Johnathan McFarlane, VP of Sales & Marketing for RollPros – Interview Series

Going from being a journalist to serving in sales and marketing for a company that produces machinery for cannabis packaging and manufacturing is certainly an uncommon career path, yet it’s the exact path that Johnathan McFarlane, VP of Sales & Marketing for RollPros, went through. For a better understanding of cannabis packaging and manufacturing technology, as well as the transferable skills between cannabis machinery and journalism, we had the honor of speaking with Johnathan himself.

What subjects did you study while attending UC-Boulder, and what courses prepared you for the numerous Director roles you’ve held in marketing and strategy?

I majored in Journalism with minors in Religious Studies and Political Science. I worked the whole time I was in school, so I was more interested in spending the free time I had having fun with friends.

As a journalist myself, I wanted to ask what inspired you to study journalism and work in that industry as well? What topics were you the most passionate about covering?

I wish I had a better backstory… but when I was applying for schools I really didn’t have anything specific in mind that I wanted to study. My Dad suggested I go for Journalism because I always liked to write, so I did. That’s all there was to it! And then once I went further into the program with the higher-level classes, I grew to love it.

My journalism work was specific to TV news. Once I graduated, I landed a job as an editor at the local Fox affiliate, Fox31, here in Denver. I loved the storytelling aspect of it. At the time, we had a lot of leeway on how to present our stories. That’s certainly not the case anymore, but back then we were putting out really great local-interest pieces because we had the space and freedom to do what we saw fit.

What were some of the creative documentary/film projects you’ve done over the years? It sounds like the Festivus Film Festival and Bodybranding Films were quite impactful.

The biggest documentary project I worked on was my first feature film called Project Canada. It was a travel documentary about a road trip across Canada. There were four of us that went from the Easternmost point to the Westernmost point of Canada in a van over 3 months. The premise of the movie is my own early backstory. I was born in Canada but moved away when I was 1 year old. Yet, I still told people my whole life I was Canadian. So, I grabbed some friends to come with me and really explore Canada to figure out if I truly was Canadian or not. I left Fox31 to make this movie, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. It did well on the film fest circuit and won a few awards, and was even used in high school and university classrooms to teach kids about Canada.

Another was about Phil Heath, a professional bodybuilder. I followed his journey from an up-and-coming phenom to ultimately winning 7 Olympia titles. (The Olympia is the most prestigious competition in bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger won 7, so Phil tied him.)

Festivus Film Festival was another absolutely massive project. After our experience on the film festival circuit with Project Canada, we wanted to start our own festival that catered to high-quality films that had been overlooked by the big events. Really, we wanted to create the exact festival that we as filmmakers wanted to be a part of. It ran for 7 years and attracted filmmakers from all over the world, and a dedicated audience in Denver. Red Bull was our key sponsor for the last several years. It was very rewarding, but very stressful as well!

What were the primary reasons you decided to transition from journalism/videography to marketing/advertising? And what would you say are the most transferable skills for both journalism and working in cannabis?

Journalism to marketing, and even filmmaking to marketing isn’t as rare as you might think. The best marketers out there are all exceptional storytellers, and both journalism and filmmaking attracts people that have a natural knack for it. I eventually came to the realization that documentary filmmaking wasn’t going to be a sustainable career for me. I was making a lot of branded content for various clients, still documentary style, but it paid a lot better and was intended to support brand goals. I eventually got hired by lovate (makers of Muscletech, Hydroxycut, and many other supplement brands) to work on their content side full-time.

That position didn’t last long, but I stuck it out and got hired by a company in Vancouver, Canada, to take over their brand new content program. Except, I asked for something more as part of the position, and they gave me their e-commerce store to run as well. That was what started my transition to becoming a marketer. Every time I had an opportunity to take on something else, I just said yes. Eventually, while content was still a part of what I did, it became less and less of my time, until it became simply a channel or tactic deployed for larger purposes or goals.

The most important transferable skill I had was simply the ability to tell a story, in any medium.

I used to work in cannabis packaging and manufacturing, so I was familiar with machines such as the Mobius Trimmer 108. What was the process of creating that brand like, and what successes did you see during your time with Eteros?

Establishing the Mobius brand while I was with Eteros was definitely one of the most rewarding accomplishments of my career, and still is. Anytime I see Mobius out there at trade shows or on social media, I do feel proud of my work. It’s rare that a marketer has the opportunity to start a brand from scratch, and see it become such an institution. It was challenging though, no doubt. For the first year of my work at Eteros I couldn’t even talk about what I was working on, which was frustrating. But the flip side of that was I had the space to really dig into what the brand would be, what it would represent. I wasn’t rushed, that’s for sure. Giving the keynote presentation at the M108 launch event in Vancouver was one of the coolest, most exhilarating things I’ve ever done. I practiced for months, and thankfully, nailed it! You can see it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dnLbjXCAkRaO19nhA-suPHvUJF0DUHyS/view?usp=sharing

What caught your attention about working with RollPros, and what are the regular duties of your role as Vice President of Sales and Marketing? Also, what are some lesser-known responsibilities of the job that most cannabis manufacturers wouldn’t think about?

I knew Kyle was different (the founder of RollPros and inventor of the Blackbird), and knew the key product, the Blackbird, was different. That’s really a marketers dream; being able to have something truly unique, and legitimately better than the competitors. Often as a marketer you have to spin things to make an inferior product seem more compelling, but I knew that wasn’t the case at RollPros. So when the opportunity came up, it was a no-brainer for me to accept. Their marketing and sales efforts to date hadn’t been bad, but there was so much work to be done to get RollPros to its full potential in the category.

My duties include literally everything related to sales and marketing. I have a small but extraordinarily talented team. In fact, people are shocked when they learn how small (and no, I’m not telling!), but we are capable of high, powerful output on the marketing side, and use the same approach to make us incredibly efficient on the sales side.

As someone who’s worked in the specific field of marketing and advertising for cannabis machines, how would machines such as RollPros’ and Eteros’ rapidly quicken operations and make manufacturing processes more efficient?

It’s not just about making processes more efficient, it’s about maintaining a high level of quality and consistency too. Who cares if a machine can pump out 20,000 joints per hour if they’re absolute garbage? Quality has to come into play too. Both our Blackbird and the Mobius M108 were designed with that in mind. Increase efficiency, but improve quality and consistency too. And both do that with novel technology not found on any other machines in our respective categories. We’ve got really smart people whose only job is to improve our technology!

What is the grand importance of providing a proper and strong support infrastructure for a company, and how does that infrastructure ensure increased sales and customer loyalty?

Customer support is so incredibly important. We rely on Marketing to gather the interest and eyeballs, Sales to close the deals, and then customer support to turn our customers into our evangelists. Designing and selling equipment like we do isn’t about perfection. Our technology will never be perfect, which is why we are continuously innovating. People understand that. But what they expect is that when they need help, you’re there for them. Word travels fast in this industry, and reputation is everything. Support is what protects our reputation, and we’ve made enormous investments on getting it where it is today: the best support program in the industry.

How do you see this type of technology and machinery evolving further as the industry itself evolves simultaneously?

It’s important to be nimble. Part of how we do that is by manufacturing everything in-house. We don’t source components from overseas. It costs more, sure, but also lets us rapidly prototype and move very quickly. So we’re really adaptable to industry evolution as well. For example, we had customers asking for an infusion solution. We were able to update certain components and surfaces to make it easier to roll infused flower in the Blackbird. We’re built to grow and evolve with the industry, which is exactly what we plan to do. RollPros isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we’re just getting started.

Thank you for joining us, Johnathan. For more information on RollPros, please visit its website.