Well, let’s make that Priority #2. Before you do anything else, you must learn about the legal and financial requirements for establishing and managing a marijuana/cannabis business in your area. Money management can be especially challenging because cannabis is still illegal on the federal level and banks are governed by federal regulations.
It’s great news that more and more states are piling on the cannabis bandwagon because that increases business opportunities. States are legalizing recreational as well as medicinal marijuana in part due to public pressure, but also to realize the considerable economic benefits for the state itself. The downside is that every state and locality has its own regulations about growing and selling weed. You can find the laws that apply to your dispensary here.
Your dispensary will need licenses and/or special permits to operate. The specific documentation required will depend on the scope of your business as well as your location. This article serves as a good general guide, but you’ll still need to get the official lowdown from local officials to ensure you’re in compliance. Then you can get down to business!
Yes, opening a new dispensary is exciting and writing a business plan is tedious. But you can’t succeed in business if you don’t know where you’re going – or want to do in the future. And if you ever want to borrow money to expand, lenders will respond by asking to see your business plan. So, no eating dessert first. Besides, the very act of creating your plan will help you make the smartest decisions to get your dispensary off to a flying start.
Every business plan needs certain elements:
Happily, there are many good business plan templates available online, and using one will make it easier and faster to create your dispensary’s plan. Just remember that templates are one-size-fits-all so not everything will be relevant to you. In fact, we’ve created a dispensary business plan that will be most helpful, and you can download that for free here.
Creative, strategic marketing may get folks into your shop, but what they see when they step inside will determine whether they linger to browse and buy or they leave quickly. You’ve invested a lot of thought and money into planning your merchandise lineup, so offering a comfortable, easy to shop, well-branded environment is a must. With the right displays, arranged in the right layout, products can literally sell themselves.
We can help. Our Palmer Retail Solutions team has decades of experience in helping stores design environments that sell. We understand the special challenges you face when it comes to store and product security. We even have an entire catalog of attractive, practical, and affordable modular components that can be customized just for your dispensary. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?