The Road to Being a Top Entrepreneur: Do You Have to Sell Out?
Being a top entrepreneur of a vegan business may come with more challenges than being the same in a mainstream business. After all, it involves more than just selling a vegan product. It also promotes a particular way of living—and a healthy one at that. However, many people are unaware of what veganism is, and others are unreceptive to its message. As an entrepreneur, is it ethical to sell your vegan products to a mainstream audience without trying to persuade them to become vegan?
Introducing the Experience to Non-Vegans
Every top vegan entrepreneur has at some point introduced their product to non-vegans. In itself, there is nothing wrong with marketing vegan products to non-vegans without persuading them to try the vegan lifestyle… at the onset. For starters, introducing a vegan product without hard selling the vegan message should suffice.
In other words, easing non-vegans into the vegan experience by letting them try your product first is perfectly acceptable. You start a relationship with people by giving them something they can experience, not something they have to believe in. Once they experience the vegan product, they may like it, find out what it stands for, and begin to believe in the vegan cause.
Selling for Profit Alone
When vegan business owners sell a product for the sake of raking in profits with no ultimate intention of letting people understand what veganism stands for, that’s a different story altogether. Like any other mindless and short-sighted entrepreneur, these business owners are selling a consumable item—not an experience or a worthy cause.
Practical though this strategy may sound, it will end up hurting the entrepreneur in the long run. Products that are sold without a message end up being steeped in competition and devoid of identity. This strategy means selling out your beliefs to the fleeting promise of money.
Striking a Balance between Business Profit and Vegan Cause
To be a top entrepreneur, you don’t have to sell out or hard sell the vegan cause along with your vegan products. All it takes is a creative marketing strategy that hooks people to your product, and a genuine wish to pass on the benefits of the vegan lifestyle. Savvy consumers (and so many consumers interested in vegan products ARE truly savvy) have a way of knowing when a business owner – vegan or otherwise - comes from an ethical standpoint, and rewarding them accordingly.
Every vegan item sold means one less (or fraction of one less) animal that is abused or killed. Preaching or not preaching is a whole separate topic, and I hardly think an entrepreneur is “selling out” by not preaching. Honestly, why invent ways to demonize people who are making so much more of a positive difference than the average person?
It doesn't mean that at all; you and others just like to think that.
There's nothing WRONG with selling vegan-friendly products,m but PRODUCTS in themselves aren't actually 'vegan' (only persons can be vegan).
Perhaps the question needs to be framed differently, but lots of nonvegetarians see the vegan business as profitable or potentially profitable (like the leather-clad restaurant owner where we have the vegan meetups – or HAD been holding them until he began DISSING our higher values.
Demonize? No, just “not quite there” and actually missing the point of advocacy.
But should the entrepreneurs bear the cost and responsibility for advocacy, or should that be developed with a different model, with responsibility more extended against interested parties?
I totally agree with Joe. Even if you're not preaching veganism, by selling a vegan product that replaces a non-vegan product, you are spreading veganism.
Although I agree with Joe's sentiment, I probably wouldn't have chosen the word “demonize.” However . . .
I think the article assumes that the reader is an ethical vegan entrepreneur, and the vegan-restaurant owner in leather shoes wouldn't be reading this article or be concerned about selling out. He hasn't got any vegan principles *to* sell out!
I also think the word “vegan” has to apply to products. If it applies to businesses or meetups, why not products?
If an entrepreneur intends on simply selling the product without letting customers know what it stands for, then what are the chances that the customers will buy the same product again if it finds something less costly but destructive to the environment?
You'd be surprised at how many people selling vegan products are non-believers of veganism and are in it only for the profit…I don't think selling a vegan product spreads veganism if the customer doesn't even know what it is…
It might save one less animal from being abused, but is that the only thing we are fighting for?
Thanks for this article! I am soon to start a vegan cookie, cake, and cupcake business and want to win people over to vegan sweets and veganism in general as well as making a comfortable living for myself. I'll be selling at farmer's markets and occassionally at events put on by the vegan org that I'm part of as well as online.
One thing I'm wondering is, when I get my website constructed and going, I was wanting to include some links to info on veganism, both from ethical and health perspectives.
Can/should I do this, as I imagine many people coming to my site will be non-vegans who may be unsure of or misinformed about vegan foods? Do you think it's a good idea, or do you think it may turn people away before they even try any of my products? Thanks to anyone who can give some input on this.
Well you know what? The name of the business is Kind Heart, so do you think that in and of itself might let people know there IS perhaps something “compassionate” about the products, without the extra info, necessarily?
That might get people to ask questions on their own, thus leading into a discussion about veganism and giving information. Or do you think still having the info there in the website wouldn't hurt?
Pertaining to my earlier comment: I should clarify that I am not a business owner but a vegan consumer who stumbled upon this article via tweet. I have pondered the idea of someday opening a vegan-related business, but to be honest I would likely avoid use of the word, which for right or wrong has become somewhat marginalized in the eyes of the mainstream. I would likely opt for descriptors such as “100% plant based” or “reduced cruelty” to appeal to a wider consumer base. I also would likely financially support vegan causes but would feel no obligation to confront my customers with vegan philosophy/education. I feel that gently putting options out there and increasing awareness indirectly is sometimes more effective than directly confronting mainstream folks with issues that may well drive them away from your business. That being said, in my choices as a consumer I always opt to support the business owner who is vegan or has philosophical motivations.. as a vegan myself I both trust them more and want to see them succeed. So, not sure if all this makes me a hypocrite, but there you have it.
Hi Joe! It's great to hear that! I don't think that what you're planning to do is hypocritical at all… maybe I should have clarified a bit more. Some business owners are just in the vegan business to sell, without believing in the values of veganism themselves. That's what I am against.
I think easing consumers into buying a product by describing them as 100% plant-based or cruelty-free is a great and novel way of preventing yourself from hard-selling.That's certainly one novel thing I learned today.
I hope you get to put up your business in the near future!
Hi lisamarie41! You know what, I personally think the website is a great platform for you to let potential vegan and non-vegan consumers know what your business is all about. I don't see how it can put a business such as yours people off, since you're clearly doing it for the love of veganism and your business.
In fact, I'd like you to watch out for a feature interview I did with an entrepreneur who set up an organic make-up business herself and used her website as an excellent platform of building trust with people.
Thanks Arvin! I'd like to see that interview, so please be sure to alert us when it gets posted.
Actually it does make sense, Joe. In fact I was even told by another person who has a vegan cupcake business that vegans can even be turned off by a business that mentions it is vegan in its name or advertising.
How or why, I don't know, to be honest but that is what she told me.
Still I'd like for people to know what I'm about and what I stand for, and even though I like the idea/suggestion of saying “plant-based” or “reduced cruelty”, or even “cruelty free” or “compassionate” about my products, I do kind of want to use those goods as a tool for opening up the door to educating people about veganism, so that's what I guess I'm trying to figure out how to do now without scaring/turning people away, or off, from trying my items.