The Importance of Identifying an Untrained Cannabis Budtender

When was the last time you bought cannabis from a budtender?

A budtender, in its simplest terms, are people who work for a cannabis store online or in retail stores. These staff members have the knowledge to give you recommendations on which cannabis strains or products to buy based on your specific needs.

Obviously if you’re ordering your cannabis online in a place like Canada for your CBD and THC products, your interactions with the budtender will be limited or pretty much zero.

If you’re frequenting dispensaries, it’s helpful if you can understand how well trained or how poorly trained your budtender is.

One can view budtenders as the customer service members of a dispensary. These are the frontline staff who must be able to answer all inquiries of everything cannabis-related.

Why You Need to Identify Good Budtenders

It is really important for a cannabis business and customers to identify if a budtender is trained in what they do and know what they are talking about.

When dispensary staff lack the essential knowledge about the nuances of different cannabis products, it can result in negative experiences for the customer, who may never return to that dispensary again, or may give up on cannabis completely if they are new to it.

For example, if you are just looking for a cannabis strain that only has CBD properties that will help you wind down and sleep better, you are probably looking for Indica strains.

However, if the budtender mistakenly recommends a Sativa strain type that has THC, it can give you the opposite effects you need.

And a budtender who really knows their stuff will know that Indica versus Sativa is actually meaningless when determining the effects of cannabis, and can get you dialed in with cultivars that have the necessary terpene profiles to match your desired cannabis goals.

Another example can be if you wanted to experience cannabis in a fast manner but also produce no strong smells. An ideal option is using a THC vape pen as the effects are pretty much instant to. Dry herb vaping could be another option where a budtender should be able to provide recommendations.

If you’re interested in buying edibles online, a good budtender should be able to walk you through all the nuances there as well, such as how to avoid taking too much at once and how long the effects of edibles last.

The packaging of the edibles should show you how much CBD is inside the product. If it does not meet your standards, simply pick another product!

Packaging is also important as it will influence the kind of activities you do while taking edibles.

In this way, you can see how vital it is for budtenders to know what they are doing. You can’t be giving bad suggestions to people, especially when cannabis can have strong side effects.

Another thing to watch out for is that a lot of budtenders are trained to upsell customers into buying products more potent than they actually need. Not good!

Qualifications To Be a Budtender

So, what qualifications do you need if you want to become a budtender?

Canada is a good example here, since it was the second country to officially legalize cannabis.

According to the Government of Canada, all workers need to meet the following requirements to work in a cannabis store:

• Minimum of 19 years old
• Security verified
• Be able to provide ID if asked by inspectors
• Give the Province your personal information such as address and legal name
• Passed the Selling it Right course

These are the basic things you need to be able to qualify and be a budtender. For every country, there are different requirements.

If you live in the States, they also have their own set of rules that you need to follow, depending on the State.

As you can see from the laws in Canada, the bar for entry is not high for budtenders, which can create customer experience issues around a product where people have a lot of knowledge gaps.

3 Tips to Become A Great Budtender

To give you the best success in identifying an untrained budtender from a trained one, here are 3 tips you can use for yourself to become a better budtender.

1 - Know Your Products Inside Out
It will be extremely hard for you to talk about cannabis products if you have not even seen or tried it.

A great budtender will know each and every product that is selling in their dispensary. This does not mean you need to be an expert in every single product that is for sale.

It just means that you should at least have a strong enough knowledge of each cannabis category, not only for CBD oil products, to be able to give proper advice for cannabis customers who walk in the door or from an online inquiry.

2 - Know Your Regular Customers
In pretty much every business, there will always be customers who come buy from you more frequently than others.

While some customers may just come to you when there are some discounts or just to try you out, there are other customers who stay loyal to your brand and keep coming back for more.

These are the customers you truly need to connect with as they more often make a huge part of your customer base. If you can learn their likes and dislikes, you’ll be able to recommend products most relevant to them.

Chat them up in a friendly manner and also be sure to remember their name. Little things go a long way and they will be more inclined to spread your business name around with their friends, giving you more customers. You can’t beat word of mouth!

3 - Do Not Upsell Just for The Sake of It
As a business, you might be trying to upsell to customers every chance you get. However, this can hurt you in the long run as customers can smell this a mile away. Be careful about this tactic, as you don’t want customers to have a bad experience and never come back again.

Only recommend products that you feel can truly benefit them. Do not try to take advantage of their inexperience and make more money in the short run.

By giving helpful advice to cannabis customers, they will appreciate your honesty and come back for more as they see you as a trustworthy expert who is not taking advantage.

Dispensaries Need to Take of Their Budtenders

A budtender can make or break your cannabis dispensary. If you have a superstar employee that gives your customers the right resources they need, this is someone you should reward as they will help your company grow more and more each year.

Avoid costly mistakes when hiring budtenders such as only looking at experience and not their personable skills. Sometimes, a less experienced person that values a company's policy is a better choice to hire rather than an experienced person with bad manners. A good dispensary will offer training and education opportunities to their budtenders no matter what their experience level is.

In the end, budtenders have a specific combination of knowledge and willingness to help others in order to be successful.

A good budtender situation requires a great workplace that facilitates cannabis education and training.