Meet Alex Stanford

 

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alex Stanford. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alex, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

My work ethic is based in the belief that any skill can be attained if you take the time to learn the fundamentals correctly, put in the hours required to reach mastery, and continue learning.

To preface all of this I grew up very competitive. I played online games, participated in the local Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments, and I was very immersed into sports like basketball, softball, tennis, volleyball, and everything else you can play in the backyard. I was extremely athletic, but I was also extremely undersized – and in the sports world that is the ultimate recipe to find out that being talented simply isn’t enough.

My 5th grade basketball coach used to say “practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect”, and my child mind translated this as “shooting more shots with good form will make you a better shooter, and dribbling without looking down will make you a better ball handler.” Simple.

But as I grew up and continued playing into my college basketball career, it quickly dawned on me that his quote had deeper implications than that. When you get to a higher level of competition, it immediately stops being a game of talent and starts becoming a game of who prepared in the offseason, whose basketball IQ shines, and who can most optimally use their personnel. So in front of my very eyes it changed from a focus on physical prowess, because everyone was good, to a focus on the intangibles that not everyone had. Coach Green’s quote still sticks with me to this day because its an obvious truth but it carries a nuance that resonates with me. He was obviously telling us to get good quality shots up, yes. But in a sports context, the nuance is that it’s very difficult to keep putting out quality reps when you are mentally and physically exhausted, and your work ethic is the only thing that can keep you honest in your attempt to get better.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am the CEO and designer for Skytre3D – we are a small design and marketing team specializing in digital marketing and custom 3d printed accessories for cannabis businesses.

In cannabis there are so many creatives but not much room for creativity outside of the typical grinders, rolling trays, and glassware. 3D printing gives us the freedom to think outside of the box and create collectable cannabis accessories that cannabis users find both useful and cool to display. This medium also gives us freedom to customize and tweak ideas on the fly to create the perfect item for smoke shop and dispensary marketing.

This year we have officially began our journey into retail and are looking to officially get into our first smoke shop very soon. We currently offer custom stashboxes, cart holders, and blunt splitter keychains, but we are rapidly expanding our catalog this year. If any of the readers have a dispensary or smoke shop interested in elevating their brand, contact us at [email protected] or on Instagram @skytre3d

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Build a strong team!! As tempting as it may be to do it all alone, a strong team on a slow day will move faster than you doing it all by yourself. So get trustworthy people with skills you need. These people can be people you know who are serious, or people you find at networking events
2. Networking. In our area of business (marketing and cannabis) your reputation and visibility mean a lot. You want to be the first person who comes to mind when someone discusses something that you do. I go on Eventbrite or just google networking events in my business sector and it has been very rewarding.
3. Know how money and business works. Just understanding how business taxes, banking, and budgeting work can take you a very very long way as far as saving money. The other part of it is knowing how to find investors, not undersell your services, and closing deals

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The book by Marc Ecko called “Unlabeled: Selling You Without Selling Out” was the most pivotal book I’ve read. I was 22 working at a summer camp with an art degree and absolutely no idea where to go from there. I’m not going to spoil it, but he laid out the strategy and work ethic behind how he started his art business from scratch and turn it into Ecko Red and Complex magazine. This book really gave me all the advice I needed to put my feet to the ground and get started truely building my art career into an actual business.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

@alx_thedesigner

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