Big time.
Because the thing is, cannabis is an increasingly crowded market. It’s young and new and chockfull of potential.
So it’s not going to be enough to just come up with the financial capital to keep your business flying high. (Pun intended.)
Your reputational capital weighs just as heavy. In fact, it may even take precedence.
What Is Reputational Capital?
If you haven’t figured it out already – or you didn’t go to high school for some reason – your reputation is important.
It’s important that your customers and your employees trust you and want to do business with or work for you. And THIS is the reputational capital you need to build.
Your repetitional capital isn’t based on appearances. It’s based on actions that build trust.
In other words, the shiniest floors and best-looking employees aren’t going to make a shred of difference if you have a reputation of being untrustworthy.
Reputational capital is its own form of currency. For every positive action you take, you increase the value of that capital. That means for every negative action, you decrease the value.
Building this capital takes time. And it cannot be bought. But there are things you can do to stay on top of the process and get ahead of the game.
1. Establish Yourself As a Authority
How much do you interact with the cannabis business industry?
If you want to be a respected voice in the community, you need to have a presence. And we’re not just talking about a physical presence – although that’s important too.
In order to build your reputational capital, you need to find a way that will result in your peers and customers seeing you as an expert and an authority in the business.
So get your voice out there. Speak at events. Submit stories to upstanding publications. And keep an active blog. Write REGULAR articles and blog posts in your area of expertise. That means plan on posting at least once (preferably twice) per week.
If you’ve got something informative to say that’s going to help potential customers in some way, they will start listening.
2. Hold to Your Promises
Nothing says shoddy business like a broken promise.
Have you ever made a purchase, only to get a product that doesn’t even closely resemble what you thought you were getting? If you said no, then congratulations. You’re clearly special.
And most of us have been taken at some point. If you have, then it’s safe to assume you didn’t rush back to the vendor. Although you may have actually rushed the vendor. In either case, it’s not good for business.
So don’t make promises you cannot keep. Because every broken promise will hack away at your credibility and reputation.
3. Be Nice
That’s basically it.
Establish your morals, stick to them and don’t be crooked. No matter how tempting.
Sure, some folks may deem the cannabis industry as one that has crawled from a dark den of iniquity. That seems extreme. But whatever the case, it’s still not like running a business on Wall Street. In this industry, behaving ethically is good for business.
Cheating and lying in the name of opportunity is not going to serve you. Customers will find out and you can kiss that reputational capital adiós.
And while we’re on the topic of behaving ethically to build that capital (and because, um, it’s the right thing to do), be sure that it extends to all your other business practices. In other words, run a business that pursues gender and racial equity, that cares about the community where it operates and that is also environmentally sound.
Positive Action Is Worth More Than Gold
While scaling your cannabis brand and business, it’s crucial you keep building your reputational capital.
The more you develop it, the more your company will stand out and the more likely you are to find success. Plus, you’ll be better suited to weather the inevitable storms that come with running a business.
If you’re interested in how we can help you with public relations so you can start establishing more of a name for yourself, contact us today. We’ll make your business our business.