My intention for this article is to share with you a foundational blueprint for starting a hemp company or fine-tuning your current hemp company.
Being that I’ve worked for and started multiple hemp companies, 0ver the last 15 years, I’ve had a great deal of first-hand experience.
I’ve had a trumendous opportunity to practice and study every aspect of running a successfful hemp business from the educational side, events, marketing & sales, to product development & beyond.
There are many aspects and systems to running any business, and in this post I will ask you some crucial questions to help you identify what you need to do to be successful with hemp!
So get out a piece of paper (preferably made from hemp ;-), if you are serious about your success, and write down the answers to these questions.
1. WHY START A HEMP COMPANY
First and foremost, ask yourself WHY you are doing what you are doing. Write it on a piece of paper & keep that piece of paper with you AT ALL TIMES.
The more clear you can be about WHY you are doing what you are doing – the easier it will be to get through those moments of frustration, challenge and struggle.
And don’t just say “I want to make tons of MONEY.” Of course making money is essential to ANY successful business. But that is NOT what this is about.
Money is simply the by-product of offering great value to your customers and delivering (or over-delivering) on your promises.
Knowing your WHY is getting deeply in touch with the FEELING that you want to FEEL on a daily basis. It’s the altruistic, lofty, aspirational legacy that you want to leave behind. It’s what you want people to remember you for.
When it comes to your WHY, this has more to do with what you believe in. Knowing your WHY will tie into every other aspect of your business so this is essetnial to identify.
There’s an amazing BOOK that will help you with this step called: “Start with WHY” by Simon Sinek.
2. WHAT'S NEEDED TO START A HEMP COMPANY?
- WHAT category of hemp is MOST exciting to you?
- WHAT are you good at?
- WHAT excites you the MOST about working with hemp?
- WHAT products do you know the most about currently?
- WHAT problem or problems can you find that you can solve with hemp? A great way to find out what your audience needs are, is to visit facebook groups, forums and reading comments on hemp websites. You can also set up a free survey with SurveyMonkey or use Google’s FREE Survey forms.
3. WHO?
Once you know WHY you are doing what you are doing and WHAT solutions you can offer to your customers – then focus in on WHO your Market is and what their personal problems are.
This will really allow you to develop your marketing message and speak to your audience in a way that feels right for them.
There are a few great tools you can use to build “Personas,” for your company. These are made up characters that most represent the people you will be serving.
A few great resources for creating Personas are HubSpot’s Article, or ClearVoice.com
4. HOW?
Now that you’ve developed a clear sense of WHY, WHAT & WHO you can start developing a strategy for getting your product or service to the people.
Are you going to have an online storefront? Will you be organizing events? Do you want to be Socially Active on Social Media Sites?
In this day and age, social media is almost a must. With my company Bulk Hemp Warehouse, we actually have not done a lot of Social Media Marketing and have still done very well.
I believe in social media marketing and we’ve actually developed a platform for you to stay organized and get results with Social Media.
A lot of our success with that brand as well as the HempAware brand has come from WORD-OF-MOUTH marketing. This form of marketing is personally my favorite.
When you get your customers to share with others how much they love and appreciate your brand and products it’s so much more powerful than you saying it about yourself!
HOW also deals with a logistical timeline, setting goals, and working backward from specific achievements you want to fulfill.
Here’s a great video on The Peg Method by Anik Singal. This is a method to create an easier way of creating your goals using micro goals and attaching your problems to your assets. It’s an awesome way to accelerate your success!
5. WHEN SHOULD YOU START A HEMP COMPANY?
This is probably a pretty obvious topic and ties in with what I just shared with you on setting goals and timelines.
First, recognize that THE TIME IS NOW!
Although, I’ve been working with hemp for over 15 years, now is a phenomenal time to start a hemp company.
There is so much opportunity to invent, develop, or even support existing hemp companies to get their products onto the market and out to the people.
IN CLOSING
As you can imagine, there is an infinite amount of possibility for you in the hemp industry. The MOST IMPORTANT piece to the puzzle is to identify WHY you want to do this.
There WILL be challenges, as in any entrepreneurial endeavor. You have EX.T.R.A. (Expertise, Talents, Resources & Abilities).
Write down the answers to the questions in this post and get VERY CLEAR about your mission and plan. Connect with like minded hempsters in the industry. Interview them and ask tons of questions.
Always be learning!
Once you have a plan, and have identified a MAJOR PROBLEM that Hemp can solve – you are off to a great start!
Never give up – and keep refering back to your WHY if you ever get stuck…lastly I want to give you a FREE COPY of my BOOK, “Do One Thing HEMP.
It’s a brief little Hemptrepreneurial Handbook that may give you a few more insights to the hemp industry and how to SUCCEED with hemp!
