The Power of the Mastermind in the Cannabis Industry: Willie McKenzie's Transition from the Black Market to Regulated Growth

In this episode of CannaBiz Conversations, host Sean Welsh interviews Willie McKenzie, a prominent figure in the cannabis industry. Willie shares his origin story, revealing his involvement in cannabis since the late 90s, from selling weed in high school to becoming an outdoor cultivator in the regulated market. Willie's transition from the legacy side to the legalized side in California and his move to Michigan is also discussed. Tune in to learn more about Willie's journey and his insights on the industry.

[00:02:29] Outdoor cultivation in Michigan.

[00:06:19] No remediation and high-quality flower.

[00:07:34] Mold in food and testing.

[00:11:31] Early stages of medical cannabis.

[00:15:16] Starting a business in Michigan.

[00:19:17] Mental health and addiction.

[00:20:48] Managing addiction and excess.

[00:24:24] Addiction and mental health.

[00:27:50] Addiction to social media.

[00:29:59] Blowing up content distribution.

[00:33:08] Mental health and work-life balance.

[00:36:04] Micromanagement and employee turnover.

[00:40:43] Marketing in the cannabis space.

[00:43:06] Cannabis-only social media platform.

[00:47:47] Cannabis events in Michigan.

[00:49:08] Lack of oversight in cannabis market.

[00:54:57] Elite Cannabis Operators Mastermind.

[00:57:50] Federal legalization prospects.

[00:59:12] State Banking Act and marijuana.

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Transcript

Sean: Welcome into Cannabis Conversations. I am your fortunate and lucky host, Sean Welsh, for today. Today, I am joined by an unbelievable follow on LinkedIn. If you don't already follow Willie, you need to do it. The guy is just the living embodiment of what I think is going right right now in the industry and what I think more people need to be talking about. Willie, how are you today, man?
Willie: I'm doing great, man. Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

Sean: Hey, I appreciate you agreeing to come on this new endeavor we have going on here. We're excited about bringing the message to the people. So Willie, we like to kick the shows off with the origin story, man. I'm guessing you've got a good one. Why don't you lay it on us and start and take us where we need to go?

Willie: Yeah, sure, so I've been involved in cannabis for a long time, like late 90s in high school, I started selling weed. I sold weed through college. I didn't finish college, but I did sell weed there. And I started growing in 2006. I started off with a single light in my garage, and then that grew to a 12 light grow in a much larger garage in the Oakland Hills. And, you know, after that, I made my my jump into outdoor cultivation 2013. And so this this year was my 10th outdoor season, and my third outdoor season in the regulated market, the regular market.

Sean: So you've come on from the legacy side into the into the the kind of, you know, legalized side, if you will, Willie, is that right?

Willie: That's correct. Yeah. I started off early in California, medical operator, legacy operator. And yeah, this is my first foray into the regulated market here in Michigan. I started this business here in 2019. I moved here in 2020 from Northern California, from Calaveras County.

Sean: Wow. So you moved there from Northern Cali to Michigan. I'm a Midwest guy in Wisconsin. So welcome to the Midwest weather. We hope you enjoy. It's always fun. Tell me really quickly, cultivation, outdoor, Michigan. This season's clearly shorter than you're used to. What have you run into, man, as far as that goes? Because in the Midwest, we talk about how great our soil is, right? How wonderful our surroundings are, which I'm sure you're finding. But what's the weather been like for you?

Willie: Yeah. So, you know, it's got pluses and minuses, right? Like California, very dry, longer growing season. You can get in a couple different crops. You know, the licensing structure there is different too. It's square footage of canopy versus in Michigan where we're confined by plant count. So, One of the things that I really loved when I got here, we are in sandy loam, so it's really easy to plant in native soil, it's really easy to work in the native soil, to dig, to trench, whatever we need to do at the farm is very easy. Also, the water table, I mean, this is the water source in, you know, in North America. So like in California on my farms, some of them, we would run out of water in the end of July, beginning of August, and then we'd be trucking water in. And here, I mean, if you dig a hole, it fills with water. So massive wells on the farm, you know, spitting water, no shortage, no fires. There are certainly things like the microbials in the air here are different. We get a lot more inclement weather, there's a lot of rain, the wind is wild. But, you know, like anything, this, I would say one day will be a terroir, you know, like Napa Valley Chardonnay. I think that there will be Northern Michigan Cannabis because this is where a lot of your food comes from.

Sean: No, dude, I love it. I'm a huge UP guy, so I spend a lot of time up there. I'm a big snowmobile, I'm a winter activities guy. Right now in Wisconsin, we have no snow, so I go find it up north. I go up there as frequently as I can, for sure. But what I like about the Michigan market is it seems to be a little bit different than all the other markets in a good way, at least from a perspective of the consumer aspect, right? So when consuming there, taxes are super reasonable. Price points are reasonable because competition is there, right? So you're okay with all of that. But you talked about something on the microbial side, and we've had the theme of the mold discussion, Willie, which I'm sure you're well-versed in the remediation and all the nonsense. Are you finding a bigger issue with mold in the Midwest due to that kind of moisture versus the dryness of Cali?

Willie: 100%. It's definitely something that we fight here. We're also fighting Septoria. And we have been very fortunate. You know, our first season here, 2020, was really challenging. We didn't know a lot, right? We're brand new here. We had a late frost that killed our babies. We didn't understand a lot of the, you know, pests and the various molds and mildews and things that we would be up against. So the first year we had some challenges. The second year, 2021, we really came up with what I would consider is a killer IPM plan, a killer plan to control the microbials. We got a really awesome electrostatic sprayer from OnTarget that goes on the back of a tractor and it really coats the plants by charging the The spray, it actually wraps the plants and gets the underside of the leaves, which you don't get when you have a backpack sprayer. So we actually, we test with Cambium Analytica, which is one of the most reputable sources for testing in the state of Michigan. And we pass like 95% of our flower pass for smokable flower, no remediation. So that's something that we're super proud of. We're growing tally style, high quality outdoor flower for the Michigan market and people are digging it.

Sean: Man, I love, love, love to hear this because again, being a Midwest guy, I live on, you know, in an area that's obviously an island of prohibition still here in the state of Wisconsin, surrounded by everyone who has their shit together. We do not. And that's one thing that I've noticed. But when you talk about the no remediation, one of the things that's come up, Willie, and I'd love to hear your perspective, is that remediation can kill flavor, can kill node, can kill scent. Is this how you feel?

Willie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've had products fail before, and we've had to go get it remediated. It hasn't gone out as smokeable flour. If something failed, it got turned into a post-process product. But I think that there's some stuff like the new RadSource stuff, allegedly. I mean, that's what they put our food through. So lots of fruits and vegetables. So that stuff is supposed to have less effect on taste, nose, you know, total THC content, cannabinoids. But, you know, a lot of the stuff that there that a lot of the other like the x-ray. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely got an effect on the product.

Sean: Okay, all right, that's yet another voice in the industry that is saying, yes, there is a remediation change to the plant, you know, structurally speaking. And I think it's important because, you know, one of the goals of the show, Willie, is to bring the information to the consumer, right? And I think I want consumers to understand that it's okay to hear the phrase, right? Because mold's in all your food, people. So if you sit here and you think it's just a weed problem, You're wrong. If you eat bread, if you eat gluten, you're ingesting it daily with wheats and everything that goes on. So we all know that part of it, but it's important consumers understand that there is testing. There are parts in the process that sort of stopgap that, right, to make sure that no one's getting anything unhealthy. You spoke to it right there and said, hey, if it doesn't quote a smokable flour, it gets turned into product. Example of that, Willie, are we talking tinctures? When you say that, what exactly can you turn like unsatisfiable mold, you know, flour into on the product side.

Willie: Right. So, um, most of the extraction processes will, will leave behind any, uh, mold or mildew or any of those kinds of unwanted microbials through the extraction process. So distillate, Uh, because of the extreme cold, like, so we do, uh, butane extraction, which has done it negative 40 degrees. Uh, you know, and so these, that, uh, is removing, um, the THC and the cannabinoids from the plant matter, leaving behind the plant matter. And that product comes out. I mean, distillate at the end of the day is, is like. Our distal is 92 to 94% THC. So there's really, there's no mold, mildew, microbials that come through in that process.

Sean: Got it. So it's not the heat, it is the cold. Minus 40, geez, it's the right winter. You might be able to walk outside and do that where you live, bud.

Willie: Not going to be that far off. Yeah, I mean, you know, when they're running that stuff, those machines are completely just covered in ice.

Sean: They've just got the freezer burn on the outside of them. It's wild. It's really wild. I've been in the game. Like you, I like to call myself an agent of the plant at a young age, someone who was willing to take it to other people and bring it to other places. I have a running joke on the show that weed is a gateway to other things that will open your mind, right? I don't think it's a gateway to other problems in your life. I think that's alcohol and cigarettes, honestly, for youth. But from my perspective, weed will take you to a place, allow you to open your mind and see more. When you started out, late 90s, we found it as weed, right? As kids, right? We're like, this is cool. We're smoking weed with our guys. Talk to me about when in the process did you find the medicinal value or the power of the plant to be something more than something you shared behind an alley with buddies?

Willie: Sure. Um, you know, I mean, I started 13 years old smoking and, uh, just fell in love immediately. I'm actually sober now. I've been sober for 12 years. I was a, uh, you know, serious opiate addict. And so, um, you know, abstaining from cannabis has been part of that. I have tried it a couple times. It just doesn't work for me anymore. But you know, it wasn't really until I started growing and specifically growing outdoors that I really understood like the medicinal properties of the plant. When I started growing outdoors and taking in, you know, in California, we would say we would care take for 15 people. Right. And so I would have 15 different patients who I had their prescription and we would laminate them and put them on a, on a piece of plywood and we would put it up in our field so that when the helicopters flew over, hopefully they would see that we at least had people's prescriptions.

Sean: We did the same thing, but we had to put it under our door, because we were indoor growing for people. So my lawyer was like, look, just put everything under your front mat. Anyone knocks on your front door, tell them to take a look at your mat, leave my business card, have them call me. So it's really, again, you're right about that. That was a cool time, though. I don't know. I really enjoyed the early stages of medical. I was in Colorado. And it was just, I don't know, it was fun. You know what I mean? You could walk in, you could crack a little mason jar, let someone take a sniff, throw it out, wholesale to each other. I don't know. It was more fun. I sound like the old days, but it was more fun.

Willie: No, I mean, you're absolutely right. I miss those days. That was a lot of fun. It was a lot more relaxed. It was more authentic, certainly, than it is now and more about the culture and more profitable, a lot easier to run. You didn't have to be amazing or genius, super sophisticated to run a business. Nowadays, if you want to make money in cannabis, you got to be pretty legit.

Sean: You got to be in the business side. And I've been on the backside of the business forever because I run a company and automotive has nothing to do with this. It's always been my hobby. My wife and I were growers in Colorado. I'd work 70 hours in my dealership, come home. And that was my freedom. I don't have kids, little children, kids. But when I was growing, we had 80 to 100 kids at one time. And it was just a joy for me to go in there and relax and find it. So I want to just take a quick run back here. 12 years of sobriety. What's that been like for you as a part of this industry? Because obviously attending industry events, going places, 12 years in, I'm sure it's a lot easier now than it would have been three years in. But what's that experience like for you, man, right now on being in an industry that's clearly about, as I said, a gateway to other mind expansion, other things in the sobriety realm. What's that been like for you?

Willie: You know, in the beginning, like when I first my first outdoor season I only had a year sober. And so like my mom had some concerns about it but I just told her like, you know, I'm doing this, it is what it is. There are certain preconceived notions when you go to an event and tell somebody you don't smoke. It's like, oh, is this guy a Chad? It's like, look, I'm not a fucking Chad. I've been doing this long before the government said it was legal. I was doing this long before you were doing it. So I don't want to hear that shit. I took the risks. I fucking ran the gauntlet down 101. I ran the gauntlet down Highway 4. I've been doing this. People, luckily, maybe because of the way I look, you know, I have the tattoos, I had a big beard until a couple months ago, that I don't really get any pushback from people. I think also the fact that I'm pretty public about my recovery, that people kind of get it. But yeah, I mean, there's a part of it like, I mean, I sell weed, right? And I sell weed that I don't try. And that in, you know, in my former life, I could tell somebody like, this is exactly what this is. This is fire. This is what the high is like, this is what it tastes like. And I don't have that frame of reference anymore. But I have a pretty good crew of snobs around me, guys that I brought from California, OG growers from Cali, OG caregivers from Michigan. And so when those guys tell me something is good, I can take their word for it. And I feel good going out and selling it, you know.

Sean: I like that. So let me ask you, if you brought the crew, right, you have more than one person agreed to come with you, right? Probably a spouse, family, all we all agree to do it. We did it in 2020, which probably couldn't have been a weirder fucking time to make any sort of move in your life ever. Why Michigan, Willie?

Willie: You know, a friend of mine was from Manistee, Northern Michigan, right up here. He owned a bowling alley here, and he was going after a retail license and wanted a partner to share in the financials. And then also, you know, he's kind of more of a blue collar guy. I have a blue collar background. I come from the construction industry. But I also have done a lot of the executive work in that business. I've performed more of the executive function in this business. I lost a lot of money in 2017 in California. We had big fires that smoked out crops on one of my farms. I started getting code violations. I had four farms. I started getting code violations from the counties. They'd send you a Google earth picture of your farm with your fucking greenhouses and $25,000 bill or $5,000 bill. And, um, so I, I had, I was licking my wounds for a year and just growing at my house in Calaveras County. Um, when this opportunity to come to Michigan came up.

Sean: So opportunity kind of Michigan, you kind of Michigan, dude, I love it. I mean, I'm a lifetime bowler, Willie. So you're, you're after my heart right now. We got, we got bowling alley, we got medical, we got, you know, we got recreational running. I love all sides of that discussion. When you come up here, you convince some of the crew to come with you. When you, when you first kind of get into the market, is it, Is it medicinal then still, or is it both? Did they do both at the same time? I forget.

Willie: It was both at the same time. In the beginning, there wasn't very much adult use product in the market, and we were, with everybody else, sprinting to get a crop out, sprinting to get a store put up. fighting through COVID. So yeah, it was definitely a very challenging time to be starting a business, but, um, you know, really fortunate that we had a great group of people here, um, who were on board with us and saw the vision, saw the dream and helped us build this thing. And most of them still work here, honestly, to this day, um, which is pretty rare in cannabis. There's a lot of turnover.

Sean: Yeah, there is. And I come from the automotive industry, like I said, so I'm used to that part of it. I'm used to people kind of churning through, turning over ideas, turning over people, which is never like, I don't know, it's never great for anyone. I was just talking with a client yesterday who was like, look, I'm gonna change things again. I'm like, dude, you're changing everything 90 days. What do you expect to get from this? Like really, if I changed any habit of mine every 90 days, I would be a disaster, like a disaster. I wouldn't get anything done because I'm so structured in my life to make sure I get it all accomplished. Um, Willie, so you have a storefront right now in Michigan.

Willie: I have three storefronts open and operating, and I have a fourth one that we are in the process with in plan review with the city of Lansing.

Sean: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. What's the name?

Willie: Heritage Provisioning and Authentic 231.

Sean: All right, check them out, people. If you're up in Northern Michigan, this is the place to go. As we've already talked about, dude is a total OG, knows his shit, brought his crew with him. I love it, Willie. One of the things I think that's really stood out for me about watching your journey is, at least from what I see in LinkedIn, is I've seen your honesty. I've seen you come up and really just kind of put a forward foot on the idea of culture, on the idea of what people should be looking at, what they should be talking about. But one of the major things that I think has really come up for me with you is mental health. So when you talk about mental health, if we could for a second, if I get too personal, just stop me, tell me, no, that's not cool. Being gone, then that you've been sober 12 years, did you take the traditional rehab route to that? Or did you take your own route? What does that, what does that part of, you know, your steps forward look like?

Willie: Yeah. So, um, I I've been to rehab twice. The first time I went for a month, it didn't work. Um, when I went back a second time, I had like really lost everything homeless, lost my business, lost my girl struck getting repoed complete, you know, $100,000 in debt just completely wash right. So I went to a long term facility, six months I spent there, and it was like a county funded facility not nice not high end, kind of a, it's called a therapeutic community. It's a kind of an aggressive form of rehab where they really kind of smash you down and smash your ego and then build you back up and smash you down again. And so that's kind of where like the basis for my mental health stuff comes. I mean, I spent six months completely removed from the world, no contact, no news, no phones, no emails, no nothing. Just talking through my problems and figuring out where you know, this gaping hole in my soul came from that caused me to take, you know, $500 worth of oxy every day. And all the other shit that I was taking, too. But yeah, I mean, mental health is a big, big part of my journey. Because, you know, that's the reason that I started doing drugs, right, was to, you know, stop this feeling that I had. And when you remove the drugs, those feelings are still there, right. And so that's something that you have to work through.

Sean: Yeah, that is there. It's funny, you know, we've all kind of had our past with it, right? And I'm not a rehab guy. I never had a positive experience with that. To me, it was about how I needed to rewire myself, right? And I'm an addict of everything. I don't care what it is. It could be sex, drugs, it does not matter. I am an addict at heart of all of it. I love excess of all of it. So what I had to find out as a way to manage, right, is a way to say, how can I enjoy what I like without it costing me everything? Because that's where I think we all draw the line, right, Willie? I think we start to see where it affects everyday life, business, cars, houses, families, relationships. That's when we say to ourselves, things are damaged, right? Things are broken. For me, I had been I'd been a lay down drunk by the time I was 19 years old. I bought my first house when I was 20. I'd been in the car business doing very well for myself before my, I mean, I was making more money than my parents at one point when I was 20 years old. It wasn't helpful. There isn't a lot of education about what to do when you come into money from like the middle class and all of a sudden you have a six figure life. No one's really helped guiding that, right? No one's talking about that. And so I, what did I do? You know, I took my buddies out to bars. I had everyone over to my house, threw massive parties, put everything on the table. And it was just sort of an end-all be-all that when I met my now wife, then girlfriend, she was like, look, this booze thing is ruining your life. All these people are only here for your money. Watch this, stop drinking, see what happens. I don't want to stop drinking. So I went to my dad who at the time had been sober 25 years. And I said, Hey, what's this deal with drinking? Like, I don't, you know, I don't really, I don't really think I need to quit drinking and this and that. And he's like, why don't you just do it? Just do it and tell me what you come up with. Right. So I quit, I come up with it 90 days in, I'm like, All right, I get it. This is cool. But I like the taste of beer. At the time, I was a big Newcastle guy. That's all I was drinking. So the hippie in me, everywhere I go. And so I'm like, I said to my dad, Dad, I like a beer. I like the taste. He's like, what does that mean? I said, I'd like to have two or three. straight as day, Willie, my dad looks at me, he goes, what the fuck is the point of two or three? I go, what do you mean? Like, I can just strap on a little buzz, go to bed. He's like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If you buy a 20 pack, you drink a 20 pack, you get loaded and you go to bed. I'm like, I don't want to do that. So he and I debated, I stepped back in, but what I found was people People have a negative connotation about the idea of rehab or the idea of what it takes. Did you run into anything within your family, friends, people who sort of saw it, I don't want to say as a negative, but maybe as a weakness, Willie, I think might be the way to say it.

Willie: No, I mean, I was a really serious drug addict, multiple overdoses. People were worried about me. I had friends and my family do an intervention. I was non-functioning. I was not a functional drug addict. I was a complete and total drug addict. That's all I did was do drugs or do bad things to get drugs. So everybody was really happy that I got sober. But I do know what you're talking about. Um, and I'm a complete addict in every sense of the word and every aspect of my life. Uh, you know, I can get addicted to protein bars. I can get addicted to working out. You know, I can't drive like right now I'm doing really good. I'm down a bunch of weight, but you know, a few months ago I couldn't drive by the gas station without stopping in to get a protein bar because I like was so enamored with this particular protein bar. Like that's not good. You know?

Sean: Yeah. Yeah, the addiction part runs deep, right? It's not just I think people think it's it has to do with one or the other, or it's not that way. To me, it's a mindset, right? I like you, I'm addicted, I can be addicted to anything. I'm addicted to work, right? I work all the time. This is a side job, right? And I fill up my calendar with it. It's like, what have I done? I keep working. with it. So, Willie, what do you do, man, like what's the mental health sort of, I know there's not like a daily regimen I would imagine, but how do you sort of day-to-day, week-to-week handle your mental health? What do you do to address it? Are you a therapy guy? Are you a meditation guy? Are you a yoga guy? What are we doing on that, if anything, to kind of ongoing?

Willie: Yeah, so the content that I put on LinkedIn is different than the content that I put on, say, Instagram. So I am very big on my routine and my habits. Like for me as an addict and somebody who's very obsessive compulsive, having strong daily habits and discipline in my life has been everything for me. So I get up at 345. I used to drink coffee. Now I drink mud water. I sit in quiet reflection for a little bit, and then I get into my day, I do some writing, I work out, I have a cold plunge, a sauna, and I have to do those things. Some people say that's a weakness, like, oh, if you don't do your morning routine, you throw your whole day off. Yeah, for me, that's how it works. If I don't take care of myself, then everything else goes to shit. So the exercise has really been like the biggest thing for me. I mean, I'm down 100 pounds. It has completely affected my self confidence is much higher than it's ever been. And it's also really been excellent for my mental health, all the negative self talk and the ruminating thoughts. It really helps out a lot.

Sean: The daily routine is a big one, right? And I completely agree with you. I'm a night owl. So I am not the morning guy. So my routine, the way I go through my work, the way I do things kind of takes me into the evening. And I sort of let the mornings come as they come. But once I'm up, I go about a certain way of doing things and I get through it. When you find, it's interesting you said that about people with the whole weakness and the idea of the morning routine, et cetera. I've run into a little bit of that fervor elsewhere, but let me ask you something. You said it's different, your share about what you share on, let's say potentially like an Instagram, maybe like a little bit more personal platform versus a LinkedIn, which is apparently more business, which honestly is really trending in a sort of mixed way. Why that discernment? Why that difference for you in the posting world?

Willie: Yeah, I mean, so like the first content that I ever put on LinkedIn and my my original content for a long time was I would sit in my ice bath every morning and talk about the cannabis industry. And, you know, as I learned about LinkedIn, it became apparent that video just doesn't perform as well there as written content. So I like writing anyways, I kind of switched to the written content. And LinkedIn for me is very much a cannabis community. It's the only platform where we can talk openly about cannabis. and we don't get shadow banned and we don't get canceled. And so when I look at, you know, my Instagram is really fitness and mindset and addiction, sobriety, that kind of stuff is more what I put out there.

Sean: Well, I say, bring it all over this way. You know what I'm saying? I want to see more of it on LinkedIn. I want to hear more of it. It's funny you say that about video on LinkedIn, because it's all I do. I don't write. I talk way better than I write. I write like a fucking fifth grader. So I don't get into that. But I do video all the time. And all my buddies are like, dude, you got to diversify. You got to use the algorithm. I don't play algorithm games. I don't give a shit. I use social media for me. It does not use me. There is a difference. I post three times a week. I go about, I'm structured like you, like we've talked about. I do things a certain way because that's what fits my lifestyle. I'm not on social media to like try and be an influencer. I'm here to get the message out wherever I can. But there's something about the social media, right? Willie, when we talk about being addicted to something, whether it's the likes, whether it's the dopamine from the engagement, whatever that is, it still exists in social media. Do you find that happening to yourself when it comes to social? Kind of maybe getting too deep at certain points?

Willie: Um, to be honest with you, I struggle to do as much as I should. Like, uh, you know, I've, I've engaged experts in the field. I've worked with social media professionals. I've had somebody manage my social media for me before. And like, you know, to grow a LinkedIn, um, community at a certain pace, they want you to be commenting on other people. Uh, other people's posts like 30 to 50 times a day. I just don't have time for that. So I'm kind of a post and ghost kind of guy I do go back a couple times a day to respond to comments because I know that that's important But I really struggle actually to make content more than anything. I don't consume a ton I I kind of struggle to make myself do it because I know it's really important. I am trying to build a community and I have a mastermind for cannabis operators that I've started. It's all come from social media. I am committed to building this personal brand and making sure that I have a voice as a legacy operator in the regulated space.

Sean: I did. I hope so too. I hope that voice continues to grow out because it's, you know, you're right about what, what, what, what happens on LinkedIn. I tell people all the time I post three times a week, I probably comment 3000. Um, and that's how I've gone about building the community. And here on the cannabis conversation side of things, we're growing. It's slow. We're just, my team has a distribution model, Willie. So what we do is we create the long form with you. And then we just blow that message out a million different ways to every platform. We can breaking up when we're done here. before your show goes live, you'll get what we call an asset pack. For a guy like you, you're gonna love it. It's gonna make all the clips of what we've done, postable right away for social media. You have them at your disposal, do what you want with them, right? Right. So we're trying to do something different because we know it's about blowing it up, right? Filling the pipes, getting the message out. And hey, man, I'll tell you on the content side, because I do a weekly podcast for myself, and then we do this show, which is also weekly for right now. Content is a mother, right? It's a lot. It's an overarching piece. What I recommend to people is I'm sure you do something similar, but have a notebook, man, and just slash out a thought with two bullet points and leave it and just let it sit there and do another one. Next thoughts, two bullet points. Because what I find is that notebook fills up and then I can just go reference that shit at ease and go, Oh, those were my two thoughts. Oh, let's expand. Let's add. Because if you sit there, people try to write out their whole posts. That can be tough, man. That can be tough to put yourself through it. So if you're trying to create at scale, have yourself just a little bit of a quick pad to kind of jump in. So with mental health, Willie, you run a team, man. You're a man, you know, executive, right, of an organization.

Willie: Yeah, I'm allegedly an executive. That's crazy.

Sean: Well, look, those were your words, not mine, right? You said you're the boss, right? So, Willie, what do you do? How do you discuss? How do you chat? about mental health with the crew. What does that look like to Willie?

Willie: Excuse me. Yeah. So like, you know, my, um, one-on-one meetings probably look a little bit different than a lot of people's one-on-ones with their direct reports. I do, um, approach things from more of a holistic coaching, um, angle versus just like, I don't like micromanaging people. Um, I like to give people as much leeway as humanly possible, but I do get a lot of. excuse me, I do get a lot of questions from the people that I work with about stuff like losing weight and, and, you know, saving money and investing. And so the things that I'm talking to people about on a weekly basis, you know, and mental health are more holistically driven than just like, you know, did you get your TPS reports done this week? Um, so it's like, we go through goals, not just work goals. It's like, you know, what do you want to get accomplished in the next year? I want to lose weight. I want to work on my relationship with my, son or my husband. And so then on a weekly basis, I'm checking in on all those things versus just talking about EPS reports.

Sean: Yeah, I got to agree, man. I think when I used to run organizations, or, you know, now what what the way we run things is, everyone who works in this company has a piece of the company. So everyone who's here is vested in what happens next. Granted, of course, I had the most share of that, it's only fair, but it's still they run together. And when we when we profit, we all profit. And when we lose, We all lose. And that's part of how I want the buy-in to be. I want it to be that fairness. But like you, I want to be continually having discussions about where are you at in your life? When I notice people's mental health is I notice it in their work first. So the second I see a slippage in work, my first approach is, hey, What do we got going on, right? Where are we at at home? Where are we at outside of home? And people would be like, shit, man, I'm sorry. Wife this, kid that. You're like, okay, cool. So like, you're not just lazy and shitting at your job. It's important that I understand the difference because I can work through your outside of work things, right? Again, I don't have kids. So when people talk about, when I have people who work for me who have kids, that's my hardest discussion, Willie, because it's like, I try to put myself in a spot where you are, But that discussion, I just literally can't do it. I can't tell you what it's like for me to not have kids and for you to have kids. So when you're the boss, as you are, or the executive, how do you draw the line between excuse and the need for help? Do you know what I'm saying?

Willie: Does that make sense? It's a great question. And it comes up a lot, especially for me being somebody who gives people a lot of leeway, a lot of space, a lot of trust, a lot of chances. I do want to believe in people. I want to believe in their best intentions and that everybody is inherently good. But, you know, if I start hearing the excuses things like multiple times, then it becomes, you know, like, okay, you're just making excuses. I need you to own this. So there's two for me. Mistakes are okay. I make mistakes all the time. I just fucking own it. And if you're going to make mistakes, you better own it to me because make an excuse once, okay, you'll probably get it past me. Make an excuse twice, and I start looking at it a little bit closer. And if every time I question you on something, you got an excuse for me, well, we have a major problem because now it's just, You must think I'm dumb or something. You're just trying to squeeze shit by me. Check it out. I'm not dumb. I've been doing this for a long time. I take offense to that. And that's when I start getting frustrated and I don't put up with that anymore.

Sean: You know, Willie, I think we might share something here because I have the same thing. I'm a big leeway guy. I'm a big figure it out. I am not a micromanager. If you micromanage me, I will quit. That goes for clients. That goes for anyone. I don't care who works with me. If you try to micromanage the way I do operations. I'm out, period. So I don't do it to other people. I let my teams do it. My wife and I joke, she's like, yeah, you let people hang themselves. I'm like, well, not exactly. But I like to see people come to their own mistakes. I like to see people come to their own conclusions. And I like to give them the power to run their department as they see fit, right? We're a deadline business, probably like you are. The deadline exists. I don't really give a shit how you get there, but that's the deadline. If you miss it, you're screwed. That's it, plain and simple. But we give leeway, right? So I think what that does to people, Willie, is I think it gives them the inherent thought that these people are pushovers. These people will keep giving me chances. That's wrong, man. It's wrong. I reference one of my favorite movies, Casino, and it's basically like, look, man, you either are too dumb to know we have a problem or you're in on the problem. Either way, it don't work for me. I got to move on. I got to get rid of you. Willie, in your position, in cannabis with turnover. What's it like? What does it take to get to that point for you? Is it just the excuses? Like how often are you having to deal with your fire discussion? We're moving on in right now in today's industry.

Willie: Yeah. Um, you know, It's challenging, man. Because like you're saying, when you do have the kind of management style that you and I have, people do try to take advantage of that at a certain point. I think that that's unfortunately human nature. When you give people an inch, they try to take a mile. So I do fire people whenever I have to, unfortunately. I probably give people more chances than a lot of people would. But once I've made a decision that I'm no longer going to put up with somebody's excuses, I'm very 100% certain in my decision and I execute it.

Sean: So when we when we make that move, what is it like on the backfill side, right? So let's get into the business aspect of it. Because obviously, I think turnover happens, I think people I've talked to a lot of buddies of mine who were like, I'm gonna go get a job at a dispensary, it's gonna be super dope. And like two minutes in, they're like, bro, this sucks, I work in retail. I'm like, well, yeah, what the fuck did you think you were gonna do? Like sit around and smoke all day and hang out? That's not how it is, right? It's a job, it's a dispensary job. What's it like to backfill the position? Does Willie have a list of people that are already in the queue? Are we putting up ads? What does it look like to fill a position in today's cannabis market in the Northern Michigan sector?

Willie: Yeah, so like, you know, on an hourly, I'm not, luckily, I'm not dealing with kind of like the, the firing of hourly employees at the facility.

Sean: That's a direct report to you, Willie, that someone who handles that on your team and then deals with, let's say, the retail dispensary side, if you will?

Willie: Right. So like I'm dealing with kind of director level and above, but and with, you know, with where we're at in northern Michigan, you know, firing somebody who's a director level or a VP or a C-suite person is challenging because there's not a replacement for them in Manistee, Michigan, right? We have, for the most part, brought these people in from somewhere else in the United States. So that can be challenging. It winds up with, you know, like up until very recently, I was overseeing the retail department, the marketing department, the sales department, all you know, direct report to me from the director level up. I have recently brought in a really high level CFO, a really high level head of retail, who's the chief revenue officer. And that has taken a lot of those direct reports away from me, which is awesome. But the, you know, these are people who are coming from like the, the chief revenue officer came from, from Oregon. And the CFO is a guy out of Grand Rapids who comes up here. He's here right now. And so, yeah, I mean, replacing people is challenging. It's hard to find folks in this industry who have good experience and who aren't just blowing smoke. You know what I mean?

Sean: Dude, that's my whole life, man. I created a company in the automotive space to vet marketing vendors, right? Because there's millions of them. Everyone sells you on what's great. I've been studying data of marketing now for going on 15 years. My company has been alive for 10 years. It's all that I do. It's everything. Right when you said the word marketing department or marketing director, I immediately cringe up and I think to myself, what are those people even looking at? What are they doing? How are they taking advantage of the system? Because most marketing people are looking at things from a retail perspective and you're limited in what you can do for marketing in the cannabis space because of the dumb regulations and how You know, again, Google will let you look for a dispensary, but won't let you look for a paid ad. It fucking blows my mind where they draw the delineation on all this, but forget it. Let's assume we don't, it doesn't matter. There are certain ways, like, look, I live in Wisconsin, right? We talked about this, Willie. We don't take THC, cannabis money here. We're not into that, right? But when you hit Northern Wisconsin and you're about to go into the UP, for 40 fucking miles, there are billboards about where to buy weed in Michigan. Someone please tell me how we wrap our minds around that making sense. Like we'll take your billboard money. You can put pot leaves all over the place, but for our local residents, that's not going to work. Willie, marketing. What do you do, man? Talk to me. I'm just, now I'm intrigued. Here we are, two guys talking. What does a marketing department look like? What does a marketing job look like in your organization?

Willie: You know, in like a traditional CPG brand, there would be a lot of digital marketing. There would be a lot of social media marketing. Those things we are not allowed to do. So it is a lot of in-person marketing. It's a lot of old school marketing techniques that you wouldn't think of doing nowadays. Mailers, coupons, SMS, email marketing. And then a lot of attending events and hand-to-hand, face-to-face passing out samples and doing vendor days in stores. It is not super easy. When I see people selling things on Instagram, I'm like, God, that's so easy. Makes me sick how easy that is. Like I buy shit off Instagram all the time that I don't need just like My wife is my wife is a huge she's I'm not I'm not on social media.

Sean: I'm on linkedin That's it. I don't do anything else. And so routinely she'll just turn her phone over and be like, dude I'm gonna buy this on instagram and i'm like every other day. You're doing that through Instagram. And it's crazy because, you know, we want to get it. So I will, Willie, I will tell you, if you don't know the name, Aaron Raskin, check it out. Aaron and his team, man, they're about to launch a cannabis only social media platform. It's called Hybrid.

Willie: Yeah, I know Aaron Raskin. You do? Hybrid is going to be pretty cool. Is he Lobo Canegars?

Sean: That's it. Yeah, that's it. He is him and his team man are launching this, uh, this app and it's going to be full retail immersive. You're going to be able to put your brand on there, buy, sell. Um, obviously you talk about traditional, we had Dustin on the show from fat nugs. You start talking about this, this guy's coming out with a magazine, right? In a world of digital, he's out here pressing. I don't know if you've ever actually seen these or touch them.

Willie: Beautiful.

Sean: These are nice pieces of material, right? And so when I was up in the UP, I said, hey, girls like, oh yeah, here's your free pre-roll. And I'm like, hey, you know, pre-roll is fine. Have you ever thought about giving one of these out? The girl's like, what? I'm like, well, yeah, at wholesale, it's like $3.50, $3.50, $3.80, whatever it is. She's like, holy cow, I hadn't thought about that. And so, you know, you're trying to find different ways to get the messaging out to engage people. Because you're right, you can't do the things that I can do as a car dealer. As a car dealer, I can go spend $50,000 on Google, 20,000 on Facebook, and do whatever I want. Dominate the world if the budget, you know, is there for us. So I love the traditional approach. I love the idea of vendor days. We talked to this about with Damien Solomon, who I'm sure you know, as a grower out there in Cali. And Damien talked about the idea of the farmer's market. Is the Michigan market working on anything like that that will take you into that sort of, you know, buy your vegetables and then go look at your, you know, cannabis? Have you heard anything about that?

Willie: I haven't. I like the concept a lot. I like that structure. We are talking to a group that puts on kind of like a speed dating. It's called Interchange. We're talking about pushing that for them in Michigan because we do have an event license. I can host sales and consumption events. We don't have any farmers markets here like they have in California. I wish that they did and maybe I should make a note to myself to buy one.

Sean: Maybe we can take that event ticket and turn her into the first farmers market in Michigan.

Willie: Yeah.

Sean: That's pretty dope. That's cool. So that's a totally separate ticket then, Willie, in your world that doesn't come attached to anything. That's a separate filing, separate process?

Willie: Yeah, it's a separate license class. So we do an event up here in July. where it's a sales and consumption event. We had like 3000 people last year. We had Afro Man perform and then a bunch of local bands. It's right on the beach here in Manistee at the corner where the beach and the river meets, a beautiful place. I can't imagine a more beautiful place to have a cannabis event. It's been really fun putting that on for the last two years and I'm excited for this year. We're gonna get an even bigger act and hopefully continue to grow it every year.

Sean: Man, I love it, Willie. This is in July. I mean, I could see myself coming North in July. That's not well, that's more, is that West for me? Yeah, that's the other way. We're gonna look into that, my friend. I like that. I love the events.

Willie: Just take the ferry across. What's that? Take the ferry to Ludington and you're here, baby.

Sean: Right, yeah, hop on it from Milwaukee and I come up through there and I'm all good to go. You're right. My wife and I were going to take the one out of, is it Holland? I think it's Holland, where one of them is in the UP. We were coming back and we were going to take the Speed Ferry from Holland to home and they canceled it like the night before. So we had to make the drive. It was like, man, I wasn't planning on this. But no, sales and consumption events, super cool. I can't wait till, you know, we can go consume publicly. We can do all these things. We don't have to go hiding. Even though it's legal, you still, you know, in Canada, it's different, right? Willie, you can just smoke joint walking down the street. My buddy challenged me. to smoke one in front of a cop. We were walking past. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I'm not from here. Uh, I will go to the, I will go to the hall after we're done here and, and, and, you know, hop in there. But, um, with the consumption events, 3000 people are, what do you find from all over? I mean, is it, is it just people heard about the event, Willie, and they came from all over to come? Is it Michigan? What, do you have an idea of the geo on that 3000?

Willie: Yeah, it's pretty much mostly Michigan people. I mean, you know, we're in Manistee, which is a vacation heavy town. So there's already a lot of out of towners here, a lot of people from Chicago, downstate Indiana. Milwaukee and Wisconsin too. But yeah, I mean, for a cannabis specific event, there aren't a ton of them happening in the state, like a small handful, less than five every year. And so if you put on a cannabis event and you put it out to the cannabis community, they're generally well attended with people from the state of Michigan.

Sean: Yeah, I think I said, I just love the idea of the consumption. I can't wait till consumption lounges are as accurate or not accurate, as active as bars, right? I think you should be able to walk past, make it happen, have fun, enjoy. Because again, when we all started out, that was kind of the thing anyways, you know, you're in someone's little dispensary, which is the size of a shoe box, they had a glass container with a bunch of mason jars in it. And if they were like, let's test it, let's step out back, let's have a test, let's get into it. You know, like I said, the more casual, the more fun we can have, Now the government's involved and everything's got to have this, that, and the other thing. How have you found that part of it, Willie? Michigan versus Cali, government oversight. What is that feeling like for you here versus there?

Willie: Yeah, I mean, so for a long time, up until really the beginning of 2023, there was very little oversight from the state. I mean, you know, the governor and the attorney general took a very hands-off approach to cannabis enforcement on all levels. And so it was like the wild west here. You could do whatever you wanted in the state of Michigan when it came to cannabis. Um, they did. And that really destroyed the market here. I mean, you know, at the beginning of 2023, we were selling distillate for a thousand dollars a liter. That's the fastest price collapse of any adult use market. Um, You know, this is a, the prices in Michigan are lower than the prices in California, which is a much more mature market so it shouldn't be like that. But since we did have a change at the head of the CRA, the Cannabis Regulatory Agency, and they brought in Brian Hanna, who has a background with the Michigan State Police and he started doing enforcement, we have seen the market improve. We have seen bad actors get their licenses suspended. Besides protecting operators and protecting the market, it's really about protecting the public because what you get when you have no oversight is you get unlicensed product coming from the illicit market and leeching into the regulated market. the people in the state of Michigan voted for an adult use market because they wanted tested, regulated, homogenous cannabis products. And when there's no regulation, there's no enforcement. They're not getting that.

Sean: Yeah. You look at, look at what New York's going through with the unregulated market. I mean, it's, you know, these bodegas, these dispensaries that aren't real, you know, a buddy of mine was just on the show. He's one of my backend guys. I had him on the show the other day to talk about why we did all this and everything. And, um, and he was saying, yeah, man, I go to a local spot. It's not, you know, It's not a regulated spot. It's just a little local dispensary. I'm like, hey, stop doing that shit. That's not helpful to anyone. Go find a regulated place to buy your weed. This is not what we should be doing. And I know I sound like a government supporter. which I am not. I like to make that very clear to people. I am the farthest thing from that. I believe I should pay taxes and you should leave me the fuck alone. That's what I believe. But within this industry, I realized why it has to exist. Yes, I think it's a little bit more ridiculous than tobacco and even guns, if we're being honest with each other. We were put under farther scrutiny than all of that. But in Michigan, you guys did, was it, the change of the head was because we had a little bit of issue, eh? Right? A little bit of corruption or some sort of behind the doors deals, right?

Willie: Yeah, there was a lot of corruption that went on in the state of Michigan with the licensing process. There were state representatives who were taking bribes, cash, sex workers. The head of the CRA did get his house raided by the feds. So yeah, there was general uproar about what was happening.

Sean: Just good old politics stuff right there, right? Sounds like you just took something straight out of DC and put it in Manistee, Michigan.

Willie: Absolutely. Put it in Lansing, Michigan. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on.

Sean: Put all those guys there and see what it has. Willie, I mean, you've been super gracious with your time. I want to give kind of a few minutes here to you to tell me what you think we, the people, consumer, peoples in the business, what do we need to be thinking about, looking at, talking about that maybe we're not doing enough of right now?

Willie: Yeah, so I'm just a big advocate of communication and sharing of information. I think, you know, the industry is coming out of the shadows. We're very compartmentalized, especially people who have been in it for a long time. We don't talk openly about what we do, which is why I'm so public about it, specifically on LinkedIn, because, you know, I've made a lot of decisions along the way that if I had been talking to other operators, people who have been in the business long before me, that I probably would have made different decisions. And so if I can share my experience and it helps somebody who's just getting started, that's a huge win to me. That propels the industry forward and we stop seeing such high failure rates. And so mentorship, communication are massive and really important in cannabis. I did launch a mastermind for cannabis operators, the elite cannabis operators mastermind to foster that sharing of information. And so that's been something that has been really good so far this year and very helpful for people.

Sean: I already, as you were talking, I wrote the word mastermind. I circled it about 60 times on my piece of paper because that to me was the takeaway of what I think your trajectory is on the front of what we're doing publicly, right? Is you bring that mastermind to the table. You say to yourself, this is what it's going to be. This is who's going to be here. What we're talking about, the sharing of concepts, I think is one of the biggest, baddest things we could do for each other. And it's why you go to the industry events. I didn't go, I go to industry events for my industry and all the people who bitch about MJBizCon is the same bitching anyone does about any other industry-wide event that they either didn't do well at or didn't attend or didn't think was valuable. It's the same bitching. I don't really care about all that. The reason I go to my events is not to make deals. I'm a 100% referral company, so I don't go there for that. but I get my referrals from people I talk to, right? People I share ideas with, people who can work with me on things. So the mastermind, are you continually, you see the growth of that? Is that what you're seeing here? More people talking about it, more people sharing it and getting that up there, the elite cannabis grower mastermind, correct?

Willie: Yeah.

Sean: We cannabis operators mastermind operators, cannabis operators. Got it.

Willie: Yeah. We're at, um, we're at 30 members, um, growing organically. We had a lot of people apply. Um, you know, as we move forward, like a lot of the regulations that affect us as operators in the state of Michigan, um, are just horrible, right? The rules were not made with us in mind. And I could call out specific things. Our licensing got held up because of a regulation around the greenhouse plastic. And they wanted a specific ASTM E84 test done, which isn't a test for greenhouse products. It's for rigid roofing. And it held us up literally for six months. And so as we move forward and we move towards federal legalization and more states come online, I just want operators to have a voice. in the regulations that are going to affect us. So when new states come online, I think that they should be looking at the other states that already have markets and thinking, what do these guys do well? What do these guys do shitty at? And then as we look at federal legalization, same thing. But if it's just lawyers and lobbyists coming up with the rules, it's going to be the same thing. There are going to be a bunch of rules that don't apply to us, that make us jump through hoops that are unnecessary. I'm hoping that, you know, we as operators and in my group can kind of be that voice.

Sean: I hope so too, man. I say the same thing every time I hear a new state talking or a new state get, you know, like Ohio. Ohio's like, all right, we got to take a look at how we want to do this. Why? What do you mean? First of all, you should have already done that. It was on your ballot for X amount of months. Second of all, there are 20, what, six? There's half of us, right? 25 states that are on board. Go look at Colorado. Go look at Cali. Go look at Oregon. Go look and see. I mean, even the state of Illinois, they've got a problem with taxes. That's where their shit's hitting the fan badly. But they were progressive in getting there, right? The same day they legalized gambling and weed. They're like, cool, people have vices. Let's be cool with that. Let's work through that. And then, yeah, the regulations, the permitting, I like a little bit about what New York's doing when it comes to the socioeconomic side of things, right? Getting more people involved, whether it's women, minorities, whatever that is. And I hate that we have to make those delineations for people. I wish we could just say we're going to welcome everyone and make those deals. But you do. You have to go out of your way to say inclusion of women, inclusion of minorities is an important part of our industry. When you, the last thing I want to touch on, you talk about federal legalization. About a couple of weeks before your show launches, we will have launched a show with Jeffrey Hoffman, a New York cannabis attorney who was on the show. And he says his opinion is that it is absolutely out of the question that federal legalization will happen anytime soon, because there's just too much nonsense. There's too much lack of agreement. Willie, your thoughts on federal legalization.

Willie: Yeah, I still think that we're a ways out. You know, if the Safe Banking Act has been any indicator as to where, you know, politicians stand on things, it's just these guys can't get a stick of bubblegum through both the House and Congress. So do I think federal legalization is coming anytime soon? I do not.

Sean: You agree that the idea of it being people talking about it or people even, well, okay, so then that's follow up question. Where do you stand on rescheduling as an OG grower, right? Who is now transformed into the rec market, legal market, whatever you want to say. You've done that. What is your thoughts on the reschedule? Does this create a problem for the legacy?

Willie: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's hard to say what their real intent is, if there's some sort of, you know,

Sean: bigger government nonsense that has yet to be made aware of me.

Willie: Yes. Exactly, exactly. But from a standpoint of getting rid of 280E and opening up the capital markets for cannabis companies, I would welcome rescheduling as a step towards de-scheduling. Obviously I want de-scheduling, but I'm not gonna say no to something that helps the industry.

Sean: Yeah, you talk about the Safe Banking Act and I have to be, I have to be a little selfish here. I've been in the bridge loan game for marijuana for a long time, so I'm okay with the slowness of safe, because to be fair, I'm a fair guy. I don't go out and try and rip people off 30% rates, not who I am. But I've been there and I've helped communities grow. I've helped people grow. We helped dispensaries out in Michigan back in 2020, 2021, and things have only tightened up. It only becomes harder, right, to get some funding in some places, et cetera. And so we've put ourselves out there. I have a… a few friends of high net worth that don't want to be involved directly, but that have, you know, are there were look, I'm a, I'm a hippie capitalist, dude. I don't know. I'll tell you. I I'm here to make money in the world. I'm a business kid. I've been running my own businesses. I mean, Willie, You might not be able to see it here, but I mean, this is my first business. It was a green business done better. It was a Colorado medical marijuana website company. We were helping them get online back in 04, 05, 06. really start to understand the process of what was going on there, why they needed to be there, what they needed a website for. And so I've seen it grow. I've seen it change. And I like a little bit of it. I'm scared of a little bit of it when it comes to the government. I'm never a huge fan. But I think we all agree on the scheduling part of it. It doesn't belong in places where it is now. And I think de-scheduling is the answer, but I think both you and I know we're not likely to go from A all the way down to Z. We're probably going to have to make some sort of stop in between.

Willie: Completely agree.

Sean: Willie, man, you have been awesome with your time. I absolutely love how you just communicate, how you bring your thoughts, how you work with your team. So please continue to do what you do. And thank you so much for taking the time.

Willie: Thank you, brother. I appreciate you having me on.

Sean: I appreciate you, man. And as always, we need to thank You, the watcher, for it, for taking it on. And remember, it is the job of this show, it is the job of the people in this industry to raise this plant to its rightful place in society. We will be in the mainstream, we will get there with each other's work. So please remember that, continue to support each other, have yourselves a great week, and we will see you all again next week.