Make the world a better place, one life at a time.

We Take Ownership

At Best Buds, we don't walk past problems.

If you see something that needs to be fixed, cleaned, corrected, improved, or addressed, take responsibility for helping solve it.

We don't build a great company by saying: “That’s not my job.”

We build it by asking: “What can I do to make this better?”

Ownership means doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.

It means following through.

It means admitting when you made a mistake instead of hiding it or blaming someone else.

It means looking for solutions instead of excuses. And it means treating the company's customers, products, money, equipment, facilities, licenses, brands, and reputation as if they matter. Because they do!

We own the outcome.

We Take Care of People

Our mission at Best Buds is simple:

MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, ONE LIFE AT A TIME.

That starts with how we treat people.

Cannabis may be what we grow, manufacture, distribute, and sell, but people are our real business.

Every customer who walks through our doors gives us an opportunity to make their day a little better.

Every employee gives us an opportunity to help someone grow, develop, provide for themselves and their family, and build a better future.

Every interaction—with a customer, coworker, vendor, partner, or member of our community—is an opportunity to leave that person better than we found them.

Sometimes making someone's life better is something small.

A genuine smile.

Taking a few extra minutes to listen.

Helping a customer find the right product.

Teaching an employee something that helps them grow.

Recognizing someone who did a great job.

Helping a coworker who is struggling.

Giving someone an opportunity they may not have received somewhere else.

Sometimes taking care of people also means having a difficult conversation or holding someone accountable.

Because caring about someone doesn't mean lowering the standard.

It means helping them become capable of meeting it.

We want people to feel that their interaction with Best Buds mattered.

Maybe we can't change the entire world today.

But we can change one person’s experience. Then another. Then another.

That is how we make the world a better place—one life at a time.

We Earn Trust

Trust is one of the most valuable things we have.

It can take years to build and minutes to destroy.

At Best Buds, our word should mean something.

We tell the truth.

We keep our commitments.

We don’t hide mistakes.

We don’t manipulate numbers.

We don’t steal.

We don’t intentionally create drama.

We don’t tear down coworkers behind their backs.

We protect confidential information and respect the privacy of the people around us.

When we disagree, we address the issue professionally.

When something goes wrong, we bring it forward instead of covering it up.

You should be able to trust the person standing next to you. Employees should be able to trust their leaders. Leaders should be able to trust their teams. Customers should be able to trust Best Buds.

Do what you say you are going to do.

We Have High Standards

Average is easy.

Best Buds isn't trying to build an average company.

Our stores should be cleaner.

Our customer service should be better.

Our products should be better.

Our cultivation should keep improving.

Our manufacturing should keep improving.

Our inventory should be tighter.

Our accounting should be more accurate.

Our marketing should be sharper.

Our systems should become stronger.

And our leaders should keep getting better.

Excellence is the result of doing small things well, over and over again.

The standard isn’t: “Is this good enough?”

The better question is: How can we make this better?

Details matter.

A clean counter matters. A correctly entered invoice matters. A properly cared-for plant matters. How we greet a customer matters. How we speak to another employee matters. How we respond when something goes wrong matters.

The little things eventually become the big things.

We Create Opportunity

One of the things we want Best Buds to become known for is creating opportunity for people.

We don't want employees to simply have jobs here.

We want people who want more to have the opportunity to build careers here.

A budtender should be able to become a supervisor. A supervisor should be able to become a manager. A manager should be able to become a district leader.

Someone working in production, cultivation, distribution, accounting, or manufacturing should be able to learn new skills, take on greater responsibility, and create a better future for themselves.

Not everyone will want that path. That’s okay.

But for the people who raise their hands and say: I want more. Teach me. Give me a chance.

We want to recognize them. We want to challenge them. We want to mentor them. We want to give them responsibility.

And when they earn it, we want to give them the opportunity to move up.

Growth in this company should create growth for the people who helped build it. When Best Buds gets better, our people should have the opportunity to get better with it.

We Develop Leaders

One of the most important responsibilities of a Best Buds leader is creating more leaders.

A manager who must personally solve every problem has not yet built a strong team.

Our goal is to teach people how to think. How to make decisions. How to solve problems. How to communicate. How to take responsibility. And eventually, how to develop someone else.

Our leadership process is simple:

I do it — you watch.

I do it — you help.

You do it — I help.

You do it — I watch.

You do it — and teach someone else.

That last step matters.

Knowledge shouldn't stop with one person. It should move throughout the company.

A great leader doesn't make people dependent on them. A great leader makes the people around them stronger.

Great leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.

We Communicate to Connect

Leadership isn't about talking the most.

It is about making sure people understand.

At Best Buds, we listen. We ask questions. We explain why. We give feedback. We recognize good work. We address problems before they become bigger problems. And we try to understand the person on the other side of the conversation.

Employees should know what is expected of them. Managers should understand what is happening with their people. Departments should communicate with each other. Leadership should understand what is happening throughout the company.

Nobody should have to constantly guess where they stand.

We want our leaders to be approachable. We want employees to feel comfortable raising legitimate concerns. We want problems brought into the light where they can be solved.

Leadership isn’t about how loudly you speak. It’s about how deeply you connect.

We Recognize People

People need to know when they are doing something right.

Accountability matters. But so does appreciation.

We want to notice effort. We want to recognize improvement. We want to celebrate victories.

We want someone who steps up, solves a problem, helps another employee, takes great care of a customer, improves a process, or demonstrates leadership to know that their contribution was seen.

People shouldn't only hear from their manager when something goes wrong.

Great job. I noticed what you did. Thank you.

Those words can have a bigger impact than we realize.

Recognition doesn’t make standards weaker. It makes people want to reach them.

Catch people doing things right.

We Give Back

A successful company should make the community around it better.

As Best Buds becomes stronger, our ability to help other people should grow with it.

That may mean supporting a community organization. Helping someone going through a difficult time. Giving employees opportunities. Helping families. Giving our time. Giving resources. Or simply stepping up when we see someone who needs help.

We don't need recognition every time we do something good.

Sometimes the most meaningful things happen when nobody is watching.

We want generosity to be part of who we are rather than something we occasionally do for publicity.

If our company becomes more successful but does nothing positive with that success, then we have missed part of the reason for building it.

Success gives us the ability—and the responsibility—to do more good.

We Know the Numbers

Purpose and profitability are not opposites.

We want to do well, so we have the ability to do more good.

A healthy company can take better care of its employees.

A healthy company can provide better benefits and compensation.

A healthy company can create more opportunities.

A healthy company can invest in better equipment and facilities.

A healthy company can give more to its community.

A healthy company can survive difficult times.

That is why numbers matter.

Leaders at Best Buds should understand the numbers behind their area of responsibility.

Sales. Margins. Labor. Inventory. Waste. Yield. Productivity. Expenses. Customer retention. Profitability.

A leader doesn't need to be an accountant. But a leader should understand whether their department is winning or losing—and why.

Profit is not something we should apologize for. Profit allows us to accomplish our mission.

We Don’t Quit When Things Get Hard

This industry has never been easy.

Regulations change. Markets change. Prices change. Competitors change. Things break. Plans fail. People disappoint us. We make mistakes.

There will always be another challenge.

Best Buds will not succeed because everything goes perfectly.

We will succeed because when something goes wrong, we adapt. We learn. We solve the problem. We get back up. And we keep moving.

Hard times reveal culture. They reveal character. They reveal who takes responsibility and who looks for someone to blame.

We don't expect things to always be easy.

We expect ourselves to become stronger.

Mistakes Are Lessons—If We Learn From Them

People make mistakes.

We would rather have employees who occasionally make a mistake while showing initiative than employees who are afraid to make any decision at all.

But there is an important difference between a mistake and repeated carelessness.

When something goes wrong, we ask:

What happened?

Why did it happen?

What did we learn?

What can we change so it doesn’t happen again?

A mistake that teaches us something can make the company stronger.

The same mistake repeated over and over because nobody learned from it is no longer just a mistake.

We don’t hide failures. We learn from them. We improve the system. And we move forward.

Screwups can become lessons—but only if we learn from them.

We Protect What We Have Built

A lot of people have sacrificed a lot to build Best Buds.

We have a responsibility to protect it.

That includes our licenses, cash, inventory, customer information, equipment, facilities, brands, intellectual property, relationships, and reputation.

Compliance isn't only the compliance department's job. Security isn't only the security team's job. Customer service isn't only the budtender's job. Profitability isn't only ownership's job. Culture isn't only HR's job.

We all protect the company.

Because protecting Best Buds also protects the jobs, careers, opportunities, and families that depend on it.

We Compete

We want to win.

There is nothing wrong with saying that.

We want better stores. Better products. Better cultivation. Better manufacturing. Better brands. Better customer service. Better systems. Better leaders. And a stronger company.

Competition doesn’t mean tearing other people down. It means pushing ourselves higher.

We don't need another company to fail for Best Buds to succeed.

Our greatest competitor should be who we were yesterday.

When we accomplish something, we celebrate it. Then we ask: What’s next?

We never allow success to turn into complacency.

We Win as One Company

Best Buds is not a collection of separate stores and departments competing against one another.

Retail. Cultivation. Manufacturing. Distribution. Accounting. Marketing. Administration. Leadership.

We are one company.

We share information. We help one another. We solve problems together.

We don't protect our little piece of the organization at the expense of everyone else.

When one location figures something out, we share it. When one department needs help, we step up. When someone succeeds, we celebrate them. When someone struggles, we help them improve.

There is no: “That’s their problem.” There is only: How do we solve it?

One company. One team. One mission.

We Remember Who We Are

As Best Buds grows, this may become one of our most important principles.

Growth changes companies. More employees. More locations. More departments. More managers. More procedures. More money.

But we never want growth to remove the things that made this company special.

We want people who care. People who hustle. People who solve problems. People who help each other. People who take pride in their work. People who want to grow. People who can be trusted.

Titles don’t make someone important here. Contribution does.

The employee helping a customer matters. The person cleaning the store matters. The person caring for the plants matters. The person making our products matters. The person receiving inventory matters. The person paying our bills matters. The person leading a department matters.

Everyone affects the culture. Everyone represents Best Buds. Everyone has the ability to make someone’s life a little better.

Our Purpose

We want Best Buds to be successful. We want to grow. We want to build great brands. We want to create great products. We want to operate great stores. We want to be profitable.

But those are not the final destination.

They give us the ability to accomplish something bigger.

To give people opportunities.

To develop leaders.

To create careers.

To take better care of our employees.

To serve our customers.

To support our communities.

To help people when we can.

And hopefully, because Best Buds existed, thousands of people will someday be able to say that their life was a little better because they crossed our path.

That is a company worth building.

The Best Buds Standard

The behaviors we expect from ourselves and one another.

Take ownership.

Tell the truth.

Take care of people.

Create opportunity.

Develop leaders.

Recognize others.

Know your business.

Protect the company.

Solve problems.

Keep learning.

Raise the standard.

Give back.

Never become comfortable.

Win together.

Leave Best Buds better than you found it.

Hands Up. One Team. Execute the Standard.

MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, ONE LIFE AT A TIME.

That is our mission.

That is our standard.

That is who we are.