What happens when you combine a webinar with a tradeshow and a marketplace? Mark Restelli the host of the Hemp Show joins Dan Humiston to talk about the inspiration that prompted him to create his unique podcast. As the founder and CEO of the cannabis marketplace CannTrade, he explains how he gives his guests the rare opportunity to couple their episode with their marketplace. Produced by PodCONX https://podconx.com/guests/mark-restelli https://podconx.com/podcasts/hempshow https://canntrade.com/hemp-supply-show-series-information-page/
What happens when you combine a webinar with a tradeshow and a marketplace?
Mark Restelli the host of the Hemp Show joins Dan Humiston to talk about the inspiration that prompted him to create his unique podcast. As the founder and CEO of the cannabis marketplace CannTrade, he explains how he gives his guests the rare opportunity to couple their episode with their marketplace.
https://podconx.com/guests/mark-restelli
https://podconx.com/podcasts/hempshow
https://canntrade.com/hemp-supply-show-series-information-page/
[00:00:00] Dan Humiston: Everyone. Thanks for joining us. And welcome back. We have a great show in store for you today. Podcaster former pro football player and founder, CEO of canned trademark Roselli is here to talk about his podcast, the ham shell, mark. Welcome to the show.
Mark Restelli: thank you for having me, Dan. And you're very correct. This is going to be an amazing one today.
Dan Humiston: well, before we talk about the ham show, some of the funniest stories I've heard is from back before cannabis was mainstream. The reaction people got when they told their friends that they were getting into cannabis, but your story has to be next level because. Yeah, you're a pro football player your coaches must've been flipping out when you told them you were getting into cannabis. Yeah.
Mark Restelli: Definitely didn't tell my coaches it's not as funny as it seems, because my football career was over. I had just come off of my third foot surgery. So I had not played for about, a year and a half .
But yeah, my career was [00:01:00] done and I was deepened opiates because of the, all the surgeries and all the injuries that had and was searching for alternatives. So started doing my research on cannabis.
Eventually I asked my doc. If they could get me a medical recommendation for marijuana. Cause I wanted to try it out for my issues. And his response was sure , if you want chemically induced psychosis. And I was like interesting. I was like, okay, I think I'm going to go to a different doctor now.
Yeah. So, went to a different doctor, got my medical recommendation. If you're not in the space back in, was that 2011, 12 a very different time, very different industry. No very loose regulations. So, I'm heading into some random doctor's office that doesn't even look like a doctor's office talking to someone.
I didn't even know it was actually a doctor to get this medical recommendation and then going into a dispensary where, I'm a [00:02:00] clean cut dude. Bold big, strong, muscular. I swear. Everybody thought it was a cop. So it was like instantly people's guards are up when I walk into the dispensary.
But it took some time for that to kind of change and to get comfortable with it. But yeah, that was the time when there was hundreds and hundreds of dispensaries out here and in south orange county you would drive over to, I believe it was dire street in Santa Ana off the 55. And there would be about 30, 40 dispensaries within a one block area.
. It's crazy.
Dan Humiston: That is nuts. Well, I, say that jokingly, but , it's pretty common that injuries are what bring a pro football players career to an end. And you fell in that same trap with opioids and sank. Goodness, you found cannabis and got yourself off.
And now we moved into. A lot of other businesses, which unfortunately we're not going to have a chance to dive into today, but , when you're listening to her, I'm sure you'll hear a lot more about Mark's career, but I want to talk about the hemp show [00:03:00] because it's so unique. The way you do the hem show is different than any other podcasts that are out there in that. And I kind of describe it to other people. I say, if a trade show and a conference and a marketplace, I'll had a baby. It looked like the Hamshaw it's everything together in one place. , I mean, Hey, how'd you come up with the concept, but B why do you think people like this idea this all in one concept so much
Mark Restelli: This is kind of in an idea for a long time, but it's got to start back a few years before we actually started the hemp show. It starts with, can trade the software. So, back when I was in the space in kind of starting businesses out in the cannabis space in California, It was the wild west and it's changed a lot, but you're talking about a lot of fraud, a lot of fake deals, a lot of fake brokers, just a lot of fakeness in general.
It was hard to navigate through that figure out, who's legitimate, who's doing things correctly who actually has the product that they say they have. So we started can [00:04:00] trade with trying to fix that. Ultimately bringing credibility back into the supply chain, supplying businesses with the tools and infrastructure that they need to go ahead and sell their goods in a very simple and easy manner, mostly things that are available for every other business type, but because your cannabis are barred from a lot of these.
So, that was the birth of Canterbury. Now, fast forward years and years, we've always thought of can trade as a online digital trade show that never. As in you get in there, you get your booth in this case, your booth would be a store menu. And then you get connections from businesses that are in the network that need products that you sell.
So that would be no different than someone walking a trade show floor and seeing a specific business type and be like, oh yeah, I definitely need some trimming machines for my farm or something like that. Or I need some biomass. For my extraction machines. And then [00:05:00] that's what really spawned the Hampshire.
We're like, okay. When COVID first hit last year, all the trade shows got shut down and we've been wanting to do our own for quite a while. And we were actually in talks with multiple different shows for partnerships to utilize our software for the shows. And that's when we said, you know what?
Let's just do our own. Let's just do it digitally. Let's keep it. And that's exactly what the hemp show is. We kept it extremely simpleit is a webinar in line with the software with ultimately a goal of bringing eyeballs and engagement to whatever that business is.
I introduced the business, we chat about what they're doing, chat about their products, their unique selling points. And I try my best to act as a consumer. Of those products or potential client of that business in asking the questions that I think a client would ask. And I also try to keep it, fun lighthearted not too serious.
And it's resonated.This date, I want to say we're about 60 something businesses that have been on the hemp [00:06:00] show and we have a backlog of about. A hundred businesses that want to be on it. And then we've also got a backlog of about another 20 or 30 shows that we haven't even been published yet.
Dan Humiston: yeah. Talk about simple. For a podcast or listening to this show, like now you mark only records once a month. On the first Tuesday of every month, they record all the shows back to back, and then you just get released throughout the month, it is such a simple, smart format.
. It makes it easy for everybody. It's speaking to the show. You brought a clip along with you today that we're going to play for our audience. Can you maybe set it up a little bit for us so they can kind of get an idea of what we're about to hear?
Mark Restelli: Sure. , so the clip features and a annuity with MJ skin and MJ relief. And she also runs a podcast called casually baked, which is also a YouTube channel as well. She's killer. She talks really well. She's extremely knowledgeable about everything having to do with cannabis. And in this clip, she talks a bit about some of our products and also about a little bit about the.
[00:07:00] Dan Humiston: let's queue this up now. Yeah that's great. She's good to begin with, but , you'll hear a lot of that, where the.
people that actually make the products are explaining how the products are made and what the benefits are.
Mark Restelli: Most people are used to the experience of going on Amazon and not knowing anything about the brand of the product, seen some reviews, but honestly, You get enough reviews. It's like hard to filter between what's the reality of the product. Like, how's it actually going to work for you?
But one of the things I like to do is if at all possible, [00:08:00] hear it directly from the product creator directly from the person who has the passion has some sort of reason that they created the product in a lot of cases. And especially in a Joanna's case, his personal reason for creating the product sensitive skin, so people are trying to.
Some sort of ailment that they have utilizing cannabis or him or anything else. And they develop a passion behind it and that helps they put that passion into the product and that product works.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, I think it makes a big difference, especially in with CBD world. There's so many products. If you can connect with the manufacturer and the manufacturer actually has the confidence in their product to come on and talk about it. I think that goes a long way. That kind of leads me to my next question you're expanding hemp show because it's doing so well.
And now you're moving into the deep dive interviews. Can you tell us a little bit about what we can expect with those shows?
Mark Restelli: There's quite a few things. I'm not sure how many of those things I'm ready to share with you that we're working on. But with the deep dive conversations the hemp show [00:09:00] format, it's commerce focused. So we're talking about a business, their products, what they do, and it's only 15.
In a lot of cases, 15 minutes goes by extremely fast and you don't have enough time to cover something. Super interesting. So the deep dive conversation is the exact opposite of that. It is not formatted. There's no time constraints. There's no topic that we can and cannot talk about. And ultimately what we usually do is we , pick up where we left off from the 15 minute hemp show in it.
One hour or two hour, like I said, there's no time constraints, but they're usually between one to three hour range. And if they're super interesting, cutting them off at three hours kind of sucks because there's still more to talk about. And we've had some really killer guests. Everybody that's been on the deep dives and we're going to start releasing those extremely soon has been on the 15 minute hemp show segment.
And said we just dive more into what got them in the industry, what [00:10:00] their passion is. And then in some cases, get a lot deeper into the science of things too, what's the reason for this. What's the reason for that. We had on Dr. Bone talking about CBD and Alzheimer's we had on Emily Gogel with infinite tree talking about specific genetics around hemp.
And hemp seeds. So just some really cool people that are able to put more time and explain more in depth what it is that they do and what they're
Dan Humiston: Man, , those are going to be good. Cause I know that the hemp show really what's your whistle? And there's a lot of times I finished listening to a show and I feel like, man, I could listen to that person speak a lot longer. Cause they're really intelligent.
They really know their product and they're just giving us the 1 0 1. I'd love to get into a little bit of a deep dive.
Mark Restelli: Well, it's really funny Dan. Cause I'm the one that's , keeping the tempo up on the hemp show. And I know that there's an, a presenter coming on in five minutes and I'm trying to wrap things up with this previous presenter. And as I'm wrapping it up, I'm like, damn, I wish I had more time.
[00:11:00] Dan Humiston: Yeah exactly. Well, if you want to jump in and listen to the ham, show it every Monday and Thursday on all the major podcast networks, including pod connects, where you can also apply to be a guest and stay tuned for the deep dive. So those will be coming out soon. And also, you can always.
To can trade and and go right to their page and learn more about them there. Mark, speaking of having more time.
I could always talk to you for a lot longer, but we got to wrap this show up. So thanks for being on the show.
Mark Restelli: awesome. Thank you for having me, Dan, you guys have been great.