The key behind any industry, any product, any service is like having a community of people of Raving fans that just love you or that speak highly of you or that want to collaborate or be a part of what you do that is sort of the secret sauce. I see for any leader is to create the mindset to create the culture to create the team to create the product and services that basically create the magnetism that really people want to be a part of welcome to the kayak cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow and Scale their operations.
Each week we bring new interviews with industry experts and successful retailers, plus practical tips and strategies to help you succeed in the fast growing cannabis industry, foreign, podcast. I am your host Tom mulhern and I am so excited for this week’s episode, which is my conversation with Matt Ritchie, who is the CEO of inner circle? Inner Circle is a community of cannabis, business owners and leaders who are utilizing the Mastermind approach, philosophy, Mastermind groups to really help develop leaders, and we focus primarily on this type of leadership. But really you can apply this to any type of leadership development for your team, whether that’s you as the business owner or you know your management, your bud tenders.
Developing a team is so important. You don’t have to use the Mastermind approach that Matt shares, but having a system in place to develop your team to get your team from you know that scarcity mindset to a mindset of growth is so key, so I really hope you enjoy this interview with Matt Ritchie and the insights that he shares about leadership, development, foreign, is a passionate and innovative business growth strategist, with over 15 years of experience in driving, impactful results for small and medium-sized businesses. As the CEO of Inner Circle, A vetted and private Community for leaders and advocates in the Canada and alternative plant medicine Industries, Matthew empowers companies to unlock their potential and achieve long-term success.
So, Matt welcome to the kayaks podcast, I’m so excited to kind of jump into some of your leadership strategies and your Mastermind strategies. All of that, but first tell me a bit about your background and how did you get started in cannabis?
I had been working in the Executive coaching space working with teams, Facebook Airbnb some other fast growth startups – that we were working with from 2014 through 2018 and that type of work was something that would have you know really loved doing. You know transformation working with people to see the changes to see their communication barriers drop to see their results and their kips soar as far as being better communicators being better team players being better humans. The vision was basically to offer up my my skills and what I’ve been learning in other Industries to this space, because it was in desperate need of leadership, trusted community and collaborative work efforts, so we naturally just started to connect with people.
That’s my background is really good, connecting with people hosting events collaborative conversations and then masterminds if you’re not familiar with the Mastermind concept, something I’ve been participating in and hosting for over 15 years now. The Mastermind concept is really just good people getting together holding space for each other, and everyone gets what we call a hot seat, which is basically you get to get on and say hey. This is what I’m up to. This is what I’m needing. This is what I’m challenged with currently. Do you have any resources, or do you have any feedback on this current challenge that I’m experiencing?
We basically bring high-level people together to ideate and Mastermind on their biggest challenges.
The intention of this community is really to create leaders of high integrity so that we can Steward the best processes the best Services the best products into the mainstream. I want to dive a bit more into that Mastermind concept. So how does The Mastermind concept work in the Cannabis Community, everyone’s looking for people that have their back right? We all want a community of people that we can trust that we can can lean on. It’S really just a community of people who have each other’s back. Who share resources who have an abundance mindset like I say it’s, not scarcity, it’s not competitive, it’s abundance and it’s collaborative and honestly most people just have never experienced it and just have a scarcity mindset around their ideas and their whatever it is they’re producing, and once You get around that scarcity mindset.
Most people are very open and actually find high value in The Mastermind concept. The only conversation I hear around leadership in this industry is how shitty it is and how they hate people there, leading certain companies and how you know: yada, there’s all this victim negative. Yet whatever that’s fine, because there is a lot of Truth.
A lot of that we stay in places, we can have impact and we don’t focus our energy on things that don’t affect us, that we can’t have impact on so we’re here to basically be that Community for these leaders for people to grow and up level their Games that they can be being embodiment of what they want to see within the industry as opposed to just bitching about it. What is the most important mindset that a leader needs to have to thrive in this industry? I don’t know that it varies industry to Industry, since I’ve worked in a few Industries. Now I think kind of goes back to that growth mindset, the abundance, mindset, the belief and the perspective of that I’m skillful. I have value that I can collaborate and connect with somebody in a OnePlus One equals three right: a synergistic mindset.
The scarcity mindset says I’m going to do my own, adding one plus one equals two and build and build and build, and the growth and abundance mindset says Hey, like who’s synergistic around me, who, in my peripheral, can I synergize with that, can help me grow faster. So people I see that are most successful in any industry, but specifically even in this industry, there are people who are open, who are collaborative, who have that kind of gross mindset who aren’t hoarding all their information or holding all of their their community. And I think that’s the the key behind any industry any product. Any services like having a community of people of Raving fans that just love you or that speak highly of you or that want to collaborate or be a part of what you do.
That is sort of the secret sauce I see for any leader is to create the mindset to create the culture to create the team to create the product and services that basically create the magnetism that really people want to be a part of, and people want to Be a part of something that they can feel like they can share in right.
They feel like they’re, a part of that they feel like they can be. You know engaged with and I think the Best Brands really really build communities that really reflect that and I think that’s a top-down leadership thing from the whoever the CEO is really starting that culture in the company. So, if there is this leader that has this growth mindset, what are some practical ways that these leaders can then incorporate some of these Concepts into their business to help it grow?
If you were to instill the synergistic mindset, collaborative mindset within that group of people that are building that business and that can be like say them knocking on doors to connect with other local businesses – or you know – connect your local groups to speak on the stages Or you know even invite other businesses that are in ancillary to collaborate on marketing stuff like that, so really getting into your communities. I think that’s where most people will get the most traction. Of course you can do a lot online.
I’D say: there’s a lot more people to you know really dive into or to dip into that that pool of people, but if you’re able to do that, if you have a physical, brick and mortar business, you must have to do that as a leader.
You can Define who those synergistic partners are communicate clearly with them, so they can feel the win-win. You know high energy value and then take action, say whether that’s a marketing campaign or that’s an event, there’s tons of different ways. You can do it in a brick and mortar setting it’s similar to what you can do in an e-commerce setting and all of them are collaborative all of them. Are you know, growth and abundance, mind mindset, thinking and it’s really about connecting with the people who are similar to that they say you’re going to find a lot of people who are not similar to that who are still scarcity mindset. Still, you know in that old Paradigm.
The industry is tough right now for dispensaries for Growers for ancillary companies like it’s so easy to fall back into that scarcity mindset. What are some like – maybe practical advice you can give to someone to shift out of that scarcity. Mindset and think forward and think synergistically and look around them and Foster that growth, the people you surround yourself with five people spend the most time with is really going to identify what you think about how you think about things and how you act upon Things so right now, you’re feeling like you’re in a scarcity mindset and no one really wakes up and says: oh I’m goon an scarcity mindset, like most people just don’t know, they’re in a scarcity mindset. But if you were to identify that you are kind of cutting Corners, you are not necessarily looking out for those wins.
Wins surround yourself with people who do and or are because that’s the best way to learn.
It’s like a language right. If you’re going to learn Spanish travel to Mexico and get thrown in the culture for a year or a week or a month and you’ll learn Spanish a lot quicker than if you sit at home and do Rosetta Stone right so find the community of people who Are already doing big things or doing things that you want to be doing?
That’s my biggest thing is like whether it’s a coach, whether it’s a businessperson, whether it’s anybody like find someone who has the results that you want and go find them right.
You know either hire them to work with you or you know, hire them for a Consulting session or take them to lunch, or do whatever find a group that they’re a part of and find other connections like that. The best way to get out of that scarcity mindset is to really surround yourself with people who lift you up, because what I find is most people don’t want to be in a scarcity mindset. So, when you’re in that space, it’s really challenging to make that shift.
But if you’re in that, that mindset of wanting to shift really find a great group of people that can really lift you out of that and inspire you daily, we find we have a lot of solopreneurs of people who are, you know, they’re the main person they’re Doing 80 of the work and they may have a team that does the marketing or they have a virtual team that does some tech work but there, like the you know the ride or die only person in the company and when it’s that, when that’s the case, It’s really challenging day after day week after week, month after month, to stay inspired to stay in that that energy, and you really need to have other people to bounce ideas off of two even like say, just to be inspired someday. Sometimes I need to be inspired right.
The Five People You spend the most amount of time with is what shapes you so on a staff team. How can they identify people that would be perfect for this growth culture? For this positive change that they’re trying to bring to their business, well it takes practice. You cultivate your own right, you start your own and then it always starts within. If you can’t start to change other people or ask people to do things, that you’re not doing like that as a leader that just doesn’t work, that’s not leadership so start within and then when you’re, if you’re interviewing people or when you’re talking to people just listen, Be a really good listener and the thing I listened for and the thing I’m trained in is language: it’s like what are they speaking. Are they speaking negatively to themselves? Are they speaking in future unrealistic terms?
Are they speaking in you know victim negative past mentality?
How are they speaking like? What’s the language they’re using, are they saying they’re trying things? Are they saying they want to do things or are they speaking in positive actionable language? So, when you really get that embodiment of who you want to be and the mindset you want to cultivate as a team, that’s when you’ll obviously start to attract them more, but then you’ll be more attuned to like.
I can feel this person’s energy. As far as you know, where they’re at just one more question, what’s one tip that you would have for a cannabis business to grow fastest way to grow, your business is probably to surround yourself around like say, really, skilled, awesome people in whatever industry you’re in and Then lean on them for support, building that human capital team is the quickest way to really grow anything outside of that, if you’re only yourself, you know starting things off, find something and iterate it just find like say most people find something that they want to sell And they start to sell it in the way they want to sell it, and sometimes times that works some people. Sometimes people really love that other times you need to Pivot or other times.
You need to really take that whatever that first iteration is and build upon it and evolve it, and I think that’s what a lot of people get kind of stuck on. They have a vision and they have a product they want to launch, and but it was for them, and so not always is your your target market or the customer really going to respond to whatever you want so as you’re starting to iterate start small, actually get It out into the marketplace most people over analyze make one or two perfect before they launch it, and then they spend months years and lots of time and money to find out.
That’s not exactly what the market wants, and so I just I would say, people get your product out. There gets your service out there iterated to figure out what works best, really dial it in really Niche it into what is working and then like say the human capital. As far as surrounding yourself around these, you know these types of people that can really help boost your brain or boost whatever it is you’re doing that’s the gold I see for any of these small businesses is really to have amazing humans around them, with great Skills and then just be diligent and be unattached.
I think there’s a lot of ego into whatever we originally created, whether it be a service or a product. So if you can really put your ego aside and let the iteration and let whatever’s whatever the market is telling you be a driving Factor, that’s going to get you there a lot quicker. How can people get connected to you and maybe some events that are happening? This fall like what are some ways that people can join the Inner Circle and and and really be boosted in their business by what you guys are doing. If you’re interested without Biz, you can kind of check out what we’re at there’s an apply button there.
The application is super simple, it’s a couple questions and it basically gives you a 15-minute conversation with me within 15 minutes.
I can tell where you’re at what your business is, what your vision is and if you’re a good fit, if you’re a good Synergy for whatever our community is building here.
If you’re here in Southern California, we host events pretty regularly, we might be in an event near you in a city or new near you later this year and into 2024, you can check out our latest calendar latest events calendar right there. We believe a rising tide lists All Ships and we’re really here to build the Harper for people to sail into this sounds like a great community, and – and this has been a great conversation – I really appreciate you sharing the concepts of Mastermind with me, and I definitely Want to dig in more, I know Tony Robbins and other people are big into this, and so I’m you’ve definitely lit a fire in me to find out more about this leadership style and growth style and yeah. I really appreciate you taking the time on the on the podcast here yeah.
I appreciate you having me Tom foreign from that conversation, especially the whole thought around. Finding those people that lift you up having those positive voices who are really goon an, encourage you to succeed is so key in business. Thank you so much Matt for sharing and if you’re interested in being a part of the Inner Circle, make sure that you head over to their website. We’ve got links in the bio and sign up today.
They’ve got a vetting process. They only let people in the community that really want to be there. I also want to encourage you to head over to the MJ’s website, because kayaks podcast and our company Kaya pushed both been nominated for MJ Awards, MJ bison and we’re super excited and honored to be a part of this. So voting is still happening until October 15th, and you can go over and vote for us and for your favorite cannabis business as a way of just kind of saying, thanks for what we’ve been doing here with the podcast.
Thank you so much for listening for, subscribing and we’ll see you back next week with more conversations about how you, as a business owner, can grow scale and launch your cannabis business foreign thanks for listening to the kayaks podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcast app or visit our website to learn more about our guests and to access the full Archive of episodes from the show us next time. As we continue to explore the world of cannabis and help, you grow launch and scale your business.
https://systeme.io/?sa=sa01001127017938b8fee6d976442eb32c21fa67d8
Discover more from Making Money Is Easy
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
