How Top Cannabis Companies Keep and Attract Employees ft. Mike Siebold

How Top Cannabis Companies Keep and Attract Employees ft. Mike Siebold

Bryan Fields: Well, what's up guys, welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, and with me as always is Kellan Finney. This week we've got a very special guest, Mike Siebold, managing partner at FlowerHire. Mike, thanks for taking the time, how are you doing today? Mike Siebold: Oh guys, I'm so excited, I'm so caffeinated, I'm sweating. I'm actually pretty pumped because I am a longtime listener, first-time caller. Thanks for having me, appreciate you. Kellan, how are you doing? Kellan Finney: I'm doing well, really excited to talk to Mike, really excited to jump into hiring and the cannabis industry. I'm excited that we have a fellow West Coast guy on the podcast again. How are you, Bryan? Bryan Fields: I'm doing great. And, Mike, maybe you're currently located on the West Coast, but I think it's important when we understand where someone's roots are — where does their family live, and where did they go to undergraduate school. So Mike, just for the record, could you answer both of those questions? Mike Siebold: Well, I don't want to get in the middle of a tiff because that's obviously a West Coast/East Coast thing going on. But I am an East Coast person by birth, so I am a jaded, cynical person by default. But I moved to Los Angeles, so I've gotten in touch with a little person named Mike ever since. So thank you for putting me in between your fight — thank you, I love it, I love it. Bryan Fields: So for our listeners not sure about you, can you give a background about yourself and a little bit about FlowerHire? Mike Siebold: Sure. FlowerHire has been around since 2017, so seven years, and specifically what we do is partner with cannabis businesses of any size and scope, at any stage of their growth trajectory. What we do specifically, and what people know us for, is retained and embedded search, strategic talent management, and then HR advisory. That last part, HR advisory, is what I've been focusing on for the last several years — human capital processes for compliance, performance management, retention, compensation design. What we do is, if we find a gap that needs to be filled by talent, we go out and find it, whether it's inside the industry or not. And then the thing I do specifically is I get to parachute inside the confines of these businesses and work from the inside out, using best practices that we source domestically. So I'm lucky — I get to go wherever these businesses are spinning up, and we're not discerning. It's been every size and scope of business imaginable — multi-state operators, single-state brands, ancillary, law firms. Thankfully, our work not only takes us everywhere, but we get to collaborate with pretty much everyone worthwhile. Bryan Fields: I love it. So let's take us inside a conversation — does a company reach out and say, "Hey Mike, we're having this issue," or, "Hey Mike, we're trying to be proactive about X"? How does that work? Take us through some of those conversations. Mike Siebold: It's pretty organic. I mean, oftentimes, at this point we have enough rapport and relationships, with expertise and people with skill, and usually we've also put people in positions of decision-making. So honestly, if it's on the advisory side, usually there's a theme — there's something at the business that is an opportunity for change, or we feel like there's some kind of gap, or there's a new initiative, we're expanding, or we have to do a RIF, or there's some circumstance that people are grappling with. What they really do, more than anything else, is confide in us first, because we have relationships that are longstanding in the space. For people who are new to the ecosystem, the first way they assess this is, "Oh, you're a recruitment firm primarily." Then it's, "I'm building a light dep indoor cultivation site or production facility, I have no idea what to look for, I have no idea what to pay, I have no idea what the career trajectory for that person is going to be. Honestly, I just finished putting my story together — my mission, vision, values — I need to go represent myself in the marketplace but don't know where to start." Usually that's the crux and the inception stage where we start working with businesses to define who they are, what they want to be, go out to the marketplace, and represent them to bring that talent in so they can propel themselves going forward. But honestly, when it comes to solving issues outside the realm of recruitment and recruitment strategy, it usually is a catalyst — something needs to change, or we've been sitting on something, or frankly we're so busy blocking and tackling trying to keep our business growth-oriented that some of these things have fallen by the wayside and we want someone to come in and calibrate or change them for us. HR is actually a great place to start because that's where most of the data for these businesses lives and exists and perpetuates. It's where you have insight into what people are doing, what their spans of control are. It's also a great way to see firsthand if a business has been thoughtful and methodical about not just what they're trying to accomplish, but how they're growing. Growth management in cannabis is a slipshod process, and if you're a first-time founder in any respect — forget just cannabis, even manufacturing at large — it's very disorienting to prepare yourself for a marketplace that's hopefully receptive to your brand, product, or service. But most importantly, as management, how am I going to make sure my story is compelling enough to keep people in place, to keep them enticed, to keep them informed, to keep their mindset in a place where they know you have their interest at heart? So what we try to do as much as possible is have free-ranging conversations like this about simplistic themes — what are you trying to accomplish, and how can we get you there. Usually that opens up to a really candid conversation about what's going right, what's going wrong, and by virtue of that, other things worth considering. Kellan Finney: So initially FlowerHire didn't have an HR arm that they supported — was this basically developed out of necessity from interacting with your clientele, part of the natural evolution and maturity of the cannabis industry? Talk us through this evolution within FlowerHire. Mike Siebold: Yeah, I mean it's really not scientific at all. You have a conversation with the firm, we find somebody with a skill set, a mindset, a personality, an appetite for risk, we put them into that business, and because of trust, they turn to us and say, "I have to hire for this role, I have no idea what to pay for this person." It started out as themes — we just started seeing themes that, on a recurring basis, proved out to be gaps. So I turned to everyone on staff and said, well, why don't we try to solve for it? We know people who have built businesses before that have tackled these issues, best practices to solve for these issues — they're not IP-bound. Most importantly, we should be able to redirect resources and find best practices to put into conversation with people so they don't have to live and breathe with the anxiety of not being able to solve this issue comprehensively. That's how it started — people would turn to us and tell us there's something here, and we started to systematize it: inequity, compensation, org design, org planning, career arc and trajectory for people. We started saying to ourselves, well, we have data, we have experience, we have expertise, we have know-how — why don't we systematize it? That actually coincided with me meeting my partner, Jason, who is a freak show of an HR professional. He's an auto guy, a global HR leader, one of the founding members of Gage Cannabis before TerrAscend, and he was actually part of Skymint — he resigned before it went south. The interesting thing about him was we'd been introduced through a mutual colleague, and I said, well, you have all this expertise and scale I can't even fathom — would you want to come get into some trouble and create systems architecture with me? Would you want to jump into these scenarios alongside me to right-size and reorient some of these businesses? So we've been going hand in hand ever since, for the last two years, because people were trusting us with their problems, we decided to try and solve them. That's really the crux of it. Kellan Finney: It has to be such a complicated balance, talking about growth management, given how quickly the industry is moving and how quickly some of these organizations are hiring — thinking about doubling, then having to redo the organizational structure. Is there a single element these companies typically struggle with, or is it a variety — they just haven't thought through the process of, "okay, we were five, then ten, now we're twenty-five or thirty and haven't reorganized"? Mike Siebold: A lot of it is just the basic truth that it's a luxury to step back out of your growth trajectory to even think about the things you could be doing better. If you're one of the founding members of these companies, let's say you're in a place like Ohio or Missouri, and the horse is running, you're doing exceptionally well, but you start seeing the mechanics break down a little bit. It takes a lot of know-how, knowledge, and honesty to step back and say, "Am I the person equipped to solve for that?" So there's not one overarching issue — I'd say inequity, titling, is pretty consistent, compensation design, bonus programming. There's no global consensus on how to grow weed, let alone incentivize people to grow it correctly. You have to not just build these things but define them for the first time. A lot of these founders are not just building a cannabis business, they're building a business fundamentally, in the macro climate. They also have to tackle — every time they go into a new market for the first time, it's a disassociative orientation. You have to completely change the paradigm of thinking if you're in four different marketplaces — what's permissible, what's allowed, and the dynamic of your team can be hindered or better than expected. Truth be told, a lot of these businesses — it's not that they're falling prey to their own mistakes, a lot of times it's a luxury to even know the mistakes are there to begin with. It's not usually until it becomes very acute that people start calling in people like us to talk about it in full. So it's not one uniform issue that's pervasive — it's an annualized experience. If you're being thoughtful about your business, you should be sitting down with all your managers, your department heads, anyone with a discipline other than yourself, even middle management, to categorically talk about what could be done better and whether you have the resources internally to solve for it. A lot of businesses struggle with that because they're trying to keep themselves in the straight and narrow, tackling every other problem of being a going concern in cannabis. It takes a lot of strength and courage to bypass the idea of, "I built this, I can solve for this because I've been solving for it so far," to say, "I can't do it better than somebody else, maybe I need an outside resource." Kellan Finney: Do you see a lot of common themes within these different business structures? In different states you have vertically integrated organizations with multiple businesses — an agricultural farming business, a processing facility which is essentially a lab. Organizationally those are completely different businesses that need to be managed differently — you're going to incentivize someone cultivating differently than a chemist in a lab, differently than a packager. Can you describe if there are common themes organizationally, or if they're tailored to these individual aspects? Mike Siebold: It's a great question, because part of me wants to say there's a customary way this is typically done, but the real truth is pretty much everything has to be customized. You can't just superimpose an org chart on top of any business because "that's a processing facility, that's how it's done." We're still grappling with the very definitions of the titles we're assigning, still defining the ways to drive behaviors while incentivizing people for growing something that was grown clandestinely until very recently. It's one thing to grow weed at scale, it's another thing to be a good manager, to listen to your people and their issues, and be equipped to progressively create a better work environment. A lot of it is that cannabis is great at defining the characteristics of what these businesses look like, but the training and development, the mobility of skill necessary to create a uniform process — it's not there. Cannabis is not a uniform thing because it doesn't grow uniformly. This is not a singular industry — I catch a lot of flak for this, but it's really more like a series of informal economies. The way you're a cultivation manager for a light dep indoor facility versus a state-of-the-art 40-acre greenhouse is a completely different dynamic — same title, entirely different skill set, entirely different managerial demands, entirely different bonus programming. So again, customary, customized every time. We talk to a group and start from a foundational place — what are you trying to accomplish — and we talk about an approach, a process, structure and format based on businesses similar to yours. We will never just take what has been done before and put it on top of your business — that's sloppy and slipshod. What we try to do is talk about what this market is going to be like, what this facility is going to be — is it going to be pumping throughput 24/7, or, like in Colorado, is it going to be more like a Chia Pet, creating equilibrium with maybe a bit of a downslope? It's different each time. Don't just take what's been done for granted just because it's cannabis — qualify and then quantify your process, and work from that place, versus saying, "that's how it's usually done." There is no usual whatsoever. Bryan Fields: Do you think it has to do with ego, or just inexperience, or the fact that some of these people are going as fast as humanly possible and change is scary because we've done something one way, and if we evolve, I'm unsure if I'll feel comfortable in the new environment? Mike Siebold: I think it's all of the above. I could never say it's inherently ego that made a business precipitously decline. Usually a business has gotten to a place, good, bad, or indifferent — sometimes it's static, neither growing nor declining, and a decision has to be made because they want to break through a fourth wall, do something better for the entirety of the business. It's hard to say if it's founder syndrome — "I started this, I found the capital, I brought the expertise together, I know what's best for the business." That's just an experience in any business in America — a lot of people don't want to give up control because they worked so hard to gain it. I can respect that. What I've noticed to be really beneficial is people in positions of influence or control surrounding themselves not just with smart people in their C-suite or managerial ranks, but also a mentorship group — people who've experienced these problems elsewhere, to qualify and bounce ideas off of in real time, as a check against an egotistical bent. But it's really hard to say — usually it's the first time you're really experiencing something in some shape or fashion, and you're trying to come to grips with what this could mean, and the market dynamics are opaque or unclear. Is there price compression? How severe is it? Did the spot market just fall off, did I just lose a number of people to a competitor, do I need to rehire the three people I lost, or will one person solve for it? A lot of people don't grapple with these issues in their daily existence, and if this is your first manufacturing experience, you might have no idea how to solve for it. So it's a spectrum — I'd say it's all of the above. Bryan Fields: Before, you mentioned inequity — can you quickly define what that is for listeners who may be unsure exactly what that word means? Mike Siebold: Sure, inequity specifically is when the value proposition someone derives for themselves — primarily through base, bonus, and equity — is inconsistent, incorrect, malformed, or ill-defined. With cannabis, it's not nefarious, where people are trying not to pay enough for a job — they're really qualifying the job for the first time, in real time, often not knowing themselves what the pay grade is for a director of processing. When it comes to an equity pool for management, how do I distribute it — is it RSUs versus options? For bonus programming for cultivation, do I just bonus my team off yield long-term — grow it, get it out the door, give you 30% of your salary, or over 100%? Inequity exists in cannabis because the space is still coming to grips with defining itself. It's very pervasive because these jobs, these titles, these destinations, these locales — because of NIMBY attitudes, you have businesses coming into areas being resuscitated that haven't had manufacturing or processing jobs in quite some time. You have a great cultivation site in Las Vegas, New Mexico — what's the cost-of-living adjustment there, what's the talent pool? These considerations are what people grapple with. So inequity is very pervasive — value is being derived for the business, but the people in the role aren't deriving as much value as they think for themselves. It's not self-inflicted, it's the fact that we're still defining each of these parameters in real time. It's an imperfect science — it's not wrong, it's just odd or weird. We've stepped into businesses that have been around for years where you have to reassess it even when you feel like it's right, because of macro climate, cost of living, inflation. You have to keep tabs on it even when you got it right the first time. Ultimately it's a process, an experience you have to keep coming back to on an annualized basis, no matter what. In cannabis, it's a huge luxury to think it's an issue until it comes up in your face — for us, we always try to address it first because it's one of the more pervasive issues we've seen. Kellan Finney: And the best way for business owners to mitigate that is to revisit it annually and recalibrate — is that the best advice you'd give? Mike Siebold: Absolutely, because on the other side, if you're not thinking about this, you start to lose people, and by virtue of that you lose progress, process, trust, faith, hope. Sometimes middle managers who are stellar at what they do are asking for more, not because they're piggish — they have a young family to support, they send money home, they're going to night school for accreditation. Oftentimes people on this career arc who are very good at what they do ask for more, and the business orientation is, "we'll get to that, we'll come back to it end of quarter, or next quarter, or we don't have review for six months" — and then they leave. You try to fill that void with someone as committed, sincere, and loyal, and that's very hard to replicate. If you're not doing it and thinking about it progressively — doesn't have to be annualized, but as much as you can — you risk losing people to a competitor or the open market. The labor market in America is white-hot — it was 3-4% unemployment, now about 4-1, one of the best labor markets in years. Lots of people in manufacturing, production, processing, logistics can go to legacy industry outside cannabis and get a great job because there's not enough labor supply. So it needs to be revisited on a reoccurring basis, because your competitors inside the space are looking after your best people, and competitors outside the space are also looking for that experience and expertise. Kellan Finney: You have to adjust your metrics though, right? It hasn't been the most growth-minded industry the last 12 to 18 months within cannabis. Is there a give and take balance, revisiting metrics and being open in communication with employees about why things are the way they are? How do you tackle that? Mike Siebold: A good compensation package isn't just base, bonus, equity — we've seen appreciation programs, communication about your success, propping you up, training and development. Oftentimes it doesn't take a whole lot — the cost is [laughs] — it's about being seen and heard, having communicated with people about trying to improve a process, then thanking them for it and giving more title, responsibility, and pay by virtue of that. Those are the obvious parts. We've seen total reward programming — most of the generation coming up in cannabis is younger, with a very different orientation of value than people in the C-suite. Oftentimes when we've instituted programming, we say you don't need to increase someone's base by 10-15% for them to feel like you care. What are you doing to give them something they probably wouldn't give themselves, something personal to them — experiences, for example. There's a great business we've collaborated with called WishList — if you meet certain benchmarks or KPIs, or you're a vibrant representation of the business to consumers, you can give people access to a platform for experiences — tickets to a game, taking their family out to dinner. Those small initiatives — even though we joke they're empty platitudes — go a long way if they come from a place of real care. The biggest issue with cannabis is that these businesses go on such an abrupt trajectory — you can go from 60 people to 600 people — it's hard to be careful and thoughtful about everyone's career trajectory. Training and development in cannabis is very absent, partly because there are only so many trusted platforms to train people on a reoccurring basis — most of the time it's internal, personalized programming to get people bought in. It doesn't take a lot to galvanize your workforce and make them feel you're sincere and care about them, because the things that turn people off are lack of communication, lack of career arc and trajectory, and lack of care. Bryan Fields: Just to reiterate to make sure I understood correctly — compensation isn't just about the financial aspect, there are perks outside of that that can make a difference, and some organizations may not think twice about it as they grow from 60 to 600 people, and earlier employees not on that same trajectory might reconsider their opportunities if competitors offer more perks even at lower comp? Mike Siebold: Oftentimes, in our recruitment work, that's the story — "I've been successful, I've plateaued, I've hit some kind of ceiling, I've tried finding ways to affect change, maybe there's no space for myself anymore, is there a way I can find more responsibility?" You were first an assistant general manager, then a GM, then all of a sudden we see these people jump into a regional or VP role. That's the interesting thing about cannabis — your career acceleration is unbelievable. I've been part of a lot of different industries, and in this space specifically you can go from an hourly employee to a manager in a very short period, from manager to VP, EVP, even executive, in a way you really can't get access to outside the industry. But to get that acceleration, oftentimes you have to leave, to find people who want to take your ideas, your know-how, and give you the seat at the table the business couldn't provide, or didn't want to give you. Sometimes businesses don't see you as valuable, as terrible as that can feel, or they don't have the ability to see you because they're so focused on the trajectory they're already on. So often people with growth-oriented personality traits, who learn great skills on the job and want to impress upon executives to give them responsibility, prove their ideas can take flight — sometimes there's no response, and they go to the open marketplace, and depending on the market, it responds very willingly. That's why we always talk about inequity as something to tackle — let's talk about not just pay, but giving people responsibility, knowledge, know-how, experience, expertise — it doesn't need to cost more than you think, sometimes it's perfectly free if you're willing to develop your people. If you do that, you can have people with long tenure who trust the direction you're in even when it's not the right one, and they'll try to resolve issues for you. In cannabis, it's hit or miss — a lot of businesses do it well, but often they miss the mark, or people just want to put themselves on the market — "I got exposure to the best business I could find in proximity, there's no more opportunity here in Southern California, Ohio is about to kick off, I'm originally from Cleveland, I'm going to go stake a claim." We see that talent migration in cannabis is hardcore — people will up and find new opportunity domestically because of career mobility if they can't find it in their area. Bryan Fields: That was the question I was going to ask — what's trending in terms of talent motion within the industry? Are you seeing more people jumping company to company, or more people from outside the industry trying to get in? Mike Siebold: Let's start with outside looking in. Years ago, the sheen on cannabis and the potential upside in equity value — it's not that people entirely misconstrued what cannabis was at that time, it still holds a lot of promise and value, that's why we're all still in the game. We're not wrong, we're just early. The interesting thing about people outside looking in is the macro climate feels precarious, and a lot of people who'd be willing to jump into a field they don't fully understand from a business perspective usually have a personal orientation around it — they smoke weed themselves, or a family member found value through it, often because they were sick or debilitated. People outside cannabis looking in are more apprehensive for a host of reasons — one, we're not sure if the macro climate is going to go kaboom; even though the labor market and economy are relatively healthy, sentiment doesn't match that. Headlines show a series of trials and tribulations of businesses that came up and came back down, so people are getting more educated about what's going on from a commercial aspect before entering the space. These professionals are being more discerning — years ago they thought it was easy riches around every corner, no problem. Now, with more universities and junior colleges teaching cannabis, speaker series about how challenging the environment is, sophisticated people inside the space are saying it's distressed, hard, challenging, much more complicated than people give it credit for. So outside the space, people are more apprehensive. Inside the space, it's a question of where you are in your life — are you a young parent, do you have roots down? These businesses can be precarious or successful, but sometimes short-lived. A lot of people, depending on skill and discipline, are being thoughtful about what a business is giving them that they don't already have, and what the market they're stepping into will be like. If you'd told me a couple years ago that New York — one of the largest cautionary tales we've seen in a program rollout — was going to be a layup, second only to California, maybe eclipsing it — it still isn't working, still isn't functioning. So professional expertise in cannabis is being more thoughtful about market dynamics, regulatory dynamics, and the larger political spectrum with scheduling and rescheduling — does it make sense to make a move right now to a new marketplace when there's potential change on a broader level? Under rescheduling, in theory, cash flow should jump 15-30% for some of these businesses because of 280E being out of the picture — should I jump ship right now, or let it play out, or take a flyer on an early-stage business in Ohio before I know what Ohio is actually going to be? There's a lot more caution collectively. Bryan Fields: We've seen a reemergence of unionization — is that good for the industry, bad for the industry? Tell us about that. Mike Siebold: Unions are not a good or bad thing — they're a tool for solidarity, to lend voice to people who can't find one on their own, to create a collective voice for many. I'm not anti-union, I'm pro-incentive — the idea should be you take care of your people so well that they wouldn't need to look elsewhere for representation. The history of unions in America is interesting — originally created for crafts, then industrialization, predicated around safety — don't get maimed at work, labor abuse in coal mines, am I getting a fair living wage. Unionization is having a huge resurgence, macro and micro, in and out of cannabis — Starbucks, Amazon, UFCW, the Teamsters. We haven't seen this kind of coordinated, mobile, loud organized labor effort in America in over 40 years, since Reagan and Thatcher. Unionization in cannabis is interesting because the grievances people face are the same ones outside industry, usually around pay. When we've worked alongside people approaching a unionization conversation, unions are often painted as corrupt or insincere, not having the interest of card-carrying members at heart — that's not true. Unions are trying in earnest to advocate and create change to represent people at a business that isn't listening to them on a reoccurring basis. When you unionize a business, it changes the complexion of trust — you have a union rep inside the business, and when there's a fault or problem, you go to your union rep first, who talks to the greater union about how it can be changed. It's a natural byproduct of an industry becoming much more formalized and similar to outside industries like retail and hospitality — a natural maturation process. What's really interesting about cannabis is the intersecting disciplines — can a union that's always represented retail workers really know they're asking for concessions from a business that only has so much money to begin with? Are they negotiating for businesses to give more than they have? That's not a grievance the business is trying to perpetuate — they can only give the workforce so much. That's why the creativity piece around solving for inequity is fascinating and fun for me, because there are ways to solve for these issues that don't require collective bargaining. But when you do have unionization, it changes how things are handled in employee handbooks, how things are conferred to management, how issues are resolved. A lot of founders and early executives are unfamiliar with this terrain because unions haven't been representative of this industry for quite some time. So there needs to be education on both sides — executives need to get acclimated to what unionization means, and unions need a contemporary understanding of what these cannabis businesses can provide, and the distress they're sometimes in, and what staff really need beyond an extra 50 or 75 cents an hour. Bryan Fields: Unionization doesn't affect this fragmented market equally, right — it's only going to affect larger organizations where unionization is adopted within their employee population, correct? Mike Siebold: No, you can unionize a single store or two or three stores — it doesn't have to be an institution, a pubco, or an MSO to be unionized. Anyone can — anyone who wants to be a card-carrying member with representation in contractual agreements as a group can go to a union, speak to them, and have the union represent them in negotiations. Anybody, full stop. Kellan Finney: Thank you, I didn't understand that. I think sometimes, exactly like you said Mike, unions get a bad rap, and people come to their defense saying, "So-and-so company is trying to end this union or prevent them from unionizing," when maybe it should be, "So-and-so company doesn't have the compensation available, or there are other internal challenges limiting them from allowing X, Y, and Z" — because if they agree to certain things, maybe they have to do layoffs since they can't afford certain employees. I think that give-and-take balance is what becomes so complicated, and my response to people on the internet who scream about this is that they haven't had to make hard decisions yet. If you say, "they've got the money," you don't actually know that, and sometimes if you push in one direction you get pulled back in another, which isn't what everyone wants. Mike Siebold: I think that's a really good point, Bryan. The idea is, is there an act of dialogue, or is a decision just being made? I think educating everyone in this process progressively is really important. Unions need a contemporary understanding of what cannabis is and isn't; business owners in cannabis need to get acclimated to what unions really do. There's a big divide because both groups are inexperienced with one another, so assumptions are made, and there's a natural mistrust. The better approach is to learn what the business is trying to accomplish and what the staff needs, so when it comes to a bargaining opportunity, unions represent people with all the facts, and management understands what unions can accomplish — not that they're there to hinder a business, but to give voice to people when there was no response. Unionization doesn't just crop up — usually it's because the workforce is disenchanted in some shape or fashion. Kellan Finney: I have a question, but it's going to completely pivot the conversation. Bryan Fields: What do you got? Kellan Finney: Is there a single skill gap missing within the industry that you think would benefit the industry as a whole right now, in terms of individuals? Mike Siebold: I don't think it's a skill gap, but I don't see a lot of forensic accountants. The mechanics of these businesses — if you really looked at the EIN, the tree of ownership and operation — I'm blown away that more accountants haven't wanted to sign up to orchestrate the symphony of financial durability for these businesses. Forensic accounting would be really interesting. Honestly, there's not a singular ERP system, and I'd be curious about data — there are no data scientists that I know of in the space. I know people who work with and create data, but not many who parse data on a reoccurring basis. We have a handful of economists — economists are the unsexiest group of people in the world, but they're pivotal, kind of like our soothsayers. Every time I think there's a gap in a specific skill, someone at that business, because everyone's pretty much a utility player, is able to cover that gap just enough. These are hardcore entrepreneurs, so if there were considerable gaps, most people are trying to address them as a community. That's a great question, I'll have to mull it over. But forensic accounting — I'd be really curious, because you see restatements and financial performance of these businesses be wholly incorrect. That would be an opportunity to have someone from the get-go making sure the numbers are accurate on a reoccurring basis. Bryan Fields: Yeah, that would be interesting — you don't see too many forensic accountants. You hear accounting referred to as "creative accounting," and in my experience I never knew accounting could be considered creative. I wish I could've used that back in college. Mike Siebold: Yeah, I don't know about that — "creative accounting," I don't know if that's a stretch. Bryan Fields: Talk to us about the event at MJBizCon — I know it's a big event attended by a ton of people. Tell us about the value and purpose of it. Mike Siebold: Oh yeah, so it's an HR summit — obviously the nicest group of people you're going to find, people in HR departments are just lovely. The idea is to bring together not just human resource people, but resources for humans — a conversation about the roles themselves, the skill sets, the mindsets. HR people are great because they probably create the most contemporary ideas and versions of workforce development in America. HR is like the most important yet least-used group of people everywhere. Our thought was, why don't we get these groups together — most of them are lovely — and talk specifically about how we're creating standards and practices and providing that to a developing, younger workforce with different expectations. It's at MJBiz, probably four or five hours, there will be some light consumption I assume, but the idea is to bring together chief people officers at every size and stature — we love that mix of the senior squad and the freshman class. We always try to invite as many people as we can from new and emerging marketplaces — we've already invited a lot of people from Ohio, Missouri, New York. Contemporary HR practices are contemporary cannabis practices enabling this next generation coming up, and hopefully we can start to solve for or diminish the obstacles. If I were a betting man, it'll probably be 150 to 250 people, give or take. Kellan Finney: What question do you wish more people asked you — what's your "why"? What's driving you to do this type of work, for a space that, from our conversation, is obviously challenging and not without its faults? Mike Siebold: For me it's very simplistic — I want to know that I used this one career I had to build something that wasn't there, that a lot of future generations will probably never know how hard we had to work for or strive for to build. I want to say that I was there to build it when it was barely an idea. We always had weed, but we started creating parameters around it, and I want to say I was responsible for adding to that a little bit. Kellan Finney: Outside of cannabis, question — why are you such a good cook? Where did that come from? Mike Siebold: I don't know, just kidding. Kellan, you're falling off your chair laughing. Kellan Finney: Dream smoking session, three people, dead or alive. Mike Siebold: Dead or alive, man — dead or alive. You know what, I don't know why, but Dolly Parton is on my list because she just seems great — I think if I smoked weed with her we'd have a hell of a good time. Robin Williams, that's a layup, I'd laugh my ass off nonstop. He did cocaine, but I think we'd enjoy weed together. And the last person, probably a chef, like Marcus Samuelsson or Thomas Keller, because after we got the munchies they'd probably whip something together pretty tasty. So yeah, selfish, but those would be my three. Bryan Fields: You were the first person to think through the process and understand a meal was needed after. Kellan Finney: I thought the chef was so he could have a cook-off, so he could show him how much better — Mike Siebold: I'm not gonna fight you on that one, man, but yeah, that would be a fun crew. What about you guys? Wait, you've been asking all this — what's your one, two, three? Bryan Fields: You want Kellan to go first, or me? Kellan Finney: Mine would be Derek Jeter, Kobe Bryant, and Worldwide West. Bryan Fields: Nice, good group. You thought about that. Kellan Finney: I asked the question, for sure I've thought about it a few times. Bryan Fields: Probably Leonardo da Vinci, Nikola Tesla, and the third one is tough — maybe Elon Musk, or Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius. I feel like it'd be a wild conversation — you're touching different points throughout history. Mike Siebold: Man, Tesla was on my mind too when you said that. I don't know if he smoked weed, but just imagine — I don't think he was a human, by the way, that's why I want to talk to him. We still are wiring electricity around, can you believe it, years later — can you help us? He had a weather machine in his safe, you know what I mean — like, Jesus. Bryan Fields: Anyway, Mike, for those who want to get in touch and learn more, where can they find you? Mike Siebold: Oh, easy peasy — flowerhire.com, mike@flowerhire — small but mighty, with a plucky upstart. And most importantly, and I mean this sincerely, LinkedIn — if you're interested in geeking out about cannabis, if you want to talk about your career trajectory in or out of the space, we're open to it. We love having conversations about what that means and how it translates into the space. Most importantly, for everyone out there who wants to get connected with other people in the space from a mentorship perspective, I think that's probably the best way for people listening outside the space to get involved actively without the risk — if you want to get introduced to operators, to understand boots-on-the-ground what's happening and what it takes, I'd love to connect you, and they'd love to speak to you too. Bryan Fields: Awesome, we'll put it in the show notes. Thanks for taking the time, this was a lot of fun. Mike Siebold: Yeah, thanks guys, this was great, appreciate it. Have a good one, bye.