Have you been on the sidelines regarding selling CBD in your pharmacy?
Or, perhaps, you took action and ordered products that are really good at collecting dust.
No matter where you are in your CBD journey, let’s get your pharmacy ready to help patients and boost your pharmacy profit.
Sexy Sells
Patients will pay for items they want. While logically, it seems they should pay for things they need, that’s not the way our brains work. It is your job to make them want the products you offer. This persuasion is a lot easier when you offer unique or exciting products.
You might be thinking that all CBD products seem the same. How can I offer something unique? It will often be in how you present the products to your patients. Do you have exciting signage, bag stuffers, or enthusiastic employees that draw your customers into a conversation about CBD? These marketing efforts alone can make a big difference.
The Right Product & Company Is Sexy
A high-quality product from a great company is a must. When talking to potential CBD companies, ask what makes them special. Don’t take the typical answer of quality and meeting minimum legal standards. Those features should be a given and are not unique. What else do they offer?
Here are some of the areas I ask about:
- Any unique dosage forms? (vaginal, bath bombs, shampoo)
- Do they have a guarantee for the pharmacy?
- Do they have a patient guarantee?
- Have they performed any clinical studies on their specific formula?
- How much and what types of marketing or sales support do they offer?
- Do they sell directly to the consumer, on Amazon, or online?
- Are they knowledgeable about the various state laws? (red flag if they automatically say we’re legal everywhere)
- What type of educational support is offered to the pharmacy staff?
- How is their CBD sourced, and from who? Is it from licensed industrial hemp farms? Are the plants ever hot? (over the THC limit)
My current favorite sexy CBD product is Ananda Professional’s PM Blend line. I became a passionate advocate after seeing how effective it was for my husband, who has had decades-long issues with sleep. For me, it’s ‘Guaranteed To Work The First Night or It’s Free’ offer is sexy. We didn’t believe this claim. It was so bold that my husband had to try it (with the hopes of disproving it). The PM Blend did not fail. It worked like a charm, and his life is amazingly better now that he sleeps.
A Guarantee Is Sexy
Nothing in life is certain except for death and taxes is the famous quote. Bringing more certainty to your patients is exciting. Not many companies provide a guarantee for their products. I mentioned the first-night guarantee from Ananda Professional on their PM Blend, which prompted us to try it. They offer a money-back guarantee on all their products. Working with a company that stands behind its products allows you the freedom to give your patients that guarantee.
The biggest barrier to a patient trying a new product generally isn’t the product’s price. It is the uncertainty that they will get value for the money they spent. Being able to try a product with no financial risk is a huge perk. There are many supplement and CBD companies that offer money-back promises. I highly encourage you to work with these companies.
Whichever products and companies of CBD you decide to carry, make sure they have an exciting, sexy side that will make it easier to promote it to your patients.
Focus First
CBD is a clinically exciting product. It shows promise in many areas of medicine and improving patients’ quality of life. It can become overwhelming and unbelievable. Almost too good to be true. I even get this feeling as a CBD advocate. Imagine how your patients might feel when they hear everything that seems to get better when you take it.
Your patients can start to doubt.
Instead of overwhelming them with lists of ailments, it could help. I recommend focusing on just one area first. For my pharmacies, this focus is on sleep. Poor sleep affects such a large portion of the population. This sad fact means you have the opportunity to help a lot of people in your community.
What Does Focusing Look Like?
Make sure your signage, the questions your staff asks, your social media, and other marketing all focus on the single benefit (in my pharmacies’ cases, it is sleep). When your community and patients see your focus on an issue, it will make them feel more comfortable about coming to you for a solution.
I like to take the approach of educating and inviting. Give education first. Then invite your patients to purchase a solution. Don’t always be in the selling mode. People don’t like being sold to; however, they like being educated. Share sleep statistics or healthy sleep habits. Showcase how much you know about their problem first, then invite them to come in to evaluate the solutions you offer.
There is a cool paradox that happens when you focus. It will draw other interested parties in as well. If you keep talking about sleep, inevitably, you will get questions such as can this help with pain too. Focusing helps the outside world see you as an expert. People will feel comfortable coming to you with other needs too.
Activity Creates Profit
OTC products don’t fly off the shelves by themselves. To increase your CBD sales, your entire staff must be active participants. Have a team motto: “No Opportunity Left Behind.” Work to create a habit, so your employees listen for the right chance to bring up your focused solution.
I instill in my employees the concept of every patient, every visit. We should be offering up solutions at every encounter. There is always something that someone needs. It might be lip balm, or it might be your sexy CBD sleep solution! You will never know if you aren’t actively engaging with your customers at every opportunity.
I recommend tracking the number of times your employees tell someone about a product and then tracking the sales they generate. You won’t have to track it for eternity, just until it becomes a habit. This is an example of tracking lead and lag measures. Lead measures are the activities you think will produce the desired result. In this case, asking patients more frequently will lead to more sales. Lag measures are the results after the fact. How many of the products did they sell? You will get quicker employee buy-in if you tie their metrics to an employee bonus program.
To boost your pharmacy’s CBD sales, remember:
- Sexy Sells
- Focus First
- Activity Creates Profit
Please reach out with any questions for Dr. Lisa Faast to [email protected]. For our Pharmacy Badass University members, we have an on-demand course that takes you through the step-by-step process to increase your CBD or other product sales.
