Legendary write up - Those are not rookie numbers!
Thanks for sharing
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Sweet! Do you specialize in software for cannabis? Retail distributors?
We have a lot of work to do on our stack but I’m proud of where we’re at. I did a lot of marketing automation for clients previously so I really just connect a lot of best-in-class apps using Zapier.
We take checks for B2B. But we have a pretty neat automated system so they just have to send us a picture of the first one. It’s not ACH.
Wordpress for D2C CMS. Webflow for B2B.
I built a specialized order form with a flow that upsells & promotes new products, but in general is super fast & easy. AOV is higher for these orders vs over the phone, and I’m pretty sure it would be higher than for an ECom style ordering platform, which I can easily implement.
ActiveCampaign. Though, I’m disappointed with the reporting & behavioral aspects. I’m starting to use tags in my automations to accomplish what I want, but may have to switch to Klaviyo or similar.
I don’t currently use any digital for lead gen but I plan to soon. I have a very well-defined process & stack for digital B2B lead gen that I’ve used previously with great success. The fact that I’ve come this far without it tells me I can still blow the top off this thing.
We don’t market on social media. Our accounts would always get suspended, and it barely contributed to sales. It’s a poor acquisition channel, and it’s tough to get retail customers following at scale. We will spend a lot of money to do this right in the future.
We spend about a third of our revenue on marketing. I can’t get into what we spend on as it’s part of the ‘special sauce’.
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Great write-up! I’m not a business man myself but always enjoy insight, even on topics that don’t necessarily pertain to my situation. One request though, I get B2B and C2D but EIDL, PPP, CMS, AOV, ACH;
wtf are these things??? 
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EIDL— free money to businesses for COVID impact
PPP— forgivable loans from government, also for COVID
CMS— Content Management System
AOV— Average Order Value
ACH— Electronic Bank Transfers / ‘eChecks’
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I find active campaign requires someone fulltime trying to use all of its benefits. Huge learning curve.
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I love how you bootstrapped your IT and Marketing stack. I’ve been using MS PowerAutomate to take care of a lot of my manual tasks from different APIs. All marketing automation stacks suck. But they are powerful!
Negative, I’m not in the cannabis space w/ my current business (yet). We support Fortune 500 companies mostly. From custom software dev (.net/phython), open source CMS Dev, marketing/crm automation, & video development for b2b and d2c.
Every quarter we put 1/3 into the business, 1/3 to owners, 1/3 to employees. It’s created a sustainable culture & makes everyone contribute. We run super transparent on our revenue/sales.
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I haven’t checked in a while but MassPlanner 3? Still seemed the most powerful social media tool I’ve come across. It’s a closed invite only community.
MpSocial.com is the forum
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Thanks so much for this Covid69. This is a great write up and couldn’t have come at a better time for us!
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I don’t do those automation tools anymore. Can make you a nice income as an individual, but would hardly contribute to sales for us now.
Nothing replaces truly great content, which is hard / time consuming / expensive for brands.
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It’s a dated methodology that allows many to experience grandfathered mass followings. It’s been years since I’ve toyed with the subject. Found a much better means for financial gain filtering out that noise.
It still provided incredible insight.
You’re absolutely right about content and it’s the most difficult thing for businesses to wrap their heads around.
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Which route did you go when you used 99designs? Did you start a contest or hire directly?
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EIDL isn’t free money though right? It’s a loan through SBA and has to be paid back. If your company can’t sustain the credit it’s put on you personally … I took out $19k for a failed farm last year and that’s what they’re telling me even though I dissolved the company.
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EIDL I thought was like $1000/employee?
Sorry to go off track
I don’t remember. My EIDL is a loan
I think @COVID-69 did a great job of putting his thoughts together. I would be all over the place so job well done sir!
Having spoken to him couple of times. I want to state one thing which I find myself often having to tell people. There is no substitute for hard work. Everyone thinks they work extremely hard and some how they are out of luck. The mistake most people make is they often only concentrate on the big picture.
They forget the little things however, these little things are the critical things. How you setup your business(s). Getting a good accountant as has been stated multiple times within this thread. I find most people just think when they make money they will hire a good person to do their taxes.
That is a very simplistic view of what an accountant might be able to do for you. I honestly think they actually make us money by simply educating us on how to better run or structure our businesses.
I like to think driving 100’s of miles a day for our first 3 years working on average 16 hours a day 7 days a week I knew about hustling. This man @COVID-69 has an extremely neat system and it shows in his mentality.
I get multiple messages here or a couple of dozen calls in our warehouse every day. People wanting us to pick up their products which someone else white-labeled or packaged for them. Just cause they have the best “best packaging” in the industry. Not saying people might have not struck gold but there is more to it.
This thread gives those who are interested in doing more to learn from someone who is more than happy to share his experience. Take the opportunity to learn.
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No, it’s a loan that is meant to be paid back over a 30 year period if your business has been impacted by Covid-19 which was declared a natural disaster. I think your business has to be impacted about 30% to qualify.
Ultimately it was SBA who decided how much businesses would qualify for. Which never made sense I have shops that got 10K and I have shops that got 450K. These are my customers.
It is extremely important for anyone that got PPP which can be forgiven. To either have created a separate account for expense purposes so everything is clean and clear cut to have really great records. If you can provide proof those funds for used to pay employees or other essential business expenses. That money is going to be forgiven.
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Yeah, it has to have 2019/2020 history I believe.
I guess I technically could apply but after seeing the companies in this industry and even in the GLG who have been approved for over a million bucks from PPP loans and most likely not needing them. I’ve built up some distaste over the subject of government business bailouts.
Anyone else here take off with 400k+?
Smokeshops got 450k? Or just retailers?
Either way, even Extraction equipment suppliers that’s significant.
I understand “it’s just business.” But this is something so many others that aren’t as well off should be assisted with (myself not included)
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Actually that was the first round of PPP. You can do it for 2020/2021 too.
Yes, lot of businesses needed the money others didn’t. We never applied. All my workers worked throughout Covid-19 because we kept working. We deal with lots of gas stations and c-stores. Smoke shops by their very nature in NY are basically c-stores who carry beer and other essential items.
Those who found themselves shut by the local authorities simply brought in other items which they need to remain open.
Did everyone need a bail out? No, but too many businesses required it and sometimes they had the hardest time getting it.
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The businesses that need it never got it. 99% imo
Especially after watching the big wigs here take over a mill between two competitors.
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