#32 : What you need to know about investing in Hemp
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You’d have to be living under a rock to avoid all the hype around hemp, CBD, and cannabinoid products that has spread across the country in the last few years. There’s a ton of interest in this space, and of course, a ton of opportunity for investment, too. But to make good investments, it’s crucial to understand the market you’re interested in – and in the world of hemp especially there is a lot of misinformation and confusion about the industry.
Zane Gray started growing hemp outside of the USA to import to doctors for medical research. With the passing of the first Farm Bill in 2014, he began growing hemp in America and extracting oil to create products for different companies. Now, his niche is white-labeling for businesses that want high quality Cannabinoid products. With the booming CBD and THC market, many people have questions, want to invest, and don't know where to go or what to do – so Zane is here to help us get some answers today!
Zane and I geek out about the science of cannabinoids, how they can affect the body, and why the industry has boomed so strongly in the last seven or eight years. We also talk about how his company has grown along with the cannabinoid industry as a whole and his knowledge about where the industry is going next. We also talk about some of the questions you should ask if you’re interested in investing in hemp and important things to keep in mind in this space.
In this episode, we’re discussing…
How Zane got into the cannabinoid space well before it was growing rapidly in the US.
Some of the biggest buzzwords in the space and what they mean.
What the endocannabinoid system is in our body and how cannabinoids can affect us.
Why there is so much opportunity in the hemp industry right now.
What you need to know about the differences between marijuana, hemp, and cannabinoids.
Different aspects of the manufacturing process that you could invest in and what you should ask before you do.
Zane’s Top Tips:
Do your due diligence – everyone is excited about hemp, but you still need to do your research and understand the market and how it operates before you invest. You don’t want to get stuck with a bunch of crops or oil on your hands with nobody to sell it to.
Cannabinoids have a wide variety of applications – from medical treatments to food to beauty products, CBD and other strains of cannabinoids can be turned into a lot of helpful products for consumers. But there are a lot of products out there that don’t contain what they claim to, so if you can get a lab report before you buy, do!
There is a lot of opportunity in this space – whether you start your own brick-and-mortar business, want to grow hemp yourself, or want to set up an e-Commerce business, there is opportunity in the hemp industry. Just be sure to do your research first!
Resources:
Unsure where to start investing your money? Check out our free quiz for guidance and ideas about what to do with your money that’s smarter and can help you generate extra income now.
Like what you’re hearing on The Richer Geek? Have questions you want me to cover? Connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know – I’d love to hear from you!
+ Read the transcript
What if you could be doing something smarter with your money that creates income right now? If you're an IT professional who is wanting to get ahead financially and enjoy greater freedom of choice. And if you wonder who else in tech is creating ways to make their money work for them? You want actionable ideas with honest pros and cons and no fluff. Welcome to The Richer Geek Podcast for helping IT professionals find creative ways to build wealth and financial freedom. I'm your host, Nicole Stohler and in this podcast, you'll hear from others who are already doing these things and learn how you can too.
Hey, everyone, welcome back to The Richer Geek Podcast. Several months ago, one of my peers was talking about investing in a hemp farm. And I thought, Wow, that's really interesting. I don't know anything about it. And then I also thought, you know, I should do something in this space. So just went on each trade and I invested in a couple of companies. The reality is Neither of us has any idea what we're doing. But gosh, there's sure a lot of hype around CBD medical marijuana, hemp, and I wanted to know more so as a podcast or what I really love is I get to reach out to folks and I can ask them to educate both me and you through my podcast. I leverage my network I was given recommendations to reach out to today's guest and I contacted him immediately. So I'm very excited to share with you today so Zane Gray is our guest today, his company is vertically integrated in the cannabinoid space. And by the way, I had the hardest time saying that throughout the entire episode. What that means is that his company grows so they actually farm they extract and then they make the actual products. His niche has been white labeling products for businesses that want high quality solutions in this space, whether it's creams, he talks about chocolate etc, we get into the science. He geeks out on it, which is fantastic because he has a passion for this industry. And it'll give you a foundation for how the overall industry works. And Zane also provides recommendations for resources. So if you want to explore investing, or starting a business in this space, it's a little bit more education and knowledge, at least to give you some direction for continued research. I am super excited to have you on the show today. Welcome, Zane.
Hi. It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
This is a topic that I think everybody wants to hear about. But it is so confusing or maybe I shouldn't say confusing. There's a lot of information, a lot of hype. And I'm really excited to get your perspective and help our listeners and the audience understand what options exist around CBD oil and business around that. So tell us first, how did you get into the CBD space?
That is a great question. So I started in 2013, longer than most, I guess, in this in this space. So I started working in the medical marijuana space in California. Originally, I was brought out to California to help some agronomists who are amazing scientists, they made amazing products, they were so good at making products, they had no idea how to sell it on the shelf. And so they brought me in to start working with them. And I started working in the cannabis space in 2013. as just a marketing guy, I love marketing and sales. It's something I've been passionate about love it. And what we discovered was, it didn't matter how great of a product you could grow if people didn't know why they should purchase your product versus somebody else. The analogy that I like to use and hopefully this will make sense and I'll just ask you, if you were going to go buy an apple today what Apple would you buy, not computer but like to eat?
Wow, I probably would look at the different options at the store and...
Come on.
The Macintosh.
Macintosh, okay, I love I love honey crisps. They're so good. Like, I love honey crisp. Some people like Fujis, and some people like Granny Smith, like there's so many different types of apples, right and some are better for cooking and some are better for making applesauce. And so if you think of that, now, let me ask you this question. If you're going to go buy a banana, what kind of banana would you buy?
Chiquita.
Yeah, Chiquita or dole? Right?
That's what I'll say.
No, it's interesting, because when I use that analogy, number one, it makes sense to people when they start to explain cannabis. When you buy an apple, really, you're buying a strain of apple. And when you buy a banana, you're buying a brand doland Chiquita or brand names, even though there's lots of different strains or types of bananas. You told me a brand name. You didn't tell me a brand of Apple, you said a strain of apple. And the same is true in the cannabis and hemp space. There are 2000 plus different strains of hemp and cannabis plants than marijuana. Then I'll kind of explain what the differences in a minute. But ultimately think of that like buying apples. I mean, there's so many different kinds and the way you grow your granny smith or your honeycrisp, or your Macintosh in Washington might be different than the way I grow my granny smith, in Utah or in Arizona, and maybe are using pesticides or you're not using pesticides, how much juice were able to get out of your macintoshes versus my macintoshes? Are they growing organically, so there's a lot of things to consider. But for somebody who's kind of looking from the outside in, hopefully that gives you a little bit of perspective and kind of make sense as far as Oh, so I might have a brand when I'm buying bananas because brands did a great job. But when I buy apples, most people can't tell me the brand name of the apple there's like I just got into the grocery store, but your Macintosh A Whole Foods might be more than my Macintosh, just my local grocery, which might be different than even a farmers market. So, quality and the way things are going are extremely important, especially in this space. Hopefully it gives you a little clip. So I was brought in to work with doctors, medical doctors, because our scientists and agronomist, they were growing these amazing strains of cannabis. But they had no idea how to explain that to a doctor. And so obviously I've used that analogy in the past and helping them and doctors understand it. So what we created was a brand and a brand name that helped perpetuate the movement of medical marijuana in the state of California. From there, I really just started researching cannabinoids and the different cannabinoids, you talked about CBD right CBD you can't hardly drive up and down the field without seeing CBD signs everywhere. And CBD is one of 113 plus cannabinoids that we know today and there's even more THC is the other most popular cannabinoid that most people have heard of, or most people know. And yet, that's to have 113 right? So in 2013, I couldn't give CBD away like people didn't even know about it. They were scared of it. They didn't know what it did and how it worked. And today I would say if you're just considering CBD in 2019 years, five years behind, you really should be Looking at other cannabinoids, like CBD, for example CBN CBC those are fantastic.
So when you talk about you're a little too late now if you're looking at CBD, you mean from a getting into business perspective?
Okay,then it's not even that you're too late. I shouldn't say that because, don't get me wrong. CBD is a good cannabinoid for sure - it's good. The main reason that people are getting involved in CBD today is because they've heard about it. And so it doesn't scare them as much. They realize they're not going to hire, they're not going to get fired from a job if they have just CBD. But there are other cannabinoids that are better than that. The main reason people are talking about CBD today is because they don't have the access or ability to grow the right strains that contain the other cannabinoids. So I'll just run through a couple of misconceptions. Let me just share maybe some misconceptions and some ideas. And I'll talk about some buzzwords in this space. So there is a couple of buzzwords I'll just touch on. One of them is full spectrum. One is real spectrum or broad spectrum. These are words I get phone calls literally every single day from someone who calls me up and says, Hey, you know you've been growing your own strains of hemp in America and let me back up before I talk about that really quick is just a little bit of my background. So 2013 start working the medical marijuana space, started discovering multiple cannabinoids that were beneficial. I wanted to be able to provide those cannabinoids to people across the United States without fear of being arrested or getting in trouble. I realized that if I was producing cannabinoids from hemp specifically CBD at that time, that I was fine talk to my attorney. We started importing hemp from out of the country, and then processing it in America and then creating products. 2014 the first farm bill passed, started growing our own strains of hemp. In Oregon, we got a license to go in Oregon and then continue to use some technology and some different things to get as many cannabinoids as possible on strains and started manufacturing products. Currently manufacturing at different products including coffee, chocolate, skincare, goodness gracious from teachers to massage oil and, and even, you know pain creams, that type of stuff, started manufacturing. And ultimately I've been working on developing our own strains and lines of him to extract as many cannabinoids as possible. So that's what I've been doing for the last several years. So back up to where I was going with the hemp world is fantastic. There's so many great things about this plant and about the cannabis strain. Here's one more quick analogy I'll give you an always bring me back if I get lost a little bit here is when people ask me they're like aren't marijuana hemp the same thing. And to that I always say well aren't lemons and oranges the same thing? I mean, they're both citrus, right? They're not the same thing. Lemons are definitely not oranges, but they're both citrus fruit. They both grow on a tree. They both can be kind of similar yellow orange color and even grapefruit. Right? But grapefruit isn't oranges either, but they do kind around, they sort of look alike, but if I taste the lemon, it absolutely tastes different than oranges. But I can get vitamin C from both of them, right? Yeah, you totally can. But they definitely are different. And it's just the different chemical makeup of the orange and lemon that make the difference. Same is true in cannabis, which is the genus right and then there's different species, cannabis nativa cannabis ruderalis cannabis indica, you got different types of cannabis. And ultimately, what determines whether it's considered hemp or marijuana is the THC content inside of the plant. If it's point 03 percent or less, it's considered hemp in the United States of America. That's how kind of the governing bodies defined him. For years hemp has been used for textiles and lots of amazing things just not to get you high because at that low amount mean, you could smoke a lot of it and never really get high that one. So we specifically deal with him and have many, many different strains of him that we've grown and also created our own strains so that we can extract as many cannabinoids as possible. I have a question on that. Yeah.
And maybe you have a fruit analogy.
Exactly.
You talk about extracting as many cannaboids... cannaboids... I can't say that - cannabinoids! as possible. As a lay person, I don't know why you'd want that. Why do you need a lot?
Right? Great question. So let's just start with this. The first thing that happened and why cabinets are even important is because in the early 1990s, so obviously not very long ago is when we discovered the endocannabinoid system and every mammal, every human, every animal has an endocannabinoid system just like we have a respiratory system or a sort of Every system you have an endocannabinoid system inside of your body and all it is really is a cell signaling system that tells your body when it's out of homeostasis. Here's basically how it works. It has three components as endocannabinoids. You have receptors and the enzymes that break down those endocannabinoids. So inside of your body, inside of our bodies, we have two receptors that we currently know of. Truthfully, there's probably more but we do know of two that doctors and scientists agree on that's the endocannabinoid CB one receptor. And those receptors are mostly found in your central nervous system. And then your CB two receptors, which are mostly found in your peripheral nervous system, especially in immune cells, and endocannabinoids, can bind to either receptors. So the effects depend on where the receptor is located and which Endocannabinoid it binds to so for example, your CB one receptors, the central nervous system and your Brain. If THC binds to those receptors, then you're going to have a result and the result is you have a psychotropic effect and you tend to get high. Whereas if CBD binds to those receptors before THC then it blocks the high. CBD tends to like in marijuana especially if you have CBD and marijuana THC strain that the parts are equal. People tend to maybe the highest, it's a little bit different. So your CB two receptors are generally bound by most cannabinoids that begin with the letter C like CBD CBG CBN, CBD v those types of things. So our bodies, every single one of us have an endocannabinoid system and the more imbalance it is the less of a result you're going to get by adding cannabinoids to your diet. If your endocannabinoid system is jacked up, then adding can happen. oids to your system is great. Going to help it get to that homeostasis state. Research has linked your endocannabinoid system to appetite and digestion, metabolism, pain, inflammation, specifically inflammation, other immune system responses, your mood to learning and memory for your motor control to sleep, to muscle formation to bone growth to your liver function to reproductive system functions to stress to skin, a nerve cell phone, so your endocannabinoid system really helps provide stability to your internal environment. So like, here's one of the things that doctors have been working on for a long time is something that if you have Endocannabinoid deficiency, and they've actually given it a term, they call it clinical Endocannabinoid deficiency or CDC. And the theory is if you have the CDC problem, then your endocannabinoid system is dysfunctional and it contributes to certain conditions that they've linked this to, for example, migraines, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome. Those three things specifically, I mean, none of those conditions have a clear underlying cause, like they can't figure out what it is, and they can be resistant to treatment. But oftentimes they occur alongside each other and what doctors are starting to realize is that the endocannabinoid system is a big key element to helping people treat those things. Definitely, we're still on the cutting edge, like we're still on the cutting edge. There's so much information out there and there's so much opportunity to learn about your endocannabinoid system. And I think it's just awesome. That's awesome. Know About so so if we have an endocannabinoid system and we do that, how do we know if it's in homeostasis? How do we know if it's out of balance and one of the easiest ways is to just make sure that we're getting cannabinoids into our body. cannabinoids are found in breast milk cannabinoids are found in cruciferous leafy greens, and obviously they're found in Canada. plants which are very rich in cannabinoids. And so by supplementing our diets and stuff, it generally helps us get our bodies back into homeostasis.
Got it. Okay, so we want to have as well, I was just thinking everybody that's tuning in thinking this is about building wealth is suddenly realizing that they got a lot of science and it was good. No, but I think it's important because there's a lot of information out there and it's hard to really tell. Alright, so we have learned why we want to get as many as many cannaboids as possible. And we talked about the different variations and strains and all the production that you're doing. Tell us a little bit about where you took that as you developed, what companies you worked with where to go from there.
So basically, as we were developing, you know, these multiple cannabinoids and talking about your endocannabinoid system, these multiple having multiple cannabinoids really benefit the way that your body absorbs and resets those cannabinoids. So there's a term there's a buzzword you'll hear in the industry called the entourage effect. And the entourage effect basically says, the more cannabinoids, I have in a product, that those cannabinoids work together and they benefit each other really well. The analogy I always say is if I can take a vitamin C pill, I can take some vitamin C, or if I eat an orange, I'm getting all of those other vitamins and nutrients along with it and it's better absorbed in my body. And having multiple cannabinoids is so great. So for me, I just kind of obviously scienced out and kind of nerd it out on that stuff. Even though I had a marketing background, and 2014 and 15 and 16 it was just really really difficult with the banking to kind of figure out who could who could take credit cards and and I didn't really want to get involved in that I was more stuck in the science side and so companies would reach out to us and say can you make this product with CBD or with these other kind of with CBD or CBN or CBD Can you make these products and and so for us, we started working on creating a plethora of a plethora of products that people could benefit from. For example, I had a company that reached out and said, Can you make chocolate, and we actually won an award with our chocolate in the state of California at a Kanika. And we developed this line of chocolates for this particular company. And then we had different even a professional athlete reach out to us say, hey, I've used cannabinoids, it's helped my body recover quicker, but I know your cannabinoids are way better because you don't just have CBD, right? You've got CVN and CBC and CVG. Got these other cannabinoids. In my body responds better to that. Can you make a product line for me and so we develop that. So for us, we started out growing our own strains of him and then we started out extracting our own strains, because we wanted to make sure that the extraction process that everything was done well. We wanted to retain as many terpenes as many flavonoids as many can Boys as possible, and we continue to do that, that's what I'm working with constant As matter of fact that was at the lab all last week and so we're constantly working on that so that then we can blend them with the right product. So we have a skincare line that we've created for a company and that skincare line actually focuses more in CBG because this canal has been proven to reduce inflammation in the skin which helps with acne help with aging and it just as awesome so when you're looking for products or something, a company to invest in or different things, there's there's lots of things to kind of look at but one of those is is it just CBD or do they have multiple cannabinoids? Number one, number two, you know, how viable is the product line? One of the issues? I would say this, my experience so far has been the probably at least 90 out of 100 products that I see on the shelf. They're not manufactured by the person that's selling them. Most of those companies are using a third party like us, for example or someone else They're just private labeling it and not that that's bad. But most of them can't tell you where the hemp is grown. They can't tell you how it's processed, they can't tell you any of that information. And so if you're looking at investing in a company, the a really nice idea to know how they're actually processing manufacturing because today, here's an example I bought 41. In the last six months, we've purchased 41 products on eBay, excuse not eBay, Amazon. And out of those 41, we've lab tested all of them all 41 of them, none of them have what they say in it. The number one sell on Amazon has a product it says 500 milligrams in it. We bought two of them, just double check them both the one product came back at 41 milligrams, and the other one came back at 22 milligrams. So here's a product people are buying on Amazon that says 500 milligrams, and it has 41 milligrams in it.
Because it's not regulated and there's no...
So how do you stop that? Yeah, right. And one way is, of course the FDA can get involved and we know that they will we actually I'm not like anti government, but at the same time, I am a capitalist, right? I like I like them, but I don't necessarily need them in all my business. And so for me, one of most important questions to ask is show me a lab report. Show me a lab. If you're gonna buy a product, show me a lab report, I want to see a lab report of the finished product, not the raw ingredient that you started with. I want to see a lab report that says okay, so this bottle says 500 milligrams, and it showed me a lab report that says it's got 500 milligrams, and I should be able to match that up with the batch and the lot number. And if I can't, I would highly question the quality of that product. That's extremely important. If a company is transparent about, you know, where they're, they're actually manufacturing what they're doing. And using good practices, they shouldn't have any problem providing a lab report with the finished product.
So that's super helpful, because like I said, there's a lot of misinformation out there. And as you mentioned, you can drive down the street and you'll see signs everywhere and to really know what to look for. So I have a question about you. Talk. About what you should look for and show me the lab report. What should you look for if you want to get involved in the CBD? I shouldn't even say CBD sorry. Now that I know that's one kind of apple. Okay. If you want to get involved in this space, I'm just going to say it like that.
Yeah, no, it depends on a little bit of it depends on what you're looking for. Are you actually looking to start a business, right? Do you want to white label a product and have an e commerce website? Or are you looking strictly I just want to invest in a company. I will tell you one of the issues out there presently is a lot of people there's really, with any manufacturing, you kind of have three arms here, you've got growing right farming, you've actually got the farmers who are farming to him. Then you've got the extraction process because we have to take that plant and we have to turn it into something viable. And usually we've got to turn it into an oil to so we've got to extract and then the third thing is after we've got the extracted oil, we have to turn that into a product and you can really invest in All three of those things. One of the things that happened in this year is that everybody heard about this boom with CBD and CBD products and so farmers grew a lot of hemp. There is an abundance of hemp, a friend of mine lost over a million dollars growing hemp this year, because he was under the impression that if he grew hemp, and he invested in a farm, that he could take that form and he could sell his product. The problem was he plan on that without having a buyer in place. Right. So I mean, first of all, he didn't know anything about the hemp space or the hemp world, he just saw that everybody's going crazy with it, one to invest in it. And not that that's bad. It's just he didn't do much due diligence. He didn't know where he was putting his money. So he's like, I'll put it in farming. So now he goes 200,000 acres of him. The crop didn't do as well as you'd hoped. Number one, number two, they didn't have a buyer. He is sitting on some hundred thousand plus pounds of raw biomass right now that he can't sell You can't sell it because for me, like I own an extraction facility, right? So he wants to bring it to me and extract, but it's cost me money to do it say, Okay, I'll do this. And here's the price for me to extract all of your hemp to convert it to oil. Well, he doesn't have the $2.5 million, it's going to cost him to pay me to extract. So that's a problem. So
Wait, wait, he has to pay you?
Well, I'm the extraction facility right? So if you take a rotten thing about taking crude oil is not even crude oil. Let's just say. Yeah, he's got a product right? He's He's growing tomatoes. He's got tomatoes, thinking like that. He's got these tomatoes. But he can't sell tomatoes. He can only sell tomato sauce. So see, I'm ready to convert it to tomato sauce. Well, I'm not gonna do it for free. Okay,
I thought it was the opposite way. I'd think farming would be, I grow a product and then I sell it on the open market.
That would and that's the perfect world. Here's the problem. Who is buying the right ingredients? Also the extractors, but I've got so much of it, why would I buy it? I don't need to buy your product. And you can't sell it to anybody but extractors. So extractives as we kind of have them over the barrel right now. Right, because farmers are coming me begging me to extract their product. And they'll give me 75% of their crop for free just to extract because they can't move it to anybody they can only sell. They have a limited group of people that can buy their product. I mean, I don't know how many extraction facilities are in America, but there's not a ton. So farming again, not that that's bad, but you got to have your ducks in a row you got to know who you're going to sell it to. As an extractor I'm in the same boat I can extract all day long but once I extract that oil, now I've got to sell that oil to a manufacturer who is actually manufacturing product. And if I don't have that lined up now I'm stuck with a whole bunch of oil which is why for us as a country We completely vertically integrated, we do all three things, we grow our own, we extract our own, and we make products. Because, again, I've been doing it for six years, I already knew I had to have those things in place. Most people when you're so you're starting a company, you say, I want to invest, what do I really want to do if you want to start a company, you need finished products. If you're looking strictly to invest, hey, I want to X X amount of dollars in an X amount of dollars out. At that point, you may want to be looking at, you know, either somebody who is manufacturing or extracting, or you could still look at a farm. But if I was going to invest in a farm, I would want to make sure that they already have agreements in place on who they're going to sell the product to, you know, where they're going to sell it, the price that they're going to sell it at those types of things. You just want to make sure you do your due diligence. It's just like any company we're going to invest in, right. If I was going to invest in Apple, I'd want to make sure that Apple had a product that people were buying that actually is going to move and sell on the market. And just because you see a sign a billboard that says CBD products doesn't mean that they're actually using Moving or selling product or also, I would say when it comes to manufacturing, make sure that they're there, you know, an FDA certified facility because the FDA is going to come in and at some point if they come in, and some companies will probably be shut down, you know, you don't want them to use manufacturing the products in their basement, you want to make sure that you're using good practices and using GMP, you know, type, you don't have all their standard operating procedures in place and making sure they're doing everything in place. So Well, hopefully that helps. Hopefully, that helps.
It does. It does now let's say someone says, okay, and thank you for taking us through the what you should be looking for. And obviously it's not super as comprehensive is someone would want to do round due diligence. But it is helpful to understand don't just go invest in a farm without understanding some of those pieces. But let's just say someone says, Oh, I want to start an e commerce business, selling cannaboids. So how would they do that? Where would they go? How would that work?
So the first question I would ask what that is, okay, who is your target audience with this? As with any business, right? You want to know who you're speaking to. So for example, you might have somebody who's 19 or 20, who says, Hey, I want to do CBD vape. I want to vape right? Or, and then you've got somebody who's 50, who says, No, I want to do CBD pain, muscle creams, right? And that is a completely different audience. So knowing your audience is going to determine, first of all, what products do you want to carry? Do you want to do it in a brick and mortar type store? Are you looking at e commerce? e commerce is probably the easiest. The next step is do you want to partner with a company that's already got a brand name and a brand label? Or do you want to partner with a company that will private label something to yourself? Private labeling is probably the most expensive just because you're working with product runs, right? So somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I'll give an example of somebody came to me this morning, actually and said, hey, I've got this great idea. I want you to manufacture this product for me and I said, Okay, I can do that. happy to do that. And then they said, I want to make 50 of them. Well, that's not even viable, right? It's not even feasible to make 50 of these. I always tell people go make one Toyota, like to make one trailer that would probably cost you millions of dollars, but to make thousands and thousands of we can actually put that into production run. So that's why private labeling is just a little bit more expensive unless you have deep pockets. And you know, I can do 100,000 bottles or packages all at once. So generally, you want to partner with someone that is willing to let you sell their their label. But then you got to do all that due diligence of what am I actually selling? Right? What are they providing? What are they doing? There's a couple of network marketing companies that I think are fantastic, do a really good job. If you're looking that route. Obviously, anybody who wants to reach out to me I mean, we do white label, I'm probably one of the few people actually white labels without huge mo Q's. I don't require 100,000 bottle purchase to start most of the bigger companies Do I understand why, because sometimes dealing with smaller people can be a pain. But I also that's where I came from I came from, I didn't want to make 100,000 bottles because I wasn't sure if we were going to sell them or not. One of the nice things about working with somebody and white labeling or private labeling, like for us, for example is you might come to me and say, I want this product. Let's just say it's a teacher, and I want it to have 400 milligrams of CBD in it and 100 milligrams of CBD, and 20 milligrams of CBN. I can actually make that for you. We can customize it to you. Most places, even private label, they'll say these are your options. This bottle, it's 500 milligrams, and we're going to put a label on it. And that's it. You know, but you put your label and they don't offer any specific opportunities for people. So for us, I like to give people the comfort to work within their framework. You might say man, I love your chocolate but I really would love it if we added 100 more milligrams of CBD, well because we actually manufacture it, I can do that for you, a manufacturer some of you actually makes it they should be able to make and formulate for you whatever it is that you want versus saying no, these are your only options when people say these are your only options. Generally they're a broker, they're not really a manufacturer. So I love this space. I think there's so much opportunity here especially as we start talking about multiple cannabinoids. I think the one company that I manufacturer for and do a ton of their products, they're killing it simply because they're talking I'm not talking about CBD anymore. They're talking about CBD and CBN. And, and people are really kind of jumping on that movement of oh these cannabinoids help with this issue. And so people are very interested in that. I think it's what will set you apart in the marketplace if you're looking to dive into this is is using multiple cannabinoids and trying to create products to sell that that touch your your customer base. So if you say no, I'm going to market to people ages 50 to 70. I think you know having some amazing creams and gels for muscle aches and pains and having those types of things are awesome and important. You can build a great business doing this. You really can. It's something that obviously I'm passionate about it. I love it. I, I tend to nerd out too much. I apologize on the science side of it, but I just love that side. Because the reason I got into this, let me just explain this. As much as I love the ability to make a living for my family. When you have someone who comes to you and says, My boy hasn't had a seizure in a month, my son used to have 400 seizures a day and has for seven years. And he started taking your products and now 30 days later, he hasn't had a seizure in a month. Or they called me and said, Hey, I was gonna have back surgery on my back. I started taking these products. I canceled surgery. I can walk upstairs again. I can play golf again.
It's the opportunity. Yeah, improving people's lives.
Yeah, I don't even know how to put a price tag on that. I almost quit about six months ago I almost cried like I'm done. It just was too frustrating with some issues and I just like ah I just wanted to tear my I don't have much hair, obviously. But I just wanted to tear it out. And I thought, knowing what I know, I have an obligation to help people and we have thousands and thousands of testimonials of people that are like, this is amazing. This has changed my life. And ultimately what we're doing is we're helping people reset their endocannabinoid system, get back to homeostasis, and live a quality of life that they haven't been able to live before. It's so fun for me. I love it. I love working with the doctor side of it. So this there is an opportunity. There's absolutely no question and opportunity, whether that's some people just wanted to say like, here's some money and just give me a return, right? I don't care. I just want to make my 8% or 12% or 15%, whatever. And then you've got other people that are like, no, I really want to get involved in the business side of this because I see an opportunity here. And whatever your route you go, I encourage you to consume your consumer because it's amazing. You'll be surprised at how well you'll feel when you're in know connected systems back in place. It's awesome.
Well we have learned a ton and I think there's a lot more to explore here. But at least this gives everyone listening, a starting point, some information to research, how can listeners get in touch with you and learn more about your company.
I'm going to tell you what, I'll give me give you my very my personal email address, which is the very best way to get me because if it goes to my business email address, then I have assistants who are going to filter through that and they're not going to want to talk to you. So if you want to get a hold of me directly, just like right with me, I'm going to give you my email address. It's z, gr a y 007 at gmail.com. So z grade double oh seven and I don't think I'm a double agent. People like you must love James Bond, I don't know say love James Bond. But as you all know, when you're setting up an email account, everything was taken, all of the numbers were taken, so I had to come up with a number I could remember. So perfect da w seven@gmail.com. That's my personal email. If you send me an email, I will respond to you. I'll do my best to answer any questions that I can and point in the right direction. There definitely is some investing opportunities, even with the companies that I work with and know and I'm happy to point in those directions if that's something that somebody is looking forward to. A lot of people ask about medical marijuana or recreational marijuana and if you have questions about that shoot them to me too, because I've got a lot of connections in that space. And I work with a lot of growers and can point you to some companies if you're looking to invest or maybe even to start your own dispensary or something like that. I can at least hopefully guide you and help in any way that I can.
That's fantastic. Thank you for offering to be that resource for taking us through all this. I'll practice same cannabinoids, I actually spelled it health. So thank you so much. It's been great to have you on.
Absolutely. This is a great space to play in and I look forward to hearing from any of you that want to reach out I would love to help any way that I can.
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ABOUT ZANE GRAY
Zane Gray started growing hemp outside of the USA to import to doctors in the USA for medical research. In 2014 with the passing of the 1st farm bill he began growing in America and extracting oil to create products.
At that time, Zane started formulating and creating products for many different companies. His niche has been white labeling products for businesses that want high quality Cannabinoid products.
With the booming CBD and THC market people have questions, want to invest, and don't know where to go or what to do. Zane is here to help!