Cannabis Business: 5 Tips to Get Started
If you’re cannabis-curious and want to dip your toes into the business world of legal weed, there are a few things you should know before you start. Here are five tips to get started in the cannabis industry. First, it’s important to do your research and find out what type of business model will work best for you. Are you looking to become a cannabis dispensary or grower? Or maybe you want to launch a brand that specializes in CBD products? Whatever path you choose, here are five tips to get started.
Ensure You Have the Funds
One of the very first things that you should focus on doing if you are going to be starting your cannabis business is to ensure that you have all of the funds necessary to do so. Many people don’t realize this, but starting a cannabis business is very expensive.
For example, one of the things that you’ll need to consider are the licenses you need to get, and with the licenses come the application fees needed to apply for them. These can range from a couple of $100 to the thousands, and this can get pretty expensive if your business requires more than one license. Another thing to keep in mind is that some states will require you to rent the property before even applying for a license, meaning that you will have to keep paying rent until the application is processed, which could take up to a year.
Choose the Best Product
The next thing that you’ll have to consider when starting a cannabis business is the product or service that you will be providing. Many people who are eager to start their cannabis business don’t take into consideration the fact that their product or service is the most important first step. This is because in the initial stages you will be targeting the local audience, which means that if you are selling a product that isn’t in demand, you won’t be making money initially.
More importantly, when it comes to choosing a product or service, you’ll need to consider whether you’ll be focusing intensely on one product, such as dry herb vaporizers, or if you will be selling as many cannabis products as you can. A good piece of advice would be to focus on the product that is in demand in your local area and then begin expanding once you start targeting an international audience.
Marketing is Important
Speaking of expanding into an international audience, one of the most important things you’ll need to do to achieve this is to begin marketing. The bad news is that within the cannabis industry, marketing is not so straightforward, since it is still considered to be a controlled substance under federal law.
The good news is that there are still many different ways to market the product. One of the best ways to market your cannabis product is by using social media. Even though you can’t expressly say that your products are for sale, or even mention a price you can begin targeting an audience using hashtags, as well as branding your business so that it stands out from competitors.
Follow the Laws
The next thing that you should focus on doing if you want your business to succeed is to follow the laws that are required of you. As mentioned above, one of the laws would be to get all of the necessary licenses you need to operate your business.
In addition, as mentioned above as well, marketing in the cannabis industry requires you to follow many different laws, such as not mentioning any of your products are for sale or their prices. More than this, all of your products need to be accounted for, so rigorous stocktaking will be necessary.
Focus on SEO
Finally, the last tip is to focus on SEO and this is if you want to target an international audience. SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s everything that you do to improve your chances of your website showing up in the search results.
The easiest way to start your SEO journey is by focusing on the local audience by uploading a Google My Business profile. This will at least help you to get some organic search traffic going and will hopefully draw people to your website.
