By Michael Sassano, founder and CEO of Solaris Farms, one of the largest and most high tech cannabis growers in Nevada, and Head of the Board at Somai Pharma, a medical cannabis product distributor in the European Union.

Don’t panic, but it’s time to look at a slow down in all businesses, including cannabis sales. Recently, I have been traveling as the Coronavirus started to spread across the globe. Everywhere i travelled I would see empty airports, no lines, plenty of cabs, upgrades at hotels, and empty restaurants. It became readily apparent that people aren’t traveling. A few friends joked that sales will go up as people stay at home and smoke more, but trends show that sales are down across the board.

Maybe take a crop out of rotation and slow your velocity of spin; you can always increase it later and you still have 3 months of your normal harvests that will need to be dried and stored as backup for the lost crop. It’s also important to suspend any tours you may provide and implement serious restrictions for staff; these precautions could include a questionnaire about travel in the past 14 days, a manual temperature check, and all masks, bodysuits, hair covers, gloves, and booties needing to be alcohol sprayed from head to toe.

Nobody can pass up a good deal; and generally dispensaries don’t have overly large inventories and can always fit some extra poundage in their vault rooms. Offer the dispensaries extra value add during this time and help them with your social media, or by using some of the sales proceeds to advertise on Weedmaps or Leafly to help drive traffic through the doors or promote their delivery capabilities if people don’t want foot traffic. Take care of the bud tenders since they are not at home but actually working for us all. Some kind steps go a long way in the cannabis community.

Information in these situations is important in making proper decisive decisions. Monitor daily sales numbers. Give more specials than usual. Reduce prices. Look for good buying opportunities to replenish stock. Reduce business hours and staffing hours. Encourage people to take time off if they financially can. Increase or add to your delivery advertising, it’s always good to promote this capability if you have it. Curbside delivery is also becoming an attractive option for both dispensaries and stuck-at-home consumers. If you’re able to keep your retail space open, make sure to instill very thorough wipe down procedures and limit the number of buyers inside the shop.