Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
This week we are joined by Karson Humiston, Founder & CEO at Vangst to discuss
- How Vangst has become the largest supply of credentialed candidates in Cannabis
- Hiring Insights & Secrets
- Scaling in an Exploding Industry
Vangst helps people find jobs in cannabis.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karson-humiston-64572b97/
#Cannabis #Cannabisstaffing #Cannabiscommunity
At Eighth Revolution (8th Rev) we provide services from capital to cannabinoid and everything in between in the cannabinoid industry.
8th Revolution Cannabinoid Playbook is an Industry-leading report covering the entire cannabis supply chain
The Dime is a top 50 Cannabis Podcast
Contact us directly at [email protected] Bryan Fields: @bryanfields24 Kellan Finney: @Kellan_Finney
[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: What’s up guys. Welcome back to that episode of dime I’m Brian Fields. And with me as always is ke Finney. And this week we’ve got a very special guest Carson Hummon CEO and founder of thanks, Carson. Thanks for taking the time. How you doing
[00:00:13]Karson Humiston: today? I’m great. Thank you so much for having me on today,
[00:00:16]Bryan Fields: guys.
[00:00:17] Kelly, how
[00:00:17]Kellan FInney: are you doing? I’m doing really good, excited to talk to Carson and, uh, you know,
[00:00:21]Bryan Fields: just looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. I’m excited. And I know Carson has current roots on the west coast, but I think her heart and her origin is more of a east coast and New York style. So Carson for the record, your Alliance, east coast, west coast, where would you put yourself?
[00:00:37]Karson Humiston: That’s a hard, that’s actually a hard question. I mean, I love the one I love living here, but I feel like I relate to the people on the east coast a little bit more. So I, I would say still, I would, I would still consider myself an east coaster who just happens. I’ll live in Colorado and I’ll probably live in Colorado
[00:00:54]Bryan Fields: forever.
[00:00:55] I love it. Let the record. That’s a good answer. I love the, let the record state though, in east coast there she says. Yeah. So, ah, [00:01:00]
[00:01:00]Kellan FInney: I think that was a politically, uh, unbiased answer. You know
[00:01:04]Karson Humiston: what I mean? That’s fair. Like there’s just, it’s just a different, it’s just a, the speed. I, I appreciate the speed that the people on the east coast.
[00:01:12] But a lot of people from the east coast are moving, uh, out to the west coast. So there’s definitely a group that moved fast out here as well, but they’re,
[00:01:19]Bryan Fields: they’re harder to find. Cool. So for our listeners, Carson, that are a little unfamiliar about you, can you share a little background about you and how you got into the cannabis space?
[00:01:27]Karson Humiston: Yes. Happy to. So, like you mentioned east coast, um, from Buffalo, New York, I went to St. Lawrence in very upstate New York, about five hours, north of Buffalo always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So I had started a bunch of little mini businesses. I, I grew up on a golf course and at night I would go around the golf course and collect the golf balls, clean the golf balls, and then sell them back to the golfers.
[00:01:48] The next day I would take, you know, I’d pick up a bunch of sticks. I would throw the sticks on my neighbor’s yards and then write them letters saying that there’s sticks in your yard. Pay me to pick them. [00:02:00] So, like, I really can’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t attempting to start a business.
[00:02:04] Most of them failed in college. I did a small student travel company called on track adventures. And towards the middle of my senior year, I realized I, this, this business wasn’t gonna be the end all be all business. I didn’t wanna be a party planner forever, but I asked the students and the people who had gone on the trips.
[00:02:20] What industries are you interested in getting jobs in? People started writing back saying the cannabis space, which I remember at the time thinking was, I didn’t really think that. I certainly didn’t think I was gonna be in the cannabis industry, you know, six years later. And I thought, oh, the people that went on the college partying trip wanna go work in cannabis classic.
[00:02:40] Uh, but the more I started researching the space at the time, cannabis was only legal in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. And the more I saw what a challenge it was for businesses to make hires. I really saw this, this blank canvas opportunity to build a business in a brand new industry that solved a huge pain point and.
[00:02:59] Packed up my [00:03:00] stuff, moved out to Colorado and haven’t, haven’t looked back since, so it’s definitely the business of mine. That’s made it, uh, the furthest along and just has been an awesome ride so far in this industry. And in building this business, was there a
[00:03:13]Kellan FInney: reason that you chose Colorado over the other three, uh, adult use
[00:03:16]Karson Humiston: markets at the time?
[00:03:18] Yeah. So Alaska seemed unrealistic. Um, In Oregon and Washington. I, you know, I just hadn’t been, I really hadn’t been to, I didn’t know a lot about versus Colorado. I’m a skier, so I’d come out here to go skiing. It just, I knew a couple people that were from my school that lived in Denver. So I had, would have a couple friends there.
[00:03:39] There was certainly not a business reason for choosing Colorado over the, over the other, um, three places it see, I, I just thought Colorado would be cool.
[00:03:48]Bryan Fields: I love it. Those are the best kind of situations. Like I thought it would be cool. This is where I went for. So let’s stay with those early days. I think I recall from some of the research you were 23 years old when you started it.
[00:03:57] Yep. What were those early days [00:04:00] like? Was there hesitation when you got started? I can only imagine the type of challenges getting started as a 23 year old in a space as challenging as cannabis currently is, but back then, it must have been littered with even additional challenges. So take us through those early.
[00:04:12]Karson Humiston: Yeah. So one thing to notice that the business was called grad Giana. Um, if you Google grad Giana, you’ll see the logo, which is a graduation cap with the cannabis leaf coming off the side. So, you know, it’s hard to be taken seriously as a 23 year old. I think it’s really hard to be taken seriously as a 23 year old with a company that’s called Grada
[00:04:31] Um, so it was hard. I mean, like I would go in, I would go into these businesses and tell them that I’m Carson with Grada. I can help you find an entry level employee for $500 and people would laugh at me, but I, I kept going and I think the trick is I finally got a customer. Our first customer was open vape.
[00:04:49] I remember the control. I don’t think he’s there anymore, but his name was Oliver Nelson and he let me help him find an, you know, an entry level accounting person. And I bent over [00:05:00] backwards. I would’ve done anything to find him, this, this candidate, and they made the hire and, you know, Nelson said, well, you did such a great job.
[00:05:08] You really bent over backwards. So I’m gonna introduce you to five more people. Right. And then. Closed a couple of those and then bent over backwards for those people. And like, I think it goes a really long way, just showing up every day and, and working hard and doing what you say you’re gonna do, but I’m not.
[00:05:25] It was certainly, it was, it was really, really hard because I, you know, I remember I would try to go to at least three networking events per week and I would get there. And I would just say, I’m just gonna try to introduce myself to every person here and to walk up to strangers and say, I’m Carson hummus.
[00:05:38] And with grad Giana, are you hiring or do you know anyone that’s hiring. Uh, you know, a lot of people, I knew I walked away from them. They started to laugh at me. So it took a lot of, it took a lot of discipline to keep going.
[00:05:51]Bryan Fields: Yeah. It wouldn’t have shocked anyone if you kind of turned away. Right. Because so many nos is kind of, uh, disheartening.
[00:05:56] So, I mean, staying with that, as you start to progress, there had to have been a certain [00:06:00] moment where you kind of looked in the mirror and said, this is actually working. Right. Like the business is, is actually starting to form. So what were those moments like? And when did you realize that? What was, uh, initially an idea starting to turn into like a real, real.
[00:06:12]Karson Humiston: So about like six months in, I had enough business that I could hire the, the first full time person. Her name was Jordan Smith and she actually joined banks for just $15 an hour. Um, we, I recently found, or she recently found like the email offer letter that I sent in her. And I shared it with our whole team because it was like $15 an hour plus commission, you know, no health insurance, obviously.
[00:06:36] No, no 401k, nothing. Uh, bring your own laptop. So it’s. It was really a commission job and she, and I just grinded it out for another five months. And then we had enough customers to hire our next person. And I think once we got to around four employees, we decided to rebrand because the name gradual on and just wasn’t really needing what we were doing.
[00:06:59] We were getting [00:07:00] requests for director of cultivation. So we rebranded to banks, um, and really where it started to really take off was. Mid 2017. We were throwing career fairs in a bunch of states. We had about 12 employees. We were close to doubling our revenue every month and we were just getting so many inbounds and it started felt like a flywheel effect of like one customer would work with us.
[00:07:26] They would, you know, they would make an intro we’d place, someone that employee that we placed would tell another employee in the space. So we really started to, to, to get rocking. And that’s when we decided to start building out the first version of our technology platform, because our idea was, look, it’s gonna be really hard to scale this business fully manually, so we can create a technology product that helps badge credential.
[00:07:48] Workers get connected with jobs and gigs, we’ll be able to scale more effectively. So it was in the summer of 2017 that we launched banksters.com. And the, it just [00:08:00] got a ton of press. I think partially, you know, at this point I was 24, so it was like meet the 24 year old that built the LinkedIn for weed and just a bunch of press, really got us on the map even more.
[00:08:12] And so that helped fuel the growth. And that’s when we started getting inbounds from investors who were interested in potentially investing in cannabis technology, hiring platform, um, So, so I would say to answer your question, I know I just went off a little bit there. It was like 20, mid 2017, about a year and a half in when it started feeling like it was getting real.
[00:08:35] How’d you guys come up with the name? Thanks. So thanks means catch and Dutch and, you know, I wish I had like a really cool story to go behind it. It was like, grab you on is not working. And we don’t have a very big marketing budget. We went to a small time marketing agency called can brand. And we said catch like you’re catching talent.
[00:08:55] And we looked up, catch in other languages and banks came up and we [00:09:00] thought, okay, if you get placed, you’re a gangster. Damn. It feels good to be a gangster.
[00:09:06]Bryan Fields: Like that works. It works. It does, it works. I think one of
[00:09:09]Karson Humiston: the gangsters, like that’s pretty, you know, there was a lot we could do with it and we said, great, let’s go for it.
[00:09:16] And I love the name. I love what we’ve done with the brand. I love that. It’s not, um, Green hiring something, something. Cool and unique. I love our colors. I, I really couldn’t have worked out better.
[00:09:30]Bryan Fields: Yeah. It’s very tasteful. Yeah. And it’s easy to spot. Right. Walking the trade shows it it’s, it’s so easy to see it stands out and you’re right.
[00:09:36] If you were that green you’d kind of blend in, it would, it would help. Like it would not help kind of separating yourselves. And I think one of the underrated challenges that you’re describing there is in the moment you’re trying to scale your business internally. The industry is scaling simultaneously.
[00:09:49] So it’s kind of exploding in unknown directions. And with it, you are trying to you’re this young founder building a business on top of the need. So how are you able in those moments in those early years, staying on top of the challenges that [00:10:00] are going on in the industry simultaneously to building your business business,
[00:10:04]Karson Humiston: it’s all just like such a blur.
[00:10:06] It’s hard for me to exactly. Remember what was going through my mind in, in 2017. We really kept a really strong focus on sales. It was something we were really disciplined about because we obvi, like I mentioned, we hadn’t raised capital. So if we knew how much money we needed to make every month cover our expenses and then to hit our growth goals, to hire more people.
[00:10:26] And so one thing that we just stayed super disciplined on was like, despite all the noise of, you know, building a business, bringing in new hire. Outgrowing offices figuring out how we’re gonna get into new markets. We have to hit these numbers every month and we would have morning meetings, afternoon meetings, and we stayed like super, super diligent about driving revenue and revenue growth.
[00:10:47] And I think that helped, I think that really helped. I think that once you take your eye off that prize and you start focusing on like a bunch of different things, more than revenue things start to. Especially in [00:11:00] early days derail. And so we really just focused on like, how do we get that next customer and how do we get the net next customer to pay us?
[00:11:05] And we had strong discipline there. Not sure if that answers your question, but I think it did help us to just like stay laser focused in on one thing, the whole team. Yeah,
[00:11:15]Bryan Fields: it’s important to understand what your north star was during those early days in helping to organize everybody internally saying like, this is the direction, this is where we’re going, and anything else is kind of secondary to our north star.
[00:11:25] So right. Take us to where we are today. Currently. How many locations? Wow. What states are we in and what our expectations are currently? Yeah.
[00:11:34]Karson Humiston: So fast forward, we’ve now raised 30 million from amazing investors. We’ve built out several new product lines, which I’m sure will. Talk about we’re banks gigs, which is our core product, which is helping customers get connected with on demand.
[00:11:48] Temporary employees is in 16 states and, and five more to come this year. We have 75 employees at banks that work here full [00:12:00] time trying. That’s like a good bird’s eye view of, of where the business is today. And, and there’s still just a. As you know, there’s a lot of growth ahead for, for the industry. I mean, you’re sitting in New York right now and that’s a market that likely will be the largest cannabis market in the world.
[00:12:16] And there’s not a ton of jobs to fill there right now, just because we’re still in the conditional licensing phase. But we expect that as the, you know, more, uh, as the regulations open up and more businesses apply and open and become operational they’ll. Potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs and opportunities to fill there.
[00:12:34] New, Jersey’s been a really exciting market for us. And, you know, then there’s still a handful of other massive states like Florida and Texas, which have not, you know, um, have not opened up for adult use yet. So there’s, there’s growth within all the markets that we’re in, but there’s also a huge runway for brand new markets, which is why I think this industry continues to be the most exciting industry in the world.
[00:12:54]Bryan Fields: So talk us through
[00:12:54]Kellan FInney: some of these states that come online. Is it like an instant floodgate? Say, say New York, [00:13:00] they allow rec sales January 1st or December 3rd, December 1st. So it’s before 2023. Thank you. Um, is it like a huge floodgate? All of a sudden your guys’ inbox is like every company that. Could be there is now looking for employees or is it more of a trickle effect?
[00:13:14] Carson, could you walk us through kind of how that impacts your guys’ company?
[00:13:18]Karson Humiston: Yeah, so we usually try to start working with the businesses during the licensing phase. And so usually when we work with a lot of different consulting groups, like 0.7 group Ashley, the founder, she recently moved to, to New York and she’s helping a lot of companies that want to apply for a license.
[00:13:35] And so we’re in touch with a lot of the people that. Hoping to win a license, but you have to remember, like they may not. Yeah. So we try to start engaging with people when they’re in the process of applying for a license, because a big part of that application process is often their staffing plans. And so, you know, but then there there’s, there’s all, you know, you build relationships with.
[00:13:55] You build a relationship with a hundred companies, maybe five of them win the license. And so [00:14:00] our goal is to try to get to know people before they win the license and to be part of the application process. So it’s a little bit more of a slow trickle just because we’re meeting them so much. We’re meeting them far beyond when they will start, um, like actually hiring then of course, there’s the MSOs who are our largest customer base.
[00:14:17] And so if they win a license in New York, New Jersey, let’s say they. Obviously call us up right away and, and we’ll start working with them. So it’s, it’s not, it’s usually you can see it coming like before, just like the day that the consumers come into the market. And so I would say it’s more of a slow role than like a, like a open the flood gates kind of situation.
[00:14:39]Kellan FInney: What about from the other side, if you’re an, uh, someone’s seeking
[00:14:41]Karson Humiston: employment? Yeah. So like as an example, the day that the, it was all over the news that New York has legalized adult use cannabis. Like we got a ton of candidates coming on, Vangst.com and they quickly realize there’s no jobs there. And now it’s been like kind of a slow trickle.
[00:14:56] So in the media really impacts candidates because candidates read [00:15:00] something about. Jobs in New York or, or cannabis in New York and candidates come to us. But it’s, it’s a little bit more of a slow trickle on the candidate side too, just because it’s such a long role and it’s not like you read in the New York times, the cannabis is legalized and then the next day there’s a job for you.
[00:15:15] Like it, it, it takes time. Once we have jobs become available. Then we start marketing to all the candidates who have come to us before or who are on our newsletter. We start marketing those jobs to them. So definitely makes sense. If you’re in New York right now, and you’re interested in [email protected], make a profile, read, read all of our blogs about New York jobs, how to get connected with New York jobs.
[00:15:36] And then we could notify you when job becomes available. But same thing, it’s, it’s a little bit of a slow trickle, and like largely has to do with what people read in
[00:15:43] the.
[00:15:44]Bryan Fields: I’m so glad you shared that story. Cuz I had a very similar experience. Someone saw the news, they reached out to me and they said, Hey, I went on banks.com.
[00:15:51] I, I, I saw that there was no jobs, like why not? And I was like, well, you guys recognize like there’s a process here. Right? Like it’s not like all of a sudden there’s like [00:16:00] a million jobs that opened just because they announced this and. Even more. So I think there has to be so many more challenges because the people that are applying for these jobs, most of them are changing industries, don’t have experience.
[00:16:10] So how does your team help that onboarding experience of, or qualifying candidates? So when an MSO or smaller operator reaches out to your team, you can feel comfortable, you know, placing a candidate.
[00:16:20]Karson Humiston: Yeah. So we’re in, we’re working with a couple training companies right now that we’re working on partnerships with, because training is such a big piece.
[00:16:28] And so cannabis retail 1 0 1 as an example, just giving candidates that baseline information about how to work in a retail dispensary. Different kinds of point of sale systems compliance, like all those skills. And so I think that’s something that we have on our roadmap that is gonna be a big separation for candidates that go through banks, because they’ll actually be able to get trained up on the industry in new markets.
[00:16:53] So I’m really excited about that to, to announce some of those in, um, the fall. And on the, there, if they’re [00:17:00] in states that require a state badge, we help candidates go through the process of getting the badge. So an example here would be in Colorado in order to work in the industry, you have to go to the marijuana enforcement division and.
[00:17:13] Actually get issued a badge. And so customers will require candidates to have that badge. So we help candidates in that process of getting the badge so that you have a badge, you meet the baseline criteria of getting the job. And the customers know that they’re getting candidates to are, you know, credentialed and they don’t have to wait for them to go through that process.
[00:17:30] So really badging and training are two ways that we help our candidates stand out from pack and help our clients get a more targeted rule of can.
[00:17:38]Bryan Fields: It’s probably so critical in the process for them also, right. Because when they’re reaching out, when the employer’s reaching out to your team, looking for candidates, the last thing they’re hoping for is to get a candidate.
[00:17:46] That’s got almost no experience and hasn’t even started the process because sometimes that process takes a little steps, which is unnecessary or unhelpful for them in that process of kind of getting started.
[00:17:57]Karson Humiston: Yeah. And on Vangst.com If a customer let’s say post [00:18:00] a job, they can require badge. They can require a badge.
[00:18:02] And then when the candidate. applies They can see if the candidate has the badge and customers can actually do specific searches. So I could. search Bud tender med badge, Colorado. And I could even go as far as say, I wanna search for someone with Flowhub experience, metric experience and leaf link experience, and we’ll serve up that supply of candidates.
[00:18:22] And so really how Vangst is building our moat is to have the largest supply of the credentialed candidates ready to come to your job. So the difference between posting a job on. Vangst versus indeed is on indeed. You might get 900 candidates. They might not have the badge. They might not have the training.
[00:18:39] They might not have the skills you need. Versus if you post on Vangst you can have these very industry specific, deep skills. And really that’s how we believe we’re gonna win long term is to own the supply of the candidate, uh, the cannabis candidate, uh, workforce, so that our customers can get exactly what they’re looking for at every search.
[00:18:58] Yeah. There’s certain it’s hard to do though. It’s [00:19:00] not, it’s, it’s so hard to, it’s not, it’s not. You know, I say that and it sounds, so it sounds so easy, but it’s, it’s, it’s trickier than, than people. Marketplaces are marketplaces are hard, are, are hard businesses, but some of the most valuable businesses in the world, which is why we’re excited about it.
[00:19:17]Bryan Fields: And they’re a critical component to the industry, right? As the industry goes, they’re going to need credentialed individuals. And the one thing that, uh, a lot of these operators don’t have. He’s capital in order to make mistakes and early on when you’re hiring in your business, I’m sure you would know Carson is that as you’re growing your company, that first person on the bus is one of the most critical hires.
[00:19:34] And if you make that mistake or hire someone just based on you thought they had experience, and it takes you down a bad path, there’s compounding problems that kind of lower top of that
[00:19:43]Karson Humiston: hiring. I mean, listen, we’re not immune to, even though we’re a hiring company, we’re not immune to hiring mistakes. And especially as we’ve gotten bigger, We’ve made some Royal hiring mistakes and it, it really cost you a lot of time, a lot of, a lot of money and it’s a morale kill, right?
[00:19:58] When you bring in the wrong [00:20:00] person, it’s not. What they don’t do, but it’s all, it’s all the things they do for your culture. And so I can’t ex I mean, we got so lucky and with, I already mentioned Jordan as our first hire and our really our first 20 hires shaped the way that this business, uh, went. And for anyone new starting a business, it’s just it’s make or break the first people that you bring onto the bus.
[00:20:22]Bryan Fields: How do you
[00:20:22]Kellan FInney: communicate that, um, experience that you have in terms of building your guys, your organization? When you’re talking with a founder of a startup, who’s just a single state operator, it, how do you kind of connect with them to kind of communicate the, that the experience that you have building your company is built into the service that banks, uh, provides.
[00:20:44]Karson Humiston: Yeah. I think like, especially as I’ve gotten more experience with a founder, I think that in the early days it’s really finding the right culture fit and finding someone that will roll up their sleeves and do the damn work is what matters. I mean like where we’ve gotten burned is where we, when [00:21:00] we’ve hired people that have, you know, flashy companies on their resume, they’re, you know, big executives.
[00:21:07] So to say, They just do not understand what it takes to be in an early stage startup. I think that hard work and commitment and drive is what matters for the early employees at your company. Not, uh, flashy, logos, you know, long resume and like, uh, you know, executives. So to say that’s not early day startup.
[00:21:33] And so where we’ve seen our clients go wrong is. they Bring in these like hot shop people to try to run the company. And those people haven’t been in the weeds, no pun intended in decades. And like, they wonder why it’s not working out. And there’s so, so I would say that, that what I tell our clients is like, listen, Jordan Smith was our first hire, $15 an hour commission equity in it to win it.
[00:21:57] Um, and it’s hard to find those [00:22:00] people, but when you do, they’re like they’re, they’re, they’re lifers. They’re diehards. They’ll follow you into a fire. You gotta find those people, not the expensive overpaid, shiny, shiny executive.
[00:22:11]Bryan Fields: I, when you said that, I thought of the office space quote, where he was asking them, like, what do you do here?
[00:22:15] And he is like, I’m a people’s person. They’re like, so what do you do here? Right. And he’s just like a people’s person and you’re right, right. Cause at the, at the end of the day, someone with Pepsi experience with 30 years who goes to like a startup here in cannabis, they’re gonna face challenges they might, might not have had before recently.
[00:22:29] And if you’re not an action over everything type of person, There isn’t someone to do some of those roles, which is probably gonna lead to, you know, internal struggles, but also like from a, a cash flow standpoint, probably a big, a big headache. So let’s talk about some of the data trends. I’m sure your team, as the industry continues to explode is at the forefront of some of these data trends.
[00:22:45] Can you share some insights on what you are seeing from a location base or a role space growth?
[00:22:51]Karson Humiston: Yeah, so, and I, it it’s good timing cause I was just putting this report together from Q2 and Q2 are, are. Top our, our top jobs markets were [00:23:00] Colorado, California, and Michigan. And so even though I know that there, you know, in, in, in Colorado and California have, have, have, haven’t had some of the best orders from a sales perspective and brands have somewhat struggled.
[00:23:14] I mean, there’s still just like, that’s where the most employees in the industry and the most businesses exist. We’re seeing Michigan take off very quickly. Florida has, has. I guess not surprisingly been such a strong medical market and they’ve been hiring a lot. And now this, this, this, this last quarter into this quarter of New Jersey, um, have been totally ripping.
[00:23:35] So it’s a mix of the legacy mark. I don’t even actually wrong word, but not legacy markets, but the markets that have been around the longest continue to grow, continue to have the most employees and then newer markets like Michigan, Florida, New Jersey.
[00:23:52]Bryan Fields: As markets open up, has your team been able to uncover data trends saying that, okay, let’s say New Jersey has been opened up for two months now as [00:24:00] they get to month three, four, and five, we expect increase in these type of roles.
[00:24:03] Is there, is there opportunities there where your team’s seen data trends from previous? Let’s call it more experienced dates, uh, California and Colorado, and able to apply that to future opportunities, to help those employers and say, Hey, we’re expecting a big increase in these type of roles in the.
[00:24:18]Karson Humiston: each market has such a different dynamic, like a Lim, like, you know, an example might be take an Oklahoma where it’s a free for all.
[00:24:26] There’s so many businesses that maybe each employ 10 people versus you take a place like New Jersey, which is a limited license market. And so that really dictates the kind of hiring, because if you’ve got a thousand businesses with 10 employees, right, you’ve got a couple people on retail, you got a couple people on cultivation and a couple operations people versus if you have.
[00:24:47] Massive cultivation facility that’s, uh, you know, has 300 people in it, right? It’s just like, it’s very hard. It’s one thing that I’ve found to be hard about this industry is that each market is so unique and different [00:25:00] that it’s, you know, you can certainly compare, you can certainly compare two markets, right?
[00:25:04] You can compare two limited license markets and look at how those MSO. Grow and scale, you could compare, you know, two markets like, you know, with, with, with less regulations, but it’s, we haven’t seen anything where it’s like, oh, this is apples to Apple’s copy paste this playbook. Unfortunately,
[00:25:22]Bryan Fields: that’s, that’s super challenging.
[00:25:24] So is it more seasonality than it is on role challenges?
[00:25:27]Karson Humiston: On the gig side of our business. We’re where customers are looking to banks for R W2, ready to go employees, very seasonal. So in like summer and for October when outdoor bros are, are in season and there’s outdoor harvests, we see like a big uptick, obviously, uh, summer and 24, like the, the like sales are higher in cannabis versus Q1.
[00:25:51] So like we always see an uplift in. People needing to hire in Q3 and Q4. And we always see a slow down in hiring in [00:26:00] Q1. So I would say it’s more seasonal and most markets have followed that. What
[00:26:06]Kellan FInney: about comparing the cannabis market to other job markets, um, from those kind of trends, perspective, I mean, is, are you seeing the cannabis, uh, industry follow, uh, the same trends as like regular industries from a salary perspective in terms of adjusting for cost of living?
[00:26:21] Is that, uh, kind of standard across the, the cannabis industry?
[00:26:25]Karson Humiston: Yeah. We put out an annual salary guide every year where we look at all the salaries across different markets, across different roles. So it’s a super useful tool. I. Send to, so you can include it in the show notes, but we’ve seen cannabis continue to pay competitive with its its industries that are similar.
[00:26:42] So agriculture or retail, other highly regulated spaces. We’ve seen cannabis continue to pay competitively. And really when we’re speaking with our customers, we say, you know, here’s the other businesses that are similar to your business in the area and here’s how much they’re paying. So how do we help you make sure that you’re paying competitively so that [00:27:00] candidates will accept your job except your gig versus someone else.
[00:27:03] And cannabis companies have, have done that, you know, and also it’s just like the industry’s growing so quickly in the beginning. No, no cannabis companies offered health insurance. Now over 80% of cannabis companies offer health insurance and. It’s well, it seems like a really long time for us. Like at the end of the day, this industry hasn’t been around that long.
[00:27:19] And the fact that already today, 80% of businesses cover health insurance when five years ago, 10% did like the industry’s making massive, um, making massive progress on the compensation side. And this is before. We even have banking or access to banks or access to loans or, or, and, and we’re being taxed insane numbers, thanks to two 80.
[00:27:38] So it’s like cannabis is prioritizing it to people and its employees when there’s not that much profit being made, um, across a lot of businesses. So I think it will only get better as businesses become more efficient, become more profitable. And some of these insane regulations go away
[00:27:53]Bryan Fields: that was perfectly said, what is one aspect of hiring cannabis that would shock most of the cannabis in.[00:28:00]
[00:28:01]Karson Humiston: Hmm.
[00:28:07] I think that everyone thinks that there’s this perfect unicorn person that can come in and save them and save their business. And at the end of the day, it’s really about, of course, the person that you hire is important. But it’s just as important that you like set that person up for success. So I think people would be surprised to know that great people get placed into jobs and don’t work out because they weren’t set up for success.
[00:28:37] And it’s the company’s fault, not the candidate’s fault. So, or, and I would say then the second thing was that maybe would surprise people, is that businesses just totally higher for the wrong profile. So like to the point that I made earlier, You, you don’t need to hire a senior executive from Pepsi. And we saw that in like 20, 19, 20, 20, we saw all [00:29:00] these big shot executives from CPG move into cannabis.
[00:29:03] And how many of them are still here? Right? Most of the peop not that many. Um, it didn’t work out. They didn’t make the money that they wanted to make. The industry moves slower than they thought. And they didn’t realize how much they were gonna actually have to roll their sleeves. So I think that people would be shocked.
[00:29:18] One company’s just completely higher for the wrong person. And two, oftentimes people don’t set the person, they hire up for success. So I think it’s more companies. I think it’s the company’s fault. A lot of the time for mistakes that were made. Absolutely. So what banks isn’t banks is in this category?
[00:29:32] Like all of our hiring mistakes, I take full accountability for like, we hired the wrong profile. So
[00:29:37]Bryan Fields: what can, what can companies do to understanding that challenge in mind? What can companies do to recognize that challenge and then to alleviate going forward to hopefully
[00:29:45]Karson Humiston: minimize it, get really clear with what you want this person to do.
[00:29:49] Like the best example I can give is people say we need a VP of sales and when you really drill in, they don’t need a VP of sales. They need sales. They. need People to [00:30:00] pound the pavement and sell their product. And so they need the owner to go and hire three sales people, the same price that they would get for that VP.
[00:30:10] And they need to manage those three sales people to go sell. Versus if they spend the, this, all this money on a VP, the VP’s gonna get there and say what the. F You want me to go sell this product? I’m the VP. I need to hire 10 people and I need Salesforce and I need HubSpot and I need a data analyst. I’m the VP.
[00:30:28] I need this team. And then the owner’s like, but I just need sales. And it’s like, yeah, you need sales, not a VP of sales. So like, I think people think I need sales. I need a VP of sales versus I need sales. I need sales reps. I need better marketing. I need partnerships. What are things that are gonna actually drive me sales versus a person telling me to hire 10 more people.
[00:30:49] So I would say getting very clear on what the business means and asking yourself, like without this is this person or lack of this person truly what’s holding me back [00:31:00] from my growth. Uh, I think that would avoid a lot of hiring mistakes and unnecessary hiring. That’s
[00:31:05]Bryan Fields: gotta be so challenging for you because I, I think you’re spot on with the money with that, but sometimes it’s, it’s really tough for people to admit those mistakes and sometimes I would assume they come back to you and.
[00:31:14] Hey Carson, like we hired this VP of sales that you, you told us to and they stink. And, and then it’s, is it up to you like then to explain on, or is it an earlier on process where you’re like, Hey, we need to get to the root cost of what you actually want from an employee.
[00:31:27]Karson Humiston: Yeah, we, we kick look like, uh, it, for that line of our business, right?
[00:31:33] We get paid, uh, percentage of the candidate’s salary. So it would be in banks’ interest to run around town and place $500,000 workers all day, every day, whether they work out or not. But that would be so shortsighted because then those people wouldn’t work out. The company would waste a ton of money and they would never come back to angst and they would maybe go out of business.
[00:31:52] So, you know, while that could be quick, good money for us, we don’t take that path of try to tell our clients to like [00:32:00] overhire for what they need. We try to tell our clients. From the GetGo, like what do you actually need? And we do full kickoff calls when people are coming to us for these like executive level roles.
[00:32:10] And we really try to dig in with them and understand, like, what is the pain today? What are you trying to get as a business, as a result of this person? What is this person gonna do down the day to day to achieve the goal? You’re talking about, how are you gonna measure this person? What does success look like three months from now?
[00:32:26] Like screw. What does success look like in a year from now? I hate when people ask that question, it. A year from now, it’s a long time. What do this person need to do to get up and running and get off the ground in three months from now? And in three months we can talk about, you know what I mean? So it’s like getting super GRA with like these customers and trying to help them.
[00:32:41] We have a good outline, I think. Um, and you know, turning business down. Sometimes if people tell us that they wanna hire this like shiny object, huge person that we know is just too, not too advanced for where their company. Um, you know, we don’t, we, we really try to be good long term partners. And I think [00:33:00] it’s showing, like, I remember GTI being with P Caden, the former CEO in their office with 60 employees.
[00:33:07] And I was talking about what their hiring needs were and like, you know, Pete and I just like, he’s, he’s amazing CEO and just like mapped out exactly what they needed. We filled these low roles, you know, and now they’ve got 2000 employees and sure, now they. Big big hires, but they started out not, not, not that way.
[00:33:26] And I think every successful business starts small and they build their way up to these big, big shot executives doesn’t happen overnight. No,
[00:33:33]Bryan Fields: no really important. So one of the things that’s impressed me most is your progressive, modern leadership style. Why is that so important to the culture that you’re bringing to banks?
[00:33:44]Karson Humiston: well, that’s a nice compliment. I didn’t know that I, that I gave off that, um, that I gave off that vibe. I
[00:33:50]Bryan Fields: think that’s important that you do that. I think you’re, you’re, you’re outspoken about things that are important to you. And I think some people, a little more hesitant with speaking about those things, like, for example, you wanted people to return to the office.
[00:33:59] I [00:34:00] think if some people might have been a little more hesitant, they might say, okay, we can be a little more reserved. So I think communicating what’s important to you is a direct communicator. I think that’s really important in setting up your business. So people know exactly where they. Yeah,
[00:34:12]Karson Humiston: no, I, I, I look, I, I think that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea where it may be very direct communication.
[00:34:20] And one thing that has happened to me over the course of being an entrepreneur is I’ve gotten more confidence to make a decision and stick to it rather than decision by committee. Right? One of the things that being a first time founder, In the early days, I would ask for a lot of people’s, you know, seek so many people’s opinion and say, what do you think we should do?
[00:34:39] What do you think you should do? What do you think you should do? And there’s not that there’s anything wrong with that, but, but even, but eventually you. You’re the founder and CEO, you need to make a decision that you think is right and go with it. There’s been nothing worse for me is when I make a decision based off of, um, what other people think.
[00:34:57] And in my gut, I know it feels wrong. [00:35:00] And then six months down the line, it doesn’t work out. And so I just made a commitment to myself actually for this year that I’m not gonna make decisions that I. 1000000% stand behind, even if it’s unpopular. So this office thing is a great example. It’s super popular right now to work remotely.
[00:35:17] It’s not working for certain teams on our, in our business and we are returning to the office. And if people don’t like that path, then they don’t have to work here. And I’m totally okay with that. There’s plenty of companies. Their business runs great being remote. It doesn’t work for angst. This is a decision made and this is what we’re going, going to, but, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s hard.
[00:35:37] And I think that, um, it, it, it takes some practice to. Make these unpopular decisions and be okay with them. And I’m still, you know, learn learning as I go as well, but try to be truthful and transparent and, you know, do what I think is right. As often
[00:35:50]Bryan Fields: as possible. I think that’s, what’s most important. Right?
[00:35:52] You’re honest about your approach. And I think people understand exactly how that goes. So let’s do a quick, rapid fire. Sure. False. Your [00:36:00] favorite cannabis podcast podcast network is podcast X. True. True. The number one most influential book you’ve ever.
[00:36:09]Karson Humiston: The number one, most influential book I’ve ever read.
[00:36:14] There’s so many of them,
[00:36:19] I would say that I really, I read it in college. It was called the seven habits of highly effective people. And I go back and read it once a year and it’s. Definitely. It’s definitely like very baseline stuff, but it was just like, it’s super, I think it’s really helped like shape, just like my general mindset.
[00:36:40] Um, so I would choose that one, but there’s so many really good, like business specific books that I’ve also love reading,
[00:36:48]Bryan Fields: hiking, swimming, climbing, favorite one while consuming cannabis.
[00:36:54]Karson Humiston: That’s scary to think about. I guess I would say hiking, I would probably fall off the mountain though.
[00:36:59]Bryan Fields: True or false.
[00:36:59] You [00:37:00] swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco. True, true or false. Your dad followed true. state. You have your eye on
[00:37:11]Karson Humiston: state. I have my eye on, like to get into for the business.
[00:37:14]Bryan Fields: Just one that you think is underrated that you think is poised to. Oh Florida. When you started your journey in the cannabis space, what did you get?
[00:37:24] Right. And most importantly, what did you get wrong?
[00:37:30]Karson Humiston: I got right our early team members in our early culture. I got wrong. How to scale that culture? What would you have done differently? I wouldn’t have tried to hire these, everything I’ve been talking about in this show. I wouldn’t have tried to hire all these like hot shop people with like that frankly were just like, you know, they looked impressive and it was cool to tell our investors.
[00:37:56] We had hired them and cool to tell our team we had hired them and cool to post about on LinkedIn. [00:38:00] But the end of the day they, they came in and, you know, I, I don’t think did much for the business. So I, my regret. Rather than like promoting from within some of these early rock stars and like making them run the company, trying to hire these like hot shots from, from outside.
[00:38:15] Um, in
[00:38:16]Bryan Fields: 20 years from now, we will look back and say that was Barb Barrack in the cannabis industry. What is that?
[00:38:24]Karson Humiston: Um, If you go to my Twitter and you scroll down, you can see an email. That’s some customer from Oklahoma, uh, sent to one of our sales reps. He sent a very barbaric email, uh, a CEO to one of our sales reps and I tweeted it.
[00:38:42] So I think 20 years from now, we’ll still be talking about that email. The
[00:38:45]Bryan Fields: response of the industry was swift though. It seemed like everyone got behind that because everyone recognized that that was incredibly wrong. And that there’s no reason for something like that to exist. So yeah, at least from my perspective, I was happy to see the response of a unified
[00:38:58]Karson Humiston: approach.
[00:38:58] Yeah. So I would say people will [00:39:00] be like, oh my God, that was Barbar. But what people will say is amazing is like that guys, like, you know, legally account got taken down weed maps accounts got taken down. Like all of his accounts got taken down, you know, Employees quit. I mean, like, it was very much like we will not stand for this kind of behavior in cannabis.
[00:39:16] So I, I think it was like a critical moment that like, even if you’re a small time business owner in Oklahoma, you can’t act this way in cannabis, which is unique to the, to a lot of other industries
[00:39:27]Bryan Fields: since you’ve been in the can industry, what has been the biggest misconception?
[00:39:32]Karson Humiston: It’s like a get rich quick.
[00:39:35] Quick hit, get in, make a ton of money. Get out. It’s a long road. You need to take the time to understand the industry, understand your customers. Like you’re, don’t do this industry. If you’re not gonna commit at least a decade
[00:39:48]Bryan Fields: before we do predictions, we ask all of our guests. If you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson, learn to pass onto the next generation, what would it be?
[00:39:59]Karson Humiston:[00:40:00] Keep with it. It’s a long road and. It’s a long road and there’s like a lot of highs and lows. And the best thing you can do is wake up every day, you know, and, and be committed to having a good day and, and making it happen. And, and like, literally just sticking with it, putting one foot in front of the other for years
[00:40:25]Bryan Fields: well said, all right, prediction time prediction.
[00:40:29] The cannabis industry is set to explode over the next five. What job role do you think cannabis companies should look to add to their team to get ahead of the industry’s growth?
[00:40:44]Karson Humiston: Um, and, and I think some people have this, but like a go to market person to focus on multiple new states before they’re, before they’re, you know, the licensing has even come out and so figuring. [00:41:00] Okay. What is Nebraska cannabis gonna look like? And if I wanna build any kind of business, whether it’s an ancillary business plan, touching business, like what is the defining strategy to win in that market and start thinking about it years before it comes into play.
[00:41:18] And I think especially ancillary businesses, like if you have an ancillary business, how do you win Nebraska? Because no one’s in, in focusing on states that nobody’s thinking about smart Kelly,
[00:41:28]Kellan FInney: Um, I would say supply chain logistics, especially over the next five years is, I mean, We’ll see if interstate commerce is ever a thing.
[00:41:37] Um, but I do think that, I mean, supply chain logistics for these small companies that are operated in, in fragment, FRA fragmented markets. I mean, just look at, say a large MSO. That’s trying to sell the same, same vape pen in 15 different states. Every single different state is gonna have a different label requirement.
[00:41:55] Right? So just managing that kind of inventory, um, for these [00:42:00] larger companies, I think is gonna provide significant efficiencies. And over the next five years, I think focusing on efficiencies
[00:42:07]Bryan Fields: is going
[00:42:08]Kellan FInney: to
[00:42:08]Bryan Fields: be one of
[00:42:09]Kellan FInney: the. Best routes to, uh, profitability for these large, uh, MSOs. What do you think,
[00:42:16]Bryan Fields: Brian? Yeah, that’s gonna be a, a real critical piece.
[00:42:18] I, I think I’m with Carson though on the strategist side, I think the industry is growing so fast and I think that the difference between, you know, being reactive and proactive is really small. And I think in this industry with a heavy focus on being in front of the industry, You can likely avoid unnecessary landmines, which are expensive and potentially critical with an industry that says cash trapped as ours.
[00:42:40] So hopefully things change and things open up and then positions like that can be filled faster. So Carson, for those who want to learn more about banks, they want to apply for jobs, specifically those on the east coast, where can they find ya
[00:42:52]Karson Humiston: banks.com? They can find banks. You can follow banks on all social media.
[00:42:59] I’m on [00:43:00] Twitter. K HOK. LinkedIn and the podcast. And of course, on the podcast, the proud to work in cannabis podcast, we go live with different people that are working in the industry once a week. We have a good one dropping today. So yeah, we’ll
[00:43:14]Bryan Fields: link it up with the show. Thanks so much for
[00:43:16]Karson Humiston: taking time.
[00:43:16] We’ll get a lot of trade shows. We’ll also be at a lot of trade shows this fall we’re going to Benga. Um, MJ unpacked Paul Flowers and MJ biz and revelry in New York. So we’ve got five big conferences that we’re a part of coming up. So people are there. You can find our team there. Oh, nice.
[00:43:33]Bryan Fields: We’ll link it all for the show notes.
[00:43:34] Thanks so much for taking the time.
[00:43:36]Karson Humiston: Thank you guys. I had a blast.
