
Cannabis Brand-to-Budtender Training Campaign (Steps + Checklist)
Want to design a cannabis Brand-to-Budtender Training Campaign that increases revenue month over month? This MJBiz article details how-to create a strategic training plan that utilizes Brand Ambassadors to their maximum potential.
Gain practical information to measure the success of your cannabis brand’s Budtender training campaign and insights on tools that facilitate training campaign success like a cannabis Learning-Management-System (LMS). Access a step-by-step Brand-to-Budtender Training Campaign creation checklist.
In our last post Cannabis Brand Ambassador Revenue (Strategy + Calculator) we began to look at the role of the Brand Ambassador and how cannabis brands are not making the most of the position’s potential impact on revenue. Cannabis brands are missing out on revenue growth because the wrong key performance indicators are being measured and tactics that build capacity are not implemented thoughtfully.
Pop-ups and in store product demos help brand awareness and sales for the day but they do not have the largest long-term return-on-investment. In our opinion, pop-ups and in store product demos should be an activity done by a separate position such as a Field Representative. The Field Representative should work in tandem with a Brand Ambassador, the person that trains the Budtender. Separating the roles streamlines operations and produces better results.
Brand Ambassadors Are Budtender Trainers
We view Brand Ambassadors as trainers. In our opinion, it is the job of a cannabis Brand Ambassador to facilitate one-to-many sales by developing relationships with, training, and encouraging Budtenders. When a Brand Ambassador is succeeding Budtenders are empowered to make authentic product recommendations that result in sales and revenue growth. It’s the job of the Brand Ambassador to deliver training through a variety of tactics such as in-person conversations, interactive software that details the brand and its products, exclusive Budtender events, and more. It’s also their job to measure the impact of the training messages delivered via comprehension and proficiency. The measurement of training delivered, what is working, and what is not working, is what will result in Budtenders making recommendations every day.
The skill set needed by a Brand Ambassador that is going increase a cannabis brand’s capacity to sell more product via the real training of a Budtender is vastly different than that of an individual that stops by to hand out swag and/or treats during pop-up demos or that performs drive by shift change “trainings”.
Most Brand Ambassadors view their “trainings” as one and done activities. Brand Ambassadors will share things like “I spoke with the Budtender. They know the product. They smiled back at me and nodded their head when I explain the details and said they’d tell customers about it”. For all we know the Budtender they were speaking with could have been thinking about their dog, kids, washing their car, or having no thoughts whatsoever. Assuming a Budtender can be trained by having a conversation that lasted a few minutes is just silly and wasteful of company resources.
A cannabis Brand Ambassador’s training productivity and success can truly be assessed using the metrics below not the vanity metric of how many Budtenders they spoke to that day:
- Sales growth rate/ Dispensary visited by Brand Ambassador
- # of Product Units sold by Budtenders (not the Brand Ambassador during pop-ups)/ Dispensary
- # of Budtenders trained/ # of Budtenders engaged with the brand
- Market share represented by the dispensaries covered by a Brand Ambassador/ Field force cost of the Brand Ambassador
- ROI on incentives/ sales
- Market share
All of the above are measurable metrics associated with:
- Effectively delivering training messages to Budtenders
- Proficiency of training messages delivered
- Positive Patient/ Customer brand and product perception
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