Case Study
Ball Family Farms
LA's first Black-owned vertically integrated cannabis facility had premium product, real demand, and culture-defining collabs. Behind the branding, a machine got built through JNF, the agency I co-founded: an audited sales operation, a custom system in ClickUp, and events that turned customers into regulars.
Full Sales Audit ✦ Custom ClickUp System ✦ Patient Appreciation Days ✦ Industry Smoke Events ✦ Reign x Viola ✦ First Draft x Lena Waithe ✦
Full Sales Audit ✦ Custom ClickUp System ✦ Patient Appreciation Days ✦ Industry Smoke Events ✦ Reign x Viola ✦ First Draft x Lena Waithe ✦
Full Sales Audit ✦ Custom ClickUp System ✦ Patient Appreciation Days ✦ Industry Smoke Events ✦ Reign x Viola ✦ First Draft x Lena Waithe ✦
Full Sales Audit ✦ Custom ClickUp System ✦ Patient Appreciation Days ✦ Industry Smoke Events ✦ Reign x Viola ✦ First Draft x Lena Waithe ✦
The Gap
Ball Family Farms never had a demand problem. The gap was behind the brand.
Ball Family Farms was already a name: LA's first Black-owned, vertically integrated, social-equity licensed cannabis facility, with national press and culture collabs to match. KCRW covered them struggling to keep up with demand during the pandemic. The reputation was real. The machine behind it hadn't caught up: no unified sales system, no pipeline visibility, and time leaking out of every deal.
That became the engagement. JNF, the agency I co-founded, ran the entire thing: a top-to-bottom sales audit, a custom system built in ClickUp, Patient Appreciation Days and industry smoke events on the retention side, and ongoing branding and marketing strategy holding it all together.
By the Numbers
Full Overhaul
The entire sales process, audited and rebuilt into one system.
1 System
A custom sales hub in ClickUp, built around how the team actually sells.
2
Culture collabs: Reign with Viola and First Draft with Lena Waithe.
The Build
Audit & Diagnosis.
Every part of the sales operation went under the lens: process, pipeline, pricing, time. The audit mapped exactly where revenue was leaking and what the system needed to look like instead.
Systems & Development.
A custom sales management system built in ClickUp, designed around how the team actually sells. One home for pipeline, accounts, follow-ups, and the time management that used to live in people's heads.
Onboarding & Rollout.
The full sales team onboarded onto the new system, with training and accountability built into the workflow. Adoption was the product; a system nobody uses is just software.
Events & Retention.
Patient Appreciation Days for the customers. Smoke events for the industry. Retention built on both sides of the counter, with collabs like Reign with Viola and First Draft with Lena Waithe keeping the brand in culture.
Brand & Management.
Ongoing branding and marketing strategy through JNF: campaigns, positioning, and the connective tissue between the sales machine and the brand the public sees.
Inside
The brand brought people in. The events brought them back.
Patient Appreciation Days turned customers into regulars, and industry smoke events kept Ball Family Farms in the room with the people who move the market. The same thinking ran through the culture collabs: Reign with Al Harrington's Viola, First Draft with Lena Waithe. Every touchpoint fed retention, and retention fed revenue.
In the Press
Coverage came from uniqueness: LA's first Black-owned vertically integrated grow, and collabs that pulled cannabis into culture.
Essence
"Lena Waithe Talks Unlocking Her Creativity And Venturing Into Cannapreneurship With New Brand 'First Draft'"
LA Weekly
"Ball Family Farms x Viola Collab Hopes to Inspire While Supporting Reentry Programs"
WWD
"Chris Ball on His Entry Into the Cannabis Space, Social Equity and the Plant's Wellness Properties"
Outcomes
Branding gets the attention. The machine behind it keeps the revenue.
A sales operation is a product. Audited, systemized in ClickUp, and adopted by the full team, it turned reputation into repeatable revenue.
Retention is designed, not hoped for. Patient Appreciation Days and industry smoke events made coming back part of the brand.
Culture is a distribution channel. Collabs with Viola and Lena Waithe kept the brand in the conversation while the system captured the demand.