What Happens When SEO Is the Only Customer Acquisition Channel You Have

Jordan Lally:0:00
Welcome back to the High Ticket AI Systems podcast. Everyone, please welcome one and only Mr. V Popat V. Welcome to the show, my friend. How you doing?

Vee:0:08
Hey, Jordan, doing well. How you doing today?

Jordan Lally:0:11
Yes, sir. Happy to have you on, my man. Now you work in a very niche and specialized industry. I'm not gonna spoil it, but please give us a high level overview of essentially what the company does and who you guys serve, who you guys help.

Vee:0:26
All right, great. Yeah. So I'm with Cola Digital, Cola Digital.ca. We are a cannabis and dispensary marketing agency, operating exclusively in the cannabis space. certain clients in North America as well as a few in the EU as well. United States, Canada is basically where we're focused. And we market cannabis companies, brands, dispensaries, medical marijuana clinics, with A few challenges, but we we we have a few digital marketing tactics that we found can work and best of all compliantly to market these brands and dispensaries. Retail, it's just like a local business. So you know, a dispensary is very much like a local business and a cannabis brand is just like another brand. The only issue is

Vee:1:19
the the the digital marketing operates in a completely different reality, basically.

Jordan Lally:1:26
Well w said for here, what do you mean? I was gonna save it but I'm I'm curious now.

Vee:1:32
Well, like l like like for example, okay, so w one of the b one of the tactics that we use is obviously local SEO for let's just start with a cannabis dispensary or even a medical marijuana dispensary or medical marijuana clinic. it's you're looking at local marketing. So yeah, sure, but Very, very, very very you gotta you gotta stay compliant, number one, but it's also highly competitive. SEO and content is essentially the survival engine for these businesses. However, there's no paid safety net, if you will. So for example, if like a local comp local plumbing company, dentist office sees a drop in organic traffic, they can pretty much throw you know five grand or whatever into Google Ads, PPC to essentially buy their way back to the top of the search engine. cannabis brands pretty much cannot you know, there are ways to advertise on Google and on through programmatic advertising on websites, but advertising is is really tough because of the compliance issue and the age issue as well. So basically SEO is your primary customer acquisition engine, i if you will. but you know, this is because of the the advertising, regulations. There are other regulations is i i as as well. I don't know if you want to get into that right now or not, but I mean social media is is definitely a a minefield. Did you want to talk want me to talk a little bit about trying to market dispensaries on social?

Jordan Lally:3:01
Let's do that. Yeah, let's do that actually. Let's stay here. We're here.

Vee:3:05
I mean, you are a local if you're a local business, I mean pretty any pretty much any business, you've got to be on social media, right? We all know that. every marketer, every digital marketer knows social is someplace you have to be. dispensaries want to be there as well. it in fact the way SEO has changed r recently and you you know, with AI overviews and AI engines, social is even more important, believe it or not. So this is where it really blocks a cannabis brand or a dispensary because, well again, let's look at an example, a local gym can pretty much post transformation photos, link straight to their membership signup page. You're gonna get some leads and some traffic. but in cannabis, like if you post a macro shot of a trichomb you and use a hashtag like dispensary and add a digital menu link in your bio, your reach instantly drops to zero. you know, the shadow band thing comes in, especially with Insta.

50k follower account, it's gonna get deleted or banned, which is I mean, I mean it's a heartbreak, right? It's like losing email addresses. You lose your whole losing your whole audience on one of the most important platforms, social media as a whole. it's i i it's huge. No avenue for appeal. What are you gonna do? You you don't you know what I mean? It's it it it's tight, and all dispensaries and cannabis brands are going through this. there are ways to get around it. I'll get to that in a sec, but to cover Facebook, that's the first bit was pretty. much for insta but for facebook it's slightly safer for community type style text but you don't want to be you want to lead with education basically is your restriction on social media it's you can't really sell products or link to a a product page or an e-commerce site for that matter tick tock it's not basically one strike and you're out so you know it's it's not really really worth it

Vee:5:07
The worka workaround is essentially, you know, never show product consumption, never show pricing, don't be linking to a product page. position the dispensary purely as a a lifestyle community hub. and like I say, leading with education, focusing on the people, by tenders, local culture, that type of thing. sounds great, but that really limits what you can can actually do. you know, if you even throw your Google Business profile, your GMB page into the social media side, you can't be po you can post posts to educational content, but you know, you gotta be very careful with the text you use for your description and with the business profile post that you you you add or should be adding daily for for good local SEO. I like to say you're basically renting your audience on Meta and TikTok and the landlord actively hates your industry.

So like you basically you you you use social media as like a temporary bridge, but the true goal of cannabis marketing is gotta be the old pull marketing. Use social education content, capture attention, and then immediately migrate that traffic off of those platforms, which is hard to do, but onto your website, into your loyalty program, your mailing list and you know, then you can start promoting on your compliant website.

Capture your SMS and and email data, build your loyalty program. And that's pretty much the way for dispensaries to use social nowadays.

Jordan Lally:6:42
When you are writing content on any social media platform, do you have to have like a middle funnel page just so that page isn't taken down? So let me give an example. There's an Instagram, there's a cannabis Instagram page. Cool. I link con I link a page to this specific product or the the this this picture, and the funnel page that it goes to is like the middleman page. I have to like hit claim my offer or whatever and then I go to the actual website page. Do I have to do that in the cannabis space or else if I just if I just link that post directly to my website, the whole thing's going.

Vee:7:25
Yeah, it's a great question. And you touch on something that leads to advertising. So before I answer that, let me ask you, this post that you're making with the with the link, is this an organic post or is this a paid ad?

Jordan Lally:7:37
Oof. I is there? Yeah. Let's let let's let's do both. So first organic and then talk about pain.

Vee:7:38
And I could it could be both. Yes.

Vee:7:46
The first wood's easy. Organic, it doesn't matter because no one's gonna see it anyway. Facebook's not gonna, you know, like we all know. I mean, organic, I've been saying organic reach was dead since probably, I don't know, man, like twenty twenty fourteen at least. I mean, a long time. We all know, it's no secret. So I I I added that just to kind of point that out that you know, if you're doing it organically, it really doesn't matter because Facebook's not really monitoring that because it's not really going anywhere. Having said that, I've never done it organically, but with a paid ad, you actually have to do that. And that's that's the workaround. It works better on Google than it does on Meta. Meta looks looks all the way up the poll, if you will. They're gonna look all the way up. Like their Google's probably only gonna look halfway and they're like, they're spending a grand a month, what w whatever. And then they're gonna limit your impressions on on that ad, but they'll take you they'll take your money and you can still get some like they'll limit it to to later at night. but regardless, you that's the process to use for advertising on Meta or on Google. It works better on Google, but it's tight on meta because like I said Back in the day, four or five years ago, that was the secret. That was the secret because Meta didn't look all the way up at the poll. They would look d do the halfway side. But now, if you are linking, they're gonna go to that middle page and the middle page, a lot of strategies to make that middle page. I like to make it look just like the homepage. So there it really there's less friction, if you will. You know, it looks like the person's getting to exactly where they they gotta get. Put a little offer on there to encourage them to click through. get 10% off your first purchase, give me your email address. as soon as you do that, it takes you right to the actual e-commerce site. and then recently over the past year or two, probably the last couple of years at least, Meta's followed it all the way through to the the the final page. and essentially

Vee:9:47
Meta looks so far up is they're gonna look at to the profile that actually placed that ad. What I'm getting to is if you mess around on Facebook too much in the cannabis space, you can lose your access to Meta. period like they will take your profile right out. I'm not talking your ad account. Your ad account can be gone. But if you keep trying to do like, I went to a a cafe, so I'm at a different IP address. I made a new Gmail address. I made a new Facebook account. I made a new prof trying to be this you know new ghost person who's apparently legitimate I don't know how they do this but if you're ever tried to sign up for a Facebook account. Most people probably haven't lately because unless the younger folk, but everybody's had a Facebook account since I don't know, 2007 or whatever. they they they started. But when you w when you start a new one, you you know, they want your phone number, th they find a way to find you is what I'm saying. Don't like to mess around on meta cannabis advertising, I love it on programmatic because it's a hundred percent compliant. Programmatic display ads or C T V ads, video ads on all all streaming apps. great way to to to to reach

Jordan Lally:10:38
Absolutely.

Vee:10:52
a a a cannabis audience. and the advertising is a hundred percent compliant so there's no risk and you get to keep all of your data with meta it's basically a walled garden if you will you you can look in but you not you can't get anything out and with with I mean your email address is your own but I'm talking about all the other consumer data who's buying what and when to type thing. So yeah, so meta's a a basically stay away because it's just it it's really not worth it. If you've got a budget you want to advertise and take your growth to that next level programmatic is definitely something you want to look at in like a phase two, three. Google ads, I would leave that until brand brand recognition is is pretty high. You know you got 10 to 20 K uniques a month at least that's going to show you that you know Google may might be the place for you. But SEO and content is where you gotta stay because you know you gotta show up in in in AI overviews, you gotta show up cited in all the AI agents. And that's essentially SEO that does all of all of that as well. So that part is will always be key for cannabis.

Jordan Lally:12:00
No, for sure. Part of your services, knowing what you know about meta, it sounds like you don't dibble and dabble with meta at all. Forget meta. Do you use Google programmatic ads at all? Or do you use you Google as an advertising service on behalf of your clients or do you only do SEO and content?

Vee:12:18
Yeah, we offer SEO and content, but we also offer Google Ads Management, programmatic display ads management, and and and meta ad management. Because we do do meta ads for medical marijuana, for example. We're having a heavy duty success with that, targeting Texas. The in the they have four up four five four, five, six offices in in Texas. And it's we're we're using Google ads and Facebook ads for that, but that's legal. medical cannabis in legal state for medical cannabis. So meta's totally okay with that. No legit script, which is a way to get your your your your ads compliant it's just straight up regular advertising. programmatic, just to clarify, it's not through Google, it's actually through a different service provider that we're allowed to we actually have access to the largest cannabis advertising network in the world. That sounds like a lot, but it's basically like all the websites we all visit without age gates, and they choose which users to or we choose which users to actually show those ads to. and been doing that for a while now, so we have a great Data pool, if you will. We know like there's people, whether it's Canada, the United States, what type of people are buying what type of products in what type of area type thing. Just the data that you get from doing a a lot of programmatic advertising. You're you're able to have custom audiences that are all almost they're already pre-made. Where again in meta.

You you can do custom audiences, but they're not gonna tell you who's bought weed online or recently or who's bought from a dispensary, like your competitors' dispensary. all that geofencing, we can do all of that. and and also target whoever's buying weed from your dispensary or your retail store. So that's why i it I wouldn't I would not suggest a brand new dispensary use programmatic advertising out the gate. it's really good for top of mind awareness and and really and really raising awareness. So yes, a

Vee:14:22
a new dispensary would want to raise awareness, but a lot of new dispensaries aren't aren't gonna have the budget that you would want to sufficiently create the awareness using programmatic. I would really, really build a foundation on organic and AI visibility first and then to scale that take that to programmatic with a I mean programmatic you can do anywhere from a thousand dollars a month in in in a small city to five to ten thousand for an entire state or province. going nationally, I think you we're talking mil you know you have millions of dollars of ad ad spend. So it's better to do things locally and it is affordable in a phase two after after dispensary has already you know established themselves but it's ready to scale and take it to the next level.

Jordan Lally:15:11
Yeah, always start in your local market. back when I was in the solar industry and then was a marketer for solar business owners like six when I first got started six years ago. Yeah, always start in your local backyard, like your frickin' city, like your town, right? 'Cause it's way cheaper to acquire customers and once you've proven the model, have some ROI or ROAS or whatever the hell you want to call it. Then you can expand to multiple cities, you know. And then if you're the owner of a pretty large scale company, then you can do the whole state, right? but

Vee:15:41
Exactly.

Jordan Lally:15:41
Never start there. Never start never start the whole state.

Vee:15:45
You'd be surprised, you a a lot of clients want to. And I understand that. As an entrepreneur, I'm sure y you will too. Let's go for it, man. Let's do it all. We got the bet. Let's do it. But Back to the local side, you can also gain reviews from local customers who feel that they really know and trust you because they are local and use those reviews as as you scale in your programmatic ads or in your whatever type of advertising, use that review because we know that's important too. on the review side. And it'll all probably also increase your social media engagement too. So that's the natural way to do it. I'm glad you feel that way too, because I've there there are a lot of you know folk that that that want to start large, but. you know, once you tell what the budget's gonna be to get that far, they quickly realize that, yeah, let's start local.

Jordan Lally:16:28
Take me back. I I'm really happy you did this. I'm a big component of like niching down, working with one ICP because it makes everything repeatable, right? The acquisition side of a new customer, the sales process of a new custom customer, fulfillment for that new customer. Of course there's some nuances, but like for the most part, it's it's it's repeatable, which allows for scalability. Take me back to when you first I guess discover that you actually can. become a a really successful SEO agency for cannabis and then when did you go all in on the cannabis industry? Like what was the mindset for that whole era in your life?

Vee:17:07
Okay, cool. Well, it it started really, I mean, it it it all started from really just needing a job, to be honest. But let me go back a little further. I I feel like I've been a marketer for forever. Got my first paper out by myself, you know, went a Dickey D ice cream truck by myself as a kid, just going out there and you know, trying to just like we all do, man, just trying to find just trying make money. I I love music, love playing guitar. played in bands. I I wanted to be a DJ or a rock star is what I thought. that that didn't actually end up working out, but I on that road, I ended up that hey, my marketing passion, man, I can record companies have marketing, man. I used to grow up look reading the back of vinyl records, and I I could tell you the producer and the record company. I never thought that yo, man, I could work at a record company. So I did that, came back to my third university, finished that, graduated, and got a job at Universal Music Canada. Universal was the label I wanted to work for. I felt so lucky because I was working in the industry I wanted, for the for the label that I wanted, doing exactly what I I I wanted to do or hit hitting that road within six weeks of graduating university. Fast forward to 2004, Napster, Limewire.

And several others was really cutting in to the music industry because we were selling a product that no one was buying. We're selling physical CDs and no one, including myself, was even buying those, or even my friends. You know, I remember going to a a friend's house and they're like, Hey, yeah, put on some music if you want. I'm looking for the stereo and the CDs, and they're like, It's all on the computer. And I and I'm working in the business at this time, going, whoa, thinking, my God. And sure enough, 2004 got laid off.

Vee:18:57
Started an indie ra record label and an artist management company because that's where my all my experience was. That's really all all I wanted to do. I was using MySpace back there to pro promote independent bands and and their tours and any records we had that you could buy at a show. It was very local because you could so if you remember Myspace, you could just search for people and it was all music fans on MySpace. There was no YouTube. it was easy to invite people to your shows, get them to join your your your your page, listen to your music and and all of that stuff. So all of a sudden I started thinking, this is exactly what what I've been doing. This is just marketing in a different medium, baby basically. The medium just changed. I was buying radio ads, TV ads, print, outdoor, but now These weren't e wasn't even this was just all organic on on MySpace. So I'm like, wow. So I started building a website for my label, learning how to build a website with WordPress. If you remember this back in 2004, it was just it was so easy to do. Started building sites for bands I was working, so we'd have a place to link to, have a home on the internet, which was still so new. then learnt about SEO because I'm like, how the hell am I gonna people are gonna find this page. So started learning just l learning like like you know, I took marketing, but I took traditional marketing with the four keys price, product, promotion, flakes, whatever the other one was. This is like old school. We're in like now it's all obviously into digital marketing. And that's where I caught caught up into that term. It wasn't even a term before because I'm like, this is actually the digital version of of marketing that I was doing before, albeit or or organically. so I I I started I was learning about SEO and I all of a sudden got a job at it at a local

Vee:20:45
Well, I forgot an important part. This was all happening in Toronto. So I'm in the big city, loving life. we had a relationship split. We had a young child. she moved back to the Niagara region. my little guy was two, and I was living in Toronto trying to run this independent label with independent artists, which e ki basically equates to independent revenue, if you know what I'm saying. It's it's it's it's not black, it's it's very red.

Jordan Lally:21:14
Right, right, right.

Vee:21:15
So I'm like, this isn't gonna work. You know, like what am I gonna how how what am I gonna do? So I so I go, I I moved to Niagara for a bit, trying to run the label. I met a wonderful woman and we end up she ends up getting pregnant and I turn out to be my life is moving to Niagara because now I got two sons in Niagara. Clearly, you know, the universe is telling me, yo man, you gotta be heading, you know, a little south of where you're at now.

So I moved from the big city, moved to a little town, and I'm trying to get a job. And I I I I I couldn't get a job anywhere because I not to toot my own horn, but I thought I was just overqualified because there wasn't any music marketing here. the marketing that was here was in the hospitality industry, which I had no experience in. so I got a job at a local attraction who wanted somebody to do SEO and social media. This was around 2009. I was doing other random jobs like we all have. I was selling radio, I was a salesperson, so you know, I sat on both sides of the desk, the sales side and the marketing side, just trying to get by. Couldn't get a job, but when I was working with this attraction, We end up being able to get national media attention. I'm talking from Australia to Europe, Russia, all over North America, South America. It was viral in 2011, before viral is what viral is today. This was like I had Jay Leno hold up a picture of what was happening inside this. It was a haunted house, and it was scary people looking scared. And he held that up on the Tonight Show. People reported it on CNN, people reported it on like BuzzFeed when BuzzFeed. was real back in the day. It was actually 4chan and Flickr, believe it or not, that actually broke these photos and made somebody from Budsfeed find them which started the the the the the craze if you will because when it's on BuzzFeed all s all other media outlets are gonna are gonna pick it up and what what that was was SEO on images image optimization on Flickr.

Vee:23:20
Flickr would always leave a a a an alt tag. So you could put a description, you could put a file name, you could edit your file name. And all I put was Niagara Falls Attraction, Scary, Haunted House, Halloween. And the dude that wrote the article wrote it in September-ish because he's looking for Halloween content. So he went on Flickr looking for funny images, because back in the day that's all it was. Me, there was this was before video, man. Memes were this was like one of the first official memes. The word meme wasn't it was just in its infancy. Because like I said, fo 4chan actually broke this before Buzzfeed did, just trying to show how back far far this went. But the the the the moral of the story was I figured well what I was doing is the way to do this type of of marketing now. I didn't even like okay, it's digital marketing, but I was working on a process I called content, search, and social. all of those would all of those revolve around your website's right in the middle. You got content all over the place, you got search, all over Google, Yahoo, whatever. social media and all that drives traffic to the the the the website. It's exactly what people are talking about today when what today when they're saying you gotta do social, you gotta have all these your your brand names gotta be everywhere because it all drives traffic to your website. I love it because I'm not like yo, I figured that out because I'm just some little guy from freaking Niagara Falls from Toronto. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure there was other folk who were just like me that were figuring out this stuff early. But I it I I feel good about being figuring it out because now Like I couldn't even find talented people to so so long story short, I found that this worked and I said, let me try and get some more clients. So I started an agency only because I really just needed a job. But now I need to manage people, which I'm not that great at, accounting.

Vee:25:07
The hell is that, man? I took marketing. I took market I I majored in marketing because I didn't want to. One thing I didn't do that I wish I did was have an MBA. Because then then I really would realize that you know what? I am gonna need HR skills, I am gonna need accounting skills, I am gonna need people skills and I My skills lie in cannabis SEO and and advertising, less in in in those others. So I I learned how to run an agency b at that point. and I was running that from 2014 to 2018, and around 2017, it's really getting serious for cannabis legalization in Canada. And by that time, I had heard about cannabis legalization in Canada. I'm I'm based in Canada, I'm Canadian. for for years, like s like since I'm eighteen years old, I've been hearing about this stuff. Finally it's looking like it's gonna happen. And I started thinking, and we start getting some my agency started getting some interest from some medical marijuana companies in Canada and some C B D companies in Canada. Okay. So I started actually in Toronto, in Ontario, because we we we were local so we do SEO, so my a my agency would show up and we started getting this and I'm like, huh These guys can't do anything, but what they can do is SEO and content. And we can figure out something with social. Because back then it wasn't a big deal, like because Facebook, because it was new. We quickly realized it wasn't going to happen. But I knew SEO was the way for a local business because this dispensary is just like the local insurance place or the local salon we're working with or the local mechanic or the local what it's the same thing. in the maps and Google My Business and the website.

And local content, location pages, I can go on and on. That whole strategy is going to work. And that's when I thought, hey, let's do this. And then I thought, if it was me, would I want to work with a generalist agency or would I want to work with a specialist agency? Because there's so many, like you said earlier, nuances. There's so many compliance issues, man. What can you do and what can't you do? And I don't want to lose my license because I spent millions on it and I got so much, like I'm fully invested in this, so I cannot.

Vee:27:19
I gotta do this right. So that's when Colo Digital came about. I'm like, let's just split this and this is the cannabis side and this is the generalist side. And the generalist side just kind of died off because I got really excited about the the cannabis side and things really got started going and CBD was huge, not so much in Canada but in the United States and wasn't a lot of competition at that point. So we were getting a ton of business and it was great for growth. and that was back 2018 is when that officially started. So, you know, last five, six years there's been a ton of new cannabis businesses, but a ton of really good cannabis marketing agencies, young guys that know exactly what they're doing and have have started doing all of this. and I just I f I'm happy to be a part of that and happy to be part of of of the start of that where where I sit right now and love it.

Jordan Lally:28:15
That's a that that that is such a wild ass story, dude. Thank you so much for all the context there. Like to go from doing my what my heart says to do, which is follow music, because I'm actually very, very similar, to where it's like I'm not making any fucking money in the music industry, man. I gotta make some fucking money, dude. And then it turns out that we end up being marketers and like money's here, we're kinda good at it. Like it it's just kind of funny all that, all that's like full circle. You know what I mean? Full circle.

Vee:28:42
It it is. It's great. You gotta say thank you, universe, for working out that way, 'cause I didn't think it was gonna happen that way.

Jordan Lally:28:48
No, literally though. Like if if you ask me at any point in my life if this if this was if this was what was I was going to be doing, absolutely not. Like if there's no way in million years, I would predict that I'm gonna do this, but I'm I'm really happy that it is. You know what I mean?

Vee:29:00
I do, man. Save. Save. SEO. Are you kidding me, man? Why the hell would I want to do? Like you coming from music and entertainment and SEO, it's it's so different because one is so social and one is so not social, but you know what? I mean, it's just different. It's a hundred percent different.

Jordan Lally:29:15
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. let me let me ask you this question. How what is the growth rate of the cannabis and C B D industry? Like I know it what's peaked, what's up?

Vee:29:24
it's peeved.

It it's peaked. like well l let me go further. Sorry to interrupt you. Do you want let me let you finish what you were you were saying? okay. I I feel it's peaked in the sense that

Jordan Lally:29:34
That that's that's basically the question, yeah.

Vee:29:40
The market's really satur saturated. That doesn't mean that there's going to be there's not going to be new businesses coming forward because there are new bit there are new brands and there are new dispensaries coming forward and and and medical marijuana clinics, especially so because those a lot of states are are are the states that will legalize medical marijuana is gonna help this side of my of my business because there'll so much of that. I think it's peaked in Canada only because the market is super saturated in Canada.

As it is in the US, but it just feels super saturated here. And the model is is is not right. I mean, just for example, in Ontario alone, every licensed dispensary in Ontario is buying from the exact same supplier. Everybody called the Ontario Cannabis Store, run by the government. Is that surprised you at all?

Jordan Lally:30:27
So it's the supplier who's making the row money.

Vee:30:38
I mean they legalized it, so okay, take a cut, but come on, man. And then on top of that, the restrictions. I'll just tell you one lun like I won't get into all the restrictions because that's another show in conversation, but I'll tell you one favorite story of mine because it's freaking lunacy, man. Lunacy. And this only was in Ontario, by the the the the the board in Ontario. Okay, so out of nowhere.

Legalization happened in 2017. We're in 20 or 2018. We're in 2026. Okay. 2026. And in this in what is it? July at the beginning of this year, the the the regulatory board in Ontario told all dispensaries, or let me say, all cannabis stores in Ontario that they had to remove the word dispensary from their website.

Weed dispensary near me or dispensary near me is the number one key word for every freaking cannabis retailer alive. It's the number one key word. The the the related ones that have dispensary in them actually have higher search volume than like cannabis stormy is is is a very high search, but people they were trying the ridiculousness is the board is trying the regulatory board is trying to say, no, no, no, that gets people confused with with medical dispensaries like a Walgreens or Like a shopper's drug mall or like that. No, it doesn't. How many people do you know that go to a drugstore or a Walgreens is calling it a dispensary? And how many people do you know that go to a weed store that call it a dispensary? And this Ontario board, I hope I don't get me in trouble for this, Ontario regulators, but come on, man. And but here's the thing: here's the come on, man. They did this, so some people took dispensary right off of of their website, okay. rankings went right down because they're not ranking for these dispensary terms anymore. Three weeks later, the board reverses their decision because they realized how much of an F up it was. So now these people that lost all all this traffic ha have to put you know they you know it it it it we had to do we we we basically did the work of putting the the the the work back.

Jordan Lally:32:35
Yeah.

Vee:32:45
we didn't take the work, we didn't take it off. They had someone else take it off. So we put it we we were putting it back, but we didn't know exactly where they took it off. So we just put in a brand new keyword and internal linking strategy to use the word dispensary, which is obvious. The the the part that I want to also add is the illicit market, the illegal market. I prefer to call them the legacy market.

They never they don't have anybody giving them any type of flack. They don't have to take dispense, they can have dispensary delivery. So the just the the legacy market is is killing it, right? Because in Ontario, Canada's largest province, where the competition is way too stiff and they want to do this. Take the dis take the word dispensary off of your website and all your marketing material and all and like everything. Some folks didn't go as far to do that.

I love the rebellious folk because they're like, we're not doing this. And it turns out that they but it's like, go, man, go, go, go, go, good for you. Because it it was just lunacy, right? And there's so many other l like like just ridiculous laws that these dispensaries have to hand deal with. and this is just outside of what we're talking digital marketing restrictions. Like this is just regular, just local business in the city.

Jordan Lally:33:36
Right.

Vee:33:57
So in the United States, I feel the growth rate is is it it's still climbing, but it it is close for cannabis. CBD is pretty much peaked and and is definitely on its way down. as far as I can see, because we did we did two years straight of CBD with maybe 80% CBD and 20% cannabis. And then CBD turned into Delta 8 and and after the hemp after the farm bill and and and the the the the new hemp law came in everybody was selling hemp derived hemp derived delta eight thc which is not the real delta nine thc But it's legal. So they were selling it all up and down the East Coast, I think down along in the cell to not in Canada, because we can buy the real stuff. But I quickly learnt that folks in the United States and probably law enforcement are serious because people are smoking the Delta Eight because they don't want to break break the law and end up in jail. You're not gonna go to jail. Like it's I just feel it's just it's just not something that happens here. You're not gonna I mean people did go to jail, but I'm just thank God it's it it's it it's legal now. But there's people that Are are smoking something that's not actually THC. and that was a great opportunity for marketing because everybody wanted to start selling this because you could it was legal. It was legal in all states. That quickly changed recently, and there it hasn't changed 100%, but there is laws, there is some type of something in place. Maybe they call it legislation, but they're looking at turning away that farm bill to say that you can't make Delta 8 out of that, which will put a lot of companies in business who probably. have a lot of stock who probably want to sell all that stock right now. And this is where you know this is where advertising would be very helpful because you you're if you already have a solid base, you really gotta get clear the inventory. And you know, advertising is a nice way to do that quickly.

Jordan Lally:35:58
No, for sure. I I I do wish we had more time, V. You're a fucking amazing guest, dude. I can talk about this all day. But I wanna ask you this question right here. No, absolutely, man. Over the next twelve months, let's imagine it's twelve months into the future. What is one thing that the company accomplished, over the next twelve months, if that makes sense? Like it's twelve months into the future. You're looking back over the last year, what is one thing that you guys did accomplish?

Vee:36:05
Appreciate that many. Thank you.

Jordan Lally:36:26
If that question Okay. Okay, okay, good.

Vee:36:26
Love the question there. That's great. that's a freaking fabulous question. It I mean, you know, so many things come to mind, but I'm gonna pick one. I'm gonna pick one. And you know, one of those is I guess it I guess it's going to be how we we in one year we have mastered, and I as a business owner ha have mastered cannabis and dispensary SEO, and that involves the AI agents and all all AI tools. And I don't know if this will happen in twelve months, but I wanna be part of the team Or part of the OGs that figure out a gentic AI for cannabis companies, which would allow somebody to search to use ChatGPT, Gemini, Clog, whatever. Hey, I have trouble sleeping, I have this pain or whatever, and I like this. what type of cannabis should sh should I use? I'm located here, where can I get it?

Agentic search, agentic AI will search all of that for you, give you the options, and once you choose the final one you want, end up purchasing for you, setting your delivery. You don't gotta do nothing. You just ask the AI to do it. And that's gonna happen. It's gonna happen in regular retail for sure. We know it. I mean guaranteed. and I'm not you know, the only one saying this, everybody's saying this. it's gonna happen. It's it eventually it'll happen to cannabis. We might not have any cannabis right away. we can't let people, we can't let AI just offer they can buy a plane ticket or buy an investment or something, but no they can't buy cannabis maybe. but I would like I would I would like to see us doing that in a year. And mastering that mass mastering that so we can bring in a a new client and like you said repeatable do the exact same for for for them.

Jordan Lally:38:15
That that's actually a great answer. And I think because you see where the market's going, why not capitalize on it? Be the first one or be the one to master that, bro. No, I I love the answer.

Vee:38:23
You you y yeah, you got you got to be. You got you g y y you gotta be. And plus it's fun to be 'cause then you get to fall down and make a lot of mistakes, which kinda sucks, but I've done it enough times, made plenty of mistakes. I I I I I enjoy it because I know it it it's it's learning. It's just teaching how to move forward.

Jordan Lally:38:41
No, absolutely. And V, where can they find you if they wanted to talk more about SEO, or just shoot the shit with cannabis, man?

Vee:38:48
Yeah, that'd be that's that's awesome. I love to do that. I love to talk, as you could probably tell. and talk your ear off if you let me. Cola digital.ca is the best place to reach me or on LinkedIn. V Popat is my name. search me on there as well and love to talk to you.

Jordan Lally:39:04
V. Thank you again for joining us, my man. It was tons, tons of fun. best of luck to you and the business, man, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you.

Vee:39:12
Enjoyed man, I appreciate that. Let me just say I appreciate you for inviting me on on your podcast, on your show. I like what you're doing. I I've enjoyed getting to know you a little bit. We haven't spent a lot of time together, but we have had you know multiple conversations. And I like that there was some synergy and some in-sync stuff. And I it it feels that this was totally meant to happen. And again, thank you for your compliments and thank you for the ability to share my story with your audience.

Jordan Lally:39:41
It's my pleasure, man. It's my pleasure. Thank you again, B.

Vee:39:43
Awesome. Have a good one, man.