Tom Mulhern: So Maria, welcome back to the podcast. It's been a while since we've had you on here, and it's so great to have you all on the show again.
Maria: It has. Yeah. I'm so glad my ban is over.
Tom Mulhern: Yes. Well, you know, we had to ban you after that whole Christmas incident, so, but no, it's,it's April and April is obviously the, you know, the national holiday for all of us stoners out there.
Maria: It's like our Super Bowl is coming up.
Tom Mulhern: I know, and so, you know, I thought that I knew the history of 420 and we're talking about 420, obviously, but I, I, I guess I really don't, I thought it was like an old police code for a bunch of pot smokers out in the woods or something.
Maria: Yeah, I think that I've heard that before and I guess it's a myth that the California Police Code was 420 for cannabis. I don't know if anyone can really lock down the actual history of 420, but apparently it comes from a group of high school students who in the early 1970s would go outside and smoke weed and they would often meet at 420, which was after school.
And it was the time that they could meet and get high. So it started between them and it was kind of a little code they could say in front of teachers and things, Hey, 420. And no one knew what they were talking about, but what they meant was, let's meet up. 4:20 PM and smoke weed.
Tom Mulhern: There you go. And you know, it's kind of snowballed from that to being that code word. It still is that code word for, hey, let's, let's smoke. But it's become. You know, April 20th or 420. So you know, every, every company out there, every pot smoker out there. This is a big day. And this is a big, this is also pretty big for Kaya Push as well, right?
Maria: Yeah, definitely. We've got some exciting things coming up for 420 and don't wanna give anything away, but if you stick around till the end of the episode, you're gonna find out how to enter our 420 giveaway.
Tom Mulhern: Like we said, 420 is big for Kaya Push, but it's also huge for dispensaries because there's so many sales opportunities and so many ways that you can really utilize the day to boost sales in your store. So we've got some tips for all of the dispensary owners out there of ways that you can really utilize 420 to make a huge impact in your dispensary.
Maria: 420 isn't just one day. You can have sales and promotions going the entire month of April. As a dispensary owner, you can utilize 420 to build yourself a customer list. So you could run a promotion or a giveaway leading up to the holiday, and customers will have to provide their emails to enter.
From there, you can build a customer email list that you can use to send out notifications about 420 sales and promotions, or use it for future events. The info that you capture on 420 can be used for the rest of the year.
Tom Mulhern: 420 is such a perfect time to bring in those new customers. Cuz there's, you know, people that are now kind of maybe thinking about trying cannabis for the first time. And so as they come in, it's, you're saying it's so important to capture those emails, capture that contact so that.
Throughout the year, you can keep on going back to them and saying, Hey, remember that great deal you got on 420? Well it's June and we've got our summer giveaway deals, or whatever it is. So it's something that you can use throughout the year when you can capture those emails.
Maria: That's a great point because 420 is a really good time to get new customers through the door, so I think it's really important to just make sure that they feel welcome and that they're having a really good experience. Because for some of them it's might even be their first time trying cannabis or their first time going to an actual dispensary.
Tom Mulhern: And not only new customers, but also you can build that loyalty in returning customers because, The, the least expensive customer to bring into your store is a returning customer. You don't have to do any marketing. You don't have to do anything. They're already loyal, and it's a great way to kind of build that loyalty into those customers that, you know, love your dispensary, love what you're doing, and it just feels like home to them.
So true. So it'd be really important just to train your staff on customer service and product knowledge. So they're just offering the best customer experience that they can.
Like we said, when 420 comes around, There's gonna be all types of customers coming in, and there's gonna be probably a lot of people that aren't as well versed in cannabis. The canna curious, I like to call them, and this might be their first time ever trying cannabis. So it's really important that you take the time.
I mean, we as dispensary owners, you should always be doing this, but take the time to really train your bud tenders on the different strains, the different experiences that you know. Different terpenes can provide to customers so that when customers come in, they're looking for that expertise. They're, they're looking for, you know, advice and giving your bud tenders the tools and really taking the time to give them extra training about the products is so key, because like we said, there's all type of people coming in on 420, so train your bud tenders on all of your product.
Maria: Budtender training is so important. Your budtenders are representing your store every hour of every day, so it's really important to make sure that they're getting the training that they need. But it's also important to incentivize your budtenders to want to learn more so that they can sell more.
And you can try different tactics to gamify the workplace. So maybe you're gonna start a friendly sales competition, or you can reward your highest selling bud tenders, or even give them out samples. There's lots of ways to get your staff more interested in selling and learning more.
Tom Mulhern: When 420 comes up, you need to make sure that you're scheduling the right people that need to be there. So looking at your historical sales data to ensure that you're scheduling for the amount of people that are coming in. You know, it's crazy to think, but in Washington, Nevada, California, and Colorado, 160 million worth of product was sold just during the week of 420, so it's a busy week for sales. It's a busy week for people coming in and you wanna make sure that you have enough people on your sales force, but you also don't want to, you know, have all these people if you know that it's typically pretty slow on that day. So really like looking at that sales in your people management system, in your POS to know who you have and, and schedule appropriately.
Maria: It's so important to have your POS system integrate with your scheduling tool because how else are you gonna see the historical sales data? It's actually interesting, but some dispensaries report that the days leading up to 420 are busier than the actual day itself.
So without that historical sales data, you might not remember how much you sold on the actual day, and then you might end up actually losing money inlabour.
Tom Mulhern: While you're looking at that data about, you know, your. It's also important to look at the data of what is actually selling, like what product is selling, what strains are selling on 420 because you wanna bring in the right product for the, that people are buying on that day.
Maria: That's a great point. And can I also add that before doing any ordering for 420 sales, you should talk to your bud tens cuz they're on the front lines every day so they can really offer you that just like valuable customer feedback on what's selling what's not. It'd be interesting to know kind of what their go-to recommendations are and these types of insights are gonna be really valuable to you when ordering stock, especially for a day like 420.
Tom Mulhern: So Maria, it sounds like 420 can be a huge boom for a dispensary owner, but you have to be smart. You have to schedule appropriately, bring in the right stuff, really think through the customer experience on that day. But if you do all of those things right, it can be such a huge day. It's like Christmas morning for dispensary owners.
Maria: It literally is the biggest holiday of the year for dispensary owners. It's like Black Friday, but for dispensaries, and of course with that promotion is gonna be just as important as all these other things. Making sure that you're promoting any sales that you have going on and posting on social media to try and get people through the door. Maybe even wanna do a paid ad for that day, making sure that you're just getting that traffic.
Tom Mulhern: Speaking of promotions, Maria, you kind of teased it at the beginning, but I want to know more about this 420 giveaway that Kaya Push is doing because anything free is awesome, but tell me more about this and tell our listeners how can they, how can they win this giveaway on 420?
Maria: This year. Kaya Push is doing their biggest giveaway ever. We are giving away one year free of Kaya Push for one dispensary location. One Lucky Dispensary owner is gonna be getting the full package of Kaya Push, so that's gonna include time tracking, scheduling, hr, payroll, and everything else that we offer.
Tom Mulhern: But don't be too sad if you don't win one year free of Kaya Push. We also have a second place prize available.
Maria: One lucky Dispensary owner is going to win custom branded dispensary swag for all of their staff.
If you're not a dispensary owner, don't worry. You can still enter the giveaway. Kaya Push can be utilized in lots of different retail spaces, restaurants, or even cultivation facilities.
Tom Mulhern: So you can either win a free year of Kaya Push, or you can get branded swag for your dispensary for all their staff. I think either of those prizes sounds amazing. So how do people enter into this giveaway?
Maria: Entry is super easy. Just go to kayapush.com/420giveaway to enter, all you have to do is fill out the form.
Tom Mulhern: And because it's 420 and we wanna have some fun, we also have a secret code just for Kaya Cast listeners. So if you put in KayaCast420, you get an extra entry into the drawing, which is amazing. And our listeners are amazing. So we want to give you guys the more opportunities to win.
Maria: Make sure you subscribe to Kaya Cast podcasts so you don't miss out on any great episodes or updates about the giveaway. And of course, gonna wanna make sure that you go and enter the giveaway as soon as possible.
Tom Mulhern: The cutoff date is April 20th by 4:00 PM because we are going to announce the winner on 420 at 4:20 PM. So don't miss this opportunity to either get Sweet Branded Swag or a free year of Kaya Push. And again, thanks for listening to the Kaya Cast podcast.
