Behind the Scenes with Vegan Accountants
When Keith Lesser’s family accountancy firm Lesser & Co gained a new vegan café as a client, Keith would never have guessed that six months later he’d be vegan himself and on his way to acquiring Vegan Accountants as a new department.
Lisa talks to Keith about how his veganism encouraged him to align his personal ethics with his professional goals and how Vegan Accountants helps vegan businesses.
You first became vegan yourself after a client you were working with introduced you to veganism. That must have been a pivotal moment in both your vegan and career journey – how did it happen?
Feel Good Café opened their vegan business around the corner from our office and appointed us as their accountants. The client found us because they’d been looking for quite some time for accountants and thought that we had the quality and advice plus the communication skills that they were looking for as we were able to answer all of their questions and build rapport in a responsive way. My father had the first dealings with them but then I took over because for the last seven years I have dealt with all of our new client enquiries. Idan at Feel Good Café is a passionate vegan and he recommended us as his accountant to all of his customers.
I’d always had an interest in health and naturally gravitated to this new best local lunch spot because the quality of the food was excellent. After six months of chatting with other vegans at least twice a week, I was becoming more vegan friendly. Then I watched ‘What the Health’ on Netflix and that was me done straight away! I’ve now been vegan for four years.
What made you decide that just being vegan wasn’t enough, and you had to align your personal ethics with how you made a living?
It was a bit of an accident! I’ve become increasingly involved in the vegan scene over the last four years, and your business interactions naturally focus on connections that you have things in common with. So it makes perfect sense that we work with others with the same values and inspire those values with others that don’t yet have them. Of course, I would never take on unethical clients, and working with ethical clients is a joy. Equally I have clients who play racket sports which is another passion I have.
Most people start up their own vegan business, but you took over an already established one. Were there any pros or cons to this, and what have you done to make Vegan Accountants your own?
Our family company Lesser and Co has been in business for 30 years, so it’s more that I feel we started a vegan range with Vegan Accountants. It was inevitable that with the skills and expertise that we have that this would be combined with our newfound passion and ethics. Acquisitions are not easy; however, this was relatively small and it did give us impetus to have a more vegan focus. What I didn’t want to do is overcomplicate matters in a negative way, and I was discussing this with Mark Bowden who recently started The Vegan IT Company.
So, we have one limited company which is Lesser and Co Limited. Then we have two websites, two social media accounts and two proposal templates for new client quotes and renewals. I didn’t want to create two sets of processes, two sets of software licenses, two sets of accounts as all this extra effort could be focused into making a difference rather than non-value add administration. So we run a vegan department as part of our overall business and I truly believe that this allows us to offer the very best service to all of our clients including the vegan clients and the vegans of tomorrow.
One of Vegan Accountant’s ethical clients, M*lkman
I think we are owning our future with the quality that we produce and client retention has been 100%. We have never lost a vegan client so this is excellent and I do put it down to the relationship and our shared values. Clients understand and respect that we not only understand their business but also give fantastic advice.
We have never lost a vegan client and I do put it down to the relationship and our shared values. Clients understand and respect that we not only understand their business but also give fantastic advice.
Some people are really surprised that we now have vegan accountants! Have you been surprised at the diversity of vegan businesses we now have?
Not really as I think being vegan is so mainstream now. This is imperative to open doors to doubters who say that a vegan world is not possible. When you literally have vegan substitutes for everything, and you can build an entire vegan supply chain, there are no excuses.
You’ve got a lot of experience as an accountant, but have you faced any new challenges as a vegan accountant?
No, not technically. However, from a sales point of view we have a lot of vegan businesses who are not necessarily well established yet and may not want to invest in accountancy. Yet equally in my experience if you do not surround yourself with experts and quality, and instead try and do everything yourself, this is the quickest road to failure. I very much have the view in business (not just in veganism) that people should focus what they are good at, and this is the main way that businesses are successful. For example, they learn their strengths and exploit those that rather than spending days doing bookkeeping when they could be growing the business.
Have there been any challenges finding other vegan accountants to join your team?
It’s such a challenge to find the right recruit for an accountancy business, and yes this is a tricky one. However, I’m quite happy having clients and colleagues who are not vegan as I don’t want to compromise the quality of the company. Whilst my vegan values are strong, I do believe that if we employed vegans who are not good accountants then we wouldn’t have a company, because the clients wouldn’t stay, and we wouldn’t provide good service; so this wouldn’t help anyone. I’m also conscious that we have an obligation as an ethical employer to provide equal opportunities, and our existing team (who are not all vegan) are very good. We currently have two vegan accountants James and Chloe who have joined in the last 12 months, plus myself. A further six accountants work in our firm covering overall client base. When we do recruitment it’s one quality recruit out of 200 applications and we are so picky who we take on. I’ve had a 50/50 success rate with recruitment in the last ten years.
What’s the biggest bit of advice you’d give to anyone who is wanting to start their own vegan business? Apart from get a good accountant, obviously!
Join Vegan Business Tribe of course! Also I think the biggest thing is working backwards: what do you want to achieve and why? I don’t want success at any cost; give consideration to stress and quality. Who do you want to work with and how do you want to spend your days? If you can earn money in your business, can you get help so you can focus on your strengths and others can do what you can do at a lower skill level and lower cost?
Learn more about Vegan Accountants at their website www.veganaccountants.co.uk
Lisa Fox says:
Sometimes aligning your personal ethics with your professional life doesn’t mean starting a brand new business. If you already have a successful business then it’s possible, and sometimes preferable, to either acquire an existing business in that sphere to add to your current business, or create a new trading name to serve the ethical customers you connect with. Keith has done a great job of serving vegan business owners an ethical accounting solution with Vegan Accountants, and his local vegan café is clearly doing a great job of encouraging pre-vegans to go vegan!
