There are three lessons I’ve learned by experience (i.e. loss, fire, failure) over the last year: 1) As a CPG (cannabis) founder, you should be spending the majority of time on five things. Those five things are: -Selling, and building a better sales process. -Sourcing, and building a better sourcing process. -Innovating your manufacturing process. -Innovating your product offering. -Marketing, and building a better marketing process. 2) All five of the tasks above could be categorized in the same way: as delivering the most value (the best product possible at the lowest price possible) to your customers. 3) The only way to spend the majority of your time on delivering more value is to have well defined processes for your core business. Time invested in developing SOPs that allow your team to run the core business, frees up more time to improve the core business. I’ll repeat that: Time invested in developing SOPs that allow your team to run the core business, frees up more time to improve the core business. If you want to work ON the business, and get out of the weeds IN the business, you have to do the hard work of getting the rest of your team out of the weeds too. Only then will you be able to focus 100% of your ‘Visionary Founder Energy’ (VFE) on The Big Problem and Big Solutions.
SOPs are vital!
Through Q3 and Q4, our team has been focused on building a solid operational foundation with detailed SOPs, ensuring stability across core functions. I could not agree more. It seems like “busy” work since you don’t feel the fruit of its labor immediately, but it is pivotal in pivoting the business. Providing this foundation allows innovation and creativity to flow without the disruptions of operational inefficiencies, giving us the freedom to focus on strategic growth and impactful change as we move into 2025.