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Tommy Truong: Warren, thank you so much for joining me today.
Warren Harasz: Likewise. Thanks for having me, Tommy.
Tommy Truong: So you guys are really experts in the industry on Twofolds. I mean, your, your role at Cannaspire, you help entrepreneurs get licensed, and when they do get licensed, you also help them build their SOPs and their operations. Can you, before we start, can you give a little bit of a background about Cannaspire and, and your role?
Warren Harasz: Absolutely. So yeah, I'm the Chief Compliance Officer here at Cannas Buyer, and really we're an end-to-end consulting firm, right? So we help to license the client, uh, to do all of their operational SOPs, help them find vendors, help them get their build out done, and then to keep that valuable license once they've achieved it, right?
So this would be fractional compliance. Um, working with them to evolve their business as it grows and adds new aspects. Um, and then also, you know, a lot of hiring, [00:01:00] staffing, um, you know, just basically the consulting side, right? Helping people figure out how to set up their facility, how to run things smoothly and make a buck.
So, um, yeah, and I've really been a cultivator for 18 years. Any way you can grow it? I've done it. Uh, indoor, outdoor, clean room, hydroponic, uh, full sun organic. And, uh, I worked most recently with Big Island Grown in Hawaii. They were a vertically integrated medical licensee, so
Tommy Truong: Wow. What got you into the industry?
Warren Harasz: uh, honestly, I was a cultivator for years and I was training as a college professor and it just kept pulling me back into the licensed industry, right?
So there was so much more demand for bright, you know, literate people in the cannabis side that can handle all of these SOPs for DOH inspection and then do our employee training, uh, than there was for an art history professor. Right? So that's, uh, the short story of how I got here.
Tommy Truong: Wow. So you [00:02:00] cultivated was a cultivator and switched over really to consulting the op side of things.
Warren Harasz: Yeah, and I would say that's, uh, it's really that, you know, educational background where I take the professor approach. Um, and that's sort of how it worked out in Hawaii with, you know, training up and teaching everyone. Um, and now moving into the consulting role with just lending that expertise and helping my, you know, licensees and clients, you know, learn how to carry themselves sort of,
Tommy Truong: So you've, you've probably helped hundreds, if not thousands of businesses get licensed, but also. Start operations. Based on your experience, what are some of the most important processes to get right early on?
Warren Harasz: yeah. So I mean. Oftentimes the employee management is one of the most overlooked aspects, right? So I've often seen that people will write an employee handbook, uh, people being the operators, the owner of the license, [00:03:00] and then they won't really dig into the nitty gritty of the actual policies. When is somebody late?
Um, is it five minutes? Is it two minutes? Um, when is, what's your disciplinary policy? How are you tracking all of that? So you have to make sure that you're applying all of these rules consistently over time, because if you don't, what happens is down the road, they may unionize, suddenly your employee handbook becomes, you know, almost a legal document that's being, you're being held to keep, and any policy that you wrote in there is suddenly being scrutinized and your feet are really held to the fire.
So, um, you want to plan ahead for that sort of thing to avoid these problems.
Tommy Truong: If, if I'm a new operator, where do I start? Because there's, there's stuff that I know and there's probably a lot of stuff that I don't know that should be in. The, the manual.
Warren Harasz: Yeah, so I mean, really a lot of it starts with the application, which includes a lot of SOPs in [00:04:00] most cases, right? So from there you need to look at what the state code is, what is actually required for you for reporting and compliance. But also operations hours, right? Like that's usually in the code. Uh, Minnesota's a good example.
You have to leave, you know, at least a seven hour window for retail stores to be open. Um, so all of these things go into your handbook, right? Your hours of operation, uh, how many employees you even realistically need. Um, you know, down to the big one would be the disciplinary policy. Making sure you're tracking all of that, because look, it's.
Especially in retail, you have very high turnover, right? So if you're not tracking everything and you do go to fire somebody, you should expect that you might have a suit on your hands at some point. And so this is where consistency of you gave the same disciplinary, you know, protocol to literally all of your employees [00:05:00] the same, you know, time off the same, you know what you don't want to be caught doing.
Is saying, well, so and so was late after they were five minutes late, but so and so didn't get rid up when they were 10 minutes late. Right. So consistency because all of those things can come back to bite you in the long run. Uh, and it ties you up in legal suits that are very costly.
Tommy Truong: Is there a resource online outside of the, the mandatory things that pertain to the state, but we're talking about operationally how the business should be run, how employees should be disciplined. Is there a resource online or uh, a document somewhere where. It'll give operators just a start of, okay, this, these are the big topic items that you should be really thinking about when creating your SOP.
Warren Harasz: You know. Unfortunately, no, is what I would say. And the industry doesn't have a standardized, you know, template to where [00:06:00] I see it a lot. Right? Like gusto for payroll, you know, and they do have a lot of templatized hr, they're great. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from using that company. It works fine for many of my clients, right?
But it's not cannabis specific. A lot of that stuff is really generic. And so this is where like. Zero tolerance violence workplace, that's in the legal code that has to be in your employee handbook. Um, you know, your break policies, those are usually mandated by the state, you know, as to how long the shift is and how long of a break that they're entitled to.
So this is where working with people that sort of know the lay of the land in the state that you're in, and then are willing to also look at, you know, your operations in a nuanced fashion. Um, because you know, you don't want super, you know, intense policies that were meant for big corporations when you're a [00:07:00] staff of six people, right?
So,
Tommy Truong: Yeah, you made a really good point. There's oftentimes, well, this is what we find oftentimes. Cannabis owners look into the regs, right? And that's your role. You look into the regs and you have to make sure that you keep your license. But there's also regulations outside of cannabis that you have to abide by too.
And that's typically with the state. So overtime, hours, all of those things you, you kind of need in your, in your guidelines as well.
Warren Harasz: Totally. I mean, overtime hours down to your licensing and renewals. If you're a minority or woman owned business, every state has a different set of requirements for when that has to be updated and applied for, and you need to keep that in order to keep your license because that's what you were awarded for.
Um. So this is where it is sort of a hodgepodge [00:08:00] of high level state and then municipal, you know, uh, we've got clients in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They have to have their mercantile license with the city. And that's a whole other separate application process. So you can see that document management, employee management, all of this very quickly becomes a beehive, right?
And so. You really need somebody that has a sense of how to control these documents, how to manage versions, um, and also stay on top of the changing regulations and all of your renewals as they come up.
Tommy Truong: Let's say, and this is the problem that we find. So let's say you could create this beautiful document before you open, hopefully, hopefully you've, you've done it before. You open and you've gone over the document with your managers and with your team, et cetera. That's really the start. That's really the, the starting line.
How should an operator think [00:09:00] about incorporating in this document that you've created into operations so that employees live and eat it? The problem that I see is oftentimes SOPs are created. they're not really operationalized.
Warren Harasz: Yeah, they sit on the shelf. They were, they were written once to meet the code requirement to pass with the inspector, and then from there. God love you. If your GM ever quits, you just lost the one person that knows how to train all of your bud tenders on how to take out the trash or how to sanitize the facility, uh, whatever.
So this is where it really comes down to having somebody that you know, knows how to put in the screenshots, know how, knows how to walk through your POS system. Maybe it's dutchy, uh, metric. And sit down and take the time and actually make this really useful so that a bud tender with a high school level of education can come in, read this and [00:10:00] understand exactly, you know, where the trash is located, how I have to take it out, and what I have to write down to then report that, you know, to the state to make sure we're complying with all of that.
So really it takes sort of a sense of what you actually do. And then how to write it to meet the code. And this is really where things get tricky. You know, uh, dispensary managers, they're great at doing their job. They're not always the best document writers. And if I'm being real, it's not always best to have the one performing the task, writing the SOP, because if it's me, I'm gonna make the steps as simple as possible so I can get it done and be done with my job.
Um, rather than doing it perfectly compliant in the best practice way. So, um, it takes a little bit of, you know, adjustment to answer your question, is it, it takes actually a living, breathing document that you have to train people on and then go, you know what, no one's [00:11:00] getting this, this isn't working Back to the drawing board.
We have to red.
Tommy Truong: That's, so do you think that early on when you are creating your version, one of, of the document and it's, it takes intention to see it in practice and to. Enforce these SOPs. What is the window that a, an owner should have on having this a little bit more malleable? You know, there's one thing about being compliant, but there's another thing about having, uh, SOPs that are, what is that word that I want that are not so restrictive?
You're compliant, but it's not burdensome of operations. It's, it's realistic. I, I would say.
Warren Harasz: Totally, and I mean it, it depends on what you're doing, right? So. If I have a clone technique and a cultivation facility, and I'm using a specific, you know, grow media and a specific set of [00:12:00] nutrients, I want it nitty gritty, right? I want to know the pH, the temperature of that cl. I want everything in detail because if my master grower dies, I want to be able to hand that SOP to somebody else and still get great healthy clones, and my cultivation facility is humming right along, right?
That being said, you don't want to make it so restrictive that like, oh my gosh, you didn't follow the SOP, now you're being written up. And by the way, there were a few ways you could have done this that would've been compliant. So this is where really it ultimately takes down to hitting the code first, making sure that you're gonna pass inspection, and then from there, get down to, you know, just the highest level of the operations in these.
Uh, instructions of, you know, the Waste Disposal Room is located here. Here's the facility map. Uh, here is the list of individuals and their job titles that are [00:13:00] approved to do this. Uh, and here is the information that you have to record in order to be compliant with the state. And oh, by the way, in this SOP, there is a deadline for us to check and audit all of these forms on the regular.
And then I would usually recommend a compliance schedule for at least six months or a year to go back through, check our SOP and talk to our team. Does this make sense? Is this working? Oh no, we're not doing it. Anything like that? Or, we bought a new piece of equipment that we're doing it with let's redraft, right?
Um, it's business continuity. It saves you on insurance. You know, like I've heard companies say, wow, we got a. Huge discount on our insurance because we actually wrote out all of our SOPs. Uh, these sorts of things make a huge difference, and it's not just, okay, we met the code, put 'em on the shelf, let's walk away.
Right?
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm. You mentioned something that may have, uh, [00:14:00] passed a lot of our listeners is. There's, there may be a lot of ways to do certain things and still be compliant, and often what I see when people write their recipes is they're very specific with one action. And if things change operationally that you don't know about you, you kind of restricted yourself to this one, one action or one vendor, whatever the case may be, when, uh, there might have been multiple ways for you to still be compliant and, and effective.
Warren Harasz: A good example would be like label printing. Okay, so we're, we're printing labels to put on our pre-rolls before they go out. And, oh, I bought a new label printer. I don't want to rewrite a whole SOP just for a new piece of equipment because it's got new buttons and you know, this button's over here versus over there.
Keep it simple. In the SOP, have a checklist for all of the things required on your label. [00:15:00] The manager of production can go through. Make sure that all of those things are dialed in. Print out a test label, maybe even put that in the SOP. And then from there, just check, oh look, there's our license number, there's the harvest date, there's the COA QR code, there's all of the state required stuff.
Check. We're good. Let's print out a thousand of these and package up our pre-rolls. So that's where, to your point, you don't wanna, you know, it's not trying to customize everything to the nitty gritty. Um, as long as you're hitting those high level things, I don't care what kind of printer you got, we could use anything.
Tommy Truong: How often should somebody review or audit that? are following their SOPs, and how often should you review, Hey, are these SOPs still relevant to our operations or have, have we evolved and is there a better way of, when should it be? When should we update this?
Warren Harasz: So anytime the code changes, [00:16:00] you pretty much have to update. So I just dealt with this in Ohio. They changed their. Uh, adult use purchase limits from, you know, a rolling 10 day limit to one day you can buy two and a half ounces. Well, that's a huge difference. Um, so this means going through and changing all the purchase limits in their sales SOPs so that all of their employees know this right away on day one.
Um, so that's the first trigger is if the code changes number two, at least annually. Pull them off the shelf, dust them off, read it, ask if this is even what we do anymore and if it makes sense. And then the last one would be if you're expanding or adding any new processes or steps. So like say you're a manufacturer, you started as a solventless lab, now you're going into distillate production.
Well, guess what? We need a whole new batch of SOPs for that level of [00:17:00] production. Um, so anytime you add, uh, we just added a new license of manufacturing to a cultivator, well they now need, you know, probably some SOPs for cross-contamination just to make sure that no one in the facility is, you know, uh, fouling up a brand new harvest with dirty gloves that they were just rolling pre-rolls with or something like that.
Right. So, um, it's definitely, I would say annually when the code changes. And then as you add and expand,
Tommy Truong: That's updating. How often should you audit your operations to see if you are abiding by, by what you wrote down?
Warren Harasz: yeah, so we try to do this annually, um, for most of our clients. We'll come through and do an annual review, uh, for retailers. We'll do, you know, a mock, uh, you know, inventory pull, make them pull a few of their things and make sure they reconcile with. Their POS and their seed [00:18:00] to sale tracking system. Um, you know, another would be, uh, just after a problem, right?
So like, we had a farm, they had a theft, you know, and so immediately after that, you need to go through all of your security SOPs, all of your, you know, equipment and gear, identify what the problem was. It turns out one of our cameras didn't even catch the individual that broke into the outdoor field. So that's our correct corrective action, right?
Replace the camera, go and test it, make sure that it's working and we can walk into the field at night and it actually, you know, gets an image of us, right? So these are the sorts of things that like, you know, it's basically check them regularly. But what I do is I meet with the team on a biweekly basis when I'm playing fractional compliance officer.
And this is sort of a time for the dispensary, the cultivator to say. We just got inspected and they dinged us for X, Y, and Z. Well, [00:19:00] great. You go back into the dispensary and keep selling cannabis. I'm gonna update your employee handbook with the new employee training regs that just changed in the state.
We'll email that to the OCM, the CRC, whoever the regulatory body is, and you keep going along and the corrective action is handled. So. You know, I would say it, it takes a compliance officer to sort of keep the finger on the pulse and identify these pain points because the last thing you want is the inspector to come in and say, well, hey, where's all your sanitation logs?
Where are your waste disposal logs? Then you're out of compliance. Then you either get fined or you know it, it's a red mark on your record.
Tommy Truong: Within the operations or within, within the company, what have you seen that work and, and who should actually own SOPs? Should it be the owner? Should it be, uh, the manager? At [00:20:00] the back who's, who's typically a, a good profile to own this part of the business.
Warren Harasz: Yeah, so usually with dispensaries, it's your gm just because if they don't know. Everything, opening and closing, cash counting, you know, the nitty gritty of the day in and day out. They're not a good gm. Um, and then the other would be your cultivator, you know, uh, arose by any other name, director of cultivation, master cultivator, whatever you want to call them.
Um, obviously they decide your grow media. They decide, you know, your fertigation system, your nutrients, all of that. And notoriously they're the worst about writing this stuff down because they want to be the magic individual that knows the secret formula. Well, sorry, this is a business if, you know, you die out surfing one day, we need you to come back, you know, and, uh, write all of this down for us.
Uh, and then manufacturing any recipes, any, um, you know, processes, [00:21:00] you should have a production manager that sort of oversees all of that. And then also does all of the training, which again. They better know all those SOPs because you're gonna be teaching everyone how to wash the hash or roll the pre-rolls, or you know, press the rosin or whatever it may be.
And if people are smashing their fingers in the rosin press, well, I'm gonna be looking at you first for what did you teach this guy?
Tommy Truong: Hmm. I'm so happy you didn't say the owner because they're typically not the best.
Warren Harasz: The, yeah, they're the worst. I mean, I don't mean the worst, but they just, it's rare that I have an owner that is. Fully involved day to day in the operations that really, really knows. Um, I mean, I, I see it. I have some small dispensaries that the, those owners are in there. They know their shop inside and out.
They're basically the GM that I just described. Uh, oftentimes if they're a lucky licensee from a lottery, like you mentioned, they don't know the industry and they don't [00:22:00] necessarily know what the policy should be. So this is where an experienced manufacturer. An experienced cultivator, an experienced dispensary, gm, they're gonna know pretty much what they have to report, what they have to do, and also just what industry best practices are.
So. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: So we spoke about, uh, 80 20 rule, and we spoke about the employee handbook as something that. Business owners need to get locked down before the doors open. What are some of other processes that you think or that you know that's really, really important before you open shop?
Warren Harasz: Yeah, so really just knowing your job titles and roles. And what, you know, compliance related tasks, those individuals will be responsible for when they come in the door. Um, 'cause quite often you see overwhelmed GMs that if they even had an A GM that you know, was [00:23:00] checking the sanitation log and the waste disposal log, then great.
Now they can focus on staffing. Right? Which is just such a big lift. You have high turnover in dispensaries, you kind of want to keep them focused so. Um, I would say, you know, it, it really comes, the, the handbook's a big one that's probably the most contentious, but when it comes to cultivation, probably your PPE and safety stuff, all of your OSHA manufacturing, all of your osha, um, all of your SDS reporting.
Uh, just because, you know, people forget OSHA is the only go, uh, federal government agency that could come into any cannabis facility in the United States. So if you have a ladder and somebody falls off of it, guess what? That's an OSHA claim. Uh, so that's probably the biggest one for, you know, CYA and just being safe.
Um, and then lastly, you know, your [00:24:00] formulations and your brand identity. I, I mean, and it could be as nitty gritty as with retailers. What is your customer service policy? What are the returns policies? You could have this on day one. What can I return and what can't I, um, how do people greet customers and send them out the door?
What is your brand in terms of how friendly, how interactive? Honestly, having a policy that you can train people on, on day one, it'll make a crazy difference in how, uh, you know, your customers feel coming out the door with like, wow, you know, I, I got fully educated on all of this stuff that I didn't know anything about, and I feel good about what I bought.
Tommy Truong: I really like that you mentioned that 'cause that often gets missed. The North Star, your brand and your brand. Oftentimes people have a misconception that your brand is a logo and you know a couple phrases, but it's really how customers [00:25:00] interact with your entire business.
Warren Harasz: I mean, it's as simple as, you know, make eye contact when they come in the door and greet them. And then immediately, you know, figure out how familiar with dispensaries they are. Are they a nana or grandpa that has never purchased anything? And you really need to educate them so that they don't go out the door and then call back later saying, oh my gosh, my wife thinks she's dying.
Um, we've had those calls in the old days, right. Um, versus, you know, the savvy consumer like myself, who's like, Hey, I know what I'm looking for. Tell me about the menu. Can you make any recommendations? Um, and get me in and out so that you can make a buck and get more customers in and pump the volume for your shop.
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm. I forgot to ask you this, and I think this is really important, is how should owners roll out? An SOP, for example, the handbook. What does an effective rollout [00:26:00] program look like?
Warren Harasz: It starts with your gm, so whoever's at the top, they're the ones enforcing this, right? So this is where all quality programs start with a commitment from the management, right? If your GM's not on board with any of these policies, like, oh, I'm not gonna, you know, write somebody up when they're more than five minutes late.
I don't care about that. We're a weed facility, as long as the work gets done. Well, maybe that's not a good policy to have written in your handbook. If they're not gonna enforce it, it could cause you problems down the road. So just making sure that whoever you have is, first of all, doing what's compliant with the state, because that's not optional, right?
Like when you're late or not. We can argue over whether that's important. Um, but at the same time, these are the ones enforcing it and if they enforce it, you know, inconsistently, that's the biggest thing that's pulling you towards a lawsuit.
Tommy Truong: Gotcha. [00:27:00] So.
Warren Harasz: So.
Tommy Truong: And that's a really good point that you've made alignment with the GM because they're the person that is overseeing operations and enforcing the rules. Consistency is even without lawsuits, consistency, what we found is so important. There's nothing worse than having two owners that are managers.
They write the schedules and there's no, there's nothing written down on. When employees need to request time off, so if the, if the rules are being applied inconsistently, the employees get very confused at what are the rules.
Warren Harasz: Exactly. And I mean, uh, to finish the question about how you roll it out, once the GM or the, the high up manager signs off and says, that's okay, you've gotta train somebody on it now. So if you go to train somebody on it and they're like, oh my gosh, these screenshots and all of this, you know, I gotta click through this stuff, and it makes [00:28:00] no sense.
That's bad. You need your employees to be able to understand this and keep it as simple and as high level as possible to hit that. Right? So this is where it, you know, make sure your management's on board then go and actually teach somebody how to do it. They understand it, they acknowledge it. We're on board.
Awesome. Let's go ahead and implement it. We're gonna train 10 more people all on the same SOP.
Tommy Truong: Ideally, when should you have this done before you open?
Warren Harasz: Yeah, so I mean, some of the stuff you have to have done, you know, like I'm doing it in Minnesota right now, to convert all of these licenses that we help these individuals to win. To your point, since they're not open yet. I'm kind of keeping it as high level as possible to just what is required. And then from there, once they're open, we're gonna work with their teams to sort of make these be spoken, to [00:29:00] customize them, you know, to fit their operations because we don't want them to be missing anything, uh, in terms of their reporting requirements because they changed something like, oh, you're cloning.
Technique. You know, while it turns out you're taking really big cuttings and you need to tag them right away because the state says, you know, once they're over six inches tall, et cetera, well, if you were taking shorter cuttings, you would need to tag them right away, right? So these, it's an example of these sort of shifts in operational method that you would probably want to capture in a, you know, custom SOP that you maybe don't need just to get open with licensure from the state.
Tommy Truong: Gotcha and say typically, uh oh, actually I should ask you this. Oftentimes, um, new entrepreneurs that are opening up the dispensary, it's really hard to gauge when they should, hi. When should somebody [00:30:00] be hired before the doors open? And how do I, how do I assess how many employees do I need? So what's, uh, kind of what, what should be the thought process of somebody that's just opening up the doors in, uh, regarding this?
And then on top, a layer on top of that is training.
Warren Harasz: Yep. Yep. So I always tell all of my clients to run lean. Okay. So, and this is where. I've seen dispensaries hire 24 employees to staff up on day one with an army, and then, you know, no one knows they exist yet. The marketing hasn't really hit, you know, word of mouth hasn't gotten out. They wound up laying off 10 people.
Well that's 10 people that really don't feel great about you in your community that are, you know, maybe leaving master reviews. That are, you know, it's just, it, it creates bad will, right? So what I always tell people is, get your key management staff that are [00:31:00] going to do this hiring and training in place.
Make sure that they're ready. And then from there, be prepared to just pump out those, uh, applications and, and get those in and start doing the hiring right away. Especially in the beginning, you're gonna have a few that just don't work out right away in a week, two weeks, you know? Um, and you need another.
So this is where staying lean, having some real dedicated core team members that aren't afraid, especially in the beginning, to pick up Slack, that will help you survive. You know, as things increase in scale to start just, you know, ramping up. Uh, 'cause you don't want too much payroll.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, no, that's really sound advice. And I've, I've seen, I've seen two, uh, two stories. There's nothing bad about being really busy during opening day and people needing to hustle and you know, if you're an owner, you're not involved. You have to be, you're the budtender in opening day. You are, [00:32:00] you are, you are the jack of all trades, you know, for that week.
Warren Harasz: Totally. Yeah. I mean, and, and that's where I've seen some owners be very successful. In robust markets like Atlantic City, New Jersey, by staying incredibly lean and being willing to, you know, deal with the turnover issues. Um, like they had employees that got caught with theft. That's common in retail. Uh, it means the security measures were working, but at the same time, now you have to replace this person, and that's another training.
So again, having those owners that are willing to just. Whatever, we'll stay up till 11 and run this place until I get the staff in place that I can lean on. And then when they get it, they're happier for it 'cause they're sleeping at night because they know that their dedicated person is taking care of it.
Tommy Truong: Ideally, when should you have your forming team, your initial team, before opening day to give you just enough time [00:33:00] to go over, uh, your SOPs with the team?
Warren Harasz: I mean, I would say at least six weeks. Because you've gotta do hiring, you've gotta do training. You probably need them in there even helping you set up your dispensary. If it's a cultivation, they're definitely helping you set up your grow. Um, so you know, this is just where minimum of six weeks, uh, having that operational payroll for at least your GM and an A GM most likely.
Um, and, you know, it's gonna be really hard, but hey, they're helping to meet the IT vendor and unlock the building and get it installed. Or the, the camera guy, they're helping you to move the ball forward towards that final licensure and opening day. Um, and they're also gonna have to work with all of these employees.
So you might want to have worked with them for at least a few weeks before, you know, you set them loose on a, a team.
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm. That's really sound advice. And, [00:34:00] and as they're hiring, the bud tenders the back. What should be ideally, and, you know, in business you, you wish for the best, but that never really happens. When should those individual contributors start? How many days before opening week? So that you have time to train, train them.
Warren Harasz: Honestly, two weeks. Like, I try to keep it short because it's a cost, and like I said, especially initially, you tend to have like, oh, we hired five people and three of them showed up, you know? Um, and so that's where, you know, not overstaffing and overpaying, uh, for people that may not even be there in a month.
You know, that's definitely good. Um, and just being willing to take on some of those long hours. And like you said, don't be afraid to have a line. You might only be that busy for the first two weeks, and really, if you are that busy nonstop, what a great problem to have. Right?
Tommy Truong: [00:35:00] Yeah, right. That's not a bad problem.
Warren Harasz: no, I would rather staff up and feel like I'm just constantly running back and forth and oh my gosh, I keep having to buy more inventory. Shucks. Um, then going, no one knows we're here and we've got eight people standing on the floor and only two of them are even needed. Right. So, yeah.
Tommy Truong: Or is there anything that we didn't cover that you feel is really important?
Warren Harasz: You know, I would say the one thing is that we often write a lot of these SOPs is part of the application, and then you are forced to sort of wear the suit after the fact. Right. And so this is where, uh, it really helps to sort of write those SOPs, like you said, is loosely and openly, uh, for the application.
I call it the p in SOP stands for policy, not procedure 'cause we're just gonna follow the policies and meet the code. And then once you [00:36:00] start moving towards operations, hiring your master grower or your your production manager for manufacturing your gm, start to hammer down the nitty gritty. As you move towards operations and don't make promises to the state that you can't keep.
So if it's written in that SOP, you better be willing to follow it because the inspector's going to call you out on.
Tommy Truong: That's really sound advice, like really sound advice. I so do. Is it best practice to even the first three months or six months to be, to have more oversight on your SOPs check in operationally? Does this make sense?
Warren Harasz: I think you're gonna get that just because you're training people on them constantly. And so you're almost gonna go through a trial by fire where you just hired this whole staff to help you run things and then you go, oh my gosh, uh, Todd and Mary and Jim, they could not [00:37:00] understand this cloning. SOP, it's terrible, right?
Um, so that's where I do think some of the fires, they immediately pop up because you just realize that, uh, you know, it wasn't right from the start.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. And does that happen often? Because I, I find, I, I find a lot of. People that just get into business, they want things to be perfect, but that's generally not the case. It's you're constantly learning and constantly improving. How, how common is that for
Warren Harasz: I tell people it's a living, breathing document. It's gonna evolve and we're gonna track iterations of the versions through the entire life of your business. Um, and this is where you want it to be that way because your business should be always changing and evolving. The code is changing and evolving. I mean, shoot, in a few years the feds might come in.
Every manufacturer in America is gonna suddenly be holding to GMP. That's gonna be a massive [00:38:00] shift in people's SOPs. And the operators that planned ahead looking at that, you know, federal production guideline are gonna be the ones that. Uh, survive into federal decriminalization or legalization. So, you know, living, breathing document.
Don't be afraid to always be updating and always checking the regs because if you don't, uh, you risk fines, regulatory delays, um, or lawsuits because of your employees.
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining me today. That's, I, I can't stress enough how important that is. How can our, our listeners find you?
Warren Harasz: Uh, yeah. So you can reach out to me at w Raz, H-A-R-A-S z@cannaspire.com, or you can reach out. Uh, we have a great drift on our website@canaspire.com. Ww dot cannaspire.com. Um, and just reach out. It has full information on all of our services, uh, you know, [00:39:00] even web marketing and SEO, brand design. So, uh, it's all up there.
We would love to hear from you.
Tommy Truong: Thanks for joining me today.
Warren Harasz: Thanks, Tommy.
