“The biggest complaint we hear in interviews is people leaving other dispensaries because of toxic environments”

Chris Joswiak (partner and purchaser of KOB) and I have a mutual long time friend, so when they reachead out I directed him to my good friends brand Ghostbudsters to assist them early in the days of the crossover from medical to licensed stores. I was extremely busy myself at the time and connected the parties to each other without thinking twice about it and moving on. 

Last week as I was doing my research on store fronts in Michigan licensed arena, KOB came up, and I discussed some numbers we assumed they were doing at their stores with my cannabis friend. I was floored with the trajectory of this hard driven company and what it’s accomplishing. That’s when it dawned on me, this is Chris’s brand he is part owner of and we need to talk about what they’ve been doing the last couple years. Enjoy the interview below.

When KOB Monroe first opened were you prepared for how busy your store was going to be?

We had a general idea of how the traffic would be to start, we anticipated it would be a high-volume store but you never really know until you open up. KOB always had a strong medical following from Ohio and we knew people were excited for our first recreational store to open up right over the border. Ahead of opening, we also studied the nearby competition, counted the cars in their lots and analyzed how much time the customers spent in the stores. Almost every day during construction we would turn away dozens of customers who didn’t realize we weren’t open yet. Ahead of our actual opening, we were planning on just accepting some of those customers who drove by but it turned into a massive line of over a hundred customers waiting for the doors to open. It was a rushed, stressful, battle-tested soft opening due the merger of Dutchieand Leaflogix POS systems on the same day; we ran into countless hardware issuesand weren’t prepared that day for the rush but we made it work and were stronger for it afterwards. Over the course of the next few months, business continued to grow and we just kept adding more registers, beginning with ten, we are now up to twenty stations, with a new online ordering suite coming shortly which will increase our total to twenty four.

Do you see KOB growing more, possibly as a  future mso?

We are definitely in expansion mode and on the fast-track right now. After only havingone medical store in Detroit for a few years, we now have three recreational locations (Detroit, Ferndale, Monroe) with our next location, New Buffalo location coming in themfirst quarter of 2024. While we still have some future options inside of Michigan for potential growth, we have some great out-of-state partners who have the goals of expanding far outside Michigan and into several select states in the years ahead. One of our partners, Justin Ratledge, is great at finding new potential locations and handling everything that comes with trying to secure a great spot and license, which is a huge contributing factor to our recent success.

How many bud tenders at a time do you run in your stores?

Monroe actively has about 75 budtenders on staff, many of which drive upwards of anhour to work every day, with 18-20 budtenders working each shift. Detroit and Ferndale run with 4-10 budtenders on at a time. We take great pride in our budtenders; they are the backbone of our company and really make KOB what it is. Being a true, full service “deli-bar” store, they truly are the main attraction. We have such a unique group of budtenders that really are some of the most charismatic and knowledgeable in the industry. Everyone always mention that our budtending teams could have their own reality TV show.

How do you train bud tenders to accomplish such great sales numbers?

We have put together a great implementation and training team of managers that prepthe budtenders before they hit the sales floor. While we have many employees who come from previous dispensaries, we really enjoy bringing in staff with no experience which really allows us to mold them into the KOB way of budtending. Once trained they hit the ground running and we often incentivize them with daily, weekly, or monthly prizes. We have given out cash rewards, concert tickets, TV’s, and soon a brand new Rolex watch. It is amazing how hard the budtenders will compete as a team or individually for the rewards and drives their personal sales numbers up significantly. In Monroe, we have budtenders achieving over $30,000 in individual sales during their shift, which is more than many stores in the state do in a day. We also have a great network of vendors that constantly visit our stores for product training which leads to a more knowledgeable staff to push sales further.

how many employees does the company have?

King of Budz currently employs 150 people between the three stores, including many people who work at multiple KOB locations. We treat our employees like family and it is a very close-knit team, so it is easy to find talent because customers are drawn to the vibe and want to join the squad. Currently we have about 300 applications waiting for interviews or positions, which is kind of surreal in itself, but allows us to really be selective in finding the right people to mesh with the rest when we need employees. The biggest complaint we hear in interviews is people leaving other dispensaries because of toxic environments, so we really work hard to make sure it is an enjoyable place to come to work and have fun every day so that doesn’t end up being our former employees saying that about KOB. I believe we also must have probably the best employee retention rate in the industry, we haven’t had anyone in the past 6 months leave for a different job or company.

How many different brands do you carry?

King of Budz carries about a hundred different brands between all the productcategories and we have about 40 cultivators that we work closely with. We meet with new brands daily to ensure we have the most cutting-edge products available at thevery best price. Cultivators will always remain our primary focus though, we workclosely with our growers and have a strong bond with all of them. Many companies offer us their entire harvest now or they grow somewhat exclusively for us, so it is awesome to carry some really unique strains that we are known for. Uniquely, the Monroe store has over a million dollars’ worth of inventory on displayed on the sales floor alone, which is probably up there with some of the biggest in the country.

what kind of experience are you trying to create for your customers?

The vibe in our stores is everything. Even state inspectors mention how they notice thevibe within our store and how it is unique. Currently we offer a special shoppingexperience in both Monroe and Ferndale, with a large remodel soon to be coming in Detroit that will replicate the same look and experience. Many customers mention that the stores give the feeling you would expect in a Cali or Vegas-based dispensary, and we love to hear that. We want the customers to feel comfortable, enjoy their stay, and feel that they have left with the right products or meds for them. With our Detroit medical roots, we have really become known for making a bond with our customers. Personally, I know over a thousand customers by name and share a unique bond with all of them. We love our customer base because many of them have been so loyal to KOB for many years, we are blessed to be part of their daily or weekly lives.

What age did you start playing hockey?

I played hockey basically my entire life, from age 5 to now 37. We now have a LocalGrove x King of Budz hockey team that we get together for the Fall/Winter season. Hockey has been a huge part of my life, being a goalie for my entire career, I had the opportunity to travel the world playing the sport, win national championships, earn a college education, and led to a career in the hockey industry for over a decade that I had a great passion for. Hockey has been intertwined with all aspects of my life, especially my life-long friends, who all played the sport. I especially enjoyed the bond that it provided with my dad and now I get to share that same bond with my own son Jakob, who is turning four and loves hockey more than anything. My dad still comes to every one of our men’s league games, something not many dads do anymore at my age.

How does one go from a former goalie in college to retail cannabis?

Spending much of my adult life with a hockey brand, Brian’s Custom Sports, I was able to continually grow into new roles as the company expanded. Starting as a grass roots marketing intern right out of college, I eventually took over much of the marketing/branding, became the pro rep, and worked heavily in product development.Those years of experience in marketing/sales/branding gained the interest of my dad’s close friend, Al Shemami, who chose me to help takeover his Detroit location and evolve it into something more. During the past three years Al has become a big part of my life and I will be forever grateful for him and his family to give me the opportunity and trust me to help grow their vision for King of Budz. Hockey was always my passion; I enjoyed the hockey industry very much but the cannabis market really has unexpectantly consumed me and I live and breathe for this industry now.

What’s the number one concern running a multi location provisional center?

Personally, the scaling and time management is tough. My days are so consumed withphone calls, meetings, and running between the three stores. We have a great team in place at every store, but my main focus now is really doing the purchasing for each location, which we spend about two million dollars every week in goods. Our ownership team have done a great job on having everyone focus on their specialized roles, so I have cut down on a lot of the day-to-day operations of each store to focus more on the purchasing which I take great pride in. As a whole, I think the main concern is keeping every store is kept to the same standards of quality, compliance, and uniformity so that all the stores uphold our expectations of what a King of Budz store is. 

How many customers a day would you estimate walk into KOB? How many are new versus regulars?

On a regular Saturday, King of Budz will collectively between the three doors seearound 3,600 customers with over 16,000 cannabis products sold. Our Monroe location is in the top 3 in the Midwest for traffic/sales, but it is almost equally as impressive of how many people we can currently get through our Detroit store right now running on four registers before the expansion. In our more established stores, Detroit and Monroe, our daily new customer rate is about 20-25% compared to regulars, currently Ferndale is about 50% new customers as it’s a brand new location.

What is the KOB ownership comprised of?

We basically have a few small ownership groups within the King of Budz company. We have our original founding team of the Shemami’s and my family, we have our partners in Monroe/New Buffalo who were long-time growers and have significant history in the cannabis world, and we have our newest partners in our Ferndale store, Local Grove. In addition, we have great out-of-state partners who will provide long term funding and unsurmountable experience to the table for our future ventures as well as access to unique tools to help us scale. This ownership team really differentiates us from the rest of the retail market and is the main reason for our quick and effective growth strategy.

What has been the hardest part of the business for you?

Really the most challenging moments were the early days when we took over theDetroit store. We opened the store in middle of COVID, September 1 st , 2020, right when they stopped allowing care giver product in stores, and there was basically nothing available for METRC med flower at the time and prices were incredibly high. Justin Kady and I worked tirelessly to try to secure the best product we could for the store. Fortunately, many people like yourself helped connect us with some great growers to hit the ground running and we also had a friendship with Local Grove which provided us high-end product that was only in a few other retail outlets at the time, giving KOB some great exclusivity and clout within the industry quickly. I will never forget those early challenging moments and will never take for granted how readily and accessible products are today.

Well when Jon Wheeler reaches out to me I do everything and anything I can to reciprocate the mutual networking we do for each other and friends, I think I mentioned Chris and Ghostbudsters to you.

What sets KOB apart from the rest of the competition?

Simply the culture. Our stores are special because people recognize this. We aren’tcorporate. We are true to the game and have our fingers on the pulse of the industry. We listen every day to our customers and watch their buying trends to make sure we procure the right products for our customers and make sure they leave happy and come back for more. Every day we have calls and meetings with some of the brightest minds of the industry to see how we can push the needle further. Our stores, especially in Monroe (being the busiest Cannabis city in the state) and Ferndale (being a very centralized, metro-Detroit location) are both hot spots for the industry to come visit and exchange ideas and sample products. Our culture also bleeds into the employees. Many of them take such pride in our brand, their Instagram handles often include @KOB and they proudly represent our brand outside of the store every day. It’s truly a special place with special people.

Name: Chris Joswiak

Age: 37

Location: Bloomfield Hills, MI

Position: Partner, Head of Purchasing

Company: King of Budz (Detroit, Ferndale, Monroe, New Buffalo – Coming soon)

Chris again thank you for your time I think people can really attain some eye opening information from this conversation. I hope to reconnect again this fall with you.