C.E.O. and founder of Greencare Solutions, Freddy Rashid discusses how he has become a big proponent of regulating CBD and how he plans on shaping the ever-changing CBD market in 2020.
How are all the new FDA cannabis regulations and taxes affecting your business?
They decided to raise the tax on our cultivation once again, so rather than it getting better it’s gotten worse. That’s why the black market continues to thrive because the tax continues to go up. As for CBD, a lot of companies are putting out fake products and lying about how much CBD is in it. They’re starting to regulate that. CBD’s projected to be a 22 billion dollar industry by 2022 and I hope they begin to require licensing for CBD to weed out the fake products.
What does your marketing strategy look like for 2020?
We’ve already been featured by Forbes and SWAGGER Magazine so in 2020 we’re bringing in celebrities as brand ambassadors and continuing to make our products better. We also have our show Green Talk by Greencare Solutions where we feature a new celebrity each week. We continue winning awards as well, this time last year we were 5x award winning and now we’re 13x award winning. We’re hitting all the CBD expos as well this year and pushing out our products through distribution companies to New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and all of Southern California. I have hired over 150 wholesalers this year as well. We also have an innovative product that no one else has which is our CBD Canna Hookah that put us on the map.
Do you think there’s a need to have more aggressive marketing to offset the fact that your costs are going up with these heavier taxes?
Definitely. There’s only a small group of companies you can sell to when you’re licensed because you can only sell to other licensed companies. Because of the high taxes alot of companies are struggling to keep up because it’s so overly regulated. With the taxes going higher the only way to really separate yourself is by having top-shelf exotic strains, really good flower and great marketing and you must have brand notariety. People want to see you’re reputable and that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing alot of advertising this year.
The laws and regulations are constantly changing, have you noticed any trends lately?
It’s hard to be profitable when you’re compliant because you don’t have many dispensaries to sell to, as well as compliant delivery services. Weedmaps is now only accepting licensed delivery services. Now there’s not as many delivery services and if you live in a city without those services you have to sometimes drive 50 miles just to get your products. It’s going to get more difficult for patients, especially when you have to drive such a considerable way. Many will turn to the black market instead because those products are cheaper and closer to them.
What new products or services are you revealing in 2020?
We have our skincare line Hemp Avenue, pain relief pills, and tattoo products. We’re going to be adding SMS API so we can better engage with our customers through loyalty programs. Our goal is to have a new platform to increase customer engagement through text messaging and emails. We’re adding new intuitive software to coordinate campaigns, supports API’s and manage every programmable message. We’re adding more intelligent API’s to gain more insights into each call and wholesale delivery.
