How Thinking Higher Can Accelerate Cannabis Business Growth with Luna Stower

Luna grew up in Castro Valley, a small town in the Bay Area. She was 11 years old when cannabis was legalized for medical use. Since then, Luna witnessed its growth and consumption. That’s also one of the reasons why she treats the cannabis space as an endemic part of her life. 

“The cannabis space is very much endemic to me, to my heart, and my purpose.” 

Luna Stower

Luna is also an educator by trade with a Master’s in Urban Education and Social Justice. She also taught middle school and high school for a decade. But what’s fascinating is that in the cannabis space, she actually went through the manufacturing of cannabis (as a trimmer and grower, at one point), the distribution, and eventually, sales and marketing.

And in the private sector, she founded Luna Stower, a boutique consulting firm specializing in Marketing, PR, Branding, and Events Production in the cannabis space. In the past few years, she had also been involved on the policy side of things to help out an equity program in Oakland to help push cannabis forward. 

What do you think people should start doing for their businesses? 

“What are you doing so that you’re attracting and projecting what you want to see? A lot of us have a scarcity mindset. And so, if we’re publicly branding with an abundance mindset, it becomes more fun. The more, the merrier.”

Luna Stower

For a business to grow, Luna emphasized the importance of collaboration and synergistic co-branding in the business space.  She explained further that if there’s one thing she noticed, it is that the people who go out and co-brand with others are the ones who get the most traction when it comes to growth.

“The folks who are falling are the islands. They think they have it all made, that they don’t want to share ideas. They are worried about collaborating and don’t realize that a rising tide raises all boats and that we’re really all in this together.”

Luna Stower

Luna also believes that positive cooperation is better than just thinking about competition, and now is the perfect time for businesses to think about how they’re relevant and vital to the industry.

She added that the successful ones are those who have strong networks. And she firmly believes that this has something to do with mindset. 

“It’s bad to always just selfie, selfie, selfie, from a branding perspective. Have group shots if you have to be in a commune with other folks so as the supply chain moves as it does, you have contacts across every level.”

Luna Stower

But Luna explained further that co-branding through loyalty programs and co-branding through communities are two different things. She said that the loyalty programs appeal to the people’s scarcity mindset, while the latter is altruistic. Moreover, the former appeals to people’s pockets, while the latter appeals to people’s hearts. 

When Luna began talking about PR and advertising, she mentioned seeing an anti-stoner campaign. She thinks that’s not the way to promote cannabis. For her, it’s never a good idea to negate one to uphold another or disregard something to spotlight something. 

“The cannabis in my garden doesn’t say, ‘look how much prettier I am than the tomato.’ She’s just doing her own thing.”

Luna Stower

What are the things you must do internally to stay focused?

For Luna, staying focused means having to commune with plant medicine, whether it’s cannabis or tea. She added that there are all kinds of beautiful ways to connect so we can quiet the noise and hear our inner truth. Doing so will allow us to know when something we’re doing is not aligned with our inner truth, so we can focus on one that is.

“It’s important to make sure you’re coming back to center and making sure you’re coming back to the planet. Meditation and closing off some distractions are important because there’s only so much we can take.”

Luna Stower

She continued by saying that we need to identify our traumas. Luna also admitted that she likes to work when she’s grieving, but it’s not how we should do things. 

 “We need to stop the noise. We need to get off. Obviously, you want to see what other people are doing and keep your finger on the pulse, but we need to stay true to what we need to get done.”

Luna Stower

Doing the same thing over and over again every week is not adding value after a certain point. So how do we shift that into something more valuable for all of us? 

Luna explained that it all goes back to co-amplification. She says that it’s best to have more people on board. After all, the more, the merrier. 

“Monks hold things open because if you close [your hand], you’ll lose it. But if you know things will always come, people want to be around that. People want to be around the relaxed, the open, the abundant.

Luna Stower

There’s abundance all around us. It’s what we’re focusing on.”

Luna Stower

She also added that she loves seeing campaigns that feature logos at the bottom. She admitted that it’s indeed an ugly sight, but she enjoys seeing 20 companies or so coming together to work on one goal.

“There are people who lost clients, lost their business, went under, completely lost their money and their minds, and are struggling to get back out. So, it’s really important to help figure it out, to help bring those people along with you.”

Kendra Losee

More from Luna Stower:

• As a marketer or business owner, you can allow yourself to gain a bit of power and respect without losing that power and respect internally;
• You can’t cut the people around you off and think you’re going to get to the finish line and be triumphant — when all other fellow racers are missing legs. There’s no glory in that kind of win. 
• We need to get more elders to remind us, youngsters, what’s going on, to remember the nature of the plant, and what message the plant is trying to tell us. 
• When marketing, find your voice, find your story, and lean into that — and being less generic will save you. 
• Everyone can be touched by this plant [cannabis] without consuming it. 
• Honor cannabis as a goddess, and she will bring abundance. 
• Cannabis deserves honor as the most terpene-rich plant on the planet. She’s the queen of the plant kingdom who activates our endocannabinoid system, which is the master regulatory system for our endocrine and immune, and nervous systems.