Liz Geisleman is the CEO of Rocky Mountain Reagents, a chemical and lab supply company that provides high-grade products to multiple industries. Liz’s 20 years of experience in the chemical industry has developed her skills in employee relations, product development, strategic partnerships, and operations management. As a lifelong learner, she finds fulfillment in connecting with people and creating new opportunities for personal and professional growth. Liz spent the last decade volunteering for various organizations, furthering her knowledge and experience.
Running a business comes with responsibilities focused on growth and vision. While these attributes are important to a company’s success, strong leadership cannot be neglected. The morale of an organization falls to the leaders — and their attitude is reflected in their team. What can leaders incorporate into their business to achieve their goals?
Regardless of the industry you work in, there are always opportunities for further development. The best way to grow your expertise is by getting involved in events in your community that align with your profession. Liz Geisleman believes creating connections with other organizations contributes to your growth as a leader and adds value to those you serve. Being a good leader is about taking responsibility for your personal and professional development, and using it to help others grow in their abilities.
In this episode of The Cyber Business Podcast, Matthew Connor is joined by Liz Geisleman, CEO of Rocky Mountain Reagents to discuss various branches of the chemistry industry, establishing reliable communication strategies, implementing the right technology to elevate your business, and what sales and marketing strategies are on the rise. Liz shares some of the challenges she has faced in her career and the opportunities for growth through the lens of her extensive leadership experience.
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| Matthew | Matthew Connor here. Host of the Cyber Business podcast, where we feature successful business leaders, top law firms, green energy companies and more. Today, we're joined by CEO of Rocky Mountain Reagents, chief branding officer at 710 Spirits, CEO of Cannabis Kitchen Supplies, ILDA board member, the Treasurer for the Board of Directors of the National Cannabis Industry Industry Association and a 2023 Colorado Titan 100. |
| Matthew | Liz Geisleman. Liz, welcome to the show. |
| Liz | It's nice to see you. Thank you so much. |
| Matthew | Oh, thank you. Before we get too far, in a quick word from our sponsors, this episode is brought to you by CyberLynx E-Comm. That's cyber-L-Y-N-X.com. CyberLynx is a complete technology solution provider than choice. Your business not only has the most reliable and professional i.t service, but also has the right cybersecurity protection to ensure your business stays productive and safe. |
| Matthew | Many businesses think they're too small to be a target for cyber criminals, and that's simply not the case. We've had so many companies come to us for help after they've been hit and they're always surprised because they thought they were too small to be a target or they thought they couldn't afford good cybersecurity protection. If you think you're too small or can't afford proper cybersecurity protection, check out our website, CyberLynx. |
| Matthew | WSJ.com that cyber Why an ex-con? You'll be surprised just how affordable proper cybersecurity protection really is. And now back to our show. Liz can't thank you enough for making the time to come on, especially given how much you've got to juggle. |
| Liz | Well, I appreciate it. It is a it's a fun I Yeah. This year I'm learning to say no more because I said yes too many times and I had a very full life. Life balance isn't one of my strong sense, let's put it that way. |
| Matthew | Well, I don't think life balance is the strong suit for a lot of successful people. I think, you know, we kind of integrate business into life and life in the business and know that's how you get ahead in anything, right? That's true. Well, let me ask you. Rocky Mountain Re Agents, can you tell us what what do they do? |
| Matthew | What's the story? |
| Liz | Okay, so Rocky Mountain Regions has been in business since 1951. We started as a microbiology histology company providing stations to hospitals. And then we've kind of grown from there. So we're now in seven different industry sectors in markets, including aerospace, wastewater testing, forensic science, education, semiconductor, electronic grades. And then, of course, cannabis was something that came along in Colorado 15 years ago, and we kind of decided at that point to also help that industry. |
| Liz | With that, we have 710 Spirits is one of our brands, which is a kind of a subset of our chemistry that we do just for extraction and testing of cannabis products. And then we have a we just acquired Cannabis Kitchen Supplies, which also does all the instrumentation and the equipment that goes into making edibles in that market. We specialize as a chemical company in high grade chemistry, so we only do food grades or pharmaceutical grades or electronic grades. |
| Liz | So we really hit a different niche to the chemical market than most do. And with that experience being in food and pharma, cannabis was kind of natural for us to start talking to people about how to produce clean and good cannabis products that could be that weren't going to be at risk for public safety. |
| Matthew | Huh. That's really interesting. We just talked to somebody who was in the it was basically a cannabinoid that they're doing for glaucoma. So they're in you know, they just going into stage two trials. So is that how they get that? Because I'm not really you know, I'm no scientist. And I think a lot of people are kind of. |
| Matthew | Yeah, curious how do you go from that that cannabis to the kind of cannabinoid and that's where the extract is that is that right. Yeah. How that works. |
| Liz | Yeah. And it's kind of it's kind of funny that cannabis kind of has put this big spotlight on extraction. Right. But if you look at any bakery, you know, you've got peppermint oils and olive oils and cinnamon oil and vanilla extract, all of that extraction is being done in the same process. So they're taking a raw material plant and they're doing it by one of three ways. |
| Liz | They're either doing a heat press, something that they're actually just pressing the oils out of, like you see in some olive oils, or they're doing a chemical extraction where they use most of the time they use to prove ethanol, which is moonshine. They extract it because oil is soluble in that. And so they pull that out into the ethanol and then they distill the ethanol away from the oil. |
| Liz | And then you have the oil. Cannabis is no different any time you're not trying to pull oil out of something, you've got to have it in a carrier that will dissolve it to get it away from the plant material. And then you take that that that thing that you've dissolved the oil into away from it. And it's pretty simple process. |
| Liz | But in cannabis, it's kind of funny because everybody in cannabis thinks they did. They're the first ones there, but that's not the case at all. We worked with we worked with people doing honey extracts, capsaicin, extracts, you know, peppermint, lavender oil. All of those essential oils are extracted in the same manner. |
| Matthew | Really So huge. And so this is, you know, now it goes into that 710 spirits that that extract that you do it's like it's that it's an ethanol right And you just and so they basically just combine the two together and because oil and. |
| Liz | Yeah and there's a lot more like equipment in between there you know but basically it's like tea soak your product in an ethanol or a solvent. It pulls the oil out and then you put it through a heat steam or there's several different distillations to separate the oil from whatever your carrier is. And at the end you get an oil and then and then you have to test it and make sure it doesn't have pesticides because you're concentrating also the plant, Right. |
| Liz | So you have to test it for pesticides. You have to test it just like all those other extracts are doing, too heavy metals, all of those things. So we provide the chemistry to test it. We provide the chemistry to extract it, and then we provide a lot of the chemistry that goes into the edibles as well. So the weird stuff that you can't get at the store, like the, the gummy or tapioca oils or those types of things that you need to make gummies or hard candy pilling tablet thing. |
| Liz | And we've done that for years in the nutraceutical market and so that's why cannabis was kind of a natural fit for us, huh? |
| Matthew | Very cool. So you guys are the actual manufacturers of all of these. So of all of these different products for. |
| Liz | You know, these pills. So we we have 3000 products that we manufacture and those are typically for the laboratories. So those are the testing reagents. Those are the ones that are more dilutions like normal solutions, molar solutions, indicators, page buffers. We manufacture those in-house. Anything that's considered more of a raw material, like I don't want to ever distill that much to 100 proof ethanol. |
| Liz | I don't want anybody around with all of that. So we distribute a lot of the raw goods from I think we have about 75 different chemical manufacturers that we buy from, and we do that from global sources as well. Of And then from there, when you mentioned the OEM stuff, we we do a lot of white labeling and custom manufacturing for all sorts of different industries, a lot of instrumentation company will have just one solution that they need for their instrument, but they don't want us anybody know that we exist so that they can get a consumable that goes along with their instrument. |
| Liz | So we manufacture for them local label, all of that stuff. So we've got, you know, two sides of the business cannabis. The reason I speak about it so much is because it does represent about 30% of my business as it is right now, but it certainly is the one that seems to need the most information and education right now. |
| Liz | But the other industry, certainly semiconductor is, you know, with with what we've seen with the pandemic and supply chains, semiconductor and microchips and circuit board manufacturers are coming back in a big way in this country. And we're seeing a lot of people need needing chemistry to test those things, test the bats for like completing bat. They have to test if there's enough nickel or copper. |
| Liz | And so we supply those chemistries as well. |
| Matthew | Oh, wow. That's that's fantastic. You know, I kind of I'm really curious. How did you how do you get into and it's probably the same thing. But, you know, the forensic stuff was you know, when I saw that on your website, I was like, really? That seems like such a leap. I mean, obviously they got to get it from somewhere, right? |
| Matthew | I mean, it's not like, you know, the FBI and police departments are, you know, kind of making this stuff up, you know, making it on their own. So how did they. |
| Liz | Actually they were. So that's that's really fascinating how we got into that. That was about 22 years ago. We had a police department locally say we just start making this up for us. And then their lead investigator and I started working on these products. And now we have developed an entire line of products and we're the largest manufacturer of forensic chemistry in the world, wet chemistry. |
| Liz | We don't do the fingerprint powders or anything, but like the bioluminescence stains that you see on CSI, where you spray the blood spatter pattern and it glows purple, that type of stuff. But what we did was because a lot of these labs were making it at, you know, at their lab, you know, at the crime scene or not a crime scene at the labs back at the sheriff's office or whatever. |
| Liz | But they were getting a lot of inconsistency and product. And so and it wasn't being tested. And so you could get to a crime scene, spray something, it not work, and then you lose your evidence. So with our process, we have a lot traceability. You know, we qualified all of our vendors, we do testing of all of the materials. |
| Liz | And so it gave them a better platform if something were to go wrong at a you know, at a crime scene, that they could actually say, I know this stuff works. So if it's not luminescent, it's not blood, you know, so that was how we got into it. And then we started making these kids that you could put into investigators cars so you don't have to go take, you know, an entire mattress back to the lab. |
| Liz | You could literally spray it there, find out if this is what you're looking to take, and then you could just cut the pieces out that you needed to get what you needed from it. So we've this this products we've developed, we've done ten years of stability in shelf life testing on. And you can have these in cars, you can freeze them, they can get hot and then you just premix them, you know, just mix them up on the site on the site and you're ready to go. |
| Liz | And so it really changed the way that we do things. It's our biggest global seller, which that was a surprise to me. We sell quite a bit of these materials to the government. We sell a lot of these materials to, you know, FBI, but also DOD and local police forces all across the country. But the big one that was surprising is how many countries have been starting to order this. |
| Liz | So we now have five distributors in other countries selling this product. So it's really fascinating to see the way that it has changed. But it's also, you know, it's hard to be an expert in everything. So if you're the investigator on the scene and you have to figure out how this whole thing was constructed and be, you know, ballistics expert and a blood spatter expert and and end and now you've got to be a chemist, too. |
| Liz | It just there's too many factors there. So we kind of pulled that back and said, we'll take care of that part for you. And it's been wonderfully successful. And another fun industry. I mean, that's a whole different type of trade show in industry. That's that's really fascinating. |
| Matthew | That's awesome. Well, let me ask you, because, you know, you so you guys, I mean, you you've got to find people who produce stuff and then you're you're going you know, you've got distributors that work for you. So how do you go about finding, you know, good producers? You know, how did you know what you and others what what advice do you have on on finding a good producer? |
| Liz | Well, for us, I mean, we're lucky that we've been in the industry or industry for, you know, 50 plus, yet more than that. I haven't been here that long, but for a long time. So we have had relationships with some of these chemical producers that we've had for 20 or 30 years. And so we kind of know who's good and who's not. |
| Liz | And then you've seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions throughout the years and how that's kind of changed some of the landscapes. But for us, it has really been just about that. When we go overseas to try and find new sources, that's when it becomes a little more tricky because, you know, India may produce it differently than China might or Taiwan. |
| Liz | And so you really have to watch kind of the product quality. So we always bring in samples. We test everything here, make sure before we qualify a vendor, and then clearly the pandemic changed all of our worlds in so many ways. But on supply chain, we would only have one or two vendors that we would buy these things from now. |
| Liz | We've had to like, you know, go more than a half inch deep on our suppliers and go, you know, you know, three inches deep. So now we have five or six suppliers to any one product that is qualified because you just never know. They shut down a port or, you know, if there's a revolution in a country which we've seen, if you were in Czechoslovakia, you know, I mean, all of this stuff has changed the way that we look at things and being that a lot of our products are elemental chemistry, meaning like it starts with copper or starts with silver or starts with lithium, the lithium deposits where they're located, you know, where where, |
| Liz | you know, this tsunami that hit Japan. When that happened, it took out 60% of the world's iodine just like that. And so we got into that globally into a situation where we were in a really tough market with iodine. And to set up another iodine production facility takes about 18 months. Those 18 months of four or five times the on pricing on that stuff because the supply was just not there. |
| Liz | So it's just in it can take any one little thing to just disrupt major supply chains and people don't even know. You know, we talk about lithium. Large amounts of lithium is in the area and which is war torn right now. So when you think about batteries such as your owns and lithium is a massive, you know, component in a lot of our batteries, this is going to hit at some point. |
| Liz | And it's not, you know, so it's kind of tracking all that stuff at an elemental level and then trying to figure out how do we how do we protect ourselves and our clients. |
| Matthew | Wow. Yeah. I don't think people realize just how how globally sensitive the supply chain is. I mean, you know, they talk about things heating up with China. Oh, my goodness. I mean, talk about a supply chain nightmare. I mean, it's just and it's kind of that that ripple effect, right. It doesn't even have to be China. As to your point, with lithium, I mean, it's in everything. |
| Matthew | It's in your your Tesla batteries. It's in your your cell phones and all kinds of things. And that jacks up the prices just because you can't get those basic elements right. So yes. Yeah, that is Yeah. |
| Liz | So that's what we do here is really try to track that and that's what I encourage a lot of my customers to do as we move forward too, is to know where your elemental stuff is coming in, because that's when it gets really, you know, it can get real tricky because you don't even realize, like, you know, the reason we went into such a panic with gloves is because we had an entire country, Malaysia shut down everything for a month. |
| Liz | And that's where the rubber comes from. And whether you use nitro or whatever, it all comes from that same base base, raw material. And so it became, you know, terribly scary when we have a pandemic with a virus and we need gloves more than ever. We don't have the raw materials to get them. And so even something so simple as something like that could be detrimental in, you know, massive amounts of industries across the board. |
| Matthew | That's wild. Well, let me ask you. So when it comes to, you know, let's just say the Rocky Mountain reagents, right? You know, what is it mostly through trade shows or how do you go about finding, you know, your your ideal distributors? How do you get new, new business? |
| Liz | Well, on the distribution side, it's typically the materials we manufacture here. Most of the distributors I work with I'm sorry, my email is going crazy. Most of the distributors that we work with and manufacturers that we work with already have distribution agreements with raw material suppliers. So they already have a solvent manufacturer, they already have an acid manufacturers. |
| Liz | So I don't really distribute as of as more of the materials that I manufacture here. We have seen, again, mergers and acquisitions. There's a lot of that going on in almost every element of business at this point, but especially in the kind of business that I do, we've seen a lot of changing of guards, you know, bringing two or three companies together, trying to combine ERP, you know, consolidating sales stuff. |
| Liz | So there's been some disruption in the marketplace that we've taken a little bit of advantage of where distributors that we were never able to really approach before. Now all of a sudden they're like, Hey, what you guys got over there? So it's been more, more organic and in that space we wanted it to be more organic. You know, we didn't want to go into the market and like we wanted to make sure that we could supply them with the products and not just be like, what they were coming from. |
| Liz | And so we've been very diplomatic and trying to ramp up in a very, you know, scale in a way that was feasible for us. I've been here for 25 years and one of our biggest mottos is under-promise and overdeliver every single time. And if you can't do that and I think that should be true of any business, it doesn't matter if I'm selling widgets or chemicals, that's what you should be doing and overcommunicate to your customers. |
| Liz | I cannot tell you, especially we have 474 total vendors and you know, you're like, Oh, that's coming in tomorrow. And they're like, Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's back to back order two weeks. And you're like, Wait, hold, please. You know, operations can't run like that. And so trying to be as or you know, what I have found with customers, even if that's the situation, if you tell them in advance that they know when you know they're going to be much more sympathetic than trained to hustle around and make excuses, you know, be authentic, overcommunicate and under-promise and overdeliver every time. |
| Liz | And that organic message has has been at the forefront of our success. It's been mostly organic. It's only been in the last three years. We actually started marketing the company at all. |
| Matthew | Oh, wow. No kidding. |
| Liz | Yeah. |
| Matthew | Okay. Well, let me ask you. So for that, that sort of communication, you know, kind of adding that whole cyber business, you know, podcast aspect to this, what is there a tool that you use internally that that helps you communicate, you know, because you have, you know, 700 and some distributors you said so. |
| Liz | Those are vendors. I all the vendors, I'm selling distributors, but we have over 3000 clients too. So that's that makes it very difficult. But we did switch over to a new ERP about two and a half years ago, and it has been nice because it has a lot of the automations of auto communicating. Like if it's a bad quarter, it will auto. |
| Liz | And so we've we've built a lot of kind of the back end CRM into our ERP type to communicate. But each for each client has a dedicated customer service representative. Each client has a dedicated salesperson that they can elevate things to. And we really try to work hard to make sure that people know who their dedicated people are. |
| Liz | I find that if you have a relationship with a customer, it's much better to continue to have that than kind of flip flop around. But when you do talk about the cybersecurity, I mean, that is something that has been very difficult. I mean, not difficult, but we are a small business and I'm sure you work with a lot of small businesses and we do DOD contracts and we do aerospace contracts. |
| Liz | We do with a lot of prime vendors. Colorado, for a lot of people don't know, is the third largest aerospace economy in the United States because of the GPS and satellites. So we have a lot of major aerospace people here. And so how we've had to kind of deal with that, especially with keeping up with the nest regs and the fire regs and in every rag that comes out every two months, that changes everything. |
| Liz | I don't know how people would do that coming into that. I mean, we grew up with, you know, Lockheed and all the aerospace. We kind of grew up into it. So it was like, Oh, now you've got to implement this, now you better implement this, now you got to implement this. But if you had to start fresh, it would be very, very taxing, you know, very, very taxing. |
| Liz | So I always support a small companies utilizing services like yours because it is, you know, regulation on top of regulation. And sometimes you have to interpret which regulation is the one that you're supposed to be following because they don't necessarily match. And it seems like it should be very directive. But it's very not. It's not. |
| Matthew | Yeah, I know it's tough because they they don't want to be like they don't want to say use this product because as the government, they can't say that. So they got to say, well do these things that will, you know, and it all makes sense. Yes. But at the same time you be like, can't you just tell me, use this product so we can just use that product or something like this. |
| Matthew | And so yeah, with Nest and now CMC, it's just a whole thing and yeah, we've had a number of, of clients come to us that were government contractors or subcontractors and it's a huge process to go from zero to okay, now we're, we're CMC compliant, we're ready for the audit and it's just it's a big to do, but that's not what I want to talk about with the, the, with the cyber stuff. |
| Matthew | I'm kind of looking for a shout out for your, your CRM and your ERP. Can you is that something you can share. |
| Liz | We're sure. |
| Matthew | Right. |
| Liz | Now. Sweet. So we went in that suite, you know, since we had been in business for a long time and kind of organically grown, we had way grown out of we were QuickBooks and we were kind of patching everything together with different applications and trying to get it to kind of work. And that suite is a big program. |
| Liz | It's got a lot of it's got a lot of capabilities, but also that can be very overwhelming. So my instructions and my instructions to my implementation team was just make it do what we're currently doing in other things and then we can add in. But let's just get basics down, simple as possible, efficient as possible to get this thing rolling. |
| Liz | And then we've been adding on, you know, different things throughout the throughout this, you know, financial reporting and just all sorts of other stuff that has added to a complete quality system that is ISO, you know, So there's a lot of things that we've added into it over the last two and a half years. But when you look at it, at first you're like, Oh, I don't even know where to begin. |
| Liz | It's almost it's almost paralyzing, you know, for the CRM. We were with HubSpot, but we have transitioned everything into Internet suite, but again, built in, it's it's vast. And so it's not like a fun little goofy interface where you just go, Oh, call an email, Oh, text this guy. Oh, you know, it's like writing script and you know, all of that. |
| Liz | And I'm fortunate enough to have a person in-house that writes all our code and knows how we do business. So that helps a lot. But it it's definitely a massive undertaking to do it on your own. But now that it's all there and it's all in one system and anybody in the company, whether it's my quality department, my sales person, my shipping department, they can see the last time I communicated, you know, all of that stuff. |
| Liz | So it has been transformative in a lot of ways, but it is very, very overwhelming. It's very overwhelming. And implementation can be pretty taxing for a company, especially if you're kind of all, you know, all running at 100% capacity as it is finding the capacity or the bandwidth to be able to implement is was a that was a challenge. |
| Matthew | But I wanted to ask you about that because I think you said something that I think is is absolutely brilliant. And I think a lot of people miss this, whether it's something as major. I mean, it's massive to go to an ERP from it's just such a big undertaking. But even when it's something small, a lot of business owners, they miss the fact they like, what can this do? |
| Matthew | And then they try to fit their business into this technology that's not you know, and I don't think that's the right way to use technology. You say, how do you want to run your business and how can the technology make this happen? So when you were like, Look, we do business this way, make it work for us, let's get this stuff going the way we do it, and then we'll build out from it. |
| Matthew | Yeah, you, you can learn more and grow and do cool stuff as you. But you're right. You have your business, keep doing what you're doing in net suite and then at all because otherwise seen so many people, you know they take these huge bites of these things and now they're rearranging their company at the same time and everybody the you know the stress that you went through just to implement it is a lot. |
| Matthew | But now imagine implementing and now you're rearranging your company because you've got this new technology. It's like that's that's a misstep. So I love that you did that. So my question, long winded question is how did you find the you know, the extra bandwidth is you're going in 100 miles an hour, Everybody's, you know, going at 100. How do you go from 100 to, hey, we need to do 110 at it? |
| Matthew | How did you make the extra space to implement? |
| Liz | Well, I put my CEO in charge of the project management and then my director of technology really was in charge of implementation. And those two really kind of ferreted out a lot of the things that we would have monthly meetings, weekly meetings, daily meetings sometimes, but even like the small stuff, like I said we would, we just wanted it to replace QuickBooks in the beginning, that's all. |
| Liz | I asked them to do. But even then, not like, what is your invoice look like? What is your packing list look like? And just to kind of figure out like the flows of how it how does it go from a quote to a sales order to, you know, an item fulfillment to an invoice, you know, all of that. |
| Liz | And how does that flow work, work that was even complicated and that was just replace QuickBooks. But it was we realized that the amount of time working in five different siloed systems, which is basically what we were doing because we had a quality system, we had, you know, our ERP, we had, well, not our ERP or accounting system. |
| Liz | I wouldn't call CRB, but we had an inventory management system, we had a quality system, we had a manufacturing system. So I mean, there was just so many things that you had to go back and check that the time that we were spending in all of these systems and and the efficiency, the lack of efficiency, we felt like it was actually going to improve us enough that we probably wouldn't need to hire another customer care up, which is where we were getting we were like, we need more people just to shuffle papers, essentially. |
| Liz | That was the other thing about it. There's no papers anymore. Like my entire company was just I mean, I think we got rid of seven file cabinets. It was just like, Wow, we no longer need all this. It's all right here, you know? And that was that was like when he told me, We're not going to be a paper company. |
| Liz | I was like, Whatever. Yeah, Right now we're not like, Holy cow, I don't even need a printer anymore most of the time. |
| Matthew | That's awesome. Well, to follow up questions on that, how long did the initial implementation take you when you went just to your kind of QuickBooks implementation? And did you ever did you end up saving on on hiring new new Customer Care associates? |
| Liz | We didn't because our business actually started to increase at that point. So we didn't hire a new one that we needed to, but we didn't need to. You know, we kept our same staff. We started talking about this in January, February, and to implement in November. We didn't actually implement until February the next year, but we weren't really focused in the beginning and it really was a lot of the team at NetSuite trying to make sure that they had all of the things because we are a very different kind of business than most. |
| Liz | So we run on a food manufacturing platform because of what we do in the manufacturing place, but it has helped us to get and maintain all of our quality control systems in a much, much more efficient way that we were able to go for more certifications like ISO. We're an FDA regulated facility. So if we wanted to go GMP, we could we have white rooms here so we could do that. |
| Liz | So it's given us a lot of platform or foundation to do a lot of things with with minimal implementation from now from here. Right. We just have to add a few things or tweak a few things to get those things where before it would have been a massive undertaking to try and get some of those certifications. So in that way it really added a lot of credibility to our company. |
| Liz | But also really, you know, at the end it really comes down to risk mitigation and, you know, we want to make sure that we've got a lot traceability and all those things all the way through. So that's there has been a lot of savings for that in just peace of mind get marvelous. |
| Matthew | Well, you know, not to to go too deep into the ERP, but, you know, it's always fun when we get, you know, to kind of dive into these. So just very quickly, did you are you able to do all of your your companies now or do you use these separately like Rocky Mountain seven, ten and Cannabis Kitchen? Now that are they how does that work with you've got three companies under under one roof. |
| Matthew | Yeah. Three hats for you. Where does this all merge. Kind of, you know. |
| Liz | Well it is it is all one company So rocky about regions is the company 710 Spirits is a brand underneath the company And then Cannabis kitchen supplies was kind of a siloed company. We acquired them so now they are a brand vertical under us as well. So we use utilize departments to help kind of subset that that helps quite substantially because those customers are going to be different from my other customers. |
| Liz | So when we run marketing campaigns, let's say if we're doing a marketing campaign for semiconductor, we can identify those because now that we've we've got departments, we've got departments under industrial, we've got and then we've got different industry categorizations so that we can run different flows in different campaigns depending on which industry that we're focusing on. And so the, the, the cannabis kitchen is more instrumentation and equipment. |
| Liz | 710 is just the chemistry around cannabis and then the other industries that we have and that has helped and we have and I must admit we've changed things multiple times along the way. You know, we went from like, we're going to do it this way to that way, and now we're going to have it. Industry categories. No, we're now we're going to have you know, there's so many different ways, you know, you can do things in as we so we've transitioned two or three different ways, but they weren't terribly difficult to switch over because it was like this is too cumbersome, we need to fix this. |
| Liz | How do we make this cleaner? And so we figured out how to do that. But it's been a process and we've been in it about two years or two years now. So now here. |
| Matthew | And you've gone from the financials to now, are you doing your your CRM in there as well now? And are you doing marketing out of out of there as well? And so you know, and at the whole nine yards now. |
| Liz | Yeah, we're doing everything out of it and it's amazing. The only thing that we haven't really we still haven't touched our website. So our website is still kind of freestanding because we're redesigning our website again. So with that, the back, we wanted to get this really running well and make sure that we kind of ironed out all the kinks before we attach yet another thing to it that every time you add something that isn't part of that one program, you start to get in these situations where software updates can crash things and you got to have IP like IP APIs and all these different things to transition information. |
| Liz | And so we decided to just keep those siloed for right now and kind of manually push information between the two until the until we've gotten that. So you exactly kind of we're we're 90% there. I never believe that will ever be 100%. I just don't believe in 100%. But 90% of the way there, then we can start to get to 90% on the website. |
| Matthew | Very cool. And of course, the geek in me wants to keep talking about that. And and well, we'll start. Well. |
| Liz | That's fine with me. I geek out on that stuff all the time. |
| Matthew | It's so much fun. Well, let me ask you, because we haven't really talked yet about the national cannabis industry Association. What can you tell us about that? |
| Liz | So National Cannabis Industry Association is the largest member network of cannabis businesses in the United States, and they their primary focus is to lobby and well, create reasonable regulations and lobby Congress for ultimately federal legalization of cannabis products, whether it be hemp and CBD or industrial hemp products or marijuana for whatever purpose. So that's the main purpose of it. |
| Liz | It's a lot of education. We have a lot of subcommittees that talk about like public safety labeling requirements. So there's a lot of conversation and state holding that goes on in that organization to talk about how do we do this effectively? Because the last thing we want to do is go to Congress and go like just legalize. And they're really how do you do that more like, I don't know. |
| Liz | So we're trying to come up with a pretty large amount of information in white papers. And, you know, data took in to support the things that we're saying, whether it be testing protocols and we work with multiple other organizations or just as simply as safe banking. You know, we passed the thinking, I think six or seven times out of the House, never got passed the Senate. |
| Liz | And it seems like such a reasonable thing, especially in a place like Colorado where we've had marijuana for 15 years, that you can't put your money in a bank. And I know banking is a really iffy subject right now, but but when you when you still have robberies happening, I mean, they don't advertise them or do you they don't say anything on the news or anything anymore because they don't want to be prime suspects. |
| Liz | You know, targets. But it's still happening all the time. And I've heard about it multiple times that people come in with an AK during the day, take all your money, take all your weed, and you know, they could be taking 100, 200, $300,000 worth of materials. That's not safe for the industry, is not safe for the consumers. And it's not just it's just not a good way to kind of run business. |
| Liz | And so just getting safe banking over the line. But there's been a lot of problems of that in cannabis. You know, when you look at other lobbying groups, say, oil and gas or pharma or health care, they spend 100, $200 million a year on lobbying efforts and supporting candidates. Last year, cannabis spent both marijuana and have spent 5,000,001 company with 3.5 million of it. |
| Liz | So we don't have a voice yet in Congress. We just don't. I mean, everybody kind of knows it's there. 80% of the U.S. population says it should be at least recreational, but they're not listening because they're getting you know, they're getting it from a lot of different other areas, whether it be banking or pharma or oil and gas or anything they've got foreign policy. |
| Liz | They have a lot to look at. And so if we're not kind of in their face saying, hey, look at us, look at us, look at us, they're not going to do anything. And so that's kind of been my message in that space. And why I want to be a part of that organization is to bring all of these companies together and have a voice. |
| Liz | But also the suppliers into that. We've seen you know, I've been here for 15 years kind of at the beginning of when all this started. And now I'm seeing companies that have not been in this market at all, and now they're like, Oh, we should go to cannabis because we can make a lot of money. It's like, why don't you know? |
| Liz | I told my missus easy operators, like, make sure you're buying from suppliers who support this industry because it's still not a legal industry. And those are the guys that are making a lot of money. If you're buying a $300,000 piece of equipment and they're not doing something, educating, advocating, doing something to support this industry, don't buy from those guys. |
| Liz | I mean, I hate to be that kind of cynical about it, but it just it's it makes it very difficult when you're giving all this money and the guys on the front line MSOs and the product manufacturers, the dispensary owners, they're paying for, you know, the taxation. But on the back, what people don't see is they're paying for the regulation. |
| Liz | So if you they like, for example, that in June they're putting forth another set of testing regiments here in Colorado, Those tests cost money every time. You know, if you're looking at 500 to $1000 per batch to have it third party validated, that gets expensive. And every time they add a test, it's more expensive. And you're clogging the supply chain of laboratories. |
| Liz | So the supply chain isn't just like raw materials. It's also do you have companies that can provide services for the things that you're alternating? You're alternating. So you've got the MSOs paying for the taxation on the front side, the licensing on the side, the protection and certain security on the side and all, and making sure that all their products are hitting new regulations almost monthly. |
| Liz | And it can only be for that state too. By the way, every state is different. So you can't take your product from the state to that state because the regs are different. That's a lot for a company to try and keep track of. If they're just trying to produce like a lollipop, right? Yeah, we, we the ancillaries who know how to do pharma, we know how to do energy circles, we know how to do food. |
| Liz | We need to be the ones talking about this. We need to be one's advocating. |
| Matthew | Yeah, well, when you say testing, right, you just mention that. What exactly do you mean? Are you talking about testing the product? What? What's that entail? |
| Liz | The testing the product. So at the end of it, in the way that I think about it, like we talked about with the tea and oil. So the very end oil, that is what you're going to add. And then you can take that oil and going to isolate, which is like powder. So you can have a powdered CBD, right? |
| Liz | You have to test those two things, either the distillate or the isolate, and you need to test that because again, you're concentrating this plant down to its bare minimum, but you're also concentrating heavy metals, pesticides, you know, different cannabinoids. You're doing a lot with that, right? So you have to test that in product to make sure that heavy metals are under the regulation. |
| Liz | And where I like to say is that that distillate or that isolate is now an ingredient that becomes the ingredient to the gummy, the cookie, that sucker, whatever it is. What we saw was they that testing wanted, they wanted those things tested, but then they wanted the cookie tested. So in California, for example, I had a cookie manufacturer that has isolate, tested, find his just tested fine, but they didn't test the flour to the same specifications as they tested the cannabis. |
| Liz | So when they made his cookie, his cookie popped for for a pesticide that shouldn't have been there. But why is why are you making him test again with food grade ingredients? You know, so that's been one of the challenges is what is the sample, What is the product. And so that's another thing we've been really pushing is it really comes down to once it becomes a raw material ingredient then and tested and that's where it stops, right, Other than potency. |
| Matthew | Sure. Wow. So, I mean, that's a it's a long road. I mean. Right. I mean, from where even though it's been legal, I think in Colorado for 15 years and a lot, you know, has there's been a lot of progress. There's still a huge road ahead. It sounds like. |
| Liz | There is. But I mean, we've had some since 2012 in the farm bill. And so we've had kids like a lot of the cannabinoids coming out of hemp that are non non intoxicating, as they would call it. We've had those out in the market and so we know how to treat those. We know what it is. And they're very similar to other vitamins, Vitamin D, vitamin C, I mean we they're very similar products that they give you. |
| Liz | Comparing this to that the FDA can be like, oh, okay, yeah, we don't want these things in it. Or you look at how it's being isolated and say, okay, isolating it with these chemicals, let's make sure they're they're testing it with these chemicals. So it's already I mean, it's already written, it's already done. It's just trying to get it to the FDA to say yes. |
| Liz | Okay, cool. You know, that's been really problematic because it just feels like everybody's like, we don't want to touch it, You know, it's like see big of a problem again, it's almost like the ERP, right? It feels too massive. It becomes paralyzing. And then, you know, so it's just like, no, just do this one little thing. And if you do that one little thing, it'll do this next little thing and then it's not so overwhelming. |
| Matthew | Abso I like to think of it as a foot in the door approach. If you can just get that tiny little thing. I mean, and obviously there's been a lot of that progress, but on the federal level, I mean, has there really been any progress? I mean, I don't think federally there's been any progress has been a brick wall, right? |
| Liz | Pretty much, Yeah. And actually, the FDA just kind of pushed it back to industry again. We kind of said, hey, you guys, we need something. So I'm part of, you know, three different organizations and National Cannabis, a National Cannabis Laboratories Council, where we take in 48 laboratories in 18 states with blind data. We have tested all of these products, taken all of that accumulated into a data, a scientific data report, and then we took all the regulations from every state and said, okay, what are we seeing if if California says you have to do 50 of this and in New Jersey says you got to go to seven, where's the balance? |
| Liz | You know, So we went through and we went through every kind of product in cannabis, hemp or marijuana and said, this is what you should be testing for in flower and here's why. Here's the data that supports it. And these are the things you're also asking for. There's no data to support it. And so we went through each one of those things, created a 53 page white paper. |
| Liz | ASTM The 37 Commission has been putting I mean, they've been working for four years now. They've got a pretty comprehensive report on how to do the testing. We were saying what to test for. They're saying, here's how you test for it, here's the procedures and all the things. And then there's another group that is looking for national accreditation of laboratories were for cannabis to accredited them nationally. |
| Liz | So between our three organizations we have written all of these papers to say, Here you go, here it is. You know, it's not we in, it's science. You know, it's not just industry, it's science backed with data and we're continuing to collect data. |
| Matthew | Yeah. I mean, it's not like a bunch of hippies to, you know, get, get pot legalized. You've really, you know, brought it into the modern age. It's all industrialized. You've got all the regulations written out everything. And it's and yet still you've got that political charge, right? I mean, people just don't want to touch it. So. |
| Liz | Yeah, it's tough and it's and it's complicated, you know? And for me, I feel like cannabis is kind of well, it obviously got a bad rap when we had a prohibition on it. But I think when we really went into this cannabis, it really, you know, into this new kind of decade and a half, it really got way too recreationally focused. |
| Liz | And it really the medical piece of that kind of got lost in a staging. And, you know, for me, I have a lot of friends that are patients that need this and it is medicine. And it's not just about, you know, going to Cypress Hill concert and whatever it really is about, like I'm using this for pain medication. |
| Liz | I'm using this for, you know, to help my appetite. I'm using this for PTSD, anti-depression, like whatever it is, there's a lot of people utilizing this to help them with their own ailments and whatever, whatever that is. It's not just about know big blunts and rolling with Snoop Dogg. It's really about the medicine. And when you see it change people's lives, that's why I that's the only reason I am really here. |
| Liz | I mean, I personally don't partake in it at all. I'm just not good at it. So I don't. But I know what it can do for people in the, you know, for medicine. And that's where I think the message has really lost. And that's why politicians don't want to touch it. It's like, Oh, they don't need another alcohol. |
| Liz | They don't need you know, they don't need another center drug. That's not what this is. This is medicine. |
| Matthew | Yeah, well said. So you are on the board of ILDA. Yeah, I. |
| Liz | Am. |
| Matthew | But yeah. Congratulations. |
| Liz | Thanks. I've been a member of the. I think it's my sixth year, but I've been kind of on the periphery of them for the last 15 or 20. Known about them going to a few meetings here and there. But this last those last time I rejoined six years ago and really got involved again, it was it was that bandwidth thing, right? |
| Liz | There was no bandwidth to really be a part of an organization or Zale Hayes by myself, because we couldn't we couldn't have done it at that time. But being a part of it, there have been so many wonderful benefits to it, even though it's a very funny organization because my direct competitors are it right, and all my distributors are there. |
| Liz | So it's a very strange kind of place. But I really love it because even it has taught me in business for years I thought, you always like your your competition was your enemy and that's not true. You can have really lovely collaborative relationships with people that compete directly with you because more than likely they're only competing with you on 15 or 20% of your product line. |
| Liz | And they may have capabilities in places that you don't, and you may have capabilities in places they don't. And so being able to really sit down and have that collaboration conversation without kind of giving away the 25 or 30% market share of what you guys are doing and they're doing, it really has been transformative. You know, I feel like coming out of the the late nineties, mid nineties or late nineties, everybody was like, don't talk to him. |
| Liz | He's with that company, you know. But now it's not like that. And I think cannabis working in cannabis industry has helped that to, to change my kind of philosophy about that. You know I'm second generation, my daughters work here as a third generation. We got three generations here, meaning a lot of second and third generation owners talking about succession planning of small businesses is meeting some amazing friends along the way, learning about new technologies. |
| Liz | You know, it's just been such a wonderful experience. Everybody I've met there has such an amazing amount to contribute, and the stories of what they're doing in their businesses is just inspiring every time I come away from an old meeting, I come back, fired up and ready to do some stuff. So I really love being a part of it and I was really honored to be asked to be a part of this board because I do respect this organization so much and the other people on the board so much. |
| Liz | So it was a little surprising, to be honest, but I'm really excited to be a part of it. Yeah, So that's, that's that. But I have met some of my best friends, ILDA, you know, two of my best friends, and they don't live in Colorado, but, but they, you know, when you have such a similar experience where you've transitioned, your parents are transitioning out and you're transitioning in and how do you take it? |
| Liz | The big one is how do you take a 70 year old company and make it relevant again? Yeah, you know, so just kind of, you know, I still feel like we're kind of in an entrepreneurial startup mode, but we've been around for seven years, so it's a little hard to say that, you know? So talking to other people about how you kind of reinvigorate, how do you keep you know, a lot of us have staff that have been around 20 and 30 years. |
| Liz | So how do you get staff re recharge? RE very, you know, keep them from hitting kind of the brick wall and burn out. So just being able to have real conversations with leaders in industry doing something so similar, it's like almost like therapy sometimes that's okay. |
| Matthew | No, I was, I was shocked with how, you know, just very friendly and open. Everybody is there at ILDA. Which is it? Which is different than than a lot of organizations and and you know that collaborative friendliness. I think you know we're seeing it in you see it in other industries and you know and I think it's becoming more common now. |
| Matthew | People are starting to realize the world is a is a big enough place. There's plenty for everybody. This whole, you know, dog eat dog, there's only room for one at the top mentality. I don't think it really applies so much because, you know, I think for a lot of reasons. One, I think the you know, the consumers are are you know, are highly educated. |
| Matthew | And a lot of times because of the Internet, you know, 20 years ago now, 30 years ago, they didn't have access to this level of information. So you kind of wanted to kill your competition. So the so that the consumer was you know, Europe was getting all their information from you and not from anywhere else or you can't do that now. |
| Matthew | They get all their information from you know, and a lot of times they know they know the product or service as well as the salesperson. Right. As well as the manufacturers sometimes. And so it really becomes one of these things where, you know, organizations like ILDA, where they can can bring you together to benefit from those relationships. And, well, when they don't have something, they can refer people to you and vice versa. |
| Matthew | That's just a leg up. That's that's an advantage. |
| Liz | So I definitely feel that way. I mean, absolutely. And I think the other part of that is the sales strategy has changed not just because of consumers change, but I think the entire sales strategy has changed to that. People don't want to hard sell people and they want to have a relationship they want to have something interesting. And I think that the the the sales strategies of 20 or 30 years ago when I got into this thing have completely changed. |
| Liz | And it feels like it's changing every two or three years, but especially in laboratories with procurement people in laboratories, these were young people, you know, now it's like 20 and 30 year olds buying. And so they to have a different relationship with the supplier than maybe, you know, others in the past did. A lot of it's being driven by cost. |
| Liz | You know you know here in Colorado, we're kind of a chemical desert. So when you have a chemist leave, one company goes to another. So you may not get that client, you know, if he leaves and he's always been buying from you, maybe they're not going buy from you anymore. So finding out who that second layer is and the company is always something that's kind of more of what we're doing. |
| Liz | But then they take you to the next place. I have one chemist that's jumped for jobs and he's taking me to every single one of them. Maintain all four. But you know, it's like, okay, But it's because of that kind of more personal relationship. You know, you don't have to go golfing anymore. You don't have to like, the strategies are much, much different. |
| Liz | And being more personable and relational has become much more an effective tactic in sales than kind of the drive the price at the bottom. You know, that's the other thing we really focus on here is if you want a bottom price, then the Internet's here for you. Yeah, I have come. I have a quality department for two chemical engineers and they cost money. |
| Liz | So if you if you want to make sure that you got complete like lot traceability that you've got, you know, you know, resources, that if there's a recall, if anything, we're here for you. If you're looking to just go to the bottom, you can buy that online and you won't have any support if you want to make sure that you're talking to Matty or Crystal every time because they know that you're going to need it faster than what you say or you're not going to need it until next week. |
| Liz | They already know those things. They can figure your rhythms out. So there's a cost to all of that customer service. And providing quality service and providing quality services really does have a cost associated to it. And I'm hoping and what we saw out of the pandemic is that especially procurement agents that were buying things from 50 people are like, I don't want to do that anymore like I am, you know, So I have a real soft spot for our procurement agents because during COVID, we all became procurement agents. |
| Liz | We were like, All right, you call these three companies, I'll call these. But, you know, it just was the Wild West again. So I have a lot of sympathy. So then going to more of the one stop shop, maybe it does cost me 5% more, but I'd rather do that and have a peace of mind that I know they're going to take care of me and I don't have to make 50 phone calls, you know? |
| Matthew | Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I think you're right. I think it's changing everywhere. I it's funny because a few years ago, two years ago ish, I joined this very large marketing group for, you know, for kind of it and cybersecurity companies and they were very much on this old school kind of of marketing. They had lots of people who swore by it and they were dumping tons of money into it and, and all that. |
| Matthew | You know, it's so it's just all the hard core, you know, sales, you know, emails and letters and then sending them stuff. And it's this constant just no relationship with the people whatsoever. You just bombarded with old school, basically used car salesmen type sales approach and like and they've got these these businesses that have grown up doing this and somehow it works. |
| Matthew | But we we have yet to get a one client that we didn't have a relationship with beforehand, like some sort of relation. And we've kept all of our clients for, you know, ten, you know, 13 years, you know, so depending on when we got them. But you know, we've been in business about 12, 13 years now and we have our very first clients and, and it's all been relationship and I can't somehow figure out and I don't think I want to figure out how to get those clients that I don't have a relationship with because I think they end up leaving quickly because they don't have a relationship is a race to the bottom. |
| Matthew | Who can provide me with this? You know, the cheapest, you know, easy. Like I don't want to like you said, I don't want to be that they Internet's there for you. You can go get that somewhere, you know? But if you want quality a, you know, whatever they that comes at a cost and it brings a lot of value. |
| Matthew | So you get what you pay for. But I'm right there with you. |
| Liz | And I keep telling myself like, I want to be Coca-Cola. I don't want to be Monster Energy drink. I to be RC like I want to be. The Coca-Cola brand is going to stay in that like middle section of just regular but not high end, not low end, just regular. And if we can just maintain that and that's that's definitely in fantastic. |
| Matthew | Well, okay, let's talk about the Colorado Titan 100 A congratulations is in order. But can you tell me tell us about the Colorado Titan 100. |
| Liz | So it is a program that's been around in Colorado for three years. So it is the 100 top CEOs in Colorado, according to Titan 100. So I was very honored to be nominated this year and I was blown away when I was selected. It was like, how did you even find me? Look, I don't even know how this even work, because it's there's a lot of people in it that I was a lot of major companies in Colorado that it still feels like a little bit imposter syndrome, like I shouldn't be on the stage with these guys. |
| Liz | What these guys are real things. I'm just goofing around in cannabis and forensics like so, but it was really an honor. So there will be a dinner in June and then there's a lot of network opportunities for us to work together and kind of elevate. So it's a pretty exciting award to get very, very surprised, very surprised that this came through today or this year. |
| Matthew | Yeah, well, congratulations. I know we're we're running a little long on time, but before we go can you tell tell everybody where they can find out more information about you and your company. |
| Liz | Yeah. So Rocky Mountain regions are regions that come. We have all of the different brands on there. We're getting ready to re kind of launch that if you're interested in the other organizations. NCAA if cannabis is kind of the trigger on NCAA is a fantastic organization and then check out the the National Cannabis Laboratories Association, because what they're doing to really provide the data there is imperative to moving any needles anywhere. |
| Liz | But LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me in any of my things. And it's just list guys women at LinkedIn and I love to connect with people and I love to talk about leadership because another role and on and end rolling off of a board of is a leadership foundation that I've been on for ten years where we teach, we do a leadership program that's a year long with 30 professionals, and we've been doing that since it's a 35 year old program. |
| Liz | So you do that for teenagers, then? We do that for adults here in Colorado. And I love talking to people. I've had so many amazing mentors throughout my career, and so now I'm trying to pay that back through helping with mentoring others, kind of getting their entrepreneurial feet underneath them. So if anybody just wants to connect and chat, I would love to do that because I love to hear about what everybody's doing and how I can be of assistance. |
| Liz | So I just check me out on LinkedIn. I guess the best way. |
| Matthew | And testing out what's the name of that organization you're mentoring or leadership organization that you're. |
| Liz | Part of? The West Metro Chamber Foundation or West Metro Leadership Foundation. Sorry. |
| Matthew | Okay. And we will put links to all of that below. Fantastic. And you mentioned mentors, and we do love to ask, is there one particular mentor or mentors that you'd like to, you know, tell a quick story about, share an anecdote and give a shout out to. |
| Liz | Sure. He probably will never see this, but he was my high school humanities teacher. Mr. Morris and I am still friends with him on Facebook to this day, but he changed the entire trajectory of kind of what I didn't know anything about. Anything is a sophomore in high school and having him mentor me, you know, I did a lot of writing in high school and I've done a lot of all sorts of different stuff there. |
| Liz | And he gave me a lot of inspiration and courage to believe that I can pretty much do anything. And from that I've never forgotten that and we still have great conversations. The other one would be my Congressman, Ed Perlmutter. I worked with him for 18 years. He just retired, which I'm very sad for. But he has been a great friend. |
| Liz | He has been. We have been. It's just been wonderful to have somebody in that position that you can talk to really, really talk to you. And he is a servant leader. And it made me believe in politics again because of him. There are those people out there that are there in DC because they want to make a difference and they want to do good stuff. |
| Liz | Sometimes our federal or national news cycle doesn't make it seem like that. There are a lot of people that that are in politics, whether it be locally or federally, that that care and they want to hear from you and that that was a fantastic relationship and those two people in particular really influenced a lot of the change in direction of what I've done in my life. |
| Liz | So I appreciate that opportunity. It's a shout out to them. |
| Matthew | Of course, and I think I couldn't think of a better note to end on that, that the beautiful stories. That's fantastic. And again, I thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us. |
| Liz | Absolutely. Well, you have a fantastic day and I hope to see you. |
| Matthew | Thank you. |
| Liz | Bye bye. |