Tommy Truong: [00:00:00] A world class net promoter score is like 50, for example, or 60. It's, that's really high. So it's, it's a, it's a true testament of how many attract you have.
Ryan Hunter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tommy Truong: amazing that you guys are rolling that out. I, that's really, really forward thinking.
And, and for those that are listening that are not aware of how it's calculated, and that promoter score isn't just a simple average, you know, you have, I think it's eight to 10 are promoters and then. Under five or three, it's detractors and the detractors cancel. All the promoters and the neutrals don't, you don't get a score, so you can end up with a net promoter score of zero and it's just equal detractors to to promoters or all neutral.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. And, and thank you Tommy. 'cause there's no way I would've explained that as well as you did. So, good job.
Intro: Welcome to the the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their [00:01:00] operations.
Tommy Truong: Ryan, thank you so much for joining me today.
Ryan Hunter: Hey Tommy, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate you.
Tommy Truong: Before we start, you've been in this game for a while. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Ryan Hunter: Oh, sure. Well I've lived in Colorado for the last 20 years. I have a wonderful family here and I've really loved living here for that. Lived a bunch of different places. I was a military kid growing up. Career wise, I had about a 20 year career in the tech industry. Started my career at Accenture, really large corporation.
Had a couple other roles at large companies, but mostly startups. And then within that 20 years, I did spend four years on Wall Street as a sell side analyst covering technology companies. And then about 10 years ago, I, I had a successful exit from the last. Tech startup that I did and was trying to figure out what to do next.
And [00:02:00] somebody was introduced to me who needed help commercializing a an innovative technology for cannabis oil extraction. And I jumped into the circus of the cannabis industry. And cannabis and, and psychedelics have been a part of my life for about 38 some odd years now. But the last 10 years have been especially.
Fascinating. Rewarding, frustrating, challenging, engaging. It is been a, a, a wild ride and I, I can't say I've enjoyed every minute of it, but I'm pretty happy with where I'm at, so hard to regret the path that led me here.
Tommy Truong: I feel like that story is. Consistent consistent across the board on every successful entrepreneur that goes into the cannabis industry, it could be so much better. It's always, it's always interesting, isn't it?
Ryan Hunter: Well, yeah. I mean, I think the folks that have made it as long as I have, we all have similar stories to tell. We all have, we all I say often, we all have books in [00:03:00] us waiting to be written.
Tommy Truong: So Spherex is. Like for me in industry, darling, you guys have done so much growth over the last little while. What have you attributed your growth to
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, I, I love that question. You know, I came on board three years ago and inherited a, a really remarkable team. We've only hired a couple of junior level folks. Most of the core team was there before I started. So really wonderful people. It's been a great place to work. We put a, a, a significant amount of attention on the details.
And, and that goes from, you know, sourcing the biomass that we use to extract and produce our products, the way that we manage our production. And then all the way through to seeing those products sold to. Consumers. So every step of the way, we have a lot of discipline involved, a lot of attention to detail.
We have a really strong and collaborative [00:04:00] culture in our company. We, we work on the inevitable problems that always tend to show up in a really positive way, and we move through those things and, you know, I, I think we really honor our commitments to one another and the company, and then. Beyond that to the suppliers, the, the cultivators that we work with and as well as the retailers and the consumers.
Every single one of those relationships is really, really important to us.
Tommy Truong: I was listening to an interview that you did last year, and you guys were, and you, you were talking about. The different personas of a cannabis customer
Ryan Hunter: Hmm. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: and segmenting those personas appropriately for your marketing engine. Can you talk a little bit about the insights that you, that you have and how Sphere X'S marketing has been so innovative?
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, sure. I, I think well, there's a, a few things to unpack there. What, what I think is really crucial about [00:05:00] anybody. Who's trying to sell a product in the regulated cannabis industry is you have to really develop a, a, an authentic connection with the bud tenders. They really are in control of that transaction.
They're very, really, there are no other products sold today where you're at the point of sale. You don't, you don't go into, you know, seven 11 and say, Hey, I, I'd like a, a Coke, and, and the person behind the counter isn't gonna say, I really think you should have Pepsi. It just, this just doesn't
Tommy Truong: That's so true. That's so true.
Ryan Hunter: and, and so we have to really be on that. You know, we, we do a lot. We have a really tremendous field marketing team. They're out every single week in the stores talking to Bud Tenderers. Loving them, you know, swag, food, whatever it takes. And then we have a lot of budtender appreciation events throughout the year.
We have a, a really epic party in October. And a lot of that is just continually building that [00:06:00] connection with 'em. So I, that is what I would say is really at, at the core of the strategy. And then beyond that, we run a full stack marketing program that covers every step of the customer journey, very similar to what you see in traditional consumer product brands.
And surprisingly, you don't really see it that often in the cannabis industry. I think we're one of the few companies that really operates a, a program that's at every stage of that customer journey and are really designed to drive, sell through at the retail and, product loyalty, brand loyalty with the, with the shoppers.
So I think, you know, that, that's what I would say in summary is, is sort of the, the secret, if you will of the success.
Tommy Truong: I've heard, and I I hear this all the time with other brands, is you have to have a strong road game. How is your road game and how is your support to the, to retailers? Because a strong connection with bud tenders is evident in your [00:07:00] strategy. Does this dictate how fast you can grow geographically? And where did you start?
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. So yeah, so there's, there's, there's a few things there as well. I think building on that relationship with the budtender, the, the overall relationship with the retailers, we look at merchandising programs with in-store assets. We also lean heavily into the types of marketing programs that retailers find effective for their customer base.
Not every retailer does things exactly the same way and we'll, we'll do, you know, private events with some, but with some retailers. And then we will do programs. For example, we do a sponsorship every year with Z's dad, the, the musical group. And we will partner with a retailer and do things like, we'll give away little poker chips that are effectively coupons at that event.
And that drives the, the attendees to the event to go into the stores [00:08:00] and, and buy the products from a specific retailer. So that's one example. We have many programs like that. We do billboard advertising magazine advertising. We're piloting podcast advertising and doing a bunch of different programs to drive awareness and then customer intention to go in.
And then as we think about going into other markets, and part of my experience, I spent four years helping to run Willie Nelson's cannabis company. I worked with some really tremendous people there. Elizabeth Hogan was our head of brand. Jeff Gillis was our head of marketing and Nicole Beck. Was our head of field marketing.
So a lot of these programs or programs that I've adapted from the work we were doing there. I took Willie's reserve from two states to eight states. And what we got really good at was packaging up these programs and building a process around them so that our partners in each market could operate them effectively as well.
So as we go forward with [00:09:00] sphere spherex and contemplate expanding that's likely the same sort of playbook that we would use for, for the road games making sure that. The success that we've had in Colorado is very much repeatable in the other markets.
Tommy Truong: It's, that's so true because the number one mistake that I see a lot of retailers make is growing too fast and spreading themselves too thin before they, they have enough market concentration in a particular market.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. Well, I think you meant brands,
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Brands. Sorry. Yeah.
Ryan Hunter: yeah. That, that's right. There's lots of brands that, and I won't name them to, you know, I don't wanna shame anybody, but there's, there's lots of brands that are, well, we're in 15 states. Well, okay, well what do you do in those 15 states to drive, sell through at the retail locations?
And, and a lot of brands rely on pop-ups. Popups don't work. They're an ineffective use of personnel and capital. [00:10:00] You're gonna have somebody in a store for a few hours, they might see a dozen people, and that's it. So it's, it's fine if you're new to the store to build some awareness and engage with the, the retail staff there, but as a core component of, of a marketing plan's just not effective.
And then so beyond that. What are you doing in those markets? And more often than not the, well, you know, the answer is, well, we have an Instagram account. We do some things there and we, you know, we have some signs in the store, so, so very limited engagement, but hey, we're in 15 states.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Which, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, the retailer really, really, really is seeking brands that can support them.
Ryan Hunter: That's right. You have to be going back to my original comment about the, our focus on those relationships. That's a partnership for us, and we, we invest in those partnerships very meaningfully.
Tommy Truong: You've mentioned customer journey, and I love talking [00:11:00] about what other companies think about their customer journeys. We did a customer journey mapping last month, actually, the executive team and just really dialing in what are the, where are, what's the touch points in our customer's journey that we can dig into that can give 'em that wow moment. As a business, we can have a connection with our customers. How do you guys approach your customer journey?
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, I, I, it's, I love that question. I, I think, you know, where sometimes you see cannabis companies fall down is you get folks who are leading the company that aren't a part of the cannabis community, and so those leaders are disconnected from. The shoppers who they're trying to influence. With our team, we're very much engaged in the cannabis community.
We have a number of events throughout the year in which we have the opportunity to engage with them. So they [00:12:00] see us. We're out there, we're, we're connecting with them. We're building. Tangible, authentic relationships with cannabis consumers. And I think that's the mindset we bring to all of the programs that we do.
We're very experimental. We, we will, we will try things on a very, very small scale first and see how they go. Sometimes they don't go great and we don't do them anymore. And the ones that do go well, we invest and, and keep doing more of those. So. You know, I, I think a lot of it's experimentation preferences changed.
You know, there's trends. We, we do a lot of innovation in our products and our programming and we get rid of the things that don't work and lean into the things that do.
Tommy Truong: I was gonna ask you that, how does the marketing team and sales impact product, the overall product and customer experience?
Ryan Hunter: It's super collaborative. We have a weekly meeting every Tuesday morning. All of the department heads from. Production all the way through to, to sales [00:13:00] and marketing sit around a table. We go over every aspect of our business. And then within that is new product development. So, you know, for example, if we have a new, we, we primarily make vapor cartridges.
We do have a sleep gummy as well, but the, the, the vapor cartridges, especially, we rotate in new flavors. So we'll talk about if there are, you know, different cannabis varieties that are trendy or different flavors that. We may be missing that need to fill out the portfolio. We have a very, very tight assortment.
We don't have, we have 60 SKUs. Our closest competitor in Colorado has more than doubled
Tommy Truong: I think I, I honestly think that's why you guys are successful.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. Well, thank you. I mean, it really helps from an, from an operating perspective, from a production perspective, we can run pretty lean. And so, you know, we will go through a multi-week process, several rounds of trying different variations of one flavor each week.
We'll try five different versions of that flavor and keep iterating until we land on the, the right [00:14:00] formulation. For example last year we launched or I guess it was earlier this year. We launched a four gram all in one distillate product, and we spent nearly a year working with our hardware manufacturer, which is a company called Finished Goods, but we collaborated with them to develop that device from the ground up because what we saw in the market with those large format.
Devices was a lot of defective hardware. They, they were leaking people were, you know, we get down to the, the, the last gram and it would taste awful. Some of the, some of the defect rates were as high as 15 or 20%, and so our, our defect rate across all of our product lines is less than half a percent, and we're really fastidious about that.
The, the sleep gummy that we launched, we spent about a year. Developing that as well. And so sales and marketing brings the voice of the customer to the equation, and then we collaborate with our colleagues on the production side to make sure that [00:15:00] we're not coming up with something that's difficult or costly to produce.
Tommy Truong: Sleep gummies. Sleep gummies is a condi is a completely different form than distillate. What made you guys decide to go into that market?
Ryan Hunter: Well, good question. I mean, we, we are starting to feel like, you know, our, our growth trajectory. We look kind of a, a couple years out at these things and we felt like, okay, we're with, within the next couple years, we're gonna be pretty saturated with the vapor products gummies, very crowded market segment.
But it, it translate, we produce a lot of distillate. We also have a rosin based. Vapor cartridge product. And so we're comfortable working with those materials. And so we kind of looked at, well, maybe we do infused pre-rolls, maybe we do gummies. We landed on gummies, and as we started to do the market analysis, the number one edible product in every, every single state.
Is a sleep gummy. If you look at the number one reason why people [00:16:00] consume cannabis, it's to fall asleep. And so rather than joining a very crowded assortment with a yet another average distillate gummy, we, we launched one sku and that is a rosin based sleep gummy. And instead of you know, most sleep gummies, use a lot of ca cannabinol, CBN.
And oftentimes that's great at helping you fall asleep. But you'll wake up the next day feeling like you got run over by a truck. So we really reduced the amount of CBN relative to competitive formulations, and we added REI mushrooms, which is a nons psychedelic functional mushroom. That's very effective at helping people stay asleep.
And so these have been really well received by shoppers. We have some big incumbents in the market with wild and wana, but we absolutely have a much better product than, than either of those brands have in the market. And so again, we are very disciplined in how we've rolled it [00:17:00] out. We've been steadily expanding the product with the reishi ingredient requires additional education, so we're trying to use a sports metaphor.
We're trying not to out kick our coverage. We're, we're only expanding to the extent that our field marketing team can keep up. With educating the, the retail staff, and it's been going great. So now we've started to expand our advertising efforts around that product line. And hopefully by this time next year we'll be in that dominant position, at least in Colorado in the edible space.
And then we might fill in with some other gummy skews that have, you know, more general purpose, maybe a rosin product without. The sleep effects and maybe a distillate product after we've earned our position in the consumer's set of preferences and in the retailer's assortment.
Tommy Truong: That is admirable and I,
Ryan Hunter: Thank you.
Tommy Truong: no, I, and I think that's a testament to why you guys are successful. [00:18:00] Oftentimes it's the secret and it's so simple, but so difficult to,
Ryan Hunter: it's hard to execute.
Tommy Truong: it's hard to execute operationally as I know, I'm an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs generally get a, you know, we want to grow faster than we should, or we want to take on more more than, than or dilute ourselves.
You know what I was, I was
Ryan Hunter: I, I have, I have lots of entrepreneurial experience and all these gray hairs come from a bunch of failures. Along the way. So I've, I've learned those lessons the hard way, man. I feel you. It, it is the tendency get so excited and want to go full steam ahead, but I've learned to take a crawl, walk, run approach instead of the other way around.
Tommy Truong: I was talking to the executive team the other day and we were talking about this very issue of.
Ryan Hunter: Hmm.
Tommy Truong: As a business, it's really easy to understand the tangible cost of things. So, hey we have a [00:19:00] customer, they want X, Y, and Z. We're gonna make X amount of dollars on it, should we do it or not? Right? That's fair.
That's a rack. MRR or our dollar value. But it's really hard for entrepreneurs to understand opportunity costs. The opportunity costs of not going deep. The opportunity cost of spreading yourself too thin, and oftentimes that's what unravels a business.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. It was super hard to learn those things without direct experience, though. Easy, easy to talk about. But until you know what that looks like, what that feels like, it's, it's hard to put it in practice.
Tommy Truong: It is. And it's always, the crux for me is like it's so much less expensive to learn from other people's mistake. But
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: without that emotional connection of loss, it's really hard to be disciplined.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and two, I think the other thing that creates a lot of problems, if you're overcapitalized in a startup, if you have too much cash on the balance sheet, you can [00:20:00] avoid learning some, some mistakes By throwing money at it, you know, you, you can avoid some real good lessons by spending money to solve a problem.
So that's the other wrinkle. If a, if a startup has too much capital, then you know, they, they tend to not learn important lessons for that reason.
Tommy Truong: So you guys have done, your formula is brilliant. You make sure that you have enough. Field reps or to sustain your rookie and, you know, this proprietary, I won't dig into that, but, and then you What? What?
Ryan Hunter: it's not proprietary. I'm happy to talk about it all you want. I
Tommy Truong: Oh, awesome.
Ryan Hunter: like I said, there's nothing really secret about what we're doing con many consumer product companies do this in many other markets. It's just unique to the cannabis industry.
Tommy Truong: That's so true. I mean, we, we do have a lot to learn from other industries considering how young we are.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: So, and I love,
Ryan Hunter: Liquor brands do what we do all day, every day and have been for, for decades. There's [00:21:00] no, there's nothing different about what we do than what the liquor brands do.
Tommy Truong: but I love how you got your, you, you roll out one gummy,
Ryan Hunter: Mm-hmm.
Tommy Truong: make sure that you have consumer acceptance, you build product knowledge, and now it's so much easier to launch another. You know, another variation because you have that already.
Ryan Hunter: yeah, and I think that sits on top of the go to market program. We have, we have demonstrated that we can drive sell through meaningfully. With the retailers, we've demonstrated that we care about the quality of our products and that we're gonna partner with them. And so they're receptive to the crazy ideas that we have.
We're like, Hey, we've got the sleeve gummy. Can we try it in your stores and see how it goes? And the answer is yes. You know, we, we started in a handful of stores and, and have grown from there.
Tommy Truong: What does. The [00:22:00] education of Bud tenders look like. How do you get bud tenders excited about the product?
Ryan Hunter: Oh man, that's I love that. It kind of depends on the chain or the retailer. You know, some of them have very formalized programs where they, they have, you know, regular education. They have a way that they, like it rolled out. On the other end of that spectrum is, okay, come in this day and, and drag a couple people back into the break room and talk to them about it.
So, you know, it, it really kind of that whole range. So we have assets, we have training materials, we have power, you know, PowerPoint slide that, Google slides that, that we present that have the information that we think is important for the bud tenders. We really focus on the, the differentiators. Why this instead of that and, and really try to plant those as the key soundbites.
So we try to make that real crisp. And then, you know, we'll do fun things like there'll be a quiz, [00:23:00] like just standard education stuff. There'll be a quiz to test that they were paying attention, and we'll bring swag to give away for, you know, people that raise their hands and answer. The question. So, you know, you're pretty, pretty straightforward in that regard.
And then for the company, the, the retailers that have more formalized education programs, they can take our assets and do the training on their own if, if they need to do it that way. And, and usually what we find is we have to make a couple of passes because of shift schedules. You know, not everybody is gonna be there.
Some people might be at the register when we're there to train the staff. So we need to go back again and get the rest of the people that we didn't get the first time around. So we pay a lot of attention to that, especially with, with this product. This product needs a lot of extra love. So we've been, we've been pretty, pretty intentional about that
Tommy Truong: Do you guys get the data of which budtenders are your top performing stars?
Ryan Hunter: [00:24:00] We, we have, you know, we've used programs like, what is it? Oh, I'm embarrassed. I can't remember. So spark, spark plug. So we've used programs like that in the past. We're not currently doing it at the moment. For a while it was kind of a hot thing to do, to have incentives, to incentivize Bud Tenderers on selling more of the product.
And we did that, you know, earlier in our growth trajectory. We've built so much authentic. Loyalty with the Bud tenderers. Now that we don't necessarily invest in that, what we are starting to do is look at net promoter score. And so that will be a new effort for us as we go into 2026. We've been doing some, some internal work on that.
We'll pilot it and then we'll, we'll start to do that more broadly
Tommy Truong: Oh, with the, the bud tenders themself.
Ryan Hunter: the Bud tenderers. Yeah. We'll have, our field staff will go in and, do you know how Net Promoter Score works? So for the sake of maybe some listeners that don't, it's basically one simple question. On a scale of one to 10, [00:25:00] how likely are you to recommend our products to your customers? And so we will ask the bud tenderers that.
And we will see how we do. And then we have lots of ways that we can use that data. For example we might do that in a new account and then go back three months later after they've been engaged with our field marketing staff with training with. Swag with, with the, the food drops and things like that.
And then we'll ask again and see, compare the difference, and that's a way for us to measure the effectiveness of those programs.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks again. Not, not, not exactly novel, been used for decades, but I think maybe somewhat unique in the cannabis industry.
Tommy Truong: That is something that we talk about so much. I, I have a background in the restaurant space. We're, we serve two brands, restaurants and cannabis brands, and there's a lot of [00:26:00] parallels to a restaurant owner that owns multi-unit. A multi-unit operation to a, to a, to a retailer. And we're always trying to find what has worked in the restaurant industry, the oldest industry in the world, and migrate over these best practices to cannabis.
'cause cannabis is so new and some things are very novel.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, absolutely.
Tommy Truong: What ha, what else have you, and let's talk about the product a little bit. What. Does set you guys apart and as a, as a bud tender, why should I gravitate towards spherex?
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, well with, with vapor cartridges, man, that is hard.
Tommy Truong: It's a difficult, I mean, this is saturated, right?
Ryan Hunter: it is really, well, it's saturated, but it, it tends to be very commoditized. You know, if, if you get two, two vapor cartridges from two different brands, if they're do both, doing a good job of producing. A quality product, it's gonna be hard to distinguish [00:27:00] between the two of 'em.
So it's real hard with it, with, with vapor cartridges. In, in less so maybe with flour. There's very distinctive differences between flour quality and different grades and, and that sort of thing. But with vapor cartridges, a lot of similarities. So, you know, number one has to be high quality. We are constantly like I said, introducing new flavors.
We're very rigorous. In finalizing the flavor formulations of, of what we do. We want that to be a very enjoyable experience for the consumer. And then you have to cover a range of taste profiles. As well. So the, that is very intentional. A lot of work goes into that. Number two is the quality of the hardware.
It cannot leak, it cannot fail. You cannot have malfunctioning hardware that produces a off offset, off-putting taste in the product. So. That's something that we have also worked with to we, we've used a range of different [00:28:00] hardware vendors over the years, and we are very happy with the partnership that we have with finished goods because they put as much attention into that quality as we need them to.
And so. You'd be surprised. Those two things right there will, will set you at a different level than a lot of the people that, that we compete with. A lot of the, the other companies that we compete with. And then from there, the third, the third piece of that is, is. Like I said earlier, winning the hearts of those budtenders because ultimately someone comes in and says, I want a vapor cartridge.
If they don't already have, even if they do already have a brand in mind, that budtender at the end of the day is gonna have so much influence on the the final selection, and we will always want the answer to be our brands.
Tommy Truong: That. So true, and I've never really thought about that until you, until you mentioned it earlier, that there's not a lot of retail experiences [00:29:00] that that relationship between the bud tender and the consumer is present.
Ryan Hunter: here, here are the ones I know. Wine,
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Ryan Hunter: coffee, specialty, like in a coffee, specialty, coffee or tea. And your doctor's office. That's why there's legions of pharmaceutical representatives bringing cookies and cakes and, and treats to doctor's offices all over the country. If you have other ones, I'm always looking for new ideas, but those are the ones that I, I think are the OI can't, like people don't buy eggs, soda, those things, you know, those aren't, those aren't affected by the the retailer.
Tommy Truong: Especially for goods that are. I would say transactional or a lower price point.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah,
Tommy Truong: These are really consultants that are consulting on a consumer, on a, on something that's not really that expensive.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. And, and it gimme shift over time, right? Is a relatively young industry and, and [00:30:00] the, the 80 20 rule applies 20% of the shoppers are buying 80% of the products. Those core 20% of the shoppers, they come in with a preference in mind and they kind of split evenly. Especially with flour. You'll find half of those, that 20% cohort, half of them are gonna buy the same thing every time, and half of them are gonna say, well, what's new and different?
And that's comes down to their personality, right outside of that core 20%. A lot of people, shoppers that are coming into the store are really, you know, they, they may have had cannabis experience years ago or they may not be frequent shoppers, and that's where really where the budtender has the most impact.
Tommy Truong: What if you found that?
Ryan Hunter: sorry, so just to finish that thought, so as more of the population becomes. Educated and, and understands the products are available. Perhaps the budtender may have less influence, but that's not the [00:31:00] situation that we have today.
Tommy Truong: I look at, some retailers have hundreds, I mean, most of them have hundreds, but we're talking about four or 500 SKUs in the back. And as a bud tender, you have to, there's new shipments coming in weekly. You are, you're probably new. Your career, it's a high, very high turnover positions, 55, 60%. How do you guys stay on top of. butt tender's mind when it comes to,
Ryan Hunter: yeah. What. Well, the, the short answer is frequency. We're in those stores all the time. We have a, we have a specific cadence, so our top tier accounts that have the most volume. We visit those stores, I would say every four weeks, maybe less. And then for the next tier then maybe less frequently, maybe every six to eight weeks.
And then for a third tier, maybe once a quarter in Colorado, we have some [00:32:00] remote locations up in the mountains that are, that are pretty far away. So those ones are a bit harder to get to, but we're intentional about it and they give us feedback that they really appreciate it 'cause not many other brands take the, the, the time and the effort to, to do that.
But the assortment issue causes all kinds of problems, right? Most, most dispensaries are over assorted. Many, many dispensary buyers feel, feel the need to fill those walls. And, and that creates all kinds of problems. And, and the, the biggest problem that it creates is, is limited sell-through. And from there, that has a domino effect.
So. If the retailer purchased those product on payment terms, they're expecting that all that product is gonna sell through before the bill comes due to their supplier. If it doesn't sell through in a fast enough timeframe, they're left not paying their bills on time, which is a massive issue that we have in this industry and other industries.
The retailer might be able to get a line of credit. From a bank and then pay [00:33:00] the supplier based on, based on that debt. But in our industry, those types of banking facilities aren't available. So this over assortment is a massive problem, and it's the main reason why we have this huge accounts receivable problem in the industry.
'cause retailers just carrying way too many, way too many brands, way too many products.
Tommy Truong: It's huge. It's, it's a huge, and it's paralyzing too. It's so paralyzing. I.
Ryan Hunter: the most effective retailers are churning their underperforming products all the time. They'll, they'll get rid of anything that's not selling through within their payment terms, and they do that regularly.
Tommy Truong: I've always wondered if retailers, if a retailer can ever adopt the Costco model. Not from a white label perspective, but just from a, Hey, this category, these are the, the brands that we're gonna carry or the number of brands we're gonna carry, and that's.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: off a brand before we add a brand type of thing.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. [00:34:00] In, in our state star buds. Does that model that, that's, that's their, that's their method, for sure. And, and they've had a lot of success with it.
Tommy Truong: It's probably so much more easier for everybody involved.
Ryan Hunter: Absolutely. Without a doubt.
Tommy Truong: I want to talk, I wanna pivot a little bit. I wanna talk about your consulting
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: side of things because I'm so interested when I was. Looking at the work that you've done. Anti-Gravity is a name that just pulled me, so it, it, it's funny, it's anti-gravity, but it gave it, there was a gravitational pull for sure, for me. What do you guys, what do you do? What does anti
Ryan Hunter: I mean, that started many, many years ago. I've, I've had done various consulting projects for, for companies over the years. Going back to the time, my time in tech, usually go to market efforts, pricing, marketing strategy, sales strategy, those, those types of things. And then within the cannabis industry, I've consulted with some national brands.
Old pal Bens [00:35:00] Heisman helping them with multi-state strategies, licensing strategies, pricing, go to market planning and things like that. And then more recently that has evolved into a private practice, a personal development, coaching and psychedelic facilitation. So it, it, it less, less focus on the business consulting my.
My quote unquote day job at, at Spherex keeps me quite engaged. So I don't do a lot of business consulting these days, but mostly it's personal development, coaching for individual clients, and then psychedelic facilitation as well.
Tommy Truong: The personal, the executive coaching, do you stay in the cannabis lane or it's just across all industries?
Ryan Hunter: It's definitely not specific to cannabis, but I have coached many people in the cannabis industry. I just sort of, I think that's my community. That's, that's the, the closest network. And I don't do a lot of advertising or promotion around my, my coaching practice, I have about a half dozen [00:36:00] clients, and then each of those clients I'll see every other week.
So each week I'm really only working with a few clients and then. One will finish and then it seems like another one will, will show up. And it's been kind of like that. I've been I've coached several professional musicians as well. So I, I think cannabis, the music industry, some tech in tech, probably the, that, that's probably the, the, the industries that I, of people I coach.
Tommy Truong: How prevalent is imposter syndrome?
Ryan Hunter: Oh, it's rampant. Yeah, it's so hard. I mean, that's one of the, the hardest issues I've personally had to, to overcome. You know? It's so hard.
Tommy Truong: Myself, myself included. And I, I was wondering, you, you are on the other side, you see a lot of different personalities come through. Is this something that takes a lot of space in your conversation?
Ryan Hunter: Imposter syndrome specifically. Yeah. I think it does, you know, it is sort of different. A lot of people come [00:37:00] seeking purpose in their lives and in their career. They, they feel like, you know, maybe they've gotten to a point where they're not sure what comes next for them. So there's, there's a bit of that.
And then for people that feel like they're, they, they sort of have stalled out, you sort of get at what's the root cause of, of that sense. Why, why do you feel that way? Why are what, what, what why have you found yourself in this place? And imposter syndrome can definitely be a big piece of that, right?
And so it's, it's this, this fundamental perspective that we are not worthy. That's usually what is at the heart of imposter syndrome is some level a person considers themselves to be. Unworthy. And, and so in, in, in that type of work, we go back and unpack, well, where's that coming from? Where did, where did, where did that be?
You see it, you hardly ever see it in Eastern cultures. You, you see it predominantly in our, in the us in, in our culture, you [00:38:00] don't see a lot of it in, in, you know, in, in many cultures that question never comes up. Of course. Unworthy, I'm a soul. I exist, I have every right to, to be here and to take up space because of my, just because 'cause I'm a human being.
And, and so in our culture that somehow got lost. And so people find determined for whatever reason or another that they're unworthy.
Tommy Truong: Do you find that your psychedelic work helps with that connection of worthiness?
Ryan Hunter: It can, you know, it's not a panacea and, and I have plenty of coaching clients who I do not engage in psychedelic facilitation. I have psychedelic facilitation clients that don't really do a full-blown coaching program with me. I think that the biggest benefit of the psychedelic work, and I primarily work with cannabis as a psychedelic medicine I, I.
Do work a bit with, with other psychedelics, but primarily it's cannabis. But I think really the, the, the key [00:39:00] element there is it helps people to soften their egos and their egos. Is, is, is primarily in many ways, it's, it's a defense mechanism. It is the identity and identity as a construct is. It's imaginary and it's, it's transient.
It's, it's in no way permanent. And people find themselves in crisis often because their core identity is no longer what it once was, or the, the way that they thought of themselves is different. And so as much as that ego is a, is a defender, a protector, a defense mechanism? The psychedelic experience soften.
That protection and enable us to really go, okay, well what is behind that ego? What is really the, the issue that's at the heart of imposter syndrome or this, this sense of unworthiness or whatever is, is really going on there. And [00:40:00] so that's really the benefit of working with psychedelics. In in, in that, in that case, there are many other applications for, for psychedelics, but within, within personal development, that's, that's usually where the psychedelics come into play.
Tommy Truong: What I found with imposter syndrome for me and, and how I. I dealt with that was, it just drove me to work harder, which probably isn't the healthiest thing, you know,
Ryan Hunter: tell, tell me more, Tommy.
Tommy Truong: it just drove me to work harder to you know, hey, I have a lot of proof to prove here. I need to be better. I, I need to, you know feel that. I'm capable that I'm a capable leader, so I need to just work hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. Which in the short term, it's great because you do get a lot of results from a material perspective, but you can drive yourself 'cause it just never stops.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, a lot of anxiety, a lot of burnout. I mean, that's where I [00:41:00] was in my life and that's how I came to a meditation practice. Was I and,
Tommy Truong: I was just gonna ask you that.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Every single day. Usually 30 to 45 minutes every morning. Yeah. You know, and when I began that practice, I had all kinds of stories in my head.
Well lose my edge, you know, was what a lot of people think. But what I found at that time was about eight years ago. And what I found at that time was I didn't lose the edge, I lost the anxiety, and so I was actually able to take on more risk. I was less worried about failure as a result of the meditation.
Tommy Truong: Wow. That's fascinating. Have you, and I'm sure there's probably a lot of float tanks in Colorado.
Ryan Hunter: I haven't yet, but I would love to try. I actually am privileged to have a hot tub in my backyard, so I actually, there's a form of meditation called Watsu. Which is meditating while floating in water. And so I also [00:42:00] do that almost every day. But no, I would love to do a sensory deprivation tank. I haven't yet, but they they are, they are around in Colorado for
Tommy Truong: That is one way of having a psychedelic experience while meditating it. You have to try it.
Ryan Hunter: I, I know. Thank you. I appreciate you reminding.
Tommy Truong: It's funny 'cause I was talking to people that meditate, have, has a, you guys have a different frequency, you know, and you probably get that a lot. Right? There's just stillness and I can't really describe, it's a stillness that's anchored on something. Yeah.
Ryan Hunter: Hmm. Yeah. Ground being grounded.
Tommy Truong: Being grounded. If
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. And, and my personality, I would say is, is different than it used to be. You know, my wife will tell me that I, I'm much more charming. But yeah, you know, I, I definitely have noticed that shift. People who are close to me have noticed that shift too. I.
Tommy Truong: Before I let you go, if I was a [00:43:00] entrepreneur obviously in the cannabis industry, and I, I think. I, I love what I do. I I love the podcast. It's given me such a huge vehicle to talk to other entrepreneurs and other high performing individuals because what, what I found was, for me personally, I had the, the aha moment that the in business you're are, in the business of infinite problem solving. I used to think that, Hey, Tommy, if I solve this big problem, the world would be so much better. And then you solve a problem, and then next you know it, another bigger problem comes on, and the problem just gets bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger and bigger. Until I realize that, okay, this is the business that I'm in.
I'm in the business of infinite problem solving, and it's my job to decide which problems to solve and to be [00:44:00] okay with not solving. These other problems. And the more that I got comfortable with not solving every single problem I saw that things moved a lot faster.
Ryan Hunter: Hmm. Fascinating. What a beautiful observation.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. And do you, you know, on your, I guess in a roundabout way, what, what are some of the common things that you've discovered talking to other entrepreneurs in. And coaching them through the, the problems that, that they go through on a daily basis. What's very common that an entrepreneur goes through?
Ryan Hunter: Hmm.
Well, you know, I, I, it is such a range. I'm not sure that there's any one pattern, and we touched on imposter syndrome, that that one is absolutely one that, that, that shows up a lot. A a lot of it also is, is around identity, you know, and that, that's also attached to impart, to imposter syndrome. Like [00:45:00] what is my identity, an entrepreneur.
An identity. A CEO is an identity. A, a father, a daughter, a, a, a spouse. Those are all identities, but they're not really who we are, you know, and, and so, you know, a, a mother whose core identity is based on raising their children and caring for their children. What is their identity when those children leave the house?
That's a, a really difficult time for, for many parents, for example, or a failure of a business. I'm A CEO. I'm an entrepreneur. My business has failed. What am I now?
Tommy Truong: That's so true. It's, it's probably really prevalent for. Athletes
Ryan Hunter: Oh yeah.
Tommy Truong: that are at the tail end of their careers.
Ryan Hunter: It, it's prevalent for every single person in our society. Our society, especially with the proliferation of social media. Who am I on Instagram? How many [00:46:00] likes did I get? All of this is imaginary, right? It's not really who we are. It's not who we are at a soul, who in our hearts, we're just being here to learn in this existence.
That's all we are. And, and anything beyond that is an, is an imaginary construct, and it's brittle. And when it gets taken away from us, against our will, it can be terribly dysregulating. And, and, and that's what I think a lot of people in our country, in our struggle with.
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm. What are some, and I think I know the answer to, to this. But what are some exercises that somebody can do to get more connected with their being?
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, I, for me, I, I'm a huge proponent of, of meditation and, and really from there. You know, the, the purpose, the intention, and there's many different forms of meditation. So let me be more specific and, and I, what I mean is mindfulness meditation, not necessarily repeating a [00:47:00] mantra, but just noticing the fact that you're, you ha you're having thoughts, you, you focus on your breathing.
When thoughts arise, you notice that you're having thoughts, return your attention to your breathing, and that builds the ability to notice your thoughts. And then once you have gained the ability. To notice your thoughts, you may find that some of those thoughts are higher quality than others. Some of them may be very self-critical, some of them may be very distracting.
And so once you develop the capacity to notice those thoughts, oftentimes what all, what all invite people to do is start journaling. When do you notice those thoughts? What are the situations that are giving that are giving? Those thoughts to you. Who are you around? You know, what time of day? Just really start to develop a deeper understanding.
And so once you can really develop that capacity to become aware of those thoughts, then you can [00:48:00] navigate difficult situations in a much more grounded way that you, you'll find them less overwhelming. You can really then, hey, if you have a, a dysregulating thought, then you can return to that process of.
Finding your breath, centering, grounding, stabilizing, and then navigating your experience in a more equanimous way.
Tommy Truong: Do you find that? Pr practicing meditation has gotten you to not necessarily be associated with your thoughts, but observe, Hey, this thought that I'm having is all one. What is the root of this? So that you can be a little bit more control of why you're, why you're thinking a certain way, but disassociate yourself from thoughts that maybe are not serving you.
Ryan Hunter: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt.
Tommy Truong: Gotcha. That's, I, I, I, I can also see [00:49:00] that in the world of the, you know, I, I, I, I feel like we live in a world where everybody has a slot machine and it is just constant dopamine all day on your phone. And has, has meditation given you the ability to just focus for longer periods of time?
Ryan Hunter: Yeah, I was diagnosed with A DHD, and I mostly have cured that by, by mind, by mindfulness. I also. Don't get involved with social media anymore. I, I follow my kids and a couple of people on Instagram. I don't post on Instagram or Facebook. I do post on, on LinkedIn and try not to read the, the, the feed too much on, on LinkedIn.
So really limit my consumption of social media in the mornings. When I start my day, I don't look at my phone for the first several hours. I used to have a habit of, you know, what did I miss? And, and looking at that immediately when [00:50:00] I am in, you know, like let's say a coffee shop, you know, a lot of us have the tendency to kind of just get engaged in the phone at the coffee shop.
I try to be disciplined and just notice the coffee shop. Oh, that's a cool painting. What do I notice about that painting? There's some people over there, oh, look at what they're wearing. You know, just try to be present more.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, the Y has really helped me and was being bored. And I don't know if that's a correlation with meditation, but it's really helped me not,
Ryan Hunter: Hmm.
Tommy Truong: just with overall life in general and
Ryan Hunter: being comfortable with stillness.
Tommy Truong: just being bored. I guess that's the same, same thing, but before I used
Ryan Hunter: bor. Boredom. Boredom's. Discomfort. Right. Bor. Boredom's. A nega a negative experience.
Tommy Truong: mm-hmm.
Ryan Hunter: 'cause you're not, you're feeling I'm not engaged, I'm not entertained, I'm not not doing something.
Tommy Truong: [00:51:00] But that, that has really helped me in finding excitement on things that I would normally bore me.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: So it's kind of like resetting my baseline of what's exciting.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah. I during the pandemic, I took a, a really interesting online class called the, it was a, a lot of people did, like, millions of people did this thing. It was the the Science of Wellbeing, I think it was called, and, and it, it looked at all these different ways that are, are mindfuck fucks.
Like how does our mind trick us into. Things and how can we overcome that? And one of the, the really great tricks that I've, that I've tried to adopt that I really appreciate was this idea of savoring. So when you're in an experience deepening that experience by going Wow. Sunset. That orange is such a unique shade of orange.
I don't know if I've ever seen that shade of orange before or when the leaves are changing color, [00:52:00] noticing that, oh, last week they weren't this color. This week, they're just a little bit deeper. So eating, eating food. Wow. I really noticed. The different flavors that are coming through, the different seasonings that are coming, like really deepening your, your exploration, man, that brings so much joy.
It, it really heightens the, the positive aspects of those experiences in a much more meaningful way.
Tommy Truong: Thank you for that.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: I gotta incorporate that in that. Remind me a lot about my last time going through a float tank. It was a while ago. And then coming out of that experience and just walking down the street and noticing the leaves and the sun hitting the leaves. And
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: that's ' cause my senses we're just deprived for 90 minutes.
Ryan Hunter: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: To incorporate that in every day. Thank you so much that I'm gonna take that with me. Ryan, before I let you go, how can our listeners find [00:53:00] you?
Ryan Hunter: Oh goodness. Like, like I said, I'm most active on, on LinkedIn. They can connect with me on LinkedIn. My coaching website is anti grav grp.com. So those are two easy ways to, to find me.
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining me today. You dropped gems. Thank you.
Ryan Hunter: My pleasure, Tommy. Thank you.
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