Dispensary Buyers: 5 People in One

How to Maximize Dispensary Profits? Find Five Superstars in One.

Make sure your cannabis retail leaders bring all five of these critical skillsets. If not, you’re likely leaving profits on the table.

1. Salesperson

• Develops and maintains vendor relations keeping solid ties to get premier service
• Negotiates best pricing and promos to increase margins and revenue
• Attends networking events to expand reach and stay in tune with new products
• Keeps tabs on weekly, monthly, and annually expected sales trends (weekends, holidays, seasonal changes)

2. Data Analyst

• Builds reports to manage supply chain and monitor product and category performance
• Adept at quickly learning new software
• Able to tell a story with data in simple and digestible ways
• Implements ERP management processes to ensure data is clean and usable

3. Inventory Manager

• Acts as a middleman between departments to coordinate all aspects of purchasing
• Builds internal SOPs to ensure simple and efficient processes for each step of procurement and intake
• Understands inventory operations including vault management, audits, and intake
• Acts as a middleman between vendors and retail staff for efficiency and compliance

4. Marketer

• Manages marketing assets and processes for menu organization, descriptions, pictures, and naming conventions
• Assists in promo planning based on inventory and available promotions from vendors
• Maintains relations with internal and vendor marketing teams to stay up-to-date on marketing materials for communications with retail customers
• Uses customer and market data to keep tabs on product and demographic trends in local area

5. Logistics Planner

• Assists in scheduling deliveries at optimal times for vendors and retail teams
• Works with internal production to stay in tune with stock levels on internal products and course correct with external product when needed
• Assists with production/demand planning for internal and external product for maximum efficiency and assistance with wholesale department
• Works with internal production to stay in tune with stock levels on internal products and course correct with external product when needed
• Assists with production/demand planning for internal and external product for maximum efficiency and assistance with wholesale department
• Maintains communications between vendors, internal production, and retail staff through use of delivery schedules, product trackers, and timely communications via email when needed

Profitable Dispensary Operations in 2023

This year in 2023, the name of the game for profitable dispensary operations is doubling your effectiveness, efficiencies and performance while reducing cost and eliminating bad decisions in procurement spending and strategy. 

We need to do more and make more with less. As the cannabis industry grows, and the number of dispensaries grows with it, the need for all of these skillsets combined into one person also grows. 

The issue is that the amount of available talent in the market with deep cannabis experience and specialization in this specific role will have a bit of time to catch up to the growth of the number of retail locations needing this person. In the time being, the best thing you can do is spend the time looking, searching, deep diving, to find the right person, pay them well, and encourage them to stretch to their full creative potential this year in 2023. Allow them to lead, give them the flexibility and bandwidth to do more with less. 

We Are The Cannabis Dispensary Experts

Looking for the five-in-one solution out of the gate? Contact our team of dispensary consultants to streamline your retail cannabis operation now.