Blaze Your Own Trail - Taking CBD Retail by Storm with John Flanders

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

About John: Mr. Flanders is the President and CEO of CBD Emporium, a growing chain of CBD retail locations in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Illinois. He sits on several advisory boards for a number of other companies, large and small. Mr. Flanders has long been passionate about helping others, engaging in several philanthropic endeavors, including Homeless Youth Connection, Project AWARE, 1MISSION, and more. With CBD Emporium, he plans to continue to serve his community by educating and guiding customers to engage in healthy lifestyle practices while providing quality, dependable service to others. Mr. Flanders will use his entrepreneurial experience to look at all opportunities with an open mind and a strong fiscal discipline. In this episode we discuss: John's upbringing  The sports he played growing up Some context into school His work experience His entrepreneurship journey His love for adventure Why go scuba diving? The early days of CBD Emporium The products impact on his Mom How they handled the global pandemic And much more! Connect with John: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-flanders/ Connect with Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠ Clapper: ⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠ Website: ⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready to find out how to blaze your own trail? Welcome to the Blaze Her Own Trail podcast with your host, Jordan Mendoza. In this podcast, Jordan interviews people from around the world to find out about their journey to success. If you're looking for valuable content with actionable advice, you've come to the right place. And now your host, Jordan Mendoza. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host. And I've got a very special guest today.

His name is John Flanders. And I'm going to have him tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. Well, thanks, Jordan. It's a pleasure to be here. And looking for you spending some time with your listeners. Obviously, you have a great podcast. And I enjoy it once in a while myself. I like to listen to while I'm driving.

Anyways, my name is John Flanders. I'm the CEO and founder of CBD Emporium. We're a corporate-owned chain of CBD specialty retail stores. As I like to say, we sell one thing, CBD. We just do it about 450 different ways in our stores. Our mission is to inform, educate, and guide our customers to us through CBD. We started that about two and a half years ago, September, actually October, 2018. We open our first two stores.

Today we're at 44 stores, soon to be 47 stores. We're in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Working real hard to get a lot of stores open here as quick as we can. And, you know, we have a lineup of incredible products. And, you know, we're helping thousands of people every month. you know, solve their problems, whatever their problems may be, and if CBD can help, it's a great solution. We're helping with that. I was first turned on to cannabinoid science when, when medical marijuana was becoming kind of the, you know, on the cover of all the different magazines and

everything. And I didn't know a whole lot about, you know, the medicinal side of marijuana. I was I was not a marijuana user when I was a kid, nor as an adult. I mean, I don't judge people who are. Everybody has their vices in life. And if that's something that relaxes you and enjoys you, then that's fantastic. And you enjoy it. That's great. But I never heard of the word medical marijuana.

And as I started dipping into what this whole medical marijuana was thinking about, it really wasn't really marijuana. It was cannabinoid science, cannabinoid medicine, you know, the discovery of the endoccurricular. cannabinoid system and just learned so much from it. And then I had this great ability to see it work, CBD specifically work with my mom and really turn her life around. She was having a lot of pain. She was lacking a lot of mobility.

She was too young to be in the condition that she was in. I would go to doctors with her and they just wanted to throw her on opiates and they wanted to throw on all these other things. And when we convinced her to try CBD, I mean, it was a hundred and eighty degree turn. It really, really worked for her. And I was actually quite unimpressed with how much, you know, Western medicine poo-pooed the idea of cannabinoid medicine.

When I started looking at the difference between dispensaries and CBD wars, I mean, both serve their purpose, but they both serve a different clientele. Someone like my mom, who's a, you know, failure conservative East Coast Catholic is never going to walk into, is never going to walk into a dispensary or a smoke shop device. CBD. And in 2018, you know, we decided that we were going to create a family-friendly store that didn't smell like marijuana, didn't have Jamaican flags and pot leaves adorning the windows and walls and, you know, had consultants in there versus bud tenders, people who would inform

and educate and guide our customers to better health and wellness. And, you know, 40, almost 47 stores later, I think we've achieved our goal over and over again since that. And it's really what drove me. I was semi-retired at that point. And in 2015, when I started researching, you know, cannabinoid medicine, I've been semi-retired for about 10 years. As I like to say, I bought myself a very low-paying job. I was buying and selling scuba businesses. And so I was enjoying my passion of scuba diving. Before that, I was in venture capital, investment banking and running internet technology companies in the 90s. Had a pretty sure. strong merger and acquisition background as well as technology background.

So kind of dovetailed out of that early to mid-90s. So I was part of that nice little internet generation back then. Back then I was the young guy, much like the young guys and gals in cannabis. I was one of those people back in the 90s with the internet. So I still feel pretty young, though. But ultimately, I'm an adventurous, Jordan. I enjoy a great adventure, whether it be scuba diving or climbing or, you know, trekking or just traveling to amazing places. Everything can be an adventure. And in this case,

CBD Emporium has been one hell of an adventure. We've done so much and so little time with so little resources. Our crew here is probably the best team I've ever worked with. They love what they do. They love their company. And most importantly, they're passionate to help people. That's a very short version of a long, long story. I love it. I love you sharing the context. I think it's important for people to understand, you know, what was it that got you into it, you know, and you shared that, you know, your mom had had some health concerns and, you know, tried the traditional medicine route and that wasn't working. And, and one thing that you said that was really powerful is you said it, she made a 180 degree turnaround. So what, you know, what would you say before we jump back

and rewind back to childhood, which we're going to do? I would love to just for a second, share with the audience, the people that are going to listen to this, you know, how big was that for your mom? You know, it had to have been massive, right? Like if she's facing health concerns, you as a son, you had to be like, we can't lose mom. You know, we've got to do whatever we can to figure this thing out. So how big and how impactful was that for your family? So in 2007, my mother had kidney cancer and fortunately it was isolated to one of her kidneys. So no chemotherapy, no radiation, remove the kidney, and they zipped her up and she was fine.

However, she only has one kidney. So it's extremely limiting what you can use to ease the aches and pains from a Western perspective of just getting older. And my mother was in very good shape in her 50s, in really good shape in her 60s. And then in 2011, my dad was diagnosed. diagnosed with the esophage field cancer suffered for about a year. Now, there's a gentleman who could have really benefited from medical marijuana. He had so much pain, so much discomfort.

I think, I think, unfortunately, it wasn't available to him at that time. I really wish it was, you know, hindsight being 2020. Anyways, my mother got out of that, that good shape that she was really in, as she was in care of my dad and obviously stress and the inability to work out and meet correctly and everything else. So after he died, she tried to get back in shape, but, you know, she was a little bit older at that point. And she was in her mid to late 60s. And, you know, she just couldn't catch up.

And I think, you know, between a lot of the stress that she was under from my dad's death and probably some misguided doctoring to be quite honest about it, but I don't think that was the main reason. She just became more immobile to a point where it was very difficult for her to sleep without a heating pad on her. It was very difficult for her to just get off the couch. She'd do simple, simple house chores. Couldn't work on. She was very much into working out prior to this. Couldn't even walk to the mailbox.

I mean, it was literally, you know, 300 feet, maybe 400 feet to the mailbox. And then, of course, it just kept getting worse. You know, when you're at that point, it never gets better unless you change something. And she had tried steroids and she had tried, you know, obviously, you know, things like Tylenol and other over-the-counter pain relievers. the doctors wouldn't give her any anti-inflammatories, which probably would have helped quite a bit. She was diagnosed with vascolytis. She was diagnosed with osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, I'm sorry.

And so they wouldn't give her any anti-inflammatory. So their only option was to juice her up on opiates. But my mother's very sensitive to those types of drugs, and she would get very dizzy. She lives by herself. The last thing I wanted her to do is get down. dizzy from opiates and fall down. So when we did try this, this is kind of a funny story,

when I gave her the CBD cream, my mother's very conservative, very East Coast, she put some of that cream on her lower back. She called me up about an hour later and told me she was high. I'm like, Mom, you did not get high off a CBD cream on your back.

Trust me, did not happen. But she was convinced she did. And so it made her a little nervous about taking it orally, But we convinced her take it orally. We showed her some videos on YouTube and stuff like that. Because back then there wasn't a lot of information. There was a lot more information on the THC side of the cannabinoid world,

but very low on the CBD side of the world. So she started taking it orally, and she could feel the effects immediately. But she was still a little skeptical. She said, you know, I kind of feel something. I kind of not feel something. And then this is the same thing I tell our customer. There was something about that seven to ten day point. You know, it built up in our system a little bit.

She was on a pretty high dose. She was taking about 100 milligrams a day. You know, and it just started sinking in at that point, you know. And then next thing, I know, she's cleaning the house and making dinner and walking to the post box and back. Yeah, and it gave her her life back as she likes to tell people. I mean, you know, now she's, of course, the poster child of CBD. When people ask her if you get high from it, she gives them a good answer, not that. well, maybe you do.

But she's kind of the poster child of it. And, you know, my mother-in-law is a breast cancer survivor, and she swears by it, too. She's a former nurse and, you know, RN. And, you know, she's very much into natural science. And she swears by it. And I can sit here and tell you CBD stories of my whole family because, you know, my wife and I really spent a lot of time educating them. And that this education ultimately became the business model for,

CBD important because it was severely, and to the stay, it's severely lacking to you. It really is. I mean, you know, when you look at where people are buying CBD, grocery stores, convenience stores, I mean, that, that is not real CBD purchasing. I'm not saying it's not real CBD. It is. It's real CBD. I'm not poo-pooing any brands that go through grocery stores or C stores or smoke shops

because most of them end up in our store at some point one way down the road. But there was no education. there's no information, there's no guidance. And, you know, when people go and use the product and don't get the results they're looking for, it hurts the entire industry. That critical piece is guiding them through the process, not only buying it, but using it as well. And that's what our stores do amazingly. That's what our CBD consultants do.

Well, yeah, our CBD consultants are great at educating and informing and getting people. Again, getting to the point, not just to purchase a product, but to guide them through the usage of the product as well. And that last piece is critical. And that's why more than 50% of our clientele come back more than five times. I mean, we have an incredible return rate. That's great. That's great. Well, I appreciate the info and the storytelling piece because I think it's super important to give context,

especially on the turnaround, because that's what an incredible turnaround for your mom and other family members. So let's take this rewind, right? because, you know, the audience also wants to know John, right? So if you can share with listeners, you know, where did you grow up? And let's talk about formative years, elementary middle to high school. And what kind of kid were you? Did you get into sports? Were you, do you have any hobbies besides, you know, the scuba dive and climbing stuff you're into now?

I grew up in a little town west of Boston. Nobody's ever heard of it. That's funny. I was up in a mountain town called Silveston in Colorado. and I ran into somebody from my hometown. I didn't know him, but he was from my hometown, but nobody's ever heard of Medway. It's a little, little burb, little hamlet, just west of Boston.

And you wouldn't believe Boston's 25 miles away. Super blue-collar community, very bedroom community. Everybody knew everybody. You know, it was one high school, two elementaries, two churches, a handful of stop signs and one stoplight. If it was any further south, it would be Mayberry, if I'm not dating myself too badly there. But it was a great town to grow up in. You know, friends for life type of people.

Everybody was your uncle. Everybody took care of everybody. And it was truly an ideal setting to be a child. But I was kind of like the odd kid. If you go back to Medway today, most of the people are still living in the area. and they're still living the life they left that I left almost 30 years ago at this point. And, you know, they're great people, but, you know, it's kind of a simple mindset. I was very much an adventure, wanted to take off and see the world.

Love traveling, love outdoor activities like skiing. In fact, I was a big skier back then. That's why I moved to Colorado and spent some time in Europe. very much into sports at the time. I played baseball. I played football. I was pretty good at both of those. I tried hockey.

Still love hockey, but I watch it these days. I was not a good player. And so, yeah, I did all the things that you would do in, you know, grade school and high school. And I was into BMX and skateboarding.

Anything that kept us outdoors. In fact, it's one of the things that I have a hard time today, understanding with kids who spend more, more time in their room on computers than outdoors because I was never inside. I mean, I'd have my bowl of cereal and I'd be out the door until dinner time. You know, if I got hungry, I'd come back for a grilled cheese or something, but that was pretty much it. I never really got into any big trouble. I mean, I got into a lot of what I call boy trouble. You know what that's

like, Jordan, you know, and, you know, jumping my BMX bike off a route for something stupid like that. But never got into a lot of real trouble. But my passion was being outside, you know, in the springtime we would canoe, in the summertime, we'd hike in the fall. You know, we'd go out and play football till dark, and then, you know, in the wintertime, we were skiing. So always outdoors. And it brought me to Colorado, which I absolutely love Colorado. That's where my oldest son was born.

And it was there where I really decided that, you know, I want to become a business person, somebody, an entrepreneur. And that was in the very early 90s. and I had a small child, a baby at home and a wife at home. And, you know, I knew in order to raise them correctly, raise myself correctly, that I had to learn how to make more than, you know, a couple dollars per hour. So I started doing whatever it took to earn a paycheck. I mean, really earn a paycheck.

And I started building companies. And in the late 90s, I built an internet company, a global, internet company. We took it public on the London Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ ended up a very exciting time in my life. I was just turning 30 years old at the time. And I was on the road probably 48 weeks out of 50. Tough with a young family. I had two children at that point and one of them was very much still a baby. And then in 2004, after, I should say, after 2000, I had, I spun off a technology company that ended up becoming a public company as well.

And I was a CEO of that public company. So as a CTO, the other company, we ended up selling that company in 2002. And then I started doing a lot of consulting and investment banking work and venture capital work. In fact, our corporate council, David Wise and I, we started a venture capital fund called Wise Capital. because we liked his last name. And, you know, so it had some background in the venture capital space. Raised a lot of money back then. It was a good environment to raise money in, especially for technology companies.

In 2004, I started thinking about, you know, just getting out of the rat race because it really was a, you know, very much was a tough time. And in 2006, I said, you know, it's it. I'm done. I'm going to retire. And I think I said something to the effect. and realize I was still under 40 years old at that point. So I was pretty naive.

I said something to the effect, I'm just going to scuba dive for the rest of my life because that sounded like a lot of fun. And so I started buying scuba companies, retail companies, some resort companies. We had a small manufacturing company and met my current wife, as she likes to say, my last wife,

on a scuba trip in 2011, so several years. after I started down that track. And we've been together ever since 10 years, very happily married. She's truly the love of my life, beautiful woman. And in 2015, we decided that we wanted, actually we decided in 2014 we wanted to do this, but 2015, we figured we'd get out of the scuba business and kind of burnt out and wanted to do some other things.

And we really got into trekking and doing a lot of treks in Colorado, 14ers, that type of stuff. still scuba diving too, but more for fun than business. And in 2019, actually in 2017, we decided we were going to start a jaunt on the seven summits. If you're familiar with that, that's the seven highest peaks on each continent. And so we started training, and in 2019, we climbed Kilimanjaro. Of course, in 2020, we were supposed to go down to South America and do South America. and then in 2021, we were going to do Albrus over in Europe. However, the pandemic has put a little kibosh on the seven summits right now.

So we look forward to getting back to climbing here in the next year or so. And I'm looking forward to getting back to Tanzania, Kilimanjaro was an amazing experience. And I can't wait to go back there and do Mount Meru and Shira, which are kind of sister mountains to Kilimanjaro. Awesome, awesome. So that's John's life before CBD Emporium, I guess. Yeah, so I would like to, you know, find out because there's a, there's a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs that listen to the show.

And so, you know, when you think about all the ventures, right, you've had some stuff in the IT world, you had some stuff in the venture capitalist, and then went the scuba route, and now you're in the CBD route. What are some lessons that you, that you could share with the audience, just being entrepreneur, whether it was the early days and you're out there trying to put food on the table for your young family and then having some wild success in growing and scaling quickly or maybe it maybe it's the newest venture. So what lessons kind of stick out to you along your journey? Well, life lessons. There are a lot of them. I probably can't remember all of them,

but a few things that stick out. First of all, no matter what you're doing in life, if you're if you're in business even by yourself, you still have to deal with people, customers, vendors, that type of thing. We are all in the people business. So at the end of the day, the biggest investment we make is always in people. It's the biggest risk,

but it's also the biggest reward. And you have to take care of the people that help you get wherever you're going because that is the most important thing. I absolutely adore the people I work with. You know, every once in a while, you have to do something, like terminate something.

because they're the wrong fit or whatever the case may be. But, you know, and I'll refer to what a pastor said to me at one point. He said, you know, kindness without love is hypocrisy. And love without kindness is, now I'm going to forget the quote. Love is brutality. So you have to have to have this empathy for people. You have to listen to them. You have to really be engaged with people.

You have to understand the path there on, not just the path you're on, and nobody's tagging along with you. You're walking down these paths together. So people is a huge part of what we do in life, not just in business, but other things. So think of every person you meet as an investment. You know, the second thing is, and I like to say this a lot as real money moves fast. And you can certainly look at that from a literal, perspective, but figurative perspective, too. Like, for instance, I've built a couple of companies in

my life. And I think back on some of the greatest successes, they had a lot of momentum. And that moment just sped up and sped up and sped up. And they became more successful because of the momentum, because of the speed, because it creates this gravity. When, and, you know, you've heard the old saying, if you're not growing, you're dying. And I think that's a great way to say, you know, it's not just about growing, but it's growing quickly. Now, that doesn't mean you need to be an insane person, go out and build a couple hundred stores in three years like we're doing here at CV the Emporium. But you can, if you don't see the growth, if you don't see the progression, if you don't see the momentum, then chances are you're not, you're not growing. And it could be a facade,

it could be an illusion, whatever. You really have to feel it. It does have a gravity to it. It holds you. So I think, you know, real money moves fast is a great perspective. I'm a big believer. And again, you know, everybody deserves a fair wage. Everybody deserves to put food on their table. The old saying, you know, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Absolutely. But I live in an eat what you kill mindset. Meaning if you want to go out, you know, if you want to go out and go on vacation, there's two ways to do that. You can save for years, okay? Or you can go out and make more money. And it's just, it really is a mind. mindset, that the only thing that limits our paychecks, the only thing that limits our wealth

is ourselves. If you want to go out and make a ton of money, then just go out and do it. Don't limit yourself to the money that's in your wallet or next paycheck. Go out and do what you need to do. And if you're inside of a company, you know, come up with ways where you can get incentivized to grow your paycheck. You know, time and rank is not a great corporate mantra for a raise. Oh, I've been here a year now, so I get my 10% raise. And I've been here three months, and I come up with this program, and I'd like to be incentivized on implementing it. And that incentive should come in the form of compensation. If the company wins, the employee should win. And I never cap people when it comes to its incentives plan. You know, if you make the company X amount of

dollars, then you should be compensated on X amount of dollars. You make the company, Y amount of corporation can still have that entrepreneurial or what I like to call the ownership mindset. So, you know, those are three things that come to mind if you really want to think about it. But at the end of the day, you know, we're all people. And we all want things in life. We all want status. We all want, you know, property. We all want for our family to be not just taking care of, but well taken care of.

Go out and get them. Love it. Love the advice. Yeah, you got to, you got to take action, right? you've got to go after the things that you want. But I love what you said earlier about having empathy. You know, it's a lost art really in our in our society in a lot of places. And, you know, I don't, I don't necessarily think it's, it's a fault to people.

I mean, we, we have gone through some tumultuous times, which has made a significant impact on people's, you know, mental state and, you know, their emotional intelligence, not recognizing how they're showing. up and things like that. But, you know, those things are highly important. They've always been important to me. And in every venture, whether it was, you know, my 15 years in multifamily or, you know, now as an entrepreneur, yeah, people are, people are everything, right? You've got to treat everybody, you know, with respect and with dignity. And like you said, if you have to make those tough decisions, you're still a good way to do it and a bad way to do it, in my opinion. So you mentioned earlier you played hockey, weren't great at it.

Oh, I think I, oh, there you are. Okay. Yeah, so you mentioned you played hockey, weren't great at it. I saw a glimpse of a logo on your shirt. It's a Boston Bruins logo. So still a Bruins fan? Still a Bruins fan. I'm okay.

So I have, if you were in my office, you'd also see all the jersey, the autographed jersey, stay. I'm a huge, huge hockey fan. I had the Canadians and Islanders in the end, so I was really depressed that the Tampa Bay beat out the Islanders. So I'm a huge hockey fan. We're season ticket holders at the Coyote's game. Yeah, Bruins had a tough year this year in the playoffs.

I'm just writing it off to COVID year. I think hockey is one of those pure sports. You know, the people still get on the ice and make league minimums, and they play really hard. You know, they have to be incredible athletes. Think about it. These are guys who have to hit like a football player, have to have the precision sniper,

the precision of a sniper shooter. They have to have speed like a speed skater. And they have to do all this on, you know, a tiny little blade on, most people can't even walk on ice, right? And they have to do it on a sheet of ice. So, you know, strength, speed, agility. stamina and and then throw precision in there and it is the pure and these guys make like out of all the

professional sports the least amount of money um and uh it's a great sport it's great time to bring your family to hockey and yeah absolutely love it so sorry for my hockey mantra here but yeah i'm a huge hockey fan most people who know me know that yeah yeah no it's it's good to find out what people enjoy what you're passionate about you know what kind of gets that that engine going you know because hockey games are fun. You know, it's like being on the glass and,

you know, just being in the environment, it's, it's a fun experience. I have never been to a hockey game and not enjoyed it, you know. When you're out in Phoenix sometime,

let me know, I'll take you to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd be awesome. So let's talk a little bit about the venture,

right? So you're, you know, you're with your, your last wife, right, as you mentioned earlier, and you guys are talking about getting this thing going.

So when you, when you, when you initially, talked about it. Did you have those aspirations to get to 44 as quick as you did? Did you have any thought process or concept that you would do that? Or is that something that just kind of came as you started putting the pieces together? So a company started by two people, myself and another gentleman, Mike Farrakis. And it really, I had made a small investment in a CBD store here locally. And I was a little frustrated with that investment because the guy who owned it really wanted to be in the marijuana industry and ran his CBD story.

And this was, again, going back to early 2018, late 2017, and was running it like a dispensary. And even though his clientele was coming in and they weren't looking for marijuana. In fact, it really is two different customer types. I mean, you know, one's coming in looking to get psychoactive. reaction and the other is not. So I mean, there's a clear distinction between the two. And I was sitting at lunch with Mike and I told him I'm thinking about just walking away from my small, it was a very small investment walking away from it in opening my own CBD store up in Surprise Arizona just to see what it would do. I mean, I wrote down kind of literally on a cocktail napkin. I wrote down,

these are what the expenses are. And I'm going to, you know, just kind of see what happens with it. And Mike's like, well, you know, I might do that too. So we decided to open two. One in Lake Kavisu, where he has a lot of business interests. And I opened one in Surprise. And then being competitive, we started racing to see whose store could get open first. We won by four hours here in Surprise, by the way. But we opened both stores on October 4th, about a month, about a month and a half after that lunch beating.

The barbecue is fantastic, by the way. And anyways, we open both stores. and Havasu was in a really good location and just immediately took off. A surprise was not in a great location and had a much slower track to get to the point that it's at now, which is one of our best stores. So we watched it for about a month or so, and we decided that maybe we would do 10 stores. Because, you know, if it's, if one store makes X amount, then 10 stores would make X times 10, right? very simple, simple math.

So we decided we were going to do 10 stores. And we're going to just kind of call it good at 10 stores and see where it went from there. And then 10 became 30. And at that point, we welcomed in a third partner. And his name's Ron. And he was passive investor. But three of us were doing that. We opened up our third store in December, 2018, over in Paradise Valley, just outside of Scottsdale.

and that store we signed the lease on December 17th. We were open on December 21st. So I knew at this point, it took us a month to open the first two stores, but it took us four days to open the second store, third store, sorry. So I knew we could do this faster, and so I really started focusing on building processes and systems. In January, we opened store number four.

We actually did that in less than two days. We opened store number five in about four days. store number six took about a week and a half. So we knew we could get these things open pretty quickly. And so then we decided that 10 stores or 30 stores was not the number, but 300 stores was the number. So we spent 2019 not only perfecting how we open stores, but building systems to support that level of growth. Inventory management systems, logistical and delivery systems, training systems for the staff, hiring systems. so on and so forth.

And we ended the 2019 developing all these amazing systems and ending with about a dozen stores in 2019. So we decided, okay, everything's in place. We are ready to start growing. I like to describe it when I was a young man. I was a stockbroker, fresh out of college. And I was a very poor stockbroker. And people would come over to my apartment.

And they'd open the door and it would be a barren refrigerator. And they'd look at me. And then they look at the door and I'd have every condiment known demand sitting on the, in the door. And they look at me and say, you have a full refrigerator of condiments, but no food. And I look at them and say, yeah, but when I have food, I'm ready to eat. And so, and we ate a lot of ketchup sandwiches back then, just so you know. Anyways, we, those were good times, though. Anyway, so we, our door was full of condiments.

We were ready to start growing. kicks around. We're looking at leases where we're getting ready to rock and roll and COVID hits. And if you ever wanted to have, you know, a time in any business that, you know, I've never seen before anything like it. And, you know, a lot of our stores have to close down because they were in malls or because up in Nevada, you know, the government was mandating it. So it was really tricky navigating those waters. But we still ended up doubling our location count and tripling our sales in 2020. So it's really hard to look back in 2020 and say, wow, what a tough year. But it was because we were really making so many decisions on the fly. We had no clue what to do.

We were just kind of going with it. But 2020 ends with what I consider a pretty good year. So we're right around two dozen stores or so. And so, of course, 2021, world's coming back to some sort of normalcy. So we decided we're going to start growing again. So we're signing leases, we're opening stores. remember we're we're now in in 2021 and we're sitting here with you know 44 soon to be 47 locations so the first first quarter in early second quarter been really really productive for us and one of those pieces

was a deal we did with a property management group called highland ventures out of Chicago and we we literally signed the lease for two million square feet in one day with them a hundred stores roughly 2 200 square feet per store average and we we just over open the first six down in Texas a couple weeks ago. So I'm really excited about the Highland Ventures deal. And we'll be moving into roughly 13 states. Over the summer, we should be opening one store every three days with those folks. Also, we started a franchise.

Last October, started selling our first franchises in January. And, of course, that's a very long sales cycle. but we're seeing some really good early success. We have some of our first franchise has opened up in Jacksonville, Florida, Cleveland, Ohio, and probably at 10 there, one of your listeners or two in the coming months. So very excited about that.

So yeah, we have a lot on the play, a lot coming over the next couple months. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, congrats on the growth. And, you know, it's amazing. You know, I think you, when you said it earlier, it really just sunk in systems and processes, right?

Because I think that's something that a lot, people that aren't growing, it's because they don't have that stuff dialed in. I mean, you went from, I think you said, a couple weeks to a couple days, you know, being able to turn around and open stores. I mean, that's huge, you know. You can't build a house without a foundation. I mean, it's just simple fact. And even if it's a pylon foundation or just some stacks of wood,

you're going to have something from which to build the rest of the house. on and the stronger the foundation, the stronger everything above it's going to be. And so 2020 was really the, was supposed to be our growth year. 2019 was supposed to be our infrastructure year. One of the things that really benefited about COVID is it allowed us to continue building the infrastructure. I think we, you know, we did the right things in March, April, May. We did a lot of things with our vendor program.

We did, we brought in the whole new training department. So, I mean, 2020, we just, you know, we couldn't really grow the stores, so we decided to keep growing our infrastructure. So we now have an infrastructure that will support easily a couple hundred stores. In fact, we moved our headquarters for the fourth time in two and a half years last November. And, you know, we have a large central distribution hub that, you know, we could not only distribute to our own corporate own stores, potentially a franchise. and other stores too.

That's great. That's great. So from a marketing perspective, you know, when you guys get these stores open, is it just a, you know, build it and they will come? Is there some stuff on the back end? You guys are pushing out from, you know, an SEO perspective or are there, you know, obviously you've got budgets for all these things. So I would just love to find out, you know, what was it like in the beginning from a marketing

perspective? Was this kind of word of mouth balloons and signs? or did you have something dialed in? And then what does it look like today? Wow, another big question there. You know, so here's what we learned in the first two dozen stores that if you put a sign out in front of your door, you'll get somewhere between 180 and 240 people walk through it,

not including malls. Molls have a much higher traffic environment, but just a typical strip mall location. You'll get between 180 and 250, 200,000. 140 people per month walking through the door. So believe it not, that'll get you to a break-even point. Not at 180, but maybe at the 240 mark. That'll get you to either slightly profitable, a break-even point at the store level.

Obviously, nobody gets into business to break-even. So the good news is if you have a really good location, you'll at least get to a break-even point fairly quickly. If you have a poor location, then obviously you have to supplement with that. I mentioned surprise being our first store, and that grew a lot. lot slower than Habesu. Habesu had kind of a team of people that really went out and did good marketing business development. Surprise didn't have those resources because Mike's other companies had people that were doing that for his other companies. So it was really easy to piggyback on that

infrastructure. We had to build that in surprise and it took some time because we didn't have the infrastructure we have today. Remember, we're just two tiny stores. One of it was 800 square feet. One was 1100. square feet. I remember walking into the 800 square foot store and say, I will never need a bigger store. I could put a thousand dollars worth of product in there. That's probably the, the biggest misconception I ever made in my life, just so you know. But regardless, you have to have, you have to have, you know, at the district and regional level, you have to have obviously good locations, good signage, you have to have good business development, getting out there in the community, shaking hands, press and flesh, creating partnerships, doing all the things, any small

business person would do. And then a local small business person would do. And then getting out there and doing your passive advertising too, your billboards, your radio commercials, your newspaper advertising, all those good things. And every tactic, every tactic has different results to them. And depending where you do it, like obviously newspaper advertising has a much bigger impact in a smaller community that does in a bigger community. So you have to be selective in a how you do your passive marketing, but in your big branding, but that's definitely you have to do everything.

And obviously from an internet perspective, our number one keyword, even though we have this incredibly robust, in fact, I think the biggest e-commerce store in cyberspace, CBDMPORM.com, our number one keyword to this day is still CBD store near me.

So we know people are finding us through Google, my business and Google Maps and all that good stuff and through our search engine optimization tactics. We don't do influencer campaigns. We really don't buy advertising online. Not that those are bad things. It's just it's not the route we go to capture. We do a lot of other tactics to capture e-commerce and customers coming into the stores. But, you know, there's a million different tactics and everybody just needs to figure out what their objectives are, figure out what strategy that you're going to use to meet those objectives and then create tactics that work for them. Yeah. And you guys, you guys have obviously figured it out, right? You know, you're, you're scaling at an

exponential rate and, you know, the thought of 30 stores now turned into 300. So that's pretty, well, actually, 300 was the old goal. Oh, okay. Now you guys are thumbs up here. Well, yeah, we really took a look at all the different things that we're doing on a, not just a domestic person. but also on an international perspective. A lot of things we haven't announced yet. And I throw this out with some caution. I mean, I think we'll hit 300 stores by the end of 2022, maybe first quarter of 2023.

So I think we'll hit our 300 mark. I'm really looking kind of from a more Japanese perspective at this point, trying to look five years out. And I think by the end of 2025, you know, we'll be over a thousand locations. Obviously, that's going to combine a lot of different types of locations. including franchises, but I think, you know, 300 is a great goal and I can't wait until we hit it because that's kind of the original goal. But I think we have much bigger perspective here at CB and Gordon these days.

And that's what we're building infrastructure for now. I mean, you can't just go to 2025 and have, you know, 1200 locations and be the size of what GNC was at its height and think that you can do that, you know, with three guys in an office. and just kind of BS your way through it. Yeah, now that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, as we are kind of coming to a close here, this has been, you know, great learning about obviously what you're up to you now, but also the journey, right, the journey that led you to this point. You know, you're a big adventure guy,

love scuba diving, love climbing, and things like that. So what would you say to people that might be listening that have never scuba dive, you know? Because there's going to be some listeners that haven't done that. What's the number one reason why people should try it? And what should they give themselves as far as a learning curve's concern from having to be underwater at those depths that you guys experience? When I was a kid, I was afraid of heights. So to cure myself of being not afraid of heights, I went paraselling on a lake when I was 10 years. years old. And then I started building forts and trees, tree forts. And I would swing like Tarzan

from rope to rope from tree to tree. Again, a lot of that was to just say that I didn't need to be afraid of heights. I could experience all this stuff and not be afraid. Scoob diving is an extremely safe sport, first of all. I mean, because in the reason it's, it's, it's, it's, it's very safe is because the amount of training you have to go through before you, they release you to fly solo underwater. But I think back when I was a kid in watching things like, you know, was it Lost in Space, which was a sitcom back in the 70s, and, you know, they would run into all these alien monsters. And then I was thinking about, you know, Star Wars when they walk into the bar and they have all the alien creatures in there. And when you dip your, your head under water,

you start blowing bubbles on a system that's your life support system, you realize very quickly you're on a different planet. And it's funny because this is the part of the planet that is 75% of our planet is water. And 90% of the entire life on this planet is on the reef systems, which is basically the shallow end of the ocean. So when you go under there, you're seeing things that you've never seen before. You know, you're seeing spotted eagle rays. You're seeing you're seeing dolphins. You're seeing sharks.

And sharks are good to see. You're seeing all these wonderful things that you never thought you would see or could even imagine what they were. The colors are amazing. You hear every breath going by your ears. If you ever wanted to feel more alive, listen to every breath. And then when you do have that quiet moment in between breaths, you can hear your heartbeat. So you have this amazing adventure in this underwater alien planet.

And for the first time, you can really just feel alive. And I've heard it all, I'm afraid of water. I'm afraid of sharks. Oh, I'm claustrophobic. All those things disappear the minute you feel your heart beating in your wetsuit or you hear the bubbles passing by your ears. And for the first time, you're looking at things that 95% of the world has never seen before. And you're seeing it up close. It's like being in the movie versus watching the movie. So if I would tell everybody, go find a Caribbean island or Pacific Island

and find a really good instructor and jump in the water and just trust what he or she says. you know, I've been an instructor since 94. My wife said she's been a dive master for years before I met her. So we know our way around the oceans pretty well and we've had some amazing adventures. But, you know, whatever, if scuba is not your thing, you can have the same type of adventure on the top of a mountain or a sailboat or doing whatever you do. Just get out and have some fun. Love it, love it, love the advice. And, you know, I've been snorkeling.

I haven't gone scuba diving yet, but it's on, it's on, it's. It's definitely on my list. So Jordan, I'm going to tell you, snorkeling is way harder than stupid diving. Oh, yeah, okay. You actually have to swim and get to deal with waves and, you know, everything is like 10 feet or 12 feet below you. Like I said, it's like being in the movie. Not watching it. Love it, love it.

I'm definitely going to be taking it up and trying it out myself. So, you know, I want to make sure that we're going to resource the audience with, you know, all of your links, links to the website and things like that. But is there anything else that you want to, you want to show? or any, you know, parting words or maybe advice or any quotes that, you know, you live by that might help inspire our audience as they hear this? Well, I'll give you two quotes. Two of my favorite quotes.

The first one I quote to my staff all the time. It was Tom Watson, the former president of IBM. And he says, he said, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but act like the company you want to become. You know, IBM acted like IBM long before. became idea. And I think that's really good advice because if you're acting like you want to be a small business, then you'll be a small business. If you're acting like you want to be the industry's number one player, and you'll become the industry's number one player. So that's great advice. Second piece of advice I'd give you is something that I read in one of, there's so many

books on Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, and one of the things I remember reading the most about him is he was giving a speech. I think it was at Harvard Business School. And at the end, one of the people who were listening asked a question. He said, Mr. Crock, you know, how did you, what are your ingredients to success for McDonald's? And again, I'm paraphrasing a little bit here. He said, three things, be in the right place of the right time, know you're in the right place of the right time, and execute well. And I think, you know, I've really tried to, I've really tried to absorb that piece there. And when I look, when I look at it, industries whether it be the internet or venture capital or real estate or medical marijuana or

CBD. I think the pandemic has shown us this, that health and wellness is important. And cannabinoid medicine is an important part of people's health and wellness regimen. And I think we're just starting to discover what cannabinoid medicine can be due for people. And we're truly humbled and honored to help guide people to better health and wellness through CBD. That's great. And you know, appreciate you sharing those quotes. And, you know, I thank you for what you're doing in the industry because as you know, it all starts with education, right? The more the more that we're educated and we understand, you know, what the true properties are and how they can actually benefit people just like they did for your mom. And I'm sure countless other family members, as you mentioned, they were some of your, you know, guinea pigs in the, in the earlier days, trying this stuff out. So thank you so much. It's been great. to learn about you and your character. I could see why, you know, you have a cohesive team. They've got a great leader.

So kudos to you. Keep up the good work. And I really appreciate you coming on the Blaz Your Own Trail podcast. Thank you so much, Jordan. And thank you to all your listeners.