Meet Joe Salome

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We recently connected with Joe Salome and have shared our conversation below.

Joe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some of the biggest trends emerging in your industry.

Trend #1 Athlete adoption of canna-supplements: What has just started as an NFL want to protect brains after hard hits. Has turned into a full body holistic approach for athletes bodies. Now we with NSF approvals for professional sporting leagues like MLB, Ironman, PGA, etc you will see this segment of canna-supplements grow for athlete performance and recovery.

Trend #2 Canna-beverage options for everyday consumers and event participants: From gas station to grocery stores to where you buy your weekend fun beverages, canna-beverages ranging from CBD to THC and multiple dosing levels will available as non alcoholic, non big beverage alternative.

Trend #3 Cannabis lounges: No more will cannabis use be sanctioned to your homes or basements. Lifestyle and consumption lounges will be part of the retail landscape in your suburban community. As well as an option to enjoy while on vacation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Joe Salome was the snap bracelet sales king of St. Joseph Elementary and a major player in Dean Rusk Middle School’s gum and candy trade. (His father supported his ambitions with resupply runs to Costco.) He’s been building businesses that bring people happiness and healing ever since.

Joe has held sales and marketing leadership positions at Moe’s Southwest Grill, 790 The Zone, and Hair Cuttery. But while caring for his mother during her successful battle with cancer, his focus turned to CBD and other hemp-derived natural wellness products.

“As a kid, I knew people using weed recreationally,” Joe says, “but as I got older, the reasons were different. People would tell me they were using medical cannabis ‘for my wife, who has Crohn’s disease,’ or ‘for my son, who has epilepsy.’”

He’d seen medical cannabis help his mother, and he thought it was wrong to deny it to so many in favor of dangerous opioids and other brutal pharmaceuticals. He decided to do something about it.

In 2014, at the invitation of Rep. Allen Peake (R-Macon), Joe helped develop the Haleigh’s Hope Act, Georgia’s first law to legalize possession and use of low-THC medical cannabis. He has remained a respected steward of medical cannabis legislation and recently celebrated passage of the 2019 Georgia’s Hope Act, which legalized limited production, manufacturing, and distribution of low-THC oil.

Joe is co-founder and managing partner of The Georgia Hemp Company and of Sympleaf Wellness, companies that produce, distribute, and sell hemp-based lifestyle and wellness products. He is the co-founder and former CMO of Halcyon Organics, the first medical cannabis company in the South. And he is a sought-after media authority and industry consultant on hemp legislation, sourcing, quality control, processing, distribution, and marketing.

“It’s about helping people get their lives back,” he says. “Helping them get better. And giving people natural alternatives for living happier, healthier lives.”

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

From the beginning we have been told no. From banks, retail spaces, events, banking credit card processors. But, we are always pushing the envelope and making people realize hemp and CBD is not a scary space. Yes, this changes every year with laws and the next big push.

The Georgia Hemp Company comes from a place of resilience. My prior company was moving 100mph about to make a big step in the CBD national landscape and the rug was pulled out from under me and shut down from my ex business partner. But, we made a white board and turned this idea of a new company to fruition that is now The Georgia Hemp Company in 30 days.

Marketing has always been what can we do for someone to take our dollars. We have been told no, but then once they see what we have done to push the envelope they finally say okay and then want our money.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Started on a bus in Woodstock Georgia. I had a rat tail and he had a mullet. We were the new kids, I was from the west coast and he was from Tennessee. We didn’t like each other. It was a very pick him not me, because we wanted to be the cool new kid. Then we realized we did have a lot in common, we were in the same classes, on the same rec teams, and we started sitting together on the bus, and the rest is history.

I still won’t let him forget about the missed alley-oop to win the game.

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