[00:00:00] Welcome to the the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.
Tommy Truong: Sandra, thank you so much for joining me today.
Sandra Bergman: Absolutely happy to be here.
Tommy Truong: So you've helped some of the biggest brands in our industry launch their loyalty. Before we start, can you give our audience just a background about yourself? How did you get into this?
Sandra Bergman: Absolutely. So, you know, I've spent my whole career in marketing. So I've had 20 years doing marketing, doing corporate, doing agency, doing higher ed. Um. Right before I got into cannabis, I spent 10 years in higher ed doing marketing and a lot of that was about student, um, communications, student retention and that sort of thing.
Um, in 2019, I de decided to make a pivot into cannabis and I got my start with two of the [00:01:00] largest MSOs here in Colorado, and that was an incredible education on. Everything cannabis. It was, it was 'cause I was kind of just coming in completely blind and new, other than being, um, a, a user, a consumer. So, um, that was a really great grounding I got working with the operators, doing their retail marketing right?
That includes everything, you know, advertising, promotions, new store openings, loyalty, SEO website, kind of everything
Tommy Truong: you did the whole entire gabit.
Sandra Bergman: Oh yeah. Yeah. It was a, it was, it was a lot. And so when I left that world, because I did that entire thing, I didn't wanna continue to do all of that and. I took a beat to see what I saw going on in the marketplace, and I saw two things in the industry. One was dispos not focusing [00:02:00] on customer retention at all. It was all about acquisition. How do we get more? How do we get more? And being in Colorado. And being a more mature market, um, you know, we were already seeing, you know, declines and fewer customers and that sort of thing, so I knew, um, I know.
Intellectually, right? That retention is important, but I saw it happening in our marketplace and so I wanted to bring that to the forefront of the conversation. It's, you need acquisition, but you also need retention. And there was no focus on it. The other gap I saw was the technology. So, um, I was. I've used a couple systems, but most well versed in Alpine IQ platform and it's very powerful, but also very complex and there's a lot of gotchas and, um, I knew it very well, but it took me a lot of time to learn it that well.
[00:03:00] And I knew being in the, coming from the operator world that operators don't have the time, you know, they're, they're. They're doing everything in their stores. I know you know this 'cause you talk with operators, they don't have the time to learn a whole new system and master all the ins and outs of it.
So that's when SBE was born. Um, and that was in 2023. So two and a half years later, uh, here I am and I started with. No clients, started doing free work for some friends that owned a dispensary to kind of nail my processes and hopefully give them some good feedback and information, um, and just networked like crazy.
Um, hit LinkedIn, like I've never hit LinkedIn before and now I've worked in 18 states with. You know, over a hundred dispensaries. So, um, it's been a pretty wild [00:04:00] ride so far. Um, but yeah, that's, that's, that's kind of how I got got going to where I am today.
Tommy Truong: It's so true too. I talk to so many dispensary owners and oftentimes even myself as a business owner, you're always thinking forward, so you're always thinking about growth forward, acquisitions, new business, and that's the default mindset of an entrepreneur. But you can probably attest to this, it's so much more expensive to acquire a new customer versus maintaining a relationship that you currently have.
Sandra Bergman: Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, you know, it's what, five to seven times more expensive. Um. To re to acquire a new customer than it is to retain one. Um, you know, you can increase your bottom line, um, significantly with just a minor increase in your customer retention. So, um, yeah, I can't [00:05:00] underestimate, I've just seen it over and over again.
This stuff works and, um, when it's done right. When it's done right is the key. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: know, before we dive in on the fundamentals of a really great loyalty program. I want to talk a little bit about what a business should have before starting loyalty because sometimes when you start things before you're ready, you can waste a lot of resources executing poorly. So before a business starts loyalty, what should they have in place?
Sandra Bergman: Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot of the basics they're gonna have in place already. Um. As for the function of their dispensary. So one thing is A is CRM customer relationship management tool. Um, that can take the form of a couple different things, but really what that is, is the information at the customer level.
So [00:06:00] you have the products they purchase, their visit behavior, how much they spend, um, all of those things that can be. The point of sale system that that kind of acts as that, right? Um, there's also other systems that will do that, but um, and you need to be able to track if you're, you know, the typical loyalty program is a points for dollars program.
Um, so you need a way to track that, um, based on how people are spending. That again, can be tracked in your point of sale system, right? So. But you can have another piece of technology that does that as well. For example, that's what, like an Alpine IQ or spring big, um,
Tommy Truong: From your experience though, are there any p native loyalty programs in the POS Done? Right. Are are pos. Like as, as well as say like an [00:07:00] alpine.
Sandra Bergman: you know, the closest I've seen to Alpine. Is, um, Swed, which, um, is a POS and e-comm as well as CRM.
Tommy Truong: Oh.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. So, um, that's the closest I've seen that that does, has the complexity that Alpine does. To segment and target your customers and trigger communications in a more automated way. The other ones I've seen are very much manual, right?
It's you have to pull an audience down, you have, or a customer file, you have to segment it. There's a lot of manual work that tends to be involved with that.
Tommy Truong: Actually, no, I, I want to, I want to delay that 'cause I was gonna ask you actually no, let's, let's do that now. If I were to look for. If I, if I don't have a system in place today and I'm, and I'm shopping around for a loyalty [00:08:00] platform, what are the must-haves that I need to look for and why?
Sandra Bergman: Yep. Yep. So, um, it not needs to track your points. The points that customers earn, or at least have an integration to track that with your POS. Right. If it doesn't have that, you need, you know, email is the workhorse of communications. Um, I
Tommy Truong: So not so email over text.
Sandra Bergman: I'm getting. I, so I think you need both. Um, but I, I would say I, I, I do think you need both. I think there's, um, good use cases for both. Um, so a good email builder and sender. Right? Um, same with text or SMS. Those I think are, are the must haves, I think an app. Is a nice to have. I don't think it's a must have.
Um, some of my friends in the app world might, [00:09:00] you know, skewer me for saying that, but I, I do think it's, it's good if you can afford it.
Tommy Truong: But why do you say that? Why, why do you, uh, from your experience, why is an app not critical to a loyalty program?
Sandra Bergman: well, you know, we have a lot of, so. There's a statistic out there that the average person belongs to 16 loyalty programs. This isn't cannabis related, this is just fast food, retail, whatever. Um, so are you going to download an app for every single loyalty program that you're a part of? Personally, I use apps where I am a very frequent consumer of whatever that is.
Right. Airlines, for example, I'm gonna use those apps. They're very powerful, right? Um, I think also in cannabis, a lot of the apps aren't exactly very [00:10:00] useful. So, um, some of them are, some of them are great, but the majority are not. And so what's the value that the customer is getting? There's. Also, I've seen that people don't shop just one dispensary.
And that might sound weird coming from a loyalty consultant, but, um, and, and speaking from personal experience, there's about three different dispensaries depending on where I'm at, if I'm commuting. If it's a particular brand or product I need, and I belong to all three of their loyalty programs, but most people don't shop at just one dispensary.
And so then you're asking people to download, let's say you shop at three dispensaries, three different apps, and get communications from those and use those. Um,
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it can be very noisy.
Sandra Bergman: Right, right. I mean. So that's why I say it's a nice to have, it's [00:11:00] not a must have. So, um, yeah.
Tommy Truong: Gotcha. So what are the the other areas in a loyalty platform that is a must have points. Email. SMS.
Sandra Bergman: SMS, yep. Yep. Analytics. I can't believe I almost forgot that one. Analytics. Yeah. So being able to. Measure what you're doing. Is it moving the needle and changing customer behavior or not? Um, are your communications hitting or not? Are people just unsubscribing like crazy? Are they even opening them? Are they clicking on any of the links?
So definitely being able to, to measure everything and, um, yeah, so analytics is key and, and. As easy as possible, right, to surface that up because just like people don't wanna spend all this time learning the platform, um, they aren't data [00:12:00] analysts either, right? To kind of dig in and really pull all the reports that are needed to be pulled.
So as much as a platform can surface that up for people in the way of dashboards and that sort of thing, that's key
Tommy Truong: what you, what you said is very sub subtle, but very important in not having to work for your information. 'cause oftentimes, platforms have all the information you need, but that friction of having to work and being overwhelmed with data, you feel paralyzed and you don't know how to move forward.
Sandra Bergman: A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a great word, is frictionless. Right? Or making it as seamless as possible. I, and I would say that's also on the, the loyalty side, right. Of your consumers, um, making it as frictionless as possible. Yeah. So the, the key, the also the big thing with the tech side is the integration, and I can't underestimate that.
Or, uh, [00:13:00] under, no, what's that word?
Tommy Truong: what should be integrated? If I'm looking for, if I'm, if I, if I'm assessing, hey, this platform integrates with this POS, my POS, what are the data points that I'm looking for?
Sandra Bergman: So it absolutely has to integrate with your POS because that's where all your customer transactions take place. So ideally, you would want it to consume everything, right? Not just your loyalty member information, because one thing that you're looking at is how your loyalty member behavior. Is different from your non-member behavior, and if you don't, if you're not getting all that information, then you're going to two different systems to understand what your non-members are doing versus your members.
Tommy Truong: Gotcha. That makes so much sense.
Sandra Bergman: So it's, um, I think your question was what are the data points? It's kind of like, it's everything. It's all their personal information, [00:14:00] you know, that we have. It's, uh, all the products they purchase, it's the dates they purchase 'em. Um, it's, uh, yeah, I mean it is, it is kind of it. And, and the member versus non-member.
Tommy Truong: I, I want to talk a little bit about a point that you've made is the analytics, and oftentimes when we talk about analytics with entrepreneurs, everybody knows analytics are important, but it's the, what am I looking for? What are the leading indicators? What are the top 3, 5, 10, whatever KPIs that I should hone in on to understand if I have a healthy loyalty program, what are they?
Sandra Bergman: Y Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great question. So, and I do, with all my clients, I do monthly and quarterly reporting to get at this, to make sure, and, and they're usually, um. Loyalty is a long game too. That's one thing I wanna point out, right? [00:15:00] Like you have to give, um, your program, your communications, some time to run and to see how they're performing.
So, um, not that you can't glean immediate insights, but there are some things that you should
Tommy Truong: What should I be looking at every week and what are the trends should I be looking at month or quarter? And then how long, typically, before the numbers mean something.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. Yeah, that's, so you're asking a lot there, so you might need to remind me all your questions, but So what I would look at. Weekly is your campaigns that you're sending out. And by campaigns, you know, a lot of dispensaries send out promotional campaigns several times a week, and unfortunately they're sending them to everyone versus segmenting them.
But that's a whole nother um. Ball wax. So weekly you can look at your campaign engagement. [00:16:00] So what are those open rates? What are those click through rates? What are those unsubscribe rates? Um, and you'll understand very quickly what's hitting and, and, and what's not. Um, the other thing you can look at weekly, um, and that I did when I was with an operator is how many people are signing up for your program? That's one. The other one is how many of those people are opting into communications and they could opt into email or SMS or push notifications or all three, doesn't matter. You want them, um, opted into one communication channel at least, right? Ideally more. So those are the things that I can, you know, you would look at.
Really regularly, right? Because those, especially the, the sign up and the opt-ins, that's, that's a retail execution, um, in-store execution that needs to be looked at if that's not happening, [00:17:00] um, I see commun, um, opt-in rates to programs, so rather sign up rates all over the board, but, um, a minimum. In my mind is 50%.
That's bare minimum. I like to shoot closer to 60 to 70% of people being opted into your program, signed up for loyalty because. The data, Tommy is unmistakable. I mean, with every single client I've looked at, members spend more, they shop more often, and they have more transactions than non-members. So why wouldn't you want to get people signed up?
And when you see in data that you have non-members who are visiting 3, 4, 5 times, there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't be hit up. To become a member
Tommy Truong: That's a really good stat actually to look at is how many reoccurring customers do you have that are not [00:18:00] on loyalty? Mm-hmm.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. And some of those folks, right, they don't want it fine, but if you have a big number. Then there's an issue there that you need to look at at what's going on in store of, you know, because also the bud tender can see right at the POS, you know, if they're a member or not. So, and it's very simple to say, Hey, have you heard about our loyalty program?
No. Let me tell you about it. Here's the benefits, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? We, we get hit up with that through the drive through. Even so, if they can do it at fast food drive through, we can certainly do it at a counter. In a dispensary, right, to talk about our loyalty programs. Um, so those are the things I think I stopped at weekly, um, that I would look at.
Um, looking at monthly, um, as well as quarterly, you know, what is is the average order value over time. Changing. So how much are they spending in a [00:19:00] transaction? Um, what is the visit frequency? Are they returning more often? Right? Um, your customer retention rate, are you retaining more customers than you're losing?
That's something that's a longer term metric. And also customer lifetime value is a longer term metric that you'll wanna look at. More quarterly, I would say, or monthly. I mean monthly to keep a kind of, you know, monitor it. But as far as making changes to a loyalty program, um, I would give it a quarter before making any kind of sweeping changes.
Yeah.
Tommy Truong: And how long, if I'm implementing a loyalty program today, how long before the numbers make sense? And I can understand, hey, am on, am I on the right track or, or not?
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. Well, I mean, you'll get immediate feedback, right? That's, [00:20:00] that's the beauty of, um, that in-store experience. You'll, you'll hear from the customers immediately, wow, this is pretty cool. Or. Eh, that's not that great of a program. Um, so you'll know that immediately. As far as knowing, I, I say typically you want to run things for 60 to 90 days,
Tommy Truong: Gotcha.
Sandra Bergman: with the exception of the things that I talked about that you could, you know, check on weekly, right. Um, but yeah, 60 to 90 days. So I work with. Dispensaries I'm putting in place, um, automated campaigns that reach customers at different points in their journey with you. So, special events like a birthday or an anniversary, return visits, uh, you know, a welcome recapturing, lapsed shoppers. [00:21:00] Since those are automated and trickling out slowly as people, you know, meet those audience requirements, I do like to give those things 60 to 90 days before I make changes
Tommy Truong: Okay.
Sandra Bergman: for those campaigns, for promo campaigns, you can make changes quicker.
Tommy Truong: You know, I, when I talk to a lot of dispensary owners, one of the most common questions that I get is, how do I. Make my loyalty program or communication more strategic and more long term and less redundant, Hey, these are the deals this week, this, and you know, that's very transactional versus actually building a relationship with your audience.
Sandra Bergman: Hundred percent. Hundred percent. So yeah. Is there a question or do you just want me to speak to
Tommy Truong: I, I just want you to, to share what you know, because I, I have that question too, [00:22:00] like, what, what does that look like? Because oftentimes when I see loyalty programs, they're very transactional, very this week and very short, short minded.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. Yeah. So a good loyalty program has a balance of what I call hard benefits, which are monetary. That's the points for dollars, and that's kind of what you're talking about. But you need the soft benefits, and those are. Emotional. And if you think about loyalty and being loyal to a brand that is emotion driven, right?
Like my mom used Tide detergent growing up, right? That's all I ever saw in my house. So when I got out on my own and I started shop doing my own grocery shopping, there was no question in my mind, no matter how much that cost, I was buying Tide, right? I was a young college student, didn't have a lot of money.
[00:23:00] Tide's one of the more expensive laundry detergents. I still bought it, right? Because it was just ingrained. It's it, it was in my sub subconscious, you know. Um, and loyalty is also very driven by habit. Um, but the emotion is key. We as individuals are high hardwired, you know, if you think about Maslow's hierarchy, you know, belonging and being appreciated.
Is at that top of that hierarchy. And that's what most dispensary loyalty programs are missing is that emotional benefit to recognize that people are individuals, um, to personalize the communications, to provide special access, to make sure that it's not just a blanket, Hey, we have a sale today and we're sending this to everyone who's in our loyalty program, and.
You know, that's not, that's not special. That's not personalized to me. And, um, that's why [00:24:00] I focus not on those in my business. I focus on those points in time that make a difference to people. So, you know, after their first visit, thank them for coming in. You know, maybe you give them a survey. What did you like, what did you didn't like?
What can we improve? Um, oh, and here's a 20% discount for your next visit. You know, by telling us how, how your experience was. So, um, I think that's how you get away. The transact, the reason it's transaction based is, goes back to kind of what I said earlier about dispensary. Operators are so pressed for time, right?
It's, it's the low hanging fruit. It's easy to do, but it is the bare minimum. It's kind of where you start with a loyalty program, um, and it's okay to start there, right? But you do need to work in what are those special points in time of that customer's journey with [00:25:00] us, that we want to make them feel appreciated and valued as an individual.
Tommy Truong: That's so funny because we have that in on the tech side as well. There are, there are certain points in a customer lifecycle that are the aha moments that you wanna capture and you wanna recognize. So the first time somebody go gets past onboarding for us, the first time they run payroll, the first time they create a schedule all the way through.
These are really critical points that, uh, there's. Recognition that is needed to reinforce behavior on the consumer side when you are, 'cause I know that you specialize in this wholeheartedly, like this is your jam. If I was thinking about a, the tenants of a good loyalty strategy, so we talked about transaction long term, how would I approach [00:26:00] that?
Like to start. And what are some maybe examples that our listeners can use when they're thinking about long-term communication to tie into the emotion of what you said.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I would, it's, it's, it's very much just thinking about. You know, put yourself in your customer's shoes, right? So they sign up for your loyalty program. Are they getting a warm welcome to that? So oftentimes they sign up in store. Are you giving them something for not just signing up, but for opting in for giving you their email address?
Right? They're welcoming you into their inbox, so you know. It's tit for tat a little bit, right? Like you wanna give them something and acknowledge, Hey, we, we appreciate you doing that. So, I, I like to say, just put yourself in the customer's shoes and walk through what that journey [00:27:00] looks like. So, you know, that first visit at the store.
What would you like to re, would you like to receive? Something after visiting the store for the first time, you know, a thank you. You have a lot of choices. Thank you for choosing us. Um, and here's something to come back again. Um, if it's a, you know, a one year patient anniversary, someone's been shopping with you for a year, that's huge.
That's really big. So you should recognize that and reward that behavior. And it, you don't have to wait for a year, right? It could be at any point. So one thing that's often overlooked, Tommy, in which I think is interesting, given that most loyalty programs and dispensaries focus only on points, or primarily on points I should say, is that no one tells you when you have points to spend and when you've reached a reward. So you reach a hundred points, you have $5 to spend, that should [00:28:00] trigger a notification to them, and that will a hundred percent drive a visit. Not for everyone, but for a lot of people. And when you're in the store, the bud tender can see on the point of sale if that you have a reward. Encourage people to use them. So ask them, you have $5, Sandra, would you like to apply that to your sale today or would you like to keep saving it up? You know, I can't tell you how many dispensaries I go into and there is zero mention of loyalty. So, um, and you know, what operators don't understand about loyalty points is they are a liability on your books.
So you do want to encourage people to spend them. You don't want them sitting there. And I know, you know, some operators feel like, well, that's money outta my pocket. That's, you know, again, that's that transactional, um, thinking versus [00:29:00] what's good for the long-term relationship with this customer. Right.
Tommy Truong: this completely reminds me of what you say of my experience. So my wife loves hot pot, loves hot pot, eats hot pot. As much as I hate hot pot, by the way, so it's.
Sandra Bergman: I feel like you have to work for it too much.
Tommy Truong: So we, there's this Hot P place close to our house called Heidi Lao, which is a company that has really, really optimized their loyalty program. And I went with her the other day just noticing how they act. So she's a frequent visitor, so she's. I, whatever tier she's at, it's a, they tier it, right? And when we come in, they'll ask, Hey, what's your name?
She'll give the name automatically. The person will say, this is Jennifer. She's, she's a, a, a, whatever customer. And I think they do that on purpose in front of you. Just to make you feel special.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: And then, so we walk in and the service is exceptional. [00:30:00] They'll bring in appetizers on the house immediately for you, and they'll let you know, Hey, you know, so I was just paying attention to their experience, uh, of what we had.
It probably cost them $4.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: A dessert and it's like, here's, here's it's sugar and it's sugar and powder and a couple of appetizers. But how that makes you feel
Sandra Bergman: Huge.
Tommy Truong: is so big in terms of your experience. And I was just so, uh, amazed at how tight that experience was. So, to your point, it's so true when customers walk in and. They're a frequent shopper.
That emotional tug and making somebody feel special is priceless.
Sandra Bergman: Totally. Totally. No, that's a perfect, that's a perfect example. And you know, if I'm a frequent flower buyer, right? [00:31:00] And again, a bud tender can see that information, why not say, Hey Sandra, I want you to check out this amazing strain we got here in Colorado. We have deli style. Um, so you can, uh, smell the, the flower before you buy it, which is quite lovely.
And I remember a budtender did this for me once and you know, it was, I, it made me feel so special, right? One, they recognized that that's something I would appreciate. They weren't giving me a discount. They weren't actually giving me anything. It was just. Saying, Hey, we see you. You like this. We think you might appreciate this.
Check it out. Right. It's not even anything I bought, but it was, again, like you said, it was that experience that made a difference in my mind. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge.
Tommy Truong: it separates you from, I mean, you're in [00:32:00] Colorado. You rate, it's the rates to the bottom
Sandra Bergman: Totally.
Tommy Truong: and.
Sandra Bergman: Totally. You know, the other thing, and this is really timely, I, uh, this probably won't air during this time, but like during big holiday pushes, so, you know, black Friday, green Wednesday, all, you know, all the holiday sales, but you can do this with any holiday sale is for four 20. For example, invite your loyalty members to come the night before and give them. The specials that will be on sale on four 20.
Tommy Truong: That's like a soft opening of a, of a store type of thing.
Sandra Bergman: Huge. Yeah. And you, it doesn't have to be all your loyalty members, right? It, you could tear it out however you'd like. Um, it could be your most, you know, your top tier members. But doing those little extra things, they take more time, they take more planning, [00:33:00] but it pays off in spades. Customer loyalty. Yeah.
And that experience to your point.
Tommy Truong: How, how can a, what is, what are some strategies where a restaurant can send out communication to their loyalty members but not have it a promotion, communication? What are some of the non-promotional communications that they.
Sandra Bergman: so many ideas and you know who is really good at this actually is, um. The travel agency in, um, New York, um, I don't work with them. They're not a client of mine. I'm not trying to plug them, but they have their content strategy down and they send out Often I don't even get discounts and it's probably because I'm in a different, I'm not in New York.
Right. But it is pure content. You know, how to store your weed, how to roll a good joint, how to. Choose a good gift for someone, [00:34:00] you know, uh, uh, it's amazing. So that's one thing is having your content game, um, dialed in. The other thing is just new products, new product features. Again, I'm a flower buyer. Hey, you got a new drop in, let me know about it.
Right. I, I, I wanna come check that out. Or you see that I buy a particular brand of edible every time and they've come out with a new flavor, let me know. Right. Don't wait for me to come into the store to find that out. And it's not, it's not a discount. It's just, it's letting people know about something that you, you're pretty sure they're interested in based on the data you have.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's a tailored, specific, I'm talking to you and I, I'm not talking to everybody.
Sandra Bergman: A hundred percent. And that's how you have to make it feel right? And that is the, the, the, the science of that is segmentation. And so you have to get into your [00:35:00] data and again. A loyalty tool like Alpine or Spring Bag makes it, you know, you don't, makes it fairly easy to do that segmentation, but you do have to know what you want to segment on, right?
Like, I wanna identify, you know. My ounce purchasers, for example, or I wanna identify my edible purchasers of this particular brand. Um, but new products are being launched all the time, so, um, or just inviting people in for, um. Whether it's an education series, there's a, um, a dispensary here in Colorado that just did that is doing ongoing education series and inviting people in.
And what was interesting about that, I thought, was that they said it wasn't the new folks like that don't know new consumers. These were seasoned consumers that were coming in for education.
Tommy Truong: Oh wow.
Sandra Bergman: [00:36:00] Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Um. And, and you can host events. There's another dispensary I worked with in New York that had a wonderful event space attached to their dispensary.
And of course, all the regulations have to align for this, right? But they would have, you know, pe, yoga, um, a paint, paint and puff sort of thing. They would have live music. I mean, so just doing things to, to. Create more of a community with your customers is also really key.
Tommy Truong: That's what I, my first thought was tribe, when, when you were talking about that you're really building a tribe of
Sandra Bergman: A hundred percent. Yeah. And since, you know, in most places there's not a lot of places you can go to socialize. Right. A lot of people might still be hidden about their consumption, but if I [00:37:00] can go to a dispensary and all of a sudden I'm surrounded by like-minded individuals that enjoy something that I too, you know, that could be really compelling for people.
Tommy Truong: The more I feel emotionally connected to a place, the less transactional I am in my behavior. Me personally, and
Sandra Bergman: A hundred percent.
Tommy Truong: holy grail of that relationship, right?
Sandra Bergman: It is the holy grail here. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. But you have to, it doesn't just happen. I, and I think that's what we're getting at here. It doesn't just happen. It has to be thoughtful and strategic. Um, in doing those things for folks, and it needs to be not just one-offs, right?
Like it needs to be something that you stick with because the first time you try it, it might not hit right for whatever reason. Bad timing, there was a snowstorm. Who knows, right? Um, wrong content, but it, you keep [00:38:00] at, it,
Tommy Truong: I love.
Sandra Bergman: you chip away at it.
Tommy Truong: No, I, that's for me, that is the secret sauce in anything that you do. Oftentimes people feel like they, there's a magic bullet, a silver bullet, sorry, or they're looking for that one, one event. But oftentimes it's doing it, seeing what worked and marching forward and reiterating, and as long as you're consistent and mindful, a year later you're in a completely different spot.
'cause a along the way you're learning as well.
Sandra Bergman: A hundred percent. Yep. That's exactly
Tommy Truong: You'll never learn it if you're not consistent.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. You're learning, you're iterating on what you learned. Oh, let's tweak this. Let's, let's try this, this time. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And you know, there's a lot of opportunities as far as like, um, you know. Music and cannabis, right? Go together.
Great. Or art and cannabis, right? We all [00:39:00] have in our communities art festivals that support local artisans. You know, we might have a music venue. Um, and incorporating those things into, they can even be incorporated into your loyalty program, right? So you can have, if you get to this level, you get, you know, four concert tickets of your choice at this venue.
You know, and, and, and a dispensary I'm working with in Boston does that. Um, so that, that's, there's just a lot of ways also to make your loyalty program stand out, that's not just discounts.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. You mentioned something about segmentation that I've always wondered how often should you audit your segmentation? Is this done? Yeah. How, how often should, should you audit your segmentation?
Sandra Bergman: That's a really good question given that most people aren't even doing it. I feel like it's a win when I can get people to just start doing it, let [00:40:00] alone audit it. So, um, so segmentation that it happens like. If you're using a proper CRM, it's, if you set the parameters, it's gonna continue to segment automatically, right?
New people are gonna be pulled in as they meet those requirements, people are gonna drop out as they don't meet the requirements. So it's a dynamic thing that's always happening. Um, you know, I think auditing it is. I feel like we're just not there yet, but um, I would say kind of quarterly is another good thing to kind of put on that checklist of things to say, is this working or not working?
It can be done sooner though. So, for example, I'm really working with clients to segment their promotional campaigns and um, that's something that I'll help them [00:41:00] with from the strategic segmentation standpoint. What should it look like? Um, and that you can look at, you can try it and say, in two weeks. Did that work better than what we were doing before?
And you know, very simple segmentation can be done right? Like segment out people that have not opened 10 of your emails, right? Or no, sorry, you've sent them 10 emails, they've opened none. Don't send to them anymore. Just pull 'em out. And literally, I saw when we did that with one of my clients in New York.
Open rates go from 20% to 40%
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Sandra Bergman: just by doing that. Right. And, and it saves them money 'cause they're not paying for those cents anymore. Because those people, if you've sent them something 10 times and they haven't opened those, they're not [00:42:00] going to, I mean, the chances of them opening them are really slim.
Tommy Truong: very, because there are, I, I get 40 emails a day on like just, you know, and that's just another. My thought process is, okay, well how do I cut out of the noise? I, I, I, I personally would have a, a conversation with 10 20 of these in individuals just to see like, like is it the communication? Is it the, the how on message, the, the medium.
Probably not the right medium. Is there a different medium? Do they just not care? I wonder if you can just dig into that. 'cause oftentimes what I find really work really well and people don't do is. Talk to your customers.
Sandra Bergman: Yes.
Tommy Truong: Talk to your customers. They're, they're who you're selling to. They have the answers.
And don't be shy. Give 'em something. Pick up the phone when they come in, talk to them. Have a conversation. If you're, if you're an entrepreneur and you're not talking to your customers, you're losing [00:43:00] so much wealth in your business.
Sandra Bergman: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan of surveys. As long as they are intentional, right? And also one-on-one talking with customers.
Tommy Truong: That's what I mean.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah, I mean, and, and when I was with the MSOs, we did a big remodel in a few of our dispensaries, and we literally went in and if people would talk to us, we would, you know, go through a series of questions about their experience with the new dispensary and how it compared to the old dispensary.
Um, I've never hardly seen that happen, that you have someone asking you questions. In person. So for sure. And another thing that, um, you know, if you have folks that have been high spenders and you calculate that whatever works for your data as a high spender and they, you haven't seen them in 60 to 90 days,
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Sandra Bergman: give 'em [00:44:00] a call that is so effective.
'cause I'll tell you what, no other dispensary is calling their customers.
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm.
Sandra Bergman: So when you do that there and, and look, I don't know how often you pick up the phone. You know, I screen all my calls, so you might not get through, but you can leave a message, right? Um, and, and they may get back to you or just, just leaving a message saying, Hey Tommy, we haven't seen you in a while.
You know, is there something we can do better that can bring you back in? Um. You know, you do have X rewards here, ready to spend. You know, there's a variety of ways you can handle that, but just picking up the phone and calling customers is incredibly effective.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, just giving out a special gift. Uh, there's some of these lighters that I've seen that come, that are, that are out. Or if I walked into a dispensary and you gave me that, my heart [00:45:00] will numb. I'm like, yes, give it to me. These windproof lighters are awesome. You know, these blow
Sandra Bergman: Oh, they're windproof. That's cool.Â
Tommy Truong: Yeah, yeah.
Sandra Bergman: So more like a torch?
Tommy Truong: Yes. Like a short, you know, uh, Sandra, before I let you go,
We talked about some really good examples of good loyalty and what you can do. What are some examples of common mistakes that you see people make in their loyalty program?
Sandra Bergman: I love this question. So, um. There's a few, okay? One is rewarding your top spenders the same as your low spenders. And what that looks like is we're gonna give you, uh, $5 for every a hundred points, right? So that's not, that's not incentivizing people to, um, save up. And get an even bigger reward, right?
So if I'm a, I'm one of your weekly daily [00:46:00] shoppers and I'm dropping hundreds of dollars, a good loyalty program rewards me more than someone who comes in once a month. Right, so that's part of it is that reward structure. Um, and that what's called in the loyalty parlance earning velocity. Like how quickly do, does someone earn a reward?
You wanna balance that. You wanna have a quick win for your customers. Um, and then you can stretch it out longer. But you do wanna, you know, really be conscientious in how you structure those rewards. Um. Another big mistake I see is not setting an expiration for rewards. So, um, whether it's 90 days or 365 days, have something set, right?
Because really, if they're not shopping with you regularly anyway, that's not really a loyalty program. [00:47:00] Um, another thing is awarding points post tax. Does that make sense? So I'm giving you, you paid, let's say $65 after tax, and I'm giving you points on all that $65, but you really only spent with me, you know, $45 let's say.
So you're kind of double taxing yourself when you do that. You're giving away points for no reason, and it's surprising how many don't even realize that they're doing that.
Tommy Truong: That's a big one.
Sandra Bergman: It is. It's, it's huge. It's huge. And, and we spoke about this a little earlier, but just, um, not letting people know they have a reward to spend.
I mean, not only is that, um, a good customer service thing, that's a good experience for your customer, but it's good for you financially because it brings your points down on your books. 'cause that is a liability.
One other thing is [00:48:00] that, and we've kind of talked around all these things, but is only sending promotional campaigns, um, and not having these.
Points in time that you recognize your customers. Um, and I work, I have about a library of 20 campaigns that I put in place, but there's all sorts of, um, points that you can hit. Um, those 20 are kind of like a starting point and. The beauty about those is they run in the background. They're automated, so they don't interact or interfere with what you're doing.
Promotionally. Um, they all just fire. Once they're set up, they're going.
Tommy Truong: What is a good mix between, and I don't know if you know this, percentages of transactional pro uh, promotions, communications to non-transactional communications?
Sandra Bergman: Whew. That's, you know, and it's kind of a seasonal thing, right? Um, I would [00:49:00] like to see, um, one promotional thing a week. Right. And another one that's purely a product feature or, you know, bud tender picks or featuring events in the community. Um, you know, something more informational. It could be a blog, right?
It could be any of those things. So, um. We need to drive sales, you know, and that is often driven by the promotions. Um, but when I like, that would be a win for me. One promotion campaign, one non-pro promotion campaign a week, I would consider a complete win. Yeah. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: For, and you mentioned not having an expiry date. Are there, I guess that's depending on the loyalty program. If, if I'm accumulating points, uh, if I accumulate a certain amount of points, or [00:50:00] is there an expiry date on the points or?
Sandra Bergman: So that's a good question. So there's a variety of ways you can set up expiry, right? You can say, um, all points expire at the end of a calendar year, right? It can be, that's a static point in time. What I use more often than that is it's a rolling expiry. So as long if, if the expiration is 180 days, six months, as long as you shop every six months at a minimum, that pushes out your
Tommy Truong: Oh
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. So it's not a static point in time. It's individual to each person, and it keeps moving out as long as you keep shopping. So in essence, they don't expire. If you're an active shopper.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's, that's clever.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's,
Tommy Truong: clever.
Sandra Bergman: it's, I like it better than that, you know, saying for everyone, your [00:51:00] points expire at the end of the year because, you know, if Tommy's a really frequent shopper and he has a lot of points, you know, that really puts him under the gun to spend those points by the end of the year versus having more time to do that. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: before I let you go, is there anything that, uh, you feel that's important that we didn't touch base on?
Sandra Bergman: Uh, I feel like we covered just a lot. A lot. Um, I feel like we've covered everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: I've learned so much in this conversation. So I'm, I'm actually really grateful that you came on and I hope anybo, everybody that's listening, uh, feels the same. I'm sure they did that. They do. Um, I wanna talk about our next segment. It's called Rolling Loud, and it's a series of rapid fire questions for you.
Are you up for it?
Sandra Bergman: [00:52:00] Oh wow. Sure.
Tommy Truong: I know you love surprises. Okay. Rapid fire questions. Rolling loud. We're, uh, let's go. Are you a And these questions are, are your, is your relationship with cannabis, so it's fine.
Sandra Bergman: Oh fun.
Tommy Truong: Are you a daytime person or a nighttime person?
Sandra Bergman: Nighttime.
Tommy Truong: Time flower edible or vape
Sandra Bergman: Oh, flower.
Tommy Truong: flower. Yeah. You mentioned flower. What's your favorite strain?
Sandra Bergman: Say that again.
Tommy Truong: Favorite strain.
Sandra Bergman: You know, I don't remember the exact name, but it had like rainbow in the name, and it just made me giggle, just made me completely laugh, and I've never been able to find that strain again. I, I can't remember the name exactly.
Tommy Truong: I, I, I'm the same way. My favorite strain is Red Congo. Not a lot of places have it.
Sandra Bergman: I've never heard of that one.
Tommy Truong: Awesome. Daytime strain. Uh, what's your first cannabis experience?
Sandra Bergman: Oh, high [00:53:00] school. Yeah, with my boyfriend. Um, smoking out of a pipe in a car and just laughing, like I'd never had that kind of uncontrollable laughing at nothing before. It was amazing.
Tommy Truong: What is your worst experience with cannabis?
Sandra Bergman: I don't, I dunno that I have a really bad one, but, um, edibles, I would have to say in that they, I got so high and it lasted for so long that I just couldn't function.
Tommy Truong: I like you. I, I don't do well with edibles at
Sandra Bergman: No. Ugh. Yeah, I can't.
Tommy Truong: Last time I was at Emjays, um, had an edible and I couldn't sleep until 5:00 AM
Sandra Bergman: Oh.
Tommy Truong: I was like, that's the last time,
Sandra Bergman: Oh, that's awful.
Tommy Truong: last
Sandra Bergman: I'm sorry.
Tommy Truong: You best memory with [00:54:00] cannabis.
Sandra Bergman: Oh goodness, there's so many. I, you know, I would have to say just in general, I would have to say music, um, concerts, so going to Red Rocks, listening to my, one of my favorite bands, the Avett Brothers, and just dancing.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Isn't cannabis and music, like you said, or it's like coffee, coffee and cream.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah. Or PBJ. Yeah, it's awesome.
Tommy Truong: that. Oh, before I let you go, Sandra, tell us a little bit about your organization. You got 30 seconds. Tell us a little bit about what you, uh, your company.
Sandra Bergman: Yeah, so ESBE works with dispensaries across the us. Uh, we create bespoke loyalty programs. We also optimize loyalty programs. We'll do audits of a loyalty program, let you know where the missed opportunities are. We'll set up the tech for you and put in [00:55:00] these lifecycle campaigns that run automatically in the background. We'll do that all in 90 to 120 days.
Tommy Truong: How can our listeners find you?
Sandra Bergman: LinkedIn is awesome. I'm very active on LinkedIn, Sandra Bergman, um, esbemarketing.com is the website as well. And anyone can email me, sandra@esbemarketing.com.
Tommy Truong: Sandra, thank you so much for joining me today.
Sandra Bergman: Thank you, Tommy. This was lovely.
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