Episode 65: Consumer Experience and Brand Loyalty: Strategies for Success in an Oversaturated Cannabis Market

Emily Wells  00:11

Hey there cannabis marketing community. I’m Emily wells, the membership manager here at cannabis Marketing Association, and you’re tuned in to another episode of Party like marketer. Today’s guest is Jesse Ezekiel tolls, the VP of Marketing at the travel agency. Jesse opened the third adult use dispensary in New York City, and has over a decade of experience in agriculture and cannabis scaling both vertically integrated and multichannel businesses. He successfully brought national CPG brands to new markets and evolved regional distribution models. He implements omni channel marketing strategies and tactics with a holistic approach to the customer lifecycle and all its touch points. Jesse was senior director of portfolio engagement for tilt holdings, leading field marketing for a portfolio of nine cannabis brands in the wholesale channel across Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Prior to that, he was director of marketing for the past, building out marketing for cannabis retail and wholesale in the Massachusetts market. Thanks for being here today, Jesse. We’re excited to learn from you.

Lisa Buffo  01:10

Okay, welcome everybody to today’s episode of Party like a marketer, the podcast dedicated to cannabis marketing, public relations and authentic storytelling. Today’s guest is Jesse Toles, the VP of Marketing at the travel agency. Jesse, thank you so much for joining us today on the show.

01:28

Thank you for having me, Lisa. I really appreciate it.

Lisa Buffo  01:30

Yeah, we’re excited to talk to you. You’re in a great spot in the industry and have such a unique lens. But first, could you introduce yourself to the audience and just tell them a little bit about Jesse. How did you get into the industry? What was your professional life like prior to joining the travel agency? And then we can get into all things cannabis marketing,

Jesse Tolz  01:51

absolutely. Well, let’s start off with the fact I have been consuming cannabis since way too young. Let’s just say, right, like my parents wouldn’t be pumped about that actual age prior to cannabis, I was in agriculture, both on cultivation, distribution, marketing and beyond. And I worked for about, I think, seven, eight years in agriculture. And it was really what drove me to become fascinated with botany, with seeds. I’m a seed geek. And ultimately, when the market in Massachusetts opened up and there was a position that was in the Berkshires, in a vertically integrated biz called the pass. I jumped at the opportunity and landed in the cannabis industry several years ago.

Lisa Buffo  02:47

Are you from here I

02:49

am, or live there? No, I was. I was born in New York City. I live in the Hudson Valley, and definitely a New Yorker, but Western Massachusetts is within reach. So, yeah, okay, when you when you see an opportunity, when you see a way to get your foot in the door of an industry that you’ve been watching from afar for a while, you jump on it, you know? And here I am, awesome.

Lisa Buffo  03:13

So can you tell us then about your role at the travel agency? Explain what the travel agency is for those who don’t know. And then I do want to talk a little bit about the New York cannabis market, and what were some of that first steps in building the brand. But if you could orient us to the company and brand for first that would be

03:31

great. Yeah, absolutely. So the travel agency is a brand of retail dispensaries in New York City. We have currently three locations in Union Square on Fifth Avenue, between 47th and 48th and then in downtown Brooklyn, just next to Atlantic Terminal and Barclays Center. So my position is VP of Marketing, oversees the marketing department all things under my purview and across this omni channel coverage that I built since we kicked off at the beginning of 2023 so I joined the travel agency in January of 2023 and we opened our first location in Union Square in a pop up in February of of that same year, right, and from there, we have opened two pop ups, as well as ultimately, three permanent locations. So in all our team, over the course of the past year and a half, we’ve opened five, technically, five, operational dispensary locations in a new market, which is kind of been a wild ride here.

Lisa Buffo  04:46

Yeah, that’s a that’s a busy schedule, so you had a month to ramp up before they were taking customers, essentially,

04:53

okay, yeah, yeah.

Lisa Buffo  04:55

And can you tell us the story behind the name and the brand, like, why the travel age? Agency, and to me, that intuitively makes sense, being in New York and whatnot and in those locations. But what’s the story behind it?

05:07

Absolutely so we were, we are formerly known as Union Square travel agency. Once we decided to partner with and expand across communities, we explored what the name could become, if it should be retained or transitioned. So ultimately, we transitioned to the travel agency to be more accessible and applicable across communities. The name though, so without getting too much into the initial optimism around the framework of the New York market, assuming that a chunk of your audience understands how the New York market was open, how its position has, how it’s rolled out. I like to say that the the travel agency name has two two purposes, two points of origin. One is a little more philosophical and values based, and the other one is a little bit more practical. So the philosophical or values based is really about the New York market. So we’re looking to build an organization, a team, a community, a network that will take people who have been impacted and communities that have been impacted by the failed war on drugs and move them into a place of empowerment, financial prosperity and beyond The practical reason so you’re traveling from one place of impact to a place of empowerment, ideally, the other one is more practical. When you consume cannabis, you are looking to transport yourself from, you know, your normal state of being to you know, physical, emotional, mental, maybe even spiritual place. So you’re traveling. You’re taking your body to a different state of being. I like that. It’s the most distilled. Yes, yeah, that

Lisa Buffo  07:14

makes a lot of sense. So, um, can can we talk a little bit about New York and just give some context to that market and how it’s different and how it’s set up. And if you can tee that up for the audience, assuming they don’t know entirely, a little bit about that environment and what that’s like. And then I want to get into some of the challenges of operating there from a marketing perspective. But we can start with just like high level, what’s your take on how New York is set up and how it’s different?

07:45

So right out of the gate, when the office of cannabis management in New York and the other stakeholders in the development of the framework and the launching of in this state opened up licensing. The licensing was really focused on and relegated to card licensees. So conditional adult use retail dispensaries. The conditional part for retailers is based on two buckets. One bucket is individuals who were impacted by the failed war on drugs. You know, there’s a whole variety of boxes to check in terms of your experience, your background, your involvement in the community, so on and so forth. But really overly simplified, have you as an individual, been impacted by the failed war on drugs? And then the other bucket, which our Union Square location falls into because of our partnership with the DOE fund, is, are you an organization? Are you an entity that has been working to remedy in some way, shape or form, the impacts from the failed more on drugs, right? So our three locations, or three branded retail dispensaries are all card licenses. Union Square, like I just said, is partnered with the DOE fund, owned by the DOE fund, and then we have both Fifth Avenue and downtown Brooklyn. Those licenses are held by individuals who were impacted by the war on drugs,

Lisa Buffo  09:21

and what’s the DOE so the DOE

09:25

fund is an organization that’s been working in the city for several decades to provide all kinds of support, primarily to black and brown men who’ve been incarcerated. So support, meaning job support placement as well as housing as well as career other, career support services.

Lisa Buffo  09:53

Okay, that makes sense. So,

09:56

so if you I mean, maybe some of your audience has been in the city and have seen. And the men in blue around New York in different communities. So watch out for the DOE fund team around,

Lisa Buffo  10:12

okay, cool. And can you explain what? What are some of the I want to start with challenges, and then we can move into solutions. But operating in that space. I mean, you’ve been there since before doors were opened and you’ve been there. I mean, gosh, that’s a lot in a year and a half to have five locations go from pop up to more permanent retail and expand within the boroughs. What were some of the challenges you faced from a marketing and or branding perspective in those initial days, and in particularly, I mean, there’s some general challenges we speak about regularly on this podcast that a lot of folks have, and I do want to hear your take on this as a whole. But are there also any that were really you feel either unique or competitive to New York? I feel like New York is just a beast, but like, how own beast? What’s your take on that?

11:06

So I would say just in terms of first, I’ll start with just in terms of starting a new business in a brand new market, in a city like New York, just feels like a whole bunch of aggressive variables together, right? Like I identified earlier. I started in January of 2023 we opened Union Square in Feb 2023 and the pop up location. And we didn’t, we didn’t have, you know, any agencies, or there’s nobody in the marketing department, yet. We didn’t have a brand built out yet. We didn’t have our website finished like there were for your audience, your audience. Out of any other conversation I might have understand what it takes to develop a full spread of marketing activities, programs and the team, and we didn’t have that. So take a month, let’s call it, less than a month, to build that out pre launch is quite intense, so unique challenge to me and our team in New York. Then I just, I would just say that the majority of our challenges aren’t unique to New York, right? There’s like, plenty of challenges we all experience within the cannabis industry. You know, specifically within marketing, that I could speak to at length. But I think you know your question about the unique challenge in New York I’ve not experienced this. I know there are a few other markets that have, and that’s really the thriving gray market. So in New York City, we’ve got, specifically in New York City, we have 1000s of unlicensed shops, right? Yeah, we have, so this is more about, how do you navigate the competition? How do you navigate the existing framework of supply, whether or not it’s licensed and licensed, and when I say the gray market, I’m not talking about legacy. I’m talking really about this special segment that’s exploiting a, let’s call it a loophole within the oversight and enforcement of laws. So this gray market is quite prominent in the city. Our competition was super intense, even though we were one of the first to market in the license space, having 1000s of competitors already before you even kick it off, is quite a challenge. And you know, if you’re in the gray market, maybe don’t know, maybe audience doesn’t know, but if you’re in the gray market, you’re not really dealing with the same regulations, if any, or the taxation that we in the license space have to deal with, right and then, just generally, the fact that back then, and still to this day, the majority of New Yorkers, I would say, don’t know which stores are licensed and which stores aren’t. So even though there’s this operation padlock and they’re shutting down. Mayor Adams and beyond are shutting down plenty of unlicensed shops. We’ll see if they pop back up over time, because that’s what’s happened. Whack a Mole. Historically, people just don’t know what’s licensed and unlicensed. I mean, people are becoming more aware, like, for instance, I’ll still get messages from friends showing me or telling me that a new dispensers opened up right around the corner from their apartment, and nine times out of 10 that’s an unlicensed shop, even though they’re talking to the to the budtender, the security guard asked. Them, are you a licensed shop? You know? Are you legal? And it’s always yes, you know, yeah, of course, we are. We’re here, you know, we’re a brick and mortar store. That’s more about the competitive landscape than your question was initially. But I would say, you know, we have similar limitations in our creative as well as in our promotions, similar to what other markets experience as well, right certain restrictions?

Lisa Buffo  15:29

Yeah, thank you for clarifying, because, I mean, it matters. You’re you’re playing the same game in the sense where you’re trying to get customers and you’re trying to get market share, but, but if people are playing by different sets of rules, so to speak, or lack of it does change the overall dynamic and how it plays out absolutely. You know, in a place like New York, where, if anywhere in the world, retail brick and mortal real estate is just so limited, it’s obvious, it would be natural to assume if a store, if there’s anything open and operating here, it would be legitimate. So that is a significant challenge that you’re facing, and it seems like the other licensed businesses in New York. So thank you for clarifying that, and it seems, given that context, you have still done a great job of building a prominent brand that is recognized, that is growing and is doing well. So can you talk about like, what did you do? What have you done since February? What are those strategies that you’ve employed this year and a half plus or so that have allowed this level of growth and brand recognition? What? What did you kind of come in and first start working on or doing?

16:44

Yeah, I’m actually gonna share credit with leadership. There’s a few answers here, right? I’m gonna first share credit with leadership here at the travel agency, because I would say that, you know, people who don’t work in marketing think that is just pure glamor and creativity and like, there’s just so much grind and just build that isn’t glamorous or creative, right? I mean, it can be sometimes, you know, everybody, hopefully some or most of your audience understand that, but I would say it’s our location strategy, right? I already identified where we are placed, right? And again, your audience probably is familiar with the four or five P’s, right? But like, price promotion, product people, super important to me, um, and place, right? So our location strategy being able to land a dispensary one block south of Union Square, um, that’s one, being able to land a dispensary a block away from a transportation hub like Atlantic Terminal and a venue like Barclays Center in downtown Oakland wild right, and then fifth avenue to be next to H, M and Sephora on the same block, and be sandwiched in between Rockefeller Center and grand central location the locations that we’ve been able to land, still blow my mind. Another. Another answer to that question would be, we were the third dispensary to open in New York City, right? And for those who followed the New York rollout, how slow it was in the beginning. You know, I have lots of colleagues across markets, and specifically the people that I have been talking to endlessly over the past year and a half in New York who are super patient people, but tremendously frustrated and rude over essentially by the licensing or lack thereof. I think that that was a tremendous challenge that we didn’t have to deal with, because we are blessed in that way to have partnered right out of the gate with a licensee who is licensed, approved, and then we just went for it and ramped so I’d say taking advantage of our early entrant position was critical to setting ourselves up for success way into the future, through now and beyond, right? So in 2023 we really front loaded our marketing activities, right? There’s, you know, you have a whole, whole year of spend. What do you budget? If you look at it, there’s a lot of what was dedicated to the end of the year. I really pulled forward while we were one of the few, and then thinking about what’s the benefit of consumer facing versus industry facing or a retailer? I. Initially, not so much now in 2024 But initially, I thought it was very important to make a name for ourselves across the industry that talks and is tight knit. And yes, we’re a bubble, and we we think that we are everywhere, but it is a, you know, cannabis bubble, even across the country. So I built omnichannel coverage in 2023 and we went hard through the holidays. Yeah. Oh, and I mentioned people. My 5p is whatever people is one of my favorite things to talk about, the people that I work with, the people that I collaborate with, people that I partner with. So in 2023 I pulled in a marketing manager, and we ran marketing through the year, the two of us, and then, as we grew and we’re setting ourselves up for downtown Brooklyn as well as Fifth Avenue, I pulled in a customer experience manager as well as a partnerships and Events Manager. So building out the marketing team in a way that I thought would be the next phase of growth support and yeah, landing capable people in the marketing department has really been essential. So shout out to my team, yeah, yeah,

Lisa Buffo  21:21

I appreciate that perspective in giving credit to leadership and the early positioning, because I think sometimes marketing, more often than not, can be expect how you’re saying leadership doesn’t always understand that it’s a grind. I also think sometimes that can come with the expectation that marketing will fix some problems that might be a little more upstream, where it could be a product problem, it could be an operations problem, you know, something like that, a sales process problem. And marketing in some ways to fix it, but you you also positioned it in reverse, where saying a lot, having sort of the right elements in place operationally, and just where you were at that time allowed marketing to actually just take everything to the next step and go a bit more smoothly, and have those things build on themselves. So I appreciate that perspective, because we usually talk about the former a lot more and lament how difficult that is to communicate and how sometimes impossible it can be to achieve because you’re you’re trying to solve something over here that the problem, the root of it may be over here, and I it’s also, I want to hear your take on you’re the first person who’s at least said that you have a customer experience manager who’s you consider and is a part of and under the marketing team. Can you explain that and the thought behind that and that, I guess, more about what that role is and how that plays into your strategy?

22:54

Yeah, absolutely. So I just want to clarify what that role like, you’re asking for, what that role entails, because we do have a whole slew of people who are capable not in marketing, but customer facing in the retail and retail ops environment. So the Customer Experience Manager role really covers a few things, and it’s evolved the person and the responsibilities coverage. But initially it was to cover all things visual merchandising, all things inbound customer service, across email, phone review sites, beyond and then bud, tender education, right? So how do we pull our brand partners, the producers who are pushing product into our store and through our store. How do we arm and educate our bud tenders to be the most knowledgeable in terms of giving like real consultation, real sales support, face to face with the customers who are coming in our door, right? Like the customer experience is essential to building a thriving brand, to developing evangelize customers, and to making sure that your your team, right? I mean, I could talk about company culture forever, but you know where I’m going, so that’s the Customer Experience Manager role, okay,

Lisa Buffo  24:22

yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s great context. And to your point, I think I talk about this, but cannabis is one of the few, if not only, retail experience where you can’t, like you can’t just walk in and touch the product and pick up the package and look at it. You immediately have to have a face to face conversation and interaction as a part of the sales and marketing process to get to that sale. So that bud tender interaction and like, physical experience of the customer is really important, more so than in I think, lots of other spaces. Yeah. Okay, so then. And let’s talk about sort of the meat of marketing, getting into campaigns. First, I want to talk about creativity and compliance. So how do you balance those things in such a regulated environment, and how I don’t want to say how much does one or the other matter, because I know they do both matter. But what is your approach, I think, to balancing those two? Yeah,

25:27

honestly, I feel like I’ve been in this highly regulated industry for a while, so it doesn’t faze me anymore. You know, I how do I say this? I think, I think navigating marketing in a compliant way isn’t as massive a deal as some people make it. And I’m not like I’m not trying to diminish the headache and the pivots and the time you spend with counsel, and, you know, all, all the things I’m not covering right here, like, I’m really not trying to diminish it, I just mean more. Like, you have, you have a framework that’s being given to you, right? You have, like, a, here is the structure kind of thing. And like, just play the game within that structure, right? So I this is one of those things we were talking earlier about, like gems. I sort of think that regulations are like a coloring book. And I’ve never said that before, so I was just thinking about that this morning. I like if, okay, if you understand the regs, if you are looking at the gray area of the regs and also what’s your risk tolerance, then you’re defining what that picture that you can color within looks like, like that’s those are the guardrails, right? So instead of it just being a complete free for all, you’re already getting some guidance that’s obviously being imposed on you by the state, by the regulators. So you know what I mean by the coloring book. I’ll take a different one. Like, if you’re driving down the road, you’re not, you’re not crossing the double yellow, you know, unless you’re an aggro driver, or if you’re on your way to, like, the hospital because of an emergency, right? In the same way, like, yeah, when I’m talking about the gray area, you might color outside of the lines, right? You might have a risk tolerance that says, you know, play some creative and such and such channel that shows people consuming even though the regs say you can’t or throw up a billboard, even though the New York regs say you can’t throw up a billboard, we haven’t put up a billboard. But there are some gray area in this conversation, right? So, like, what’s the what’s the coloring book look like to you and to your team, to leadership, and ultimately, Council is going to going to give you what they think, and you’re going to have them all it over, right? Yeah, yeah. So having good not what you were expecting. But

Lisa Buffo  28:23

no, it’s a good point, which is essentially saying, make it something manageable, and something you can like master or get agency over. And once you have that defined, once it is defined, it’s much easier to operate within that, because, you know what the boundaries are. So, you know, I appreciate that perspective, and I like the coloring book analogy, because it’s, it’s very that’s very clear

28:51

that the the thing that I think has been challenging in other markets, and definitely in New York as well is just like, how do you guesstimate what is going to be enforced and then what happens? I mean, this is something that was experienced definitely in Massachusetts, but in other markets that I’ve been in, like, the regs might get modified monthly, initially. Yeah, right. So how, how do you make longer term decisions and commitments with service providers and inventory based off of a right now set of information, and then ideally set yourself up to be nimble if something changes and an opportunity comes up in the next month or three, you know? Yeah,

Lisa Buffo  29:42

yeah, that makes sense. And Colorado, so I, I’ve been in the industry about 10 years now. When I started in Colorado in 2014 it was the same where the regs were changing so frequently and so regularly in the beginning it it, it took a while for them to even out, or that. To slow down, and that was a very difficult environment to market in, and it gets, it got a little easier over time, but it’s definitely a consideration in the early stages of any any state where that is happening. Can you share any examples of a successful marketing campaign you’ve run and talk us through it. What made it stand out. How did you approach it? What was the thought process behind it, and what did it look like?

30:28

Yeah, so I just want to also, again, give credit to the team. We have a creative team, freelance creative team that’s just so solid the campaigns that I wanted to kick off, that I like to reference, there’s one that is a reviews based campaign, and then there’s another one that is and was both of these were an educational, more educational what is legal and licensed type campaign, right? So the Google reviews based campaign, we’re taking reviews that people have submitted on Google, and you know, we’ve gone through the back and forth of getting consent from these people and taking some gems from the hundreds of reviews, some really positive, supportive ones, some like unique, quirky ones, and producing creative across a variety of different channels, with those at the core, right? So I think we all can acknowledge that reviews play a major part in our purchasing decisions. So that’s one one campaign. The other one was an educational focused one where we were really trying to highlight and contrast highlight the benefit of what shopping at a licensed dispensary is as well as consuming products from licensed producers. And the campaign was visually striking to me, as well as the copy. The copy was memorable, right? So this was one where we played in an area that some people might be uncomfortable in the New York market, but we were playing in the wild postings arena, and the visual impact of having a full set of, you know, alternating logos and then this no one of our colors in our brand is an aqua, bright Aqua. And so, you know, it was this diagonally alternating panel. And you know, the black ones were the travel agency logo, and then the Aqua ones were the phrases, so things like cannabis that comes from a New York Farm, not a multi basement or another one was better quality control than many planes, and then another one was sort of taking a dig at like, why would you get your cannabis from a store that sells ramen and other goods, Like your convenience store around the corner on the corner. I think that’s the one that the reason I’m referencing it not only because I really appreciate the way that it was creatively developed, that way that we landed it and threaded the needle, but also because that one was the one that put the most smiles on people’s faces, right? So when you talk about memorable campaigns, campaigns that move the needle, convert increase brand awareness, so on and so forth, like this one to me, felt that there were so many more people who smiled or actually chuckled upon reading these this copy, and I aspire to generate as many core memories as possible for prospective or existing customers, right? That’s, that’s the best.

Lisa Buffo  34:17

That’s, that’s great. I like that. And it also makes people think you’re not just saying, like, we’re the best product, and you know, like listing your attributes you’re you’re putting it in context to the bigger picture, and making people think about their decisions and coming to these seemingly very logical conclusions, like, yeah, why would you get your cannabis from a place that sells ramen? Which maybe people hadn’t put the two and two together. So I like that, and I’m excited to see the visuals and how and also how you just hearing you talk about it play into the travel agency aspect when you mentioned planes, and kind of going with that from a brand makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about digital marketing and what role it plays for you. We know that in retail, hyper local marketing is really important. But a place like New York that has a lot of tourists and also, I’m guessing, sees a lot of volume. There’s also been a broader conversation in the industry from other places I’ve worked and other brands, where there can be a temptation to throw a lot of money at Digital Marketing and run, you know, long programmatic campaigns, and maybe do that a bit sooner than then, when the brand is really established, and digital marketing is a bit of a catch all term, right? It can mean also social media and content creation. But just given that you’re in such a high density place like New York and that hyper local definition is going to be a bit different there than everywhere else, and that it is such an international city, can you speak to how digital like your philosophy around it and how it’s played in in these first few years of the business.

36:06

Yeah, so. And just to so you you just defined how broad digital marketing is. And so when I spoke to omnichannel coverage earlier, it includes, you know, paid own, earned and shared and so within digital, digital really does cover a few of those, all of those, right? So we’ve got paid search, paid social, organic, social CTV, digital out of home. You’re talking programmatic display and audio, etc, right our website and SEO endeavors as well. So I, I would say, I would say, in terms of which one I’d like to talk about, is that cool? Which one I’d like to talk about is really, yeah, however, paid search and paid social, Sure, let’s do it. So paid paid search, the reason why I like to talk about it is because the the cannabis industry in order to execute paid search and paid social, I know, again, the majority, or some of your audience is executing this already, but paid search and paid social are funny or fun to me, because we can’t do those on larger tech platforms, right, like there are restrictions if we did it the way that you would implement in other industries, other sectors, you would get flagged, shut down, and might impact, you know, a variety of other tangential practices and activities. But the reason it’s fun to me is because we’re sort of being mischievous, right? Like you’re being mischievous by setting up your advertising cross paid search and paid social to disguise yourself to like fool these larger tech corporations. Obviously they just, you know, great, here, here’s my money. Take it. Run my ads, but you’re setting up advertising that is devoid, ideally devoid of cannabis, visuals and copy, but still is somehow engaging and triggering an association for the consumer or the viewer of that advertisement on paid search and paid social right? So instead of sending people directly to your main website, because that would lead to your whole Ads account getting flagged and shut down across those channels, you build out a landing page that you send these click throughs to that one. Also, you know, how do you, how do you describe the the value of your business, and like, what your business actually is within cannabis, without saying cannabis or using pictures of cannabis, right? So, super disjointed. The reason I like to highlight it, like I said, is because I think it’s fun or funny that we are doing this. It is, you know, still a successful practice, even though it is disjointed. And, you know, like, I think that cannabis in this in a similar way to what I’ve experienced in agriculture in the past, like it’s federally legal. There are so many different markets that are their own microcosms. I think that we are just like scrappy, right? You just have to be nimble. You have to. Just figure it out you have to be productive and keep going, right? So I think this is an example of all those things.

Lisa Buffo  40:08

Yeah, yeah, it is a hard and I’m also glad you mentioned it, because there, there is also a belief, which is generally true, but that you can’t do paid anything at all and that, I think that is a space where there’s gray area and room for creativity, depending on where and how that is. So I appreciate you mentioning that and bringing that up. So I want to hear, we’ve got few minutes left, so last two questions from me, but I want to hear, what are some like lessons you’ve learned that have been important to you in this whole process, whether it was from your prior professional experience or just in you know, what you’ve learned actually with the travel agency and in this experience in cannabis directly, that have been really valuable to you in this role And or that you think would be valuable to the audience, like, what are some of those key learnings that have stood out to you?

41:10

I always love this question. I don’t, I don’t have, like, a ready to go answer for you, but I do want to just say that something that I, I personally, am always learning, is how to approach each person on my team and across an organization. So I want to talk more internally in company culture and, you know that kind of stuff. How do I approach each person and try to really just identify their work and calm style, right? Like, how can I get better and better and better at and I’m not talking about like, passing judgment. I’m talking about, like, really figuring out what is the most efficient and effective way to work with other human beings, because we are all so different, and we really do try to just like, cookie cutter, the whole machine. But I am really trying to to get better at just like knowing each human right. So like my team is composed of a variety of different people, I would say lesson lessons learned are shared with that really trying to learn how to dance, the over communication game, managing down, across and up right, like that One, that might be a forever learning experience for me. I’ve definitely not perfected that art. And if I had to share anything, it’s just that, like, make sure it’s a priority.

Lisa Buffo  42:54

Yeah, I forget who said this, but I’ll look it up. But some who, there’s some famous CEO where they say, culture eats strategy for breakfast, which is, I think, speaking to that, which is that a good, cohesive company culture, where there’s good communication and a motivated team and people feel heard and valued, are going to to be more effective and happy than any detailed, thoughtful, bulleted SOP strategy if the team is disengaged, because particularly in marketing, when the work is creative, it involves communication. You really do need that. And certainly when you’re doing omni channel and retail where you have a direct point of communication with customers, they’re the team needs to be really solid. So I appreciate you bringing that out, because that doesn’t get brought up enough in these circles, and it really does matter. Yeah. So my last question is, any things you’re most excited about for the future, any either trends or changes that you anticipate in New York. Any hot takes you have, what are you the most excited about? I’ll let you answer however you want. But what does looking forward look like for Jesse and or the travel agency?

44:17

Yeah, the what I’m what I’m curious, concerned, excited about, is the new draft regs in New York. So these were keeping track. Time is, is a an issue, but I believe, like, a month and a half, two months ago now, draft regs were shared that is now ultimately, if approved in its current format, in that format, would ultimately give carte blanche to all of us to give, to tap into discounts, freebies, gifting, loyalty. Program, you know, promotions in a way that we’ve been completely restricted for the regs, completely restricted from doing. Do I think that’s a good idea for this market? No, I definitely don’t think that that in the current format, in the current phrasing, that should be passed. But I do think it will likely, there will likely be a middle ground. I think that’s one. And I had also referenced, you know, I think it was part of the coloring book, piece of this combo. I referenced billboards. So I’m a huge fan of out of home, and we can’t, we’re forbidden from tapping billboards, right? So the outdoor signage and billboards will be revised. Are revised tentatively in the draft regs, and so that’s something I would be very excited to be greenlit, to execute on the the billboards opportunity and go ahead. Yeah, that’s that, yeah, that’s really what I’m looking ahead to in terms of, like, trends or products. Or, like everybody asked, like, what is the category, the up and coming category?  But I, personally, I am just more, like, curious where the whole industry will go purely based on the, like, the comfort level and familiarity of particular ages and generations with particular like I said, categories, right? So no older people are generally drawn more to like flower, whereas, and this is seen in revenue by category with us, but like and way oversimplifying here, but older people tied to higher flower sales. You know, younger generations, Gen Z definitely has bulked out the vape category. So again, just two data points, like very much oversimplified, that’s something. I’m curious to see what the trajectory ends up looking like. Yeah,

Lisa Buffo  49:09

well, Jesse, thank you so much for your time today. Is there any information you want to share with the audience, website, LinkedIn, social media, either for the travel agency or yourself.

49:24

Yeah, absolutely. So you can find our website at the travel agency.co, CEO. The same is for our Insta handle at the travel agency.co, and if you want to connect with me, please connect with me on LinkedIn, find me, talk to me. Let me know what you need, if you want to bounce some ideas or meet up for coffee. My name is Jesse Ezekiel Toles. That’s T as in Tom, o, l, Z as in Zebra, and yeah, I just I could talk about cannabis or I. Agriculture or food for ever and ever so hit me up. Thank

Lisa Buffo  50:05

you everybody for tuning in. Please subscribe to this podcast. We’re also on YouTube, where you can see the video version. And if you’d like to connect with the CMA community, please visit us at the Cannabis Marketing association.com, or on social media at Canna marketing. You can also sign up for our newsletter on our website to stay up to date with new episodes, tools, insight, blog posts and more from the CMA community and hear from our members. And if you’re interested in learning more about membership or becoming a guest on the show, please reach out to our team at [email protected], see you next week.

— Transcribed by otter.ai