skip to Main Content
Views on Customer Education from Pure Green PDX

By Matt Walstatter

Thousands of people are working every day to move the Cannabis Industry out of the backwoods and basements and into the light of day.

This can only be accomplished by educating customers and potential customers about the safety and benefits of medical and recreational cannabis, and this task is made more difficult by the effects of 80 years of deceitful prohibitionist propaganda.

Educating customers

As business owners confronting the issue of customer education, we are faced with two simple truths:

  1. First, people do business with people that you know, like and trust — especially in the Cannabis Industry.
  2. Second, the best way to build that trust relationship is to provide your customers with valuable information. The more that you teach people, the more they will trust you.

Three key questions arise in relation to customer education:

  • Why do we need to educate our customers?
  • What do we need to teach them?
  • How do we go about educating our customers effectively?

We answer these questions in light of the two key points mentioned above: People do business with people they know, like, and trust, and teaching them something is the best way to build that trust relationship

Why We Educate

We educate our customers because it makes them more valuable to us. Informed customers who trust our business return more often and purchase more products. It’s really that simple.

When we educate our customers, we provide them with value in the form of free information, asking nothing in return. This also builds trust. Once you have begun to build this trust relationship, customers will return to your store, secure in the knowledge that they will get the products that they need.

An educated customer is an empowered customer. A customer who feels educated and informed, and who trusts your business and its products, is more likely to branch out and try new products.

For example, imagine you have a customer who buys 10 grams of flower every week. If you provide that customer with useful information about that flower, that customer will grow to trust you over time.

You can also provide them with information about edibles. A customer who trusts your information will be more likely to try an edible on your recommendation. Eventually, he or she may buy 10 grams of flower and two edibles per week. By educating that customer, you have made them more valuable to your business.

If we don’t educate, no one will

We must also keep in mind that we live in the age of information. If we don’t educate our customers about cannabis, someone else will. When others teach our customers, we lose control of the messaging and the results can be horrendous.

Who will teach our customers about cannabis if we don’t? For starters, probably anti-industry advocates like Kevin Sabet and Project SAM. These are people who intentionally spread lies, distortions, and half-truths in an effort to destroy our industry and our community. They are the last people in the world we want teaching people about our industry and our products.

Some messaging is unintentionally anti-cannabis, but this can do us just as much harm as the Kevin Sabets of the world. Like many who accidentally eat too much cannabis, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd had a horrible experience. But unlike most, she wrote a newspaper column about the experience that was read by millions, with significant negative impact on public perception of the Cannabis Industry.

I don’t think that Maureen Dowd set out to do a hatchet job on the Cannabis Industry, but whoever sold her that infused candy bar missed an opportunity to educate her on how to use edible cannabis safely and effectively. Instead, she educated the public on the dangers of overdosing on edibles in a fairly negative light. When we failed to educate her, we lost control of our message.

Your competitors will also educate your customers. This may not carry the same dangers of anti-industry messaging. Your competitors may not even say anything negative to your customers about you.

They won’t have to. If your competitors are educating your customers, pretty soon they won’t be your customers any more. You will be spending more money to find new customers when a little time and information would have allowed you to help keep the ones that you had.

What should you teach?

You should be prepared to provide your customers with basic information about marijuana — how it grows, how it works, etc. You also need to have information about specific products. At a minimum, you should be able to describe the pros and cons of each product, what they look like, how much they cost, and how to use them safely and effectively.

In a medical shop, you should be able to provide guidance about which products and strains work best for specific problems and ailments. Be mindful when talking to patients to make sure you make verifiable claims. Rather than saying that a certain strain will cure someone’s insomnia (speculative), tell them that “this strain helps many of our patients who suffer from insomnia” — a verifiable claim. This may seem like mere semantics, but liability in lawsuits often turns on semantics, so make sure you choose your words wisely.

You can also offer general industry and regulatory information as well. You are more valuable to a patient who knows that he or she can rely on you to learn about new products or legal changes. This helps build the trust relationship, which makes your customers more loyal.

Sending an effective message

We need our efforts at customer education to be effective. When we fail to educate effectively, we waste a valuable opportunity. What’s more, our deficiencies in this arena can aid industry opposition or competitors.

Education begins with the owners and managers of a business. Place an emphasis on education, making it a prominent aspect of your corporate culture. Teach your staff to teach your customers. If they see that you take education seriously, they are more likely to do the same.

Your staff represents the primary interface between your business and your customers, so make sure that they are intelligent and knowledgeable, with strong customer service and communication skills. When we hire at Pure Green, we also look for people who are passionate about cannabis. We find this passion elevates and invigorates their interactions with our customers.

Customer education can also be an important aspect of a complete marketing strategy. The goal here is to seamlessly blend genuine, altruistic community education with marketing in a manner that makes the two indistinguishable. This allows your educational efforts to translate directly into increased sales.

You should also join industry and trade associations, PACs, and community organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. Trade associations and PACs are often the face and voice of the industry that they represent. Joining these organizations allows you to broaden your reach and have a say in how your industry is presented to the public. It also allows you to stay informed by networking with scientists, experts, other industry operators and government regulators.

Building trust

Customer education is one of our most important tasks because customer education is the key to customer loyalty. Business owners and operators across industries understand the importance of customer loyalty.

It is easier and less expensive to keep an existing customer than to create a new customer. We also know that a loyal customer returns more often and spends more money, making her more valuable.

People do business with people that they know like and trust. This is especially true in the Cannabis Industry, where business has always been conducted on a handshake. The best way to build that trust relationship is through customer education.

People like and trust people that teach them. And a customer that trusts you will remain your customer for a very long time.

Matt Walstatter and his wife, Meghan, are the owners of Pure Green, a patient owned and operated dispensary in Portland, Oregon. They have jointly owned and operated cultivation centers since 2001. Their dispensary opened in 2013. Matt can be reached at (971) 242-8561 or [email protected].

Matt Walstatter

Matt Walstatter

Matt Walstatter and his wife, Meghan, are the owners of Pure Green, a patient owned and operated dispensary in Portland, Oregon. They have jointly owned and operated cultivation centers since 2001. Their dispensary opened in 2013. Matt can be reached at (971) 242-8561 or [email protected].

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Stories

Virginia governor vetoes marijuana market bill

A push to establish a legal marijuana market in Virginia is officially dead after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed legislation on Thursday. Virginia has allowed adults over 21 to possess and cultivate…

CDTFA Cannabis Creditor: Myths and Truths

By Hilary Bricken, Attorney at Husch Blackwell Dealing with creditors is never a fun experience. However, some creditors are more severe than others, especially in the cannabis industry. One of…

If FL Supreme Court approves cannabis ballot language, will voters go for recreational weed or not?

The long wait on whether Floridians will get a chance to vote to legalize recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older is almost over, as the Florida Supreme Court is…

Missouri strips marijuana licenses connected to company accused of predatory behavior

Missouri’s health department on Wednesday stripped two coveted marijuana micro-licenses tied to an out-of-state company that had been accused of predatory practices and had listed the licenses for resale. The…

More Categories

Back To Top
×Close search
Search