Ep 1: Mother of Cannabis — The Shift

with Jennifer Muñoz · The Shift, a podcast by Headquarters

Industry veteran on building cannabis distribution, working the events circuit, and why people - not software - still drive this business.

In this episode

Chapters

Transcript

Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability.

0:00 Welcome to The Shift, a little series we put together to give you a real look inside HQ. It's not the polished version, the real one. Because at the end of the day, it's not the tools, it's not the systems, it's the people. The ones behind the screens, behind the calls, behind the deals. They're the reason everything actually works. So, this is where you get to meet them, hear how they think, how they move, and what really goes on behind the scenes. Let's get into it.

0:30 So, today I'm joined by someone who, if you spent any real time in cannabis, you've probably heard about one way or another, Jennifer Muñoz. Also known to many as Mama Jen, and to some, the mother of cannabis herself. She's been in the industry for years, she knows the people, she knows the game. She's lived the sales side, the relationship side, and she's one of those names that carries real weight when she walks in a room.

1:04 My very good Judy, my very good friend, Jen, welcome.

1:11 Thank you, Filip. That was a wild introduction. I appreciate it.

1:15 it? Do you want to share the story of how you and I met, or or when we started working together?

1:31 The first time that you and I met was over a Slack channel, and me begging for information on whether my invoices were paid or not. That's how I can definitely remember I definitely remember sending you messages all the time, and I just know there was a Filip. That's how we met.

1:51 Okay. And feel free to say. So, it was pretty much I was working at Nabis doing AR for Nabis, and you were working at Lime. And our stories kind of crossed through Slack because we were working together in some of the outstanding balances for the retailers that you were doing business with, right?

2:10 Exactly. Exactly.

2:12 And then what actually happened is how we met on a video call was when when you joined HQ.

2:21 This is true. And my first thing was apologizing to you for my behavior. I was just meant to collect invoices at that time. That was my very first thing.

2:36 But it was funny to me because I So So you have a very And then this is like you have a very specific easily easy to remember name, right? But also I've been working with you for It was probably like I'd say it like roughly a year. So I got your name stuck into my memory. And then when I heard you're joining HQ, I was like, "Okay, this is a person that I'm really familiar I really don't know." When when I saw you on the on the um meeting, the face and the actual name sort of made sense and the the tone of communication that we had and all that stuff. So it was it really really made complete sense.

3:16 And then I was like, "Oh my god, I'm so happy that this person is joining the company. This is going to be awesome." And the reason why I said that was I remember from back in the Nabis days, I remember you were really you were a really hard-working individual. Extremely hard

3:35 I was intense. It was an intense time, you know, I I think that's hence AR is intense, right? So um it was a very intense time. We had a lot of open invoices. Um and we needed a lot of help, so.

3:53 Yeah. And as soon as you came in, I was like okay, now we're in good hands good hands when it comes to sales. I was really happy. Um so, I was like, oh, she's going to do a good good deal for us. Oh, everywhere she goes. Um and yeah, that was that was really cool. Anyhow, let me let me switch to something that I was interested and I'm pretty sure everyone would would want to know as well. Cuz cuz you didn't actually start in cannabis, right? You started somewhere else.

4:23 You had a pretty big experience before cannabis and you know, you you've been in cannabis forever a long time now as well, but who was Jen before cannabis?

4:35 I worked at Wells Fargo for 10 years.

4:38 Uh-huh.

4:40 You just wanted me to bring up my event work, my my modeling

4:45 want you to Look, I want you to bring up everything that made you successful in sales in cannabis, which is ultimately your previous experience. So, how how did Jen become this master of sales?

4:58 I mean, I've I've always been in sales, but I mastered sales during my time at Wells Fargo. I was in the top five of the state, you know, and I worked in six different divisions within 10 years, so I was constantly creating and going to each different division, doing something and then moving on. It's always been my MO. But that's where I was really successful. I believe it or not, selling checking accounts is hard and investments through Wells Fargo is is definitely hard. It's definitely not an easy task.

5:30 And how were you successful? What was the reason that you were successful at doing what you're doing?

5:36 I mean, that's just my character. I'm just tenacious. I was always go go go. At one point, I worked in our in-store banking division and I was training people to close equity lines and loans down a grocery store aisle. So, they launched a huge uh it was called the in-store banking division and basically we were opening up checking accounts, boarding loans all over the place. So, that's really started it where I started the rogue sales if you will and that's where I became successful just trial and error.

6:12 Lot of lot of no's. Lot of no's. Going to take the rejection.

6:19 And so, when did the transition to cannabis started? How did it start?

6:23 You know, I like groundbreaking things. I'm very entrepreneurial and I saw an opportunity. Um I had a friend in packaging and he started to make these really big boxes which carried all the eights that were branded. So, I started in packaging and then quickly switched to a brand. Um packaging's boring. Selling means fun. So, that's how I transitioned.

6:48 And I can imagine the shock that when you came into this industry you were like, "Oh Jesus Christ, where did I end up being?" Like this is a complete chaotic mess. What's going on here? Where's everyone going? Where where where all of this is going? Was that your first reaction or how did it look for you?

7:06 No, I thrived because it's it there was no METRC at the time. So, we were just out for rogue selling. Um I was selling for Lowell Herb, which was a very popular brand back then. Really bougie, you know, start of the cannabis cafe. So, um I enjoyed it. You know, it you were just out selling. So, I it wasn't that crazy. It was uh it was actually fun. You know, it's when we were out and about. Um as it's grown it's gotten chaotic. But in the beginning it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.

7:41 Okay. And and so as you were there from the very start and like looking through that entire journey. So so let's let's let's see the analytical Jen. What when when you look at the industry from like from the very beginning up until now first question what changed? And then second second question would be what do you notice a lot of these brands are doing or making mistakes that cause future problems for them?

8:14 Well, what's changed is we used to do the euphoria sell. So we just used to sell sell sell without any data because at the time we didn't have data. I mean we were just starting out right in California it was one of the largest and still is one of the largest um areas, you know, with about 900 plus uh retailers out there. Um at that time we were just selling, you know, I remember selling my first 40 lb like that was exciting. Whether they needed it or not was a whole another story. That was the euphoria sell. You could sell 5 million in a in one month and it was great. But the reality is was it moving from that store? We didn't have any of that data.

8:51 We didn't have anything but a field manager to go out and check on it and try to count the inventory, right? So what has changed now is we have data. We have data from Hoodie, from Headset, POS data from the actual uh shops to build orders. That's what's changed. But what's happened at least in California is accounts and shops have merged and people have been bought out. So all of a sudden the sales rep can spend three days behind a computer building out these orders which you know, we all want our sales reps out selling not building orders. Hence that's why we started the inside sales team here to help with that. Um that is a complete change from when it started or when when I first started almost 10 years ago.

9:43 That's that's actually a perfect intro because the next segment I was like so you came to HQ and were like, "Look guys, I see what you're doing. There is this amazing opportunity in the industry for this." And then you presented to us inside sales and you literally created this entire project. So, how did you notice that HQ had the possibility of executing inside sales to the level that we're doing right now?

10:10 And and how how is it working so far? Like, are you happy with it?

10:15 I'm 100% happy and what I noticed when I came to HQ is there's incredibly talented smart people here. And as a sales leader running a brand, you're not you're not really working on the operational side. So, I saw you guys collecting data, having all this information, and being able to build out a process in record time, right? With the knowledge. I mean, let's face it, brands are hiring sales analysts and if they are, they're rather large uh, companies and they're not focusing on building out an order for a sales rep.

10:50 So, that's where I saw the need. Um, and we tested it and it worked and it's working well. And there's a couple different ways that we go about this. So, when we initially started, there was a customer that came to us that's been around since 2015 that wanted to uh, cut costs. They wanted to eliminate some staff and they wanted to bring accounts in-house. Well, the accounts that they want to bring in-house are these large accounts um, that have 19 shops, 60 shops, 20 shops, you know, nine shops. So, my idea was let me build these orders for you, send it back to you, you go for approval with the buyer. So, really the shops don't know we're doing this busy work behind the scenes.

11:38 Um I can't even put a dollar figure on the amount of money that we're saving them. It's got to be close to 200,000, you know, a year if you think about it cuz they're cutting, you know, overhead and they're also cutting commission. Another customer that we have wanted to rebuild the brand, you know, re um just grow it by a million dollars. Well, the best way to do that is to have a back office, right? So, we're their back office. So, we again are building out orders for the sales rep so the sales rep can be out getting new business. So, we're doing all that busy work in the background, which is working really successfully, too. We were able, you know, to um increase their order size by about 50%.

12:25 And that's just by using data, using it accurately, using par levels, using delivery dates, using actual presence on the shelf. Um and then pivoting and changing those as, you know, the weeks change or as the month changes. Um we're able to identify um out of stocks. We're able to identify um what's moving and what's not and put these reports together for the brands um that a lot of brands don't have access to.

12:56 So, all of those um situations are really are working really well and we're now going to be moving um out of California and to New York and doing the same thing. Um New York doesn't have multiple shop owners. They might, but they still have separate buyers. So, again, you utilizing the same skill set um but, you know, in a smaller sequence, but more shops. So, it's very successful.

13:27 It's working. It's saving companies money. It's saving sales reps time. It's just an overall win-win.

13:38 Pretty much. So so it's it's the entire process is based on like we look at historics. We know the markets. We're going to do this for you. The shops are not going to know the sales because they're going to have more time to do whatever they want to do on the field. And we're going to increase the actual order sizes based on that historics, right?

13:59 Right. And we're using data. Like data What happens is data is dirty. A lot of people don't understand this and I didn't understand this until I came to HQ that a lot of the information that we have from POS systems is dirty. And what that means is the way that it was input or the way that I mean if there's just a slash off a dot off it doesn't come up right. So a lot of times you'll hear the sales rep say, "Oh, that you know, headset isn't accurate or so-and-so isn't accurate." But that's not a true statement. It's just the data is dirty. So when you get it, you might think, "Oh, I'm out of stock on that." So not only that, we take that data and clean it up so that we can make sure that we're making accurate decisions. So there's so much that goes into this that you really can't ask a sales rep to know or to do. I mean you know, it's they don't know how to clean data or nor do they know how to identify that. You know, so there there's so much more that we actually offer um as a service, you know, not just creating a pivot table on steroids, so.

15:05 Yeah. No, that makes complete sense. Now the other thing which is again very important and it sort of relates to this is so we even before you came in we had this other service which is um sales ops. Um and I'm not going to about it because you're you're better at describing the services well, but this is a place where you also figured out how you can how you can go and sell these services to or actually even better, you knew which brands are in need of this service. Can you tell us a little bit why this is a good service, why it's so popular in HQ?

15:44 Again, we want the sales reps out. If you're sitting behind your computer processing orders all day you can't do anything else. And a lot of times these bigger brands already knowing, okay, I'm mandatory going to get an order from XYZ and it's going to be a large order and those take time. That's why our order entry piece is is it's phenomenal for those types of brands. You know, when you're moving you know, 5 million a month, 10 million a month, even 1 million a month.

16:19 You know, it it's still time-consuming and it takes forever and especially if you have a lot of units to put on to an order. All of that takes time and we have figured out a solution to eliminate that. You know, we bring in a team to do so for each individual brand that we bring on. Um, and they're professionals at what they do. I um have never seen anything much like it to be quite honest and I'm not just saying that cuz I work here. I mean it's phenomenal like the way that they execute. Um, I see turnaround times anywhere from 15 minutes, sometimes faster.

16:56 Uh, they know what to ask. They know, um, you know, out of stocks. They know first in, first out. Uh, that's the one thing HQ specializes in is we know cannabis and that's all we've been doing is cannabis for the last 6 years. There's no ramp-up period. There's no training. I mean, there might be, okay, what's your policy? What we build out a SOP and then the team follows it.

17:19 Um it's a no-brainer when I know that there are some of these companies out there that need this help. You know, so it's just from me being in the industry for a long time, understanding who um can benefit from the service.

17:34 Yeah. And ultimately, again, it puts the sales guys actually on the field where they are supposed to be, and then we're going to do all of that boring, time-consuming work for you. Um cool. And so let me um go back to to something that's more of like uh Jim personal, right? Cuz we we had a bunch of conversations about a bunch of stuff. Uh you do often uh attend events, obviously, as the majority of people in the industry do.

18:14 I want to know cuz this is very it's a it's a very different Well, not a different, but like it's a very specific type of an approach that you have when you go to different events. Can you explain the strategy of when you go to cannabis events? How do you approach the event itself? And what is your main goal when you're going to cannabis events?

18:36 It depends on where I'm going. In California, I know most of you know the brands, the retailers, so it's a little bit different. But moving out of state, you I want to research, you know, the top 10, the top 50 players, be able to engage via LinkedIn, um be able to go to the events where I'm going to meet the key players, where I can present how I can save them money, and make them money, right? And we do all of that, cuz it's not just inside sales piece and and order ops.

19:11 You know, it's all of our collections and the amount that we collect across the United States and and how we do the process. That's the key thing is sure you can hire someone to collect AR, but we've figured out the secret sauce. Like we figured out how much time it takes. We track internally um from operational standpoint something that I've never seen before. Um and we figured that part out and we've been doing it. So there's always that and we are doing it for an affordable price. That's the other thing majority of our services are affordable. They're not, you know, outlandish. A lot of times we can even enhance an AR service or we can take over everything. So there's so many different things.

20:00 Even Filip just in the retail environment going in and taking over like their master data management services like we've been able to do that for several of our large retailers. And what that means is we're taking over their METRC. We're processing um orders that are coming in with our night team. And we're also um creating shells for new products and we're doing that all while everyone's sleeping so that the next day when they get receive the inventory, all of that paperwork is already processed. We're able to create a system behind that that makes that faster, more seamless. Um that's what we're good at. And that's what I see as a positive uh moving forward in our industry especially in our dispensaries where money is really tight. Taxes are tough.

20:54 Uh they're looking for other ways to save money and that's what we do. We save people money and they can also make money at the same time. It's two-fold.

21:06 And 2026 is especially crazy given that everything's, you know, happening in the world right now. So, it does make sense. But, let me So, if if I was a brand, right? And I came to you today and I I was like, "Jen, give me one piece of advice so that I can grow faster in 2026, what would you tell me?"

21:31 You need to have your sales reps out. Like, they need to be knocking on doors. They need to be upselling. They can't be behind the computer. We're giving them two days to be behind the computer and only three days to be out. Time is of essence. Right? Time is precious right now. Have your sales rep out. Have them have a plan. So many times it's like, "Oh, I'm going to see Filip today." You know, do you have a plan on what you're going to sell to Filip? Right? If you don't have a plan, if you haven't looked at his menu, if you haven't seen what your competition's doing, that's a problem.

22:09 And if you haven't said, "Okay, what is Filip going to say? And do I have that idea like I think Filip's going to say this, so my response is going to be this." I think Filip's going to say something about margin, here's my response to this, right? Like, having all of your ducks in a row and being out there. So, have a plan, one, and two, be out there.

22:32 I can't say that enough, and that's where HQ comes in to help with that. With the collections piece, with the inside sales piece, with the order entry piece, etc. from a brand standpoint.

22:51 Yeah, that that really now that I think about it, it really makes sense because ultimately what's happening is we are doing this stuff for you so that your sales rep can get more exposure, your brand can get more exposure cuz your sales reps are going to be on the field, but also you're thinking we're saving you a lot of time, ultimately saving you a lot of money as well.

23:14 Um but then when you think about that sort of preparation or planning as you said, think of the scenarios of what you what can happen on the field on those conversations cuz ultimately everything's about relationship in this industry. So when you prep when you plan when you prepare as you said, it makes a lot of sense. So

23:35 You have You can't just go in blind, right? You have to have type of a process in place or something that you know, how am I going to get Filip to add three more of my SKUs? I have 20 gummies. I only have 10, you know, what's the strategy behind that and how um we have an oversaturated market in California, right? And in a lot of states, um you know, the markets are getting oversaturated, it goes down. Um there's price compression. There's a lot of these situations. In California, there's not a lot of people growing their own product.

24:12 They're usually sourcing. So it can definitely cut into your margin if you make an error uh with pricing. So I mean, my strong suggestion to a brand is to have your sales rep out and have them have a plan. Right? I mean, there's so much like I'm watching again going back to the inside sales piece, how we sit with a sales rep and actually strategize and create a SOP behind it.

24:40 So for example, if you wanted to not just use the data, but you wanted to add new SKUs. I mean, we follow an SOP behind that. So there's everybody has a different story, a different tactic of how they want to do things and how they're going to get the buyer to, you know, approve these orders. We're just doing all the busy work, so we're basically a sales assistant for the sales rep.

25:07 Yeah.

25:08 I mean, what more could you ask for, right? And And for the people that are cutting costs altogether, um or even moving, you know, a lot of people are doing third party and they're thinking, "Okay, uh maybe that's not working. We're also an excellent source right then. So, maybe you only want to have one sales rep in the north, one sales rep in the south. We're an excellent, extremely affordable option to handle all the big accounts.

25:41 That's another uh situation that I've talked to a couple clients about um that we're currently getting ready to work with. So, it's I only have one sales rep in northern California, I only have one sales rep in southern California, I need help. Let me take the big accounts. Let me build out the orders for you, submit it back to you, sales director, or back to you, you know, leadership. You can shove that back over, get it approved, then we process it for you.

26:15 Yeah. And um that's that's very interesting because, you know, what you said is sort of like, "Oh, here's a solution uh to a lot of your issues. If you follow them, probably you're going to have them fixed. Obviously, mistakes can happen here and there, but given that and given what you just said, which is like, "Get your sales guys on the field, get them out." What do you How do you see the cannabis industry um in the next, let's say, 3 to 5 years from now?

26:47 I mean, I hope it's federally legal by then. That will uh solve a lot of issues brands are currently having retailers are having, right? Um until that time I think more shops will go into receivership. There will be a lot of of uh brands and retailers merging together. I think you'll see more wholesale selling. Um I definitely we see that now. We see some of the larger MSOs beyond the California.

27:15 Right? Um which I think is beneficial. Uh There's still you know listen, boutique cannabis is still going to be around and that's great. We we need that. I just think that more brands will consolidate, fall under one realm, you know, have better marketing, have better margins, have a better process in place. That's what I see happening. And I think you'll you'll see a lot of outsourcing and that's where we come in, you know, we're able to save money.

27:50 It's the name of the game and process it faster.

27:55 Yeah. And what's what's the Okay, so so this is a very good sort of ending to the I want to wrap it up now. And uh we kind of touched touched about the future of cannabis. But what I want you to tell me right now is like what was the thing that Jen learned in HQ that she didn't know before such as what you you actually gave us an example of I did not know that the data is so dirty at at that it needs to be cleaned.

28:33 Is there anything else that you've learned in it while while in HQ?

28:40 I I've learned so much. A lot of brands can't afford to have a sales analyst or an engineer or you know, someone that is a master at creating spreadsheets that are beyond what my scope, you know, or the majority of people's scope is. Um there's so much talent here and they're like, "Jen, I could do that and I can do that faster. I can do that better." So, there's so much knowledge here with cannabis.

29:15 So, that's the first step is like everyone knows cannabis here. Which is amazing because a lot of times you can hire a company and they they don't know, right? So, there's training, there's ramp up and usually usually doesn't work out. Here we already know that. And so, when I can identify a problem or a situation that I see in the industry I could run that by one of our team leads or our CEO and they're like, "Oh, we can solve that problem." I think that's the biggest thing I've learned here. I feel like it's Christmas every day, right?

29:48 Because on my brand, we couldn't afford to have these types of people on the payroll and right now, you know, it's like, "Hi, can I get a sales analyst?" Hi, how about no, right? So, right right every every moment every penny counts. So, having this team that can create things and me having this idea from my experience is something definitely that I've learned. Like um like I said, I was super excited cuz I was like a little kid in a candy store. I was like, "I can create that, Jen, or I can do that." And to see them do it and do it right and do it well is super exciting. It's super exciting cuz I as a brand, you know, I still think as a brand and always probably will.

30:34 Um it's exciting to see that I can offer uh affordable services to people um and my fellow brands out there, right? And I get it. I get their pain point. I think I've been through every struggle. I've tried and pivoted every idea. Um, so to be able to translate that to the headquarters team and for it to actually execute and work, um, for example, like I just mentioned the inside sales team, um, is something to be excited about.

31:07 Yeah, that's great. Cuz I mean, look, this majority of this video or this podcast series or whatever you want to call it, it's going to be like it's going to sound a little bit like a self-promotion thingy, but I don't care because it is. It is a shift. It is The Shift and it is about the people from HQ. So, what you're saying is, and and I could not agree more with you, is look, if you want to grow, HQ is going to help you with that because we're going to cut you cut costs for you pretty much with these professionals that we have in our company. Cuz you know Jen as well as I do, like every single person that HQ hires is a person that has to have cannabis experience in some some matter.

31:53 And then also, they have to be a pro in the field of whatever they're going to be doing. So, if it's an AR person that had they had to work in AR previously, if it's uh, if it's an accounting person, they have to work in accounting previously. If it's uh, um, a sales office person, again, they have to have that experience. So, love how we've sort of circled round this entire video and I'm really happy about that. And um, I just want to ask you one last question before we finish.

32:23 Uh, do you want to share with the folks what is your favorite food?

32:33 You're already going to say it for me, Filip.

32:37 Seabass. And also, you're

32:39 not a white wine drinker, right?

32:43 No, I am not.

32:47 Love that. Well, thanks, Jen. It's always a pleasure talking to you, especially in this setting, cuz this is a little bit of a different setting for us. Um but yeah. Really really big pleasure talking to you again uh uh about everything HQ, about everything Jen, and about everything Cannabis. So, thank you very much. And uh see you on the next meeting.

33:10 Okay. Bye.

33:12 All right. Bye.