The focus at Trail Blazin’ Productions is always on producing the finest buds possible, but management decisions like hiring often take precedent and weigh just as heavy on the bottom line.
The following op-ed was originally printed in the December 2017 issue of Marijuana Venture, on sale now.
Danielle Rosellison
Co-owner
Trail Blazin’ Productions
Bellingham, WA
The good news is that since Jan. 1, 2017, we’ve doubled our production and are a hair away from tripling our sales, all while maintaining brand integrity. For the first time in three years, I am cautiously optimistic that this is really going to work, and not just something I say to convince myself and others that all this hard work is worth it.
The bad news is that “Living the Dream” right now entails doing stuff I’ve been moving down on my to-do list for as long as I can remember: employee handbook, on-the-job injury forms, emergency contact forms, finalized standard operating procedures, emergency preparedness plans, standing orders, budgets for departments, Craigslist ads and interviews.
We’re at the point that in order to make the next jump, all these things have to be in place so that we can seamlessly (HA!) endure exponential and rapid growth. And there is NOTHING fun about doing it. I would have hired someone to do it, but we’re not quite at that point either. There are a lot of management-level decisions that need to be made and thus, the tedious paper-pushing falls into my lap.
The one saving grace in all of this i-dotting and t-crossing are the interviews. Although they take a lot of time, the reward is tangible. First, our interview process has been refined from three questions to 12 questions, from one interview with one person, to two interviews with three people and to an interactive model that is both serious and silly (much like we are). We’ve learned not to be in a rush to hire. Wait. Do it right. Hire the right person. Don’t hire out of desperation. And while it sucks to let people know they weren’t the right person for the job, it is epic when those new hires come in day after day smiling ear to ear and say, “Thank you. I LOVE my job!”