly. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but we are at the end of the show. So we'd like to close this out with one final question for you, Danny. And that is there a book a movie or an experience that that the cannabis industry should know about?
Danny Gold
I'm going to give you all three because I count myself right. So I'll start with a book. And I'll start with what was my mom's favorite book and I tried to go back and read, which was the Good Earth. Pearl S Buck won a Pulitzer in like 1931 Um, definitely a throwback. Really a slice of like Chinese rural life and what is important and what is you know, generational wealth and what makes people happy and like a whole journey of a family from poverty to gaining land and then what the children did. There's a whole trilogy they're really interesting and I think like a good reflection of what's an important and a very, very powerful book and series. So the book Good Earth, I'll do we'll do music right? So I think you said movie book or experience or music in there I've been listened to a lot of King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard awesome band name, go listen to like Gatherum or they're one of the just they're really like seven albums a year. It's hard to pick them. It's really interesting. There's a flute player doing flute solos, which maybe you haven't seen since Jethro Tull. Different out there very, very kind of wild. So check out King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard if you haven't, and movie is fun to say my seven year old loves saying it. And he tries to just like stumble over it. And movie because I'm like a bit of a foodie. I just love some absurdist humor that just made me laugh out loud and shock multiple times is the menu that's a new one so that's on kind of the tip of pop culture wild and I love that things like that get created that are just so absurd in so many ways. So the Good Earth on the book; King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard on music; and The Menu for a movie.
Adriana Hemans
I wrote them all down.
David Paleschuck
Thank you, Danny. That's, that's awesome. We appreciate that. Well, wow. Danny, thank you so much for sharing, you know, time with us and sharing your knowledge with us. And at least getting us thinking about, you know, who is teaching you in the cannabis space. And you know whether it's cyclic or linear. You know, I guess it's different with each brand and each dispensary and each state as they ramp up, but you've given us a lot of food for thought and we really appreciate that.
Danny Gold
Well, thank you so much for having me. Let's do it again in a year and see if we've gotten more to a cycle and how we've improved and how these new markets look to us.
David Paleschuck
Yeah, let's do it! We appreciate it. Thank you, Danny! Bye Bye. Wow, that went fast.
Adriana Hemans
Yeah, definitely went fast.
David Paleschuck
Thank you, everybody, for listening and for participating. We really appreciate that. We've got a great show. Coming up next week. We have Austin Stevenson. He's the Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at for Vertosa, which is a cannabis beverage development company. He's also the Managing Partner at Thomas Green Equities. And our topic next week will be “Form, Function and Flavor: Cannabis Beverage Development. I can't wait to go through it and talk about the benefits and the market and all the other things that really go into developing a cannabis infused beverage.
Adriana Hemans
It's going to be a great show. And if you want to check out our stuff in the meantime - if you just can't wait till next week - please follow our LinkedIn page, Branding Bud Live and our YouTube Channel.
David Paleschuck
Thanks for joining us everybody. Please don’t forget to check out “cannabis’s best-kept secret” at www.brandingbud.com. See you next week. Bye bye!
Adriana Hemans
Bye