While intelligence is useful and important for doing most things in life, it’s not the same as appearing to be smart. Whether on Zoom or in person, how we come across in meeting determines success.  So here are some simple tricks to appear smarter in work meetings.

Appearing smart is a talent that demands a little bit of bluffing and a little bit of confidence. You don’t have to know the answer, you just have to look like you know the answer. This trait is especially useful in work meetings, whether these are held in a professional office or virtually.

Author Sarah Cooper wrote an entire book about this called “100 Tricks To Appear Smart in Meetings”, which provides helpful tricks for when you’re put in the spotlight and aren’t feeling like the smartest person in the room.

Draw a Venn diagram

Who doesn’t love a Venn diagram? These helpful little charts are cute, easy to understand and instantly make you appear a lot smarter. They also help you to draw conclusions, which is kind of their purpose. This trick works if someone asks your opinion, you suggest a Venn diagram, draw it and just watch as your coworkers struggle to land on the most appropriate labels.

Pretend to take notes

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Notepads are very helpful nowadays, especially since it makes it obvious that you are, in fact, taking notes and not scrolling through social media. Write down bullet points and key words. This trick, aside from making you look smart, will also help you focus on the task at hand and keep you from thinking about random things.

Ask the speaker or presenter to go back a slide

For some reason, this makes it look like you’re the person who’s paying the most attention out of everyone else in the room. It’s also a perfect opportunity to know what’s actually being discussed. Two birds, one stone.

Repeat what the speaker said

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Repetition is a useful tool. It helps you to remember things and also makes you appear like you’re interested. Or that you’re slow, it all really depends on the context. For this technique to work, you have to sell the part, repeating the phrase back to the speaker as a question or as a way of highlighting the fact that what they’ve just said is important.

Be honest and laugh at yourself

If someone asks what you’re thinking and you were just day dreaming about your dog, try to be honest and humorous, explaining that you missed the last question or that you’re very stressed out by the state of the world. At this moment, there’s nothing more sincere and relatable than that.

Hope you enjoy the simple tricks to appear smarter in work meetings, good luck!

The heyday of marijuana sales in Colorado — back in 2020 when recreational and medical sales topped out at a combined $226 million — is a distant memory, as the state’s dispensaries struggle through an economic downturn, with sales plummeting and small businesses foundering.

“The market’s just bad. It’s bad right now,” said 29-year-old Val Tonazzi, who works in cannabis sales. “There’s businesses closing, left and right.”

In March, Colorado’s total medical marijuana sales were about $17 million — around $5 million less than last March. Retail marijuana sales racked up to $122 million, but that’s still a $17 million drop from March 2022.

Read the rest of this story on DenverPost.com.

Some people dream of working in travel, others in food and some want to work in the growing marijuana industry.  Do you want to get in on “the ground floor”…although that ship is pretty much about to sail unless it is a brand new legal state.  Either way, the cannabis industry employees over 428K and still searching for good talent.

Coming out of Covid, that marijuana industry has had some ups and downs. California and its job market is down, but Missouri is hiring. Smaller states are experiencing an uptick while some of the legacy ones are struggling. Missouri, Michigan and New Jersey had the strongest job growth. New York, with over 1,500 unlicensed retailers, is also hiring, but it is a bit more risky.

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There are four industry divisions – grow, product, retail, and ancillary.  The best current opportunities are in product and retail.

GROW

Grow is having the biggest difficulties as both legal and black market flower is flooding the market and the price per pound has dropped. It is as seen a year over year decrease of about 25% meaning they are streamlining operations.  Think of this as working in a farm or large garden operation.  An in person, hands on role that lets you nurture the plant and then ship it off to be a pre-roll, product or flower.  A smaller part of the industry but employees and owners tend to passionate, especially in developing new strains.

PRODUCT

Products remain healthy as seen on April 20th, the high holy day of cannabis sales.  Sales skyrocketed as more people enter the market and increase how often they consume.  There is an opportunity for brands that have multiple product lines and also have strong distribution.

An independently conducted poll from Jushi uncovered that, despite rising inflationary pressure and cost-saving behaviors, demand for cannabis is resilient.

39% of participants said they purchased less expensive cannabis in 2022 compared to 2021, but 73% actually spent more money per transaction this year. Additionally, THC percentage and price are the new leading factors considered when consumers purchase cannabis. Last year, branding and strain type were most important, but now 60% and 58% of respondents consider THC percent and price the most important factors, respectively.

If you go into product, make sure you understand how much they are making, selling and their growth potential. Maybe do some research and talk to your favorite retailer to see how their brand is selling.

RETAIL

Retail is definitely not a work at home but rather a vibrant chance to interact and learn from customers.  Retailers are often open 7 days a week and have traditional boom times such as July 4th, holiday weekends, winter holidays, etc.  Smart ones also work to minimize slow times. A recent survey from CivicScience found that 21% of people doing Dry January — a popular trend where you abstain from alcohol for the month — are replacing alcohol with cannabis and CBD. The same survey uncovered that the largest demographic of people replacing alcohol with cannabis are aged 21-24 (34%), followed by 25-34-year-olds (24%).  If you go into retail, act professional, know and connect with your customers and look for ways for the company (and you) to increase sales and profits.  Strong salespeople ALWAYS have a good career paths.

RELATED: Alcohol Industry Takes Big Gulps Of Marijuana Businesses

Ancillary

Ancillary includes all the “picks and shovels” business such as marketing and packaging firms to point of sale systems.  This area has taken a hit and responded in a unique way.  Cannabis firms have lost business to mainstream firms and cannabis ancillary firms are branching out to more mainstream clients.

If you have talent in ancillary area – be it tech, sales, marketing, insurance, so on, consider looking at large and boutique mainstream agencies/companies and asking them if you can help lead up their marijuana division.

On a last note, marijuana is still an emerging industry with a chance to make a name for yourself with hard work and gumption.