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E139 – Everyday feels like Friday with High Day

 There is an app specifically designed to sell more weed. In this episode, Kirk and Trevor hear the story of a serial entrepreneur who has curated a comprehensive marketing platform empowering dispensaries and other cannabis companies to promote their products within the law. This is yet another game changing idea from Carl Sailing, the creator of “High Day” his all-in-one marketing command centre. He shares his cannabis story, business successes, and how his new project will thrust cannabis businesses into the digital spotlight. This episode is a must listen for those working within restricted industries facing regulatory challenges and regulatory misconceptions.
Monday, 20 January 2025 15:44

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Panama - Van Halen
Desiree Dorion
Marc Clement

(Yes we have a SOCAN membership to use these songs all legal and proper like)

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Episode Transcript

Trevor:  Kirk, Coffee in hand. And we're back.

Kirk: Hey, Trevor, How's it going?

Trevor: Good.

Kirk: I got a I got a mouthful of blueberry lemon muffin.

Trevor: That sounds very nice

Kirk: and a cup of Coffee in my hand.

Trevor: Sounds like an excellent way to begin the chat. So we have Carl Sailing from High Day that you've interviewed. He is a fascinating guy. We're just sort of talking off air about, you know, maybe the definition of a serial entrepreneur. But before we talk about Carl, and we'll preface this, we love all our listeners and our friends south of the border, but we try not to do too many topical news things because who knows how when people will be listening to this. But there was there was a news item that came up that we kind of wanted to comment about. Kirk. So do you think we should become the 51st state up here in Canada? What do you think about that?

Kirk: I think President Elect Trump should pee up a rope, quite frankly. However, you know, we're not we're not a politic political podcast, but this one has to go. You know, we have a lot of listeners in the States and around the world, and we appreciate your listenership. But if you're not paying attention, North American politics right now, the new president elect of America is looking at annexing Canada, annexing Denmark, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Trevor: Just Greenland, Denmark will be fine. Although they might Jack, they might jack up the price of Ozempic. Just in case he missed it. Ozempic.  Made in Denmark. just throwing that out there

Kirk: Anyways, one thing that's good about Trump, I think he's going to make cannabis legal federally. And I think our I think our next guest is hoping for that. He really does seem to be a serial entrepreneur. And yeah. What did you think of the interview, Trevor?

Trevor: Carl's a fascinating guy about my ilk and age, so that's kind of always kind of interesting to see what somebody else has done with their, their life. You know, while I have been a pharmacist for X number of years, he is up to 30 plus businesses, you know, several of them cannabis related from a delivery service to Hollister cannabis which for a little while is Holster Bioscience is traded on the CSE in case he missed that CSE is the Canadian Stock Exchange and not that isn't always important but often gets forgotten about. But for a while there, when Canada was legal and nothing in the US seemed to, you know, 2017 to 2019, CSCE was just chockablock full of cannabis companies, especially sort of US entities that were trying to raise money. So for a while, I'm not saying it's not less now, but for a while CSE was very hot for people trying to raise money in in the cannabis space. Yeah, No, he's a he's an interesting dude and something to listen for because we got to acknowledge Kirk when people agree with Kirk, he states quite emphatically that he thinks all cannabis is medicinal as well, whether using it recreationally or not. So there you go, Kirk. A kindred spirit.

Kirk: Yeah, well, we need a lot of those people. And again, you know, Trevor, I search out stories. I send out probably, gosh, probably about ten, 15 emails a week searching out stories. I read research papers. This is a story that was pushed to me once again. We've had other stories pushed to us. Our Buddhist friend that stories pushed to us. This one was pushed to us and I kind of read the guy's back story and went, You know, this is interesting, but as you know, I like to approach all stories as if, first, tell me your cannabis story before we get into your entrepreneurialism. And his son had Crohn's, right. So so so yet another individual who comes in to try to find a way to improve the cannabis space has come into it via cannabis being medicine. And really that is one of my biggest rants is how cannabis is medicine for so many people. And being completely, I shouldn't say ignored because it's not being ignored. It's just not taken seriously. It's just not seen as a first round choice, therapeutic choice for many Western doctors. And the more we get into this podcast, you know, seven years Trevor, 139 episodes, how many of those episodes have we tried to, you know, find a way to say, you know, this isn't really medicine, this is some guy just using cannabis as a drug, you know? But no, sure enough, eventually someplace in the conversation, we come up with the individual going, cannabis worked for me. And I see that so often. And and I mean, I'm sure in your practice you have people that come to you. They use cannabis as medicine. And it's we, you know, how do we a nurse and a pharmacist, how do we push government leaders to see this as medicine? I guess we put out episodes. I guess we put out conversations like this.

Trevor: Maybe have a podcast and talk to people, I don't know.

Kirk: Maybe, maybe we get noticed by telling the president elect to piss up a rope. I don't know. It's just I think I think this fellow I think this fellow's story needs to be told. It's an interesting story. It's an IT story.

Trevor: It is. And before we get back to Carl, because you know, nothing will ever happen. But, you know, Mr. Trump, President elect Trump, if you want to come on because you've gone on some podcast before, if you want to go on a podcast to talk about cannabis and, you know, speak to your the your minions in the 51st state, we'd absolutely chat with you. But...

Kirk: I don't know. I don't know, you can have that interview.

Trevor: Absolutely. I will absolutely take that phone call. I'll even be pleasant. But Carl, let's talk about Carl. So started, you know, been around cannabis since he's been ten. He moved from the East Coast to the West Coast about when medicinal cannabis was becoming legal in California, started a delivery service for medicinal cannabis. Then, yeah, various companies both in the cannabis and the IT, we'll call it zone, you know, prepaid calling cards and prepaid cell phones and internet marketing, Digital marketing, lack of better word. Yeah, he's, he's got a very interesting background, but he tells the story way better than I do. So we should we let Carl introduce himself?

Kirk: Yeah, let's do that.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. So my name's Carl Sailing. I've been I am a lifelong cannabis user, an enthusiast and advocate. I my first experience, I was ten. Kind of crazy. My babysitter's brother grew some cannabis and came in my house and dried it in my oven. Which is crazy. But I was always drawn to cannabis, you know, from the very first time that I consumed it and consumed it all throughout my life. Off and on. In 2002, I moved to San Diego, California, from the East Coast. And that's when I started getting a little bit more into the cannabis industry and just the culture and everything, because it was more prevalent in California with the Prop 215 laws that they had versus New Jersey or Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up. And then around 2013, I started a delivery service in San Diego to help patients get access because I started seeing how it was really helping a lot of people. I wanted to get into the industry and so that's what I did. And the amount of stories that that we heard were very heartbreaking and heartwarming. You know, people with terminal diseases using cannabis to help them through that. People curing themselves with cannabis, you know, for other ailments. So it was really amazing. And my son also was diagnosed with Crohn's disease as a young teenager. So so we use cannabis to help them through that as well. And then I got into the cannabis industry even more, took that delivery business all the way through legalization in California. We were the first licensed active cannabis company in in Hollister, California. I ended up taking that company public in Canada on the CSE in 2019. Made some other acquisitions, expanded into Arizona, and then I stepped out of that business in October of 21. But cannabis to me, even if it's recreational, I feel personally that it's all medical. Even if you don't realize it.

Kirk: Yeah.

Carl Sailing: And, you know, I mean, the plants are amazing on on what I can do and, and we're just getting started to really understand it.

Kirk: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Just to go back a little bit. You know, legalization in California happened when?

Carl Sailing: Yes. So there was a couple things. So there was a medical framework that was approved in 98, I think called Prop215 that lasted all the way through to January of 2018 when Prop 64 came into place and kind of took over the regulations. And that enabled recreational sales as well as medical. So they regulated it sort of like Canada did.

Kirk: Okay. So you're delivery business. That was a medical cannabis delivery business.

Carl Sailing: Yes. Medical cannabis delivery.

Kirk: So that's I find that curious. Carl, could you just expand a little bit? How did that business work? Dial up? Is it like an Uber cab? Did people just go to the store, buy the cannabis, drop it off at someone's house? How did that work?

Carl Sailing: Yeah, so I have a big tech background, so I made a really nice website. People could come online and order and check out. They could pay with their credit card and then we would use our vehicles and then I'd deliver it. So we had like areas in San Diego that we would deliver to and we had a few Priuses out there running around.

Kirk: So, again, I know our Canadian model, but so in the California model in those days, were there brick and mortar medical dispensaries?

Carl Sailing: Yeah. So the way it worked, they were called collectives. So it was a a not for profit model. So you had to have a not for profit business. And then patients and you were like a caregiver to those patients, but you are able to kind of amalgamate many, many, many, many different patients. And now you can be able to supply, let's say, a thousand people and have the facilities to handle that.

Kirk: Yeah.

Carl Sailing: Was very cowboys and Indians and very loose. Way easier than it is now.

Kirk: Isn't that isn't that interesting? The more regulations, the more difficult. And I'm sorry for the history lesson, but I think a lot of the Canadian the Canadian market may not necessarily understand what that means. So the collective so if I am a prescriber, a nurse practitioner or a doctor, I would have a cannabis clinic.

Carl Sailing: Basically. You would have people come in, they would sit down, describe their ailment. Let you know. It would fit in with the ones that were approved by the state. They would issue them a medical card saying that they're approved to buy cannabis medically, and then they would take that to a collective and become a member of that collective and say, Hey, my allotted cannabis, you guys are going to grow for me basically is what it what it was.

Kirk: Okay, okay. And then the rec market comes into play. And I also found it interesting. Wasn't there a period of time in California where they said no to the rec market? Was there a first vote said no .

Carl Sailing: Yeah, 2016 it failed. It did not pass like it would have been enacted in 2016. So whenever that was maybe 2015, it failed, didn't pass, Canada's did. And then they had to come back to the table a couple of years later and then it finally passed.

Kirk: Okay. So we're getting close to High Day. But so you mentioned that you have an IT background. So you explained your history of cannabis. So what is your skill set? So what did you do before the cannabis delivery system? And now, of course, we'll get into your software in a minute. So bring me up to speed. How how you gain these skills to do what you're doing today.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. So I've been an entrepreneur  all my life. I'm 55 today.

Kirk: You carry it well, by the way. You carry it well.

Carl Sailing: Cannabis. I consume cannabis on the regular, all right. And I don't drink. And I take very good care of myself as far as diet and exercise, that's a whole other podcast if you want. I'm very passionate.

Kirk: It sounds like a typical Californian, but carry on. 

Carl Sailing: Yeah. So I've been an entrepreneur all my life. Started my first business when I was 16 in construction in tile and marble. But I quickly got out of that business and got into the telecommunications business. In 1995, I started a very large well, it became a large prepaid telecommunications company. Back when phone cards were first coming into reality, like no one knew what they were. And I was there at the very beginning of that, which was cool. We had 50 employees. I built that multiple millions in sales and sold that to a public company, became president of that company, worked for them for a while and then stepped out and then redid that business again. But with more of a focus on travelers. I had maybe 300 phone card vending machines and truck stops all over the place as well. As you know, we did a ton of prepaid cell phones, like right when they first came out. It was just crazy. I mean, and the there's kind of correlations to the cannabis industry, to some of the same people from there are in cannabis, which is funny.

Kirk: I'm kind of sensing I may watch too many Bosch shows or too many American crime fighters, but are these the throwaway phones that guys in limousines sort of use when they're making these deals in the black Web?

Carl Sailing: Well, I mean, you could use it for that. Yeah, like burner phones. But it's for the unbankable economy and prepaid was massive for that. So immigrants needing to call home is very expensive if you didn't have a prepaid calling card same thing with wireless in a wireless plans were putting you through to credit hoops and everything back then. You know this is 2000, 2001, 2002. So. Yes. But then also a big part of the country was using prepaid, you know, to make regular phone calls and to communicate.

Kirk: Cool. All right. So now here we are.

Carl Sailing: There's. There's a lot more.

Kirk: Go for it. Go for it. We've got time. I love hearing stories. So tell me, how do you go from there?

Carl Sailing: Yeah. So then from there, I started an online digital marketing agency because I had done all the marketing for all my companies. Like I probably started 30 or 40 companies, maybe more. And I've done all the marketing and all that for them. And it just made sense. I got out of the telecom industry. Prepaid dramatically changed the big carriers that the big mobile phone carriers were kind of in control of it now and the margin got really squeezed. So I was like, okay, I don't want to fight that battle anymore. And then, you know, social media is just coming in and all that stuff. So I started an online digital marketing agency to help local businesses attract, engage and convert new and repeat business. Did that very successfully and then grew that business. And then as I had the cannabis business at the same time later on, and then as the cannabis business kind of took over, I, I exited my digital marketing company and then stayed focused on the cannabis industry.

Kirk: Cool.

Carl Sailing: And then, I mean, the cannabis company got pretty big, too. At our peak, we had over 100 employees.

Kirk: Wow. And what company was that?

Carl Sailing: That was Hollister Cannabis Co. And it went public as Hollister Bioscience is on the CAE.

Kirk: Okay.

Carl Sailing: It's not trading anymore.

Kirk: Well, you sounds like you got out at the right time.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely did. And then I was I took about a year off because it was a ten year grind in the cannabis business. And then I wanted to figure out kind of what my next steps were. And I was like, you know. And all along I had the challenges that my software kind of solved. So a lot of marketing issues. Platforms not liking cannabis companies. Many different platforms, kind of paperclip together. And I set out to solve all that for something that I really wanted to have if I was going to do this business again. And that High Day.

Kirk: So you're still in California?

Carl Sailing: No, actually, during that whole time. I moved to Las Vegas to get out of the taxes in California because they're crazy high. And then we didn't really like Vegas. So now I'm in north Mississippi, near Memphis.

Kirk: Cool. I hope to be down there in April May. Hopefully be down there. So let's get your business, Carl. I'm on. I'm on your web page. High Day. Evaluate your brand. Now I'm going to tell you something I'm going to share a little bit. Trevor and I are wrestling. As you probably know, podcast is still Internet based businesses. And as you probably also know, there's a thousand there's a thousand podcasts with people talking about cannabis. So we're having a tough time branding. So you're asking, you're providing a service where a business is not allowed to brand itself by legislation in Canada and by words only. Right. How do you offer that? How do you offer that to a cannabis company and how do you offer that? Yeah, what's your services Carl?

Carl Sailing: Yeah, so we're, we're High Day is an all in one marketing command center. It's, just think a CRM for cannabis that includes CRM, SMS marketing, email marketing, social media posting and planning and management, two-way live webchat on your website. Review management. So managing your positive reviews on Google and getting them and then automations to tie it all together. So and we do business in Canada. We have several dispensaries that are on our platform there and we work very well with the Canadian laws. So once someone comes into your ecosystem, let's say I come into your dispensary and I sign up for your VIP system, that's what our system does is then sends those messages out, which are totally legal. And when an adult subscribes to it on your phone, you know that the idea is that they're getting it on their phone like no one else is getting it. So. That's how. So we integrate with the point of sale system. So when someone makes a purchase, we then can follow up with them. If they haven't been in the store in so many days or months, we can hit them with messaging. If they bought certain products, we can handle a different messaging based on the products that they bought.

Kirk: Okay. CRM.

Carl Sailing: CRM customer relationship manager.

Kirk: They see business speak. I'm a nurse. I'll tell you about a CRM in my world. But okay, so this whole hedge is on the fact that I own a brick and mortar shop. Somebody walk into my shop, my bud tenders, engage them, They buy a product, they walk out. Now, for your system to cut in, we have to capture these people's phone numbers or their email address. We need to capture them somehow.

Carl Sailing: Right.

Kirk: So what information are you asking from a customer so that you can capture them?

Carl Sailing: Name, email, phone number and birthday?

Kirk: Okay. And so that goes into the dispensary's platform. And within that platform I have my inventory. And if this individual bought some Jean Guy sativa cannabis, it would go from my inventory to his bag with a note that this guy tends to buy Jean Guy?

Carl Sailing: I would see that in, so that would come back in the High Day. So the sales done, that information is transmitted over in the High Day. So we know that he's been there five times. He was here, you know, two weeks ago. He's he was here today at 10 a.m.. He bought, you know, $55 worth of stuff. It had these items in it. He likes Sativa. He buys flower. And then we wouldn't send that person like a topical message because that's based on his history. That's not a topical person. Every now and then you may send it to everybody, but you want to personalize and target your messaging for a better response rate.

Kirk: Okay. So...

Carl Sailing: but,  to keep going on that thought, it's not just for brick and mortars. It's great for people who have websites or ancillary companies that are selling to cannabis to people are talking about cannabis online. And, you know, so like, for example, on your podcast website, you could have a opt-in form to opt-in for your newsletter and then that would come in the high day and then you would use High Day to send out your newsletter. Or you can have live chat on your website and the engagement from there would all come in the High Day and we have e-commerce features and landing pages and well, a lot of stuff. It's like it's literally an all in one system.

Kirk: So so if I come to you as a business and I say I already have a web page, do you offer the actual web page platform as well? Like, can I move the platform I'm using now? I just move it to your platform. So you.

Carl Sailing: Yes, the answer is yes. But we don't we're the platform. We don't actually do the services like we don't create the emails or build the websites. We enable all that to happen.

Kirk: Right? So you provide me the tool. So I go on and I create it. So I would I would need a lesson on how to navigate through your dropdown menus and formatting.

Carl Sailing: Right, right. And we have full training, tons of videos like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of articles and we have live 24 seven tech support. So if you're ever in a jam, you can just get on with one of our texts and they'll help you through anything.

Kirk: Okay, so we spoke about the front of the house. So the customer comes in, the patient comes in and buys their product. You're tracking that. What's happening back of the house with your platform? What's happening in the inventory, the wholesale side? You know, gee whiz, I need some, need to order some sativa or.

Carl Sailing: Yes. So we don't touch the back of the house. That's all in the POS system. Typically that's native in there, inventory management and all that stuff. And then the compliance, like talking to Health Canada or whoever, like Ontario, wherever they got to communicate with. Like in the States, a lot of places use a lot of states use a company called Metric and that's the track and trace system. So I don't get involved in any of that. I really don't want to. I'm after, it's either after the sale has taken place or before the sale has taken place but not the actual sale.

Kirk: Okay. But is there an integration. Of course. I mean or the or the. Okay, there must be an integration.

Carl Sailing: We're integrated, but we're not managing any kind of inventory or anything. It's just the customers and getting them to come back and buy more.

Kirk: Okay. I'm just going to go to your Web page because I have spent some time in your Web page and you're sort of looking at evaluate your brand engagement. So you're very much looking to help a business promote itself, I guess, is what you're doing.

Carl Sailing: Totally. And also manage to get the most out of their their marketing efforts.

Kirk: Okay.

Carl Sailing: Lots of automations. Automations are very important, especially nowadays. A lot of people like you. I'm sure you're like a 1 or 2 man band and having and having things automated that you would normally have to go in and manually do saves a lot of time.

Kirk: Are you coaches as well or just providing software like there are businesses that do both? Are you a business coach?

Carl Sailing: I mean, we definitely have ideas and suggestions and we can match you with other companies that are really good at that. But I mean, really for your business, as much organic social media as you can post.

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Carl Sailing: Videos. I would be posting a video every.

Kirk: Day, but that's a that's a good point. And what you what you're basically saying is that it's a full time job if you're doing this.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. And it's changed six months ago LinkedIn is not LinkedIn today. So one of the things that they brought in is the tik-tokification of the video feed. And they're short like, quick, quick clips are kind of blowing up on LinkedIn right now so you can take your full episode of your podcast and then chop it into 50 different content pieces and just blown them out because it's not based on your followers anymore. It's based on the interest. So people that are interested in what you're saying.

Kirk: I'm going to apologize because it seems like you're giving me some free coaching advice here. But it's all about the services you're providing. If people go to your web page, you are providing business advice, you're providing a software package, but you're bringing this know-how that you're sharing with me today. That's how you built the app, right?

Carl Sailing: Well, we have I don't think I talked about it, but we have a cool system. Its a way to build your own online community that won't get banned. So it's your own private community inside of High Day with your own custom URL log into it that you can send customers and vendor like everybody do. It's pretty cool.

Kirk: Cool. What you're into all sorts of restricted industries. So the cannabis industry, the hemp industry, vape industry, mushroom industry. Yeah. So tell me about that. How so? You're obviously narrowing down your marketplace also.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. And honestly, it's been a bit challenging because this market is challenging. It's not, you know. A good amount of the companies aren't profitable.  in both countries, in Canada and in the U.S..

Kirk: Yeah, they're falling. They're falling.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. So, I mean, some are making money, some aren't. So that's been a bit of a challenge. But also on the flip side, here in the U.S., the hemp market has kind of had a resurgence over the past year with THCa and all the alternate cannabinoids organoids. So we service that market to the beverage market, which is getting super hot here. But yeah, it's totally challenging and I like it because it's harder. For some reason I like doing hard stuff and it weeds out the competitors because not everybody can do it.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's what we're discovering too, is that we're seven years into this project because it's a passion project. We've lost, we've watched I don't want to say competitors because I don't believe I don't believe in competition with another business. I believe I believe the like, two golf courses will bring more golfers in one. Right. So the more podcasts out there, the more information is out there. But what I've noticed is that because we look at this as a passion project rather than a business, I'm not feeding my family on the revenues of this podcast. I'm doing it because I have a passion for cannabis and as a nurse, right, because medical traditional medical people just dismiss cannabis, whereas I have seen a lot of stuff in it. But the longer we stay and I think the more people will see that we have longevity. So is that going to happen with the cannabis industry? The longer you stay in, is it is it just a matter of attrition or is it the strong will survive or the one that buys the most will be surviving?

Carl Sailing: I think right now, especially in the US, if you can hang on, there will be some sort of event that will enable you to hopefully exit or turn profitable and that's tied to either a change in the classification or the, you know, de-scheduling.

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. Federally.

Carl Sailing: Yeah. Yeah. On a federal level, like once that starts to move here, things I think will change for people. And like, the real money hasn't even come in here yet. Like all the family offices and VC funds and big ETFs and all that stuff. They're just waiting.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah. And Trevor and I see that we've been interviewing Big Pharma and we've been interviewing investment bankers and they're waiting. And both the Democrats and the Republicans in the States have basically said that the future of cannabis is open market. They just have to get around to doing it. Is there any is there anything that I haven't asked you in this conversation? Is there anything you want our listeners to know about your business and the services you provide?

Carl Sailing: No, I mean, just, you know, we help cannabis, hemp companies, whether you're a brand, a dispensary, e-commerce site, sell more cannabis. And that's but bottom line, what we do.

Kirk: I appreciated your time mate.

Carl Sailing: Yeah, same here. Thanks for having me on, Kirk. And let me know when you come to Memphis. Would love to connect with you and share some cannabis. That'll be great.

Trevor: Okay. So because I think you had a similar thought. So I this is not to denigrate Carl. So hold on. As soon as he started talking about prepaid cell phones, I thought about Better Call Saul the spin off from Breaking Bad because Saul Goodman had a big thing where he was selling prepaid cell phones, basically to drug dealers and other people doing illegal stuff. So that was the first place I went. So and here bring it back to reality because, yes, nothing in reality is the same as TV shows. All there might have been illegal stuff going on with prepaid cell phones. I hadn't thought about the fact he said, you know, people who are unbankable, so, you know, they didn't have a credit history to get a cell phone from a from a traditional carrier or immigrants. You know, in the early 2000s, I had no idea. And in retrospect, it makes sense how basically what a service they were. And it wasn't just, you know, the welcome back Saul criminal element interested in the burner phones.

Kirk: Yeah. I also have the same thought and I kind of mentioned it to him as well. And I also think about, you know, telecommunications and let us talk about phones. I mean, back in the 80s, I used to carry a beeper around. I used to be on the fire department. I was on call for the local ambulance system. I used to be an air medevac nurse back in the day before governments had regulations, so I had beepers and then I got, I had  a radio. I had basically point to point radio that I carried around. And then then I got a flip phone. And I can remember moving to Dauphin in the early, early 2000s. Well, how early is 2001? When I moved to Dauphin and I was given another flip phone because I was on call for the hospital, spend a lot of time on call. So a phone for me was always was always a professional tool and not a personal luxury. I can never understand what a smartphone was. I remember my son, his I think his 14 year old friend got the first iPhone smartphone. What do you need a smartphone for? And who would guess now, 20 years later, we're paying the government to track everything we do on this computer we have on a desk here. So here's a man that, you know, started back when I was you know, I was on call for a hospital. He's out there selling phones to people that need phones. So I. True. You know how the brain works. You have that. You have that ten year memory. 20-year memory that just goes in. Yeah. So I was right there with you.

Carl Sailing: But we should we should probably kind of talk about his business a little bit now that we have talked about how old we are and you know how technology is, is weird and strange yeah, High Day

Kirk: High Day

Trevor: It was so I was looking through his website as you did, and you guys touched on it. Not surprising you didn't get to touch on everything he did. But yeah, like if you are, you know, will take out a dispensary, a cannabis dispensary, you know, his basically all the marketing, what did he call himself? A marketing command center. So you know he'll help you get your blogs going, your update, your website to make it nicer. But then some really interesting things like surveys. So to see what your customer actually likes and doesn't like. Build a private community like a Facebook group. But Facebook can't shut you down because you talking about cannabis. Membership programs. Manage things like Google reviews. Be your and you like this, your CRM, your customer relationship management. So basically we're a central database to control your customer stuff. Social media posting, they'll help with that, like email marketing. And then the one you guys talked about a fair bit, which was like texting or SMS or texting your clients. So someone comes in, they sign up for your rewards program, they give you your name for, I think, age phone number and email address. And you know, you guys talked about, well, you know, if they haven't been back in the store for three weeks, you know, maybe send them a send them a check to say, hey, you know, we miss you. Come back today and we've got a special on X. So yeah, that if I was running a dispensary, that other business is working too. But that would all be very useful to have all in one place instead of going to 18 different places to try and do all these things.

Kirk: Yeah, he's selling. He's selling a front of the house tool that basically manages your customer service. And of course, and in today's age, that means, you know, how do you send out marketing information to your clients, which some of us might call spam, you know, so.

Trevor: Well more interesting and you guys touched on it a little bit are more interesting to me. There's a lot of restrictions in Canada and then different, different in different states about how you can market cannabis. And Carl's company is very familiar with what did we call it, restricted content marketing. You know, frankly, the first time I read that, I was wondering if they're talking about porn or not talking about porn. We're talking about cannabis and how, you know, you can't say I sell cannabis on, say, Facebook, but, you know, how do you, like he was saying, you know, an example would be you've signed up for the customer rewards program and then you're basically saying, okay, I am okay, I'm of age. I've been in the store, they've checked my ID, So now if I get a marketing message via text, then I'm not breaking any rules that that kind of thing.

Kirk: Yeah. He focuses on what he calls the restricted industries. He focuses on cannabis, focuses on hemp. Hemp is still restricted, I guess, in some. Well, no, it's federally available now in America, so I don't know if that's still a strict thing in America. Psychedelics, of course, would be.

Trevor: Yeah, I was going to say. But they have the hemp derived products so you know you're. Yeah. Delta eight THC and stuff.

Kirk: Yeah yeah yeah. And vape products so he's dealing here the headline on his web page is Unlock Limited Potential for Restricted industry. So I think it's really quite cool that cannabis, you know, I go on a rant about all these restrictions they put on a plant, but because of these restrictions, entrepreneurs come up and find ways around it. Right it's the old thing about you create a law where someone is going to find a way to work around it. And it's not that he's working around a law. He's created a he's created a marketplace for dispensaries. And he says we can also help medicinal dispensaries and recreational dispensaries. His web page is pretty simple in the sense of how he lays it out. You know, you can go to the home page and go to features, cannabis, hemp. He speaks to the cannabis, hemp and psychedelic communities directly about what he does for them. And again it states.

Trevor: We should we should probably say I'll jump in. Website is gethighday.com sorry go back.

Kirk: Go yeah and we'll definitely have it up on our web page. So go to our web page reefermed.ca and you'll get access to it but gethighday.com is his thing. It's a cool story. It's a marketing story. We don't often do stories on businesses like this. The reason why I like this is a story because, again, he himself has his own story. What brought him to cannabis and the fact that there's a need for this product in the industry. So yeah, this is one for the rec market. I guess medicinal cannabis dispensaries can consider this product as well. Check out, check out the the product High Day. It's a good interesting product. And I hope to meet him. We Michelle and I are planning a trip down south. I was hoping to meet some of our some of our guests.  Go around the states and meet some of the guests we've had. So hopefully if I get to get to his hometown, I'll get to share us share, share a little bit of cannabis with them.

Trevor: That would be excellent. So, Kirk, not that we can't swing back to Carl, but you do have a My Cannabis Story this time around.

Kirk: Yeah.

Trevor: From someone who may or may not have been a DJ back in the day.

Kirk: Yeah, this is I when I go back. Well, how do I start the story? Well, I start the story by saying we just got through Christmas and my extended family lives in small town Alberta. Lac La Biche. We've done stories there with Equilibrium. The small store there. And I was walking, walking my dog down the road and looking at the changes they've done to the main street of Lac La Biche and walked in the Equilibrium and started talking to this fella. And again, you know, I've been away from I've been away from Lac La Biche now 24 years. And I kind of recognize the guy we get into talking. And as you and I, you know, I'm doing the sales pitch about looking for a story and he introduces himself. And you can hear me in the background. My God. And I have this huge revelation. This fella is a big part of the party scene in the 80s, in this small town, Lac La Biche is a town of about 1200 people in those days. And Mr. Webster was a big part of it. You know, I don't know if you if you're old enough to remember these days, Trevor, but when we used to go to socials in Alberta, there'd be a huge speaker system that would occupy the almost the bed of a flatbed truck, huge speaker systems, all of his cassettes and his records and his and I and I think I watched, I watched him move into CD's because he was used to crate around records and he would spin records and spin CD's and that's how we did dances. So people would go to the stage and ask him for, would request a song. But there were some, there were some really, really good parties and it was wonderful just to meet him and say hello again. I haven't seen I haven't seen the gentleman for, gosh, decades. And I although I knew I never connected the points that his son is co-owner of Equilibrium. So that business is owned by two young boys that are about my son's age. And I met both of their parents who also work at their son's store. So this is My Cannabis Story. It really doesn't speak a lot to cannabis is more of two old guys meeting up and going, Holy shit, we haven't seen each other in a long time. So that's the background of this story.

Trevor: All right. Let's listen Alan.

Al Webster: Hey. Hi. I'm Al Webster. I'm the father of Gerry Webster and good friend of Derek Ewaskiw. And basically, when the boys started this and once again, we do everything with our kids, and it's all about supporting them and what they're doing. And that's what we've been doing. And now I'm working in the store and it's been a little slow a couple of years here, but we're building back up and climbing back up and things have happened and changed. But all for the good and I'm sure and we'll all stay like really tight with the boys. And that's about it and been pretty busy. Don't smoke a lot of it myself and but I might start here any second but you never know.

Kirk: You are the music man in the 80's.

Al Webster: Ya deejay man. Yeah. Yeah.  we quit just before Covid.

Kirk: Yeah. One of the best parties I can remember is Mr. Bouvier's Retirement Party. You remember that in Jubilee Hall. And basically everyone went home, and it was just the Bouvier boys, the Hamars girls, and we danced. And I have a vivid memory of you getting off stage and dancing with us.

Al Webster: All the time. You got all the time.

Kirk: you but on some great parties. I'm sure. I was just sitting. I think I know you.

Al Webster: Its the beard and basically, I always had a ponytail,.

Kirk: But that's the look I was had back in the 80s.

Al Webster: exactly I  just let her go.

Kirk: Back when I had hair.  I don't remember you in the 80s being big into pot. You were more you more in the drinking side. Whereas I was stepping outside with the buddies.

Al Webster: with the boys, I had to keep it to a certain, the only time I smoked pot was at a dance was I think was in Hylo, way back in the day. And actually, there were RCMP officers back in the day that was in my van and I just went back to get some stuff and I just happened to all grab a little better than what they were doing. But that was 20, 25, 30 years ago.

Kirk: Yeah, well, I used to go to the fire department and they used be RCMP on the fire department and I can remember having debates with them about, Hey man, would you rather go into a room of people, you know, blasted on rye whiskey or would you rather clear out a room of people who have just finished a reefer? Which one is  the safest? And they would never answer the question, right?

Al Webster: I'd go into a drug house or.

Kirk: They're all too tired.

Al Webster: Four guys get together and they go out and they start drinking and partying and fighting and they usually end up as a terrible wake up and their dead.  Four guys go out smoking, they make a band and write great music.

Kirk: Yeah. So to this day you're not, you're a casual smoker.

Al Webster: Casual, very very casual.

Kirk: Your son ends up owning that a local. And these guys now have what, at the Athabasca.

Al Webster: We have three stores.  Athabasca, Lac La Biche and Smoky Lake.  We  had one in Red Water, but we shut that one down. It just wasn't moving. We opened it and closed it fairly quickly because that just wasn't happening there. It was brutal slow. And then it all opened up here. The road opened up because they redid , refurbished downtown again.

Kirk: Right Right.

Al Webster: It's closed all summer.

Kirk: I remember that.

That was. That was tough. Then we were lucky. We've got this walk through passageway because it was like one of the ways to the main street. So we got all the traffic going by us. But still, yeah, people would come with phones and they're lost and they're looking for us because of the, the roundabout way to get here. They were there standing right in front of the store. Hi, how are you? Who you look for? Oh, you guys.  It's good to see you man.

Kirk: It's good seeing you. And sorry, when I first walked in. Yeah, as soon you said this. All the memories just flash back, and then all the parties that you DJed. some of the best times.

Kirk: So, Mr. Webster, it was wonderful to meet you. Yeah. And thank you for the story. There's another. There's another dispensary across the street from Equilibrium. And I've tried to get stories from them. The follow  involved that store actually was involved with a Hemp Expo, Folk Festival, Outdoor Cannabis Celebration. Back around 1998, 96. Again when I lived in Lac La Biche, and he now manages the store across the street. And I went in to say hello, looking for My Cannabis Store. And they're very concerned in Alberta that any publicity at all can get them closed down. And I was trying to I was trying to be creative with them, saying, well, talking to a podcast really isn't

Trevor: Guys, are you, are you advertising that we don't have as many listeners that we would like.

Kirk: No, no, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that what an opportunity for a dispensary to talk to us and get a few people listening and hearing about hey, When I'm in Lac La Biche I'll go check out Equilibrium. Right. And I'm sure we've had listeners driving down Main Street Lac La Biche going, there's Equilibrium. Reefer Medness did a story on them. I'll go check them out. We've done we've I've walked into probably a good 50 or 60 dispensaries in the last seven years. And I'm hoping that a few of them have got business from us. And you know what a better way to get your message out, but through a podcast. So, yeah, this is me looking for somebody to, you know, support this little passion project. And by going into rec stores saying, hey, give me a cannabis story. But you know, it's funny, Trevor, I am I walk into these stories, I get them, I produce them with you and we put them up on the podcast. But I can tell you there's probably, for every one story I get, I've got four nos. Five nos. Right. People walk in and say no. And it's like, why wouldn't you talk to me? I mean, I've.

Trevor: you've got a friendly face.

Kirk: You know I show our web page. Well, I'm a I'm a very friendly face. I got a beautiful dog. Scratch the dog. I've got all the reasons for you to talk to me. And it's like people don't. I mean, gee whiz, tell me where your store is and we'll put it up on that internets there. And maybe you like it's the fella in Watson Lake. I mean, what he says he's got, he's a thousand miles away from anybody else. When you're in Watson Lake go to stop in and see the fella there. We talked to him. Right. So anyway, I'm going to continue doing this. And if you're listening, maybe I'll walk into your door some day and you're going to go, my God, there's Kirk Reefer Medness - The Podcast. Let's give him a story.

Trevor: And I'm just going to throw this out to our listeners because, you know, who knows what, if you don't throw stuff out in the universe again, anyone's got any pull in the White House of the president elect. Really. Well, I'll even put on a tie. Mr..  President Elect. We can talk about cannabis and or us being the 51st state, whatever you want. Well, we'll have a nice chat. It'll be a quick little zoom we can fit into your schedule. You know instead of, you know, the 4 a.m.. Tweeting. You can you can chat with us. I'll absolutely get up early, put on our tie and we can have a nice chat. So any anything else, Kirk?

Kirk: Well, I was thinking it might be easier. It might be easier to get Justin Trudeau to speak to us than President Elect Trump. I mean, that would be a great conversation to figure out to get his story about cannabis. Yeah, he got an update.

Trevor: And he is basically the reason we're here. So yeah, so we'll throw that anyone's got any anything for Trudeau, you know an outgoing interview about cannabis that would be that would be amazing as well.

Kirk: I'm going to rephrase that. It's not We're here because we want to learn about cannabis.

Trevor: We are but.

Kirk: maybe he gave us the balls. He gave us the balls to put the podcast together..

Trevor: There wouldn't be nearly as much to talk to if he did not legalize cannabis. How about that?

Kirk: Very true. Very true. Okay. Well, I'm Kirk Nyquist. I'm the registered nurse. We are Reefer Medness - the podcast found it reefermed.ca

Kirk: I'm Trevor Shewfelt, I am the pharmacist and this was another good one. I really enjoyed talking with Carl. Carl, thanks for the chat. Everyone go check out gethighday.com and see everyone next time.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Before they go before you know there are going to be there are going to be some new stuff happening on our website in the next week. I've got some ideas I'm going to be posting and populating our Cannabits area. We have a we have a little educational spot on our podcast and I'm going to start populating it. So if you want to learn a little bit about cannabis, check out the cannabits page on our web page. And so I guess we're going to be playing early Van Halen.

Trevor: Classic, Van Halen. Well, we'll leave the choice up to Rene, but I can't wait.

Kirk: Yeah. cheers mate.

Al Webster: Check out the complete Library.

Kirk: Of Reefer.

Al Webster: Madness episodes at Reefer Madness S.A. and make sure to follow us on all the socials for bonus info on what Trevor and Kirk are up to.

Unidentified Is he can't pass. Down at 2:39 p.m.. She got the film, by the way. Winding down the avenue. No charges having gone. We're running a little bit hot tonight. I can.

Al Webster: Barely see the road.

Unidentified From the heat coming off. My legs. He's the.

Al Webster: Seat back.

Unidentified She is not in. Now. Stop me now.

Al Webster: So that's the.

Kirk: Look. I just. I can.

Al Webster: Easily see that I just let her go.

Kirk: Back when I had her. Yeah.

Al Webster: I haven't cut my hair in 2 or 3 years, and I ain't gonna. So this is not up to here because I want to. I'm not. I'm doing something. I just don't know what it is.

Kirk: Okay, well, I got to a point where I was. I just looked like David Crosby. I followed head and I just think, you know, I just I just. Sure.

Al Webster: You got some pretty good hair line there. You just have really deep. Yeah, I have really deep here, too. Yeah. But then, you know, you kind of. My dad always used to. We used to call. He used to like almost like a Dairy Queen ice cream cone. Yeah. Stock and then. Yeah, like pull a Trump or whatever. Well, I was, I was.

Kirk: I was stomping grapes a few years ago and I have my head down like this and I had long hair and I could just see this huge bald spot. And I was thinking I might coming over or I might be getting my back. So I said, I'm not that guy. So I just shaved. I just shaved my head, you know?

Al Webster: Doug, Doug since shaved my brother Doug, he shakes his head pretty good cause he has like, hi. And then Mike is kind of alone, which is kind of different. Always sounded like his hair is good, but, you know, I think he's bald. Intimate. She didn't. He's starting to grow up a little bit. Okay. I started growing up. I tend to was more my father's side. My mike is more like more towards mom and dad was gray hair is 30s even like Jerry's 3034 now is Yeah.

Kirk: Well my hair's no longer no longer red. It's more brown but I'll probably keep it for. I mean the beard's going white. I look like. I like.

Al Webster: I'm going to be.