Women Leading The Cannabis Industry: “First and foremost, be a good listener” With Trista Okel of Empower BodyCare

First and foremost, be a good listener. If you have employees who feel like they can approach you when they need to, it builds a positive culture within the organization. Have clear expectations, communicate, and praise your team as often as you can. Although fair wages, PTO, and health insurance are all important, people remember how you make them feel. And a team that feels valued and respected is going to do their best work for you. Having opportunities for advancement is something that most employees look for in a company.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Trista Okel, Founder & CEO of Empower BodyCare.

Utilizing her knowledge of chemistry with a background in aromatherapy, Trista’s more than 15 years of formulating experience combines guiding principles, scientific data, and her keen sense of smell to create the company’s award-winning topical products. Her dedication to transparency, integrity, high testing standards, and using the highest quality ingredients, which are organic and ethically sourced, have helped to make Empower BodyCare the most trusted topical brand in Oregon. And increasingly, on a national level in the hemp CBD market as well, with products in over 1500 stores nationwide, including Nordstrom and Sprouts Farmers Markets.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?

In 2004, my mom was diagnosed with severe arthritis and her doctor prescribed her opiates. I wanted to give her a non-toxic and non-intoxicating alternative to conventional treatments, so I started experimenting in my kitchen with a crock pot to find a formula that would work for her and not have a cannabis smell. I had always excelled in chemistry and had a background in aromatherapy, so I combined these skill sets in developing my first topical product, a roll-on oil, which worked great for Mom. She told me that it took her pain levels from an 8 to a 3. I was blown away. I immediately started sharing the product with medical marijuana patients, family, friends, and elders and kept hearing the same kinds of stories-people were getting relief from the oil! I continued to modify the formula and worked on other formulas. I finally launched the company into the Oregon medical marijuana market in 2013. We were the first well-branded, effective topical company on the market in Oregon and quickly rose to the top of mind for consumers and medical marijuana retailers alike.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It’s OK to say “no” to a potential new account and to ask a lot of questions. But knowing the right questions to ask is vital to being successful. Last year, we were approached by a major grocery chain to carry our entry level hemp CBD products. When we saw how large of an account it had the potential to be, we jumped on the opportunity. The company was growing quickly and this new account could only help, right?

Major chains require vendors to meet a lot of criteria for fulfilling orders, and this one had a short turn time on shipping product, so we doubled our production team and cranked out inventory so we would be ready to ship reorders quickly. The buyer had told us that they would be launching our products in several new states in addition to reordering for the initial state’s stores. And then we waited. The new states and reorders never came.

I had to do some investigation work to discover what went wrong. To start, the company required us to use a distributor that did not normally distribute CPG products and took their cut from both our company and from the store, so the store could not make keystone on our products. The stores ended up charging way more than our MSRP, which put the products in a price range that was far higher than it should have been. Secondly, the retail chain put our products in a locking case, often behind the customer service desk. Customers couldn’t see the products, and in the rare instances where the locking cases were not behind the customer service desk, it would take several minutes to get a sales associate who could unlock the case to get there and many sales were lost as a result, with people eventually just walking away. Thirdly, the company did not allow us to educate their teams on our products. A store with no knowledge on products most likely will not sell an up-and-coming new brand without knowing anything about them. We also were not allowed to do demos and could not advertise that we were in their stores. When we first launched into their stores, I put out a press release about the partnership and was immediately contacted by their legal department demanding that we rescind the initial press release.

In other words, our hands were completely tied in helping the retail chain sell our products. We could not advertise, our products were inaccessible and overpriced, and we were not allowed to contact the stores for any reason. It was a setup for failure, partly because I did not know the right questions to ask in the beginning. I know which questions to ask now and am not afraid to say “no” to a potential new account if the terms do not set us both up for success.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When we first released our soaking salts in 2014, I opted to use pouches with windows so that customers could see the beautiful mix of Epsom, Pink Himalayan, and Dead Sea Salts. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me since product stability testing for cannabis products was not yet available at that time, the salts melted when exposed to light. We had to do a product recall on the salts and find a different packaging option, because the salts had liquified and were oozing out of the packaging. Luckily, this was when we were still small, so the recall was not too difficult to do, but it was quite the fiasco at first.

I learned quite a bit from this experience — how to conduct a product recall, that shelf life stability testing is vital for consumer packaged goods (CPG), and that packaging decisions must be based on science as well as aesthetics.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I love helping people; it is really why I do what I do. That said, I am launching some new products in Q1 2021, and am excited about them. We don’t release too much information during R&D, but stay tuned for sneak peaks.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There have been so many people who have helped me along the way. It is difficult to name just one. The person who comes to the top of my mind is one of our advisors, Wendy Collie. Wendy is the former CEO of New Seasons Market and the current CEO of Evergreens. She gives sage advice and really cares about our success. I am honored that she is one of my key advisors and cannot say enough great things about her! In the spring of 2019, Wendy introduced me to a colleague of hers at Nordstrom. It was the foot in the door we needed to be able to develop a line of products for them and launch into their stores in January 2020. Nordstrom is a pleasure to work with, they treat their vendors and employees well and provide many tools for the success of brands in their stores.

This industry is young, dynamic, and creative. Do you use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?

When in doubt, hire out. I believe that having a great marketing firm to partner with makes all the difference in effective marketing strategy. Choosing the right marketing partner can be challenging. I highly recommend contacting other companies for their recommendations. Vet the agencies you are considering working with by asking for referrals. Ask the companies they work with about the experience and results. Hiring companies that have a solid grasp on the most innovative strategies sets your brand apart from the rest. It is also important to remember that unless you have a huge budget, marketing strategies take time to catch on and grow your brand. Be patient and hold the agency accountable for deliverables. Make sure the company has experience with cannabis/CBD marketing — it is a different beast than other marketing due to limitations in advertising and state and FDA compliance.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the Cannabis industry? Can you share 3 things that most concern you?

I love how innovative the cannabis industry is. Creative new products, packaging design, and brilliant marketing campaigns are exciting for me to see. I am also a huge fan of companies that began to help people. That is often lost in other industries, and to see so many brands get their start to help a friend or loved one is exciting. I love being in an industry with heart.

What I find most concerning about the cannabis industry is systemic racism. From laws preventing people with prior non-violent drug convictions from entering the industry to the racist laws that originally began cannabis prohibition, to lack of access to funding and cost-prohibitive state licensing fees, the cards are stacked against BIPOC wanting to enter the industry. A 2017 study found that only 4.3% of cannabis companies had a Black leader/stakeholder. That is appalling, especially since Black and Brown communities are impacted so terribly by the War on Drugs and are disproportionately arrested.

Women and LGBTQ+ people in the industry also have an uphill battle. From sexism in hiring practices and objectifying ad campaigns to a lack of access to funding. Less than 3% of VC money goes to women-owned businesses (which I’m sure is even less in the cannabis/CBD industry), and less than 1% of VC money goes to LGBTQ+ businesses. The industry is dominated by white, heterosexual men, just like the rest of the business world. But companies like mine are changing that. We hire with diversity in mind, work towards making systemic change, and continue to seek investors that can see the value in investing in an LGBTQ+, women-owned company that values diversity.

Can you share your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business”? Please share a story or example for each.

When I first started, I knew a lot about drug policy reform and regulation, the products, the science, cannabis, and CBD, but little about tax code 280E. I sure learned about that quickly when tax time came. Luckily, I had an informed accountant who helped me understand how it works and file properly. If I had to do it over again, I am not sure I would have entered an industry that is so unfairly taxed.

I wish I’d known how many attorneys it would require to run a cannabis business — from regulation attorneys to those specializing in taxes, trademarks, securities, the list goes on, many attorneys are needed when you own a cannabis business. That said, we have an attorney for every one of those specialties.

The value of having great advisors is something that took time for me to learn. I am fortunate to have several brilliant people to call on when I need advice and find that having those resources helps me steer the company towards success.

Knowing how to navigate changes in regulation and quickly pivot is vital. For instance, you just purchased tens of thousands of dollars in packaging and the state changes the packaging requirements. You are self-funded and do not have the money to scrap it and start over. Cover up stickers to the rescue! Going with the flow and learning not to react, but rather, to respond is key to success in the everchanging cannabis/CBD industry.

This may seem like a small thing, but you cannot get stand alone dental insurance for your company if you own a cannabis business. You can only get lesser quality dental plans that are attached to health insurance plans. I recently discovered that we have a $1000 cap on our dental insurance — down from $1500 the previous year. These kinds of limitations extend to many business-related services for cannabis businesses.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

First and foremost, be a good listener. If you have employees who feel like they can approach you when they need to, it builds a positive culture within the organization. Have clear expectations, communicate, and praise your team as often as you can. Although fair wages, PTO, and health insurance are all important, people remember how you make them feel. And a team that feels valued and respected is going to do their best work for you. Having opportunities for advancement is something that most employees look for in a company.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Most people do not know that I started Empower with two missions — to help people get relief in a non-intoxicating, safe way, and to help change hearts and minds about cannabis/hemp. When I started working on formulations for my mom in 2004, the approval rating of legalized medical marijuana amongst women was around 30%. That is nowhere near what we needed to move forward legislation to tax and regulate cannabis.

Empower is an acronym: End Marijuana Prohibition, Organize Women, Enact Reform. I wanted to change the way people, women specifically, thought about cannabis and hemp and creating approachable, effective body care products was my solution to the issue. And, it has been a success! We change hearts and minds regularly with our products, thus creating new advocates for the plant on a regular basis.