First I need to apologise to our members outside of the UK. I know I talk about about Vegan Camp Out so much that you must be sick of hearing about it – but there’s not many places where you’ll find 10,000 vegans in a field. For some vegan businesses, VCO is their biggest pay-day of the year, and our Vegan Business Tribe members who manage to secure a stall at the event spend months preparing for it.
I’m typing this as I’ve just got back to my hotel after the event opened on Friday afternoon. I know it’s supposed to be a ‘camp-out’, but I’m past the age where queuing for a shower in the morning is a novelty and I obviously need somewhere to plug-in my laptop… I attend Camp Out every year with a huge Vegan Business Tribe banner on my back. I call it my ‘vegan business-owner magnet’ because I know a proportion of the people attending VCO will be business owners and I want to find them.
And it works – people see the sign, stop me and we chat about their business. Often I’m able to give them some advice on the spot or recommend someone they need to link up with. On more than one occasion I’ve done a full business clinic with them stood in a the middle of a field.
I do this, yes, because I want more people to be part of the Tribe, but also because many vegans in business don’t realise that they can get advice and support specifically for them. Just like they don’t know you can get a vegan accountant or a vegan virtual assistant, instead of having to put up with non-vegan ones that don’t understanding why you do what you do. So I’m out here all weekend doing what I can to spread the word. If you can’t get to Vegan Camp Out then you can help me to by also telling any other vegan business you know about Vegan Business Tribe. In fact, if you do it using our refer a friend form here, not only can you gift them a free month membership and a 20-minute welcome 1-2-1 with me, but if they claim the free month then you get a free month added to your account too!
Right, I need to get to bed because it was gone midnight when I left the festival and we’ve got out official member meet-up in the morning at 11.00am. I’m estimating we’ve got at least 30 of our VBT members here, some who have travelled as far as South Africa to be here for the weekend, and I need to make sure I take a selfie with each and every one!
David’s thoughts from the week, published every weekend for members only.
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