When passion meets purpose in marketing

What happens when passion meets purpose in marketing? Sandra Nomoto, self-described “vegan hype woman,” is revolutionizing how plant-based businesses promote themselves in a crowded marketplace.

Sandra’s journey began with an unexpected, intuitive reading that suggested she would write a book. Discovering that only one outdated resource on vegan marketing existed, she seized the opportunity to fill this gap. Her book Vegan Marketing Success Stories showcases approximately 100 case studies of successful vegan businesses, catapulting her into speaking engagements and establishing her expertise in this growing niche.

The conversation explores what makes vegan marketing distinctive—while the tools remain identical to conventional marketing, the messaging can incorporate varying degrees of ethical positioning. This principle extends beyond veganism: any business can differentiate itself by authentically communicating its values. As Sandra eloquently puts it, “Your superpower is who you are.”

We dive into practical content creation strategies, with Sandra cautioning against over-reliance on AI without personalization. The discussion highlights the importance of maintaining consistency between your written voice and speaking style, especially crucial for authors planning to speak about their books. Her insights on self-publishing versus traditional publishing offer valuable guidance for aspiring authors, emphasizing how books can open doors to professional speaking opportunities.

Perhaps most valuable is Sandra’s warning about digital vulnerability. Both of us have shared personal experiences with social media account hacking and arbitrary platform restrictions, underscoring the necessity of building your business on digital assets you control.

For entrepreneurs seeking meaningful differentiation, Sandra’s approach demonstrates how aligning business with personal values not only attracts the right customers but also creates greater fulfillment in your work.

Julie Fairhurst: Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Women Like Me: Stories & Business. I’m your host, Julie Fairhurst. Oh, I’m really excited about today’s guest, because she is going to not only enlighten all of you, but I need to be educated on this as well. I’m very, very curious about it. So her name is Sandra Nomoto. And she’s written a book called Vegan Marketing Success Stories, and she coaches and helps businesses who have vegan products and services, so totally out of my what I normally do. So Sandra, thank you so much for being here. And why don’t you give us a little bit more information so people sort of understand, you know, what it is that we’re going to be chatting about.

Sandra Nomoto: Sure, thanks so much for having me on, Julie. This is a real pleasure. So I’m Sandra Nomoto. I live in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and I’ve got a couple different titles because I do a number of different things. So my first title is vegan hype woman. And as a hype woman, I help leaders of vegan companies as either as an executive assistant or primarily a publicist. I can do a bunch of other marketing-related stuff, but let’s just leave it at that. And if you’re out there wondering, well, what’s the vegan company? Well, it’s any company that doesn’t harm or exploit animals in their business. So a traditional restaurant probably not is not going to be vegan. If you don’t serve animal products, great, you’re a vegan restaurant, congrats, and so on and so on. So those are the folks I jam with because I’m vegan and those are the businesses that I want to support.

And then my other bucket of clients are authors. So I don’t really specialize in any particular type of author. I just say authors with impact. So as long as you want to impact people positively with the book that you’re creating, I’d love to work with you. So I can do that as a ghostwriter, editor, formatter. I’m not a graphic designer, so I can’t help with your cover, so you’ll go to somebody else for that, but yeah, and then I can also help on the marketing side for when your book launches. So yeah, that’s me and my world. It’s a lot of marketing words and then some veganism in there.

JF: Yes, perfect. So you mentioned restaurants, so I’m curious. So then, would a vegan restaurant be one that doesn’t use dairy products, or is it just ‌meats?

SN: That’s correct. Yeah. So if they don’t use eggs or dairy, that would be a vegetarian restaurant. Although I’m thinking of one locally that I think they still use egg [meat] and they call themselves vegetarian, but anyway, yeah, and then vegan is absolutely no animal products, so no honey in the salad dressing either. Yeah, no desserts with dairy. But we’re in an era right now where there’s so many great substitutes and so many Canadian companies creating these as well. So if the restaurant is one that wants to use these substitutes instead of the actual animal product, then great. Those are places I love to support.

JF: So how is the marketing different? Then, how is it different from traditional marketing? I mean, I understand that there would be a vegan aspect to that, but how does that flow?

SN: Yeah, I’ve been asked that quite a few times since I launched my book, and I’ve got two answers for that. So the first answer is, there really isn’t any difference, because vegan folks asked me, “Well, how can we capitalize? How can we stand above the rest?” Well, we are still using all the same tools everyone else is.

And so that brings me to answer number two, which is, if you want to include some of that vegan messaging. So for example, why you should eat plants instead of, you know, animal products that might make your marketing different than a conventional company, or if you want to include more of, like a vegan activist message, and you know, some companies might show you know animal how animals actually get killed, to get on your plate, and that sort of thing. So it kind of varies, like how much of that vegan message a company may or may want to put out there, but I’d say that’s really the only difference. Other than that, we’re using the same tools everyone else is.

JF: Right, right. It made me think of—because I work with a lot of women on their business stories. Yes, and one of the things we find is what, you know, what? What are you passionate about? And‌ talking environmentally, or, you know, we have in Women Like Me, we have a group of ladies in Kenya that we support. So we have 26 ladies in Kenya. They write books. They’ve written four books. We do‌ fundraising. Any of those books that sell, go to them so that when you come to Women Like Me, that is going to be part of what‌ you’re going to see. So is that sort of what you’re…like I think L’Oreal now, I think I’m not positive, but I think L’Oreal is no longer using animals like anything to do with animals in any of their makeups or anything anymore, I think.

SN: Right. Yeah. I mean, I’m not sure if they’re completely a vegan company, but I think I did hear that they’ve, yeah, no longer participating in animal testing, which is great.

JF: Yeah. So I think that it sounds like they’re, you know. So what you know, I think it’s fabulous, because they do stand out, yeah, from the rest of you know, the rest of what’s going on out there. So how do you promote that?

SN: I mean, yeah, you can do that in a whole bunch of different ways, right? And that’s what I do recommend companies do, because there’s so much competition out there. Yes, and any factor that you can use that makes your company stand out above the rest, or make it a little bit different is to your advantage. So for example, you were describing how you give a portion of your proceeds of book sales to these women in Kenya. ‌That’s completely different than most authors, you know, or we’re just trying to sell books and, you know, and keep whatever profits we can, but that you know as a differentiator for you as an author, right? So, yeah.

So I recommend, the more good that you can do in the world that can be you can use that in your marketing. Yes, because I would think, you know, consumers will pay attention to that, and they’ll be more likely to support you because they know that you’re not testing on animals, for example. That’s why we have things like B Corp, the B Corp certification. That’s what it’s all about. These companies have to take a quite‌ a rigorous assessment. My agency from years past, I certified twice as a B Corp as well. And you have to prove through this assessment that you are doing good for the world in some ways. And then companies that have that B Corp seal, that’s kind of a fast way that I can tell as a consumer that, oh, this company is doing some good things, whether it’s for the environment or groups of people, or they’re women owned or etc. things like that. I think again, they help you stand out and ‌therefore they’ll help you with your marketing.

JF: Yeah, well, let’s talk about the book that you wrote. So Vegan Marketing Success…

SN: Stories.

JF: Got it right there, perfect. So what? Tell us what the book’s about?

SN: Yeah, it’s a little similar than other marketing books you might see. So mine came out three years ago now, so that’ll tell you how old it is, or current. But all of the case studies and the examples that I use, of which they’re roughly 100 are all vegan companies. So that’s the difference with my book and so…

JF: What was the purpose? What you know, what was your passion about writing it? What sort of got you going on? It? Was it just to be able to draw attention to yourself? Was it to show your expertise and what you’re able to do for companies?

SN: Yeah. So interestingly, in 2021, I did an intuitive reading around the time of my birthday. Sometimes I do this, and the person told me, you know, your spirit guides are telling you’re going to publish a book, or you’re going to write a book this year. Yeah, and I went, what? Because I just had no idea for a book. You know, I write nonfiction. I don’t write fiction. So I just kept thinking to myself, what would I even write about if, if I was, if I was going to write a nonfiction book?

And then I thought to myself, well, I’m in vegan marketing, so let’s see if somebody’s published a book. And there was only one book out there about the vegan industry called Vegan Ventures, and it’s 10 years old now. And so I thought to myself, what an underserved market. I guess I have to do this now, because it’d be only the second book in this entire industry. So yeah, so I got cracking in the fall and started reaching out. I reached out to almost 300 companies to say, “Hey. So tell me your marketing success story. What makes you successful in terms of your marketing tactics?”

And then by fall of 2022, the book came out and it’s not brought me any huge contracts. I have had clients come to me through the book. But I’d say the number one thing that it did for—well, I would say two things. So first, it really got my name out in the vegan world. I was really an unknown prior to that, so yeah, just all of the vegan podcasts started inviting me on their shows and asking me to talk about my book, because it’s the first of its kind out there. So I did that, and then I got invitations to start speaking at certain online or in-person events, and, yeah, and actually got paid to speak at a few of these last year.

So that really taught me, you know, the power of publishing a book, like, if speaking on stage is something that you want to do, and it certainly wasn’t for me. And doing that professionally, actually, like getting paid to do that, like publishing a book, is the best way to get you there. So…what do I say? I give that advice now to all the clients, or even potential clients that come to me, and I say, “Is this a goal of yours? Like, do you want to raise your personal brand and start speaking professionally?” The fastest way to do that is to publish a book.

JF: Absolutely. It just gives you credibility.

SN: Absolutely, yeah, one hundred percent.

JF: Yeah, wow. So, well, I think that was very smart of you to be able to, well, it all lined up right for the book and, and you’re a vegan and, and being able to help other people, other companies to be able to to focus that in their marketing. I think that’s a good tool for anybody who’s interested in writing a book, is to do some research about what it is that they want to write about. You know, is there 1000 books? Which is okay if there’s 1000 books, but try to find, you know, can you write one differently than the other 1000 that are out? Yeah.

SN: Yeah, exactly. So if you have some expertise within marketing or within, you know, yeah, the business sector that you’re in, and you find little or no books about that, then that, that gives you a sign that there’s probably a market for this. You know, it may be a niche market, but‌ it’s nice to be a big fish in the small pond, as they say.

JF: Absolutely, absolutely. So when you’re helping entrepreneurs who are writing their own content, what do you think the one of the biggest mistakes you often see them doing?

SN: Ooh, my gut wants to say, using AI, but I don’t want to bash AI right off the bat there. I think it can be a great tool, but I say that because you really, again, it goes back to being distinct and being different if you copy and paste the first thing that ChatGPT spits out at you when you say, hey, write me an Instagram post that’s not going to set you apart. You really have to give it all those differentiating factors. If you’re a small company and you’re the founder and you’re kind of the face of the brand, maybe you want to give it a sound bite of how you actually speak, because the closer that you can get your content to speak like you, and this is going to change over time the less that you appear. Again, the different—that is what’s going to make your content look and sound different from any other company? Yes, that’s what I would say.

JF: Yeah, for sure. I think that you’re so right. I think I remember in the beginning, when I started in 2019 and I remember like, no AI, no AI. And now it’s like, did you use any AI? You know, because it’s just the way of the world now, but I agree. I think that there’s a way to use it. You can’t—I agree. You can’t just say, hey, write me this and then copy, paste it and throw it. Start throwing it into a book, because it has to sound like you. It has to be you. It has to come from your heart. You can certainly put it in and say, Can you help me write it better? But I think it’s so important to not lose yourself, especially like you say you got yourself on stage. How’s that going to sound? If your whole book was written without really a whole lot of your effort, just in terms of ideas, and, like you say, all the research and everything you did, and now you’re going to go talk. Yeah, there might connect between your speaking and what you’ve got actually in your book.

SN: Yeah, absolutely. And we’re in this kind of muddy waters period with books where people are using AI to write it. And so first of all, yeah, if you’re for the most part, copying and pasting the content it gives you, you have to actually disclose that on the platform that you use. So Amazon will put a nice, big “Cowritten by AI” stamp on your book and‌ if that doesn’t detract readers, then good for you. You know, all the success to you.

But personally, I haven’t written—bought a book cowritten by AI. I’ll tell you that yes, because there’s so many other great ones out there that aren’t using AI.

JF: Absolutely.

SN: Yeah. And then exactly what you said about the distinction between your speaking voice, and then what’s written in the book. And then you’ve also got to think about audiobooks, like, if you’re going to make an audiobook out of your book, are you comfortable speaking all the content that it—comes out, because if it doesn’t sound like you, and then you’re going on—like you’re a professional speaker and going on stage, then yeah, the reader is going to be confused.

JF: Yes, yeah. And the last thing you want to do is damage your credibility, yeah, because it would be really hard to get that back. It’s—yeah, could be tough. Well, what advice do you give to readers who feel stuck or afraid of not being good enough to write?

SN: Wow, what a great question. I don’t think the writing should be a barrier for anyone. I think everyone’s got a story in them, and therefore, if you want to be an author, you absolutely can be. There are ways to get around this. So if you really want to get better at writing, hire a coach, join a group, write every day. I don’t care how much you write, it could be 500 words. Just practice that. That tool I used to write a whole lot when it when I was a kid, and, and that’s now my writing is kind of like more corporate, and I want to go back to that fun, creative style and, and it’s a struggle, because I’ve spent so many years like in the marketing, yeah, just doing right writing for marketing. So that’s what I would say.

And then if it’s more of an emotional barrier than the writing, you know you’re a good writer, but just you’d rather clean your toilet than sit at your laptop and type, yeah, again, that’s where groups help ask your friends, ask your loved ones, you know, get some motivation from other people who can really give you that emotional boost.

And if you still don’t want to write at a laptop, you can speak your book. This is how I work with other authors. As a ghostwriter, we hop on Zoom, I hit record, and I let people talk, and that’s how you can create a manuscript. I’ll go in and I’ll clean up your, you know, your filler words and things like that. But for the most part, I’m not the kind of ghostwriter who will‌ interview you and then create my own version of your story. I like to work with folks who want the book to sound like their speaking voice.

JF: Yes.

SN: So you can, yeah, you can speak your book, whether it’s with somebody like me or‌ just with the tools that we have, speak into your iPhone, and then use, use an app to transcribe your text or your audio into text, and then you have yourself a manuscript when you’ve got at least 30,000 words.

JF: Yes, yeah perfect. And so what do you think about the difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing?

SN: Yeah, I can’t speak too much to traditional because I’ve never taken that path. Both of my books have been self-published, and I learn with every book something new that I’m going to take to my next project. So there’s always, you know, some trial and error there, but there’s pros and cons, right? So I knew that I wanted to self-publish my second book. I had the experience of publishing on Amazon with my first and I knew I didn’t want to just throw it up on Amazon again.

So I went with a different platform. I really did it right this time—with the second time around, I hired a book coach. I hired almost a whole vegan team to help me. So it was really important to me that my editor was vegan, my marketer was vegan, my cover designer was vegan. So that was kind of cool. I kind of formed my little dream vegan book team.

JF: That’s awesome.

SN: Yeah, and you can do it on your own schedule. You can launch when you want. You don’t have any of these barriers that traditional publishing has. Anyone anywhere in the world can buy your book online. But there’s also pros to being traditionally published, so they will take care of all those services for you. They will make your book available in bookstores where people can buy them. You won’t have the freedom of timeline, so you won’t get to choose when your book comes out, because that’s up to them. Your profit per book is going to be a little a bit lower than it would if you were self-publishing. But again, there’s‌ also pros to traditional. Yeah, just that prestige that comes with working with a publisher, So yeah, I think you just have to look at the different paths that are available to you and decide which, which is best for you.

JF: Yeah, for sure. So what kind of content are you developing then, when you’re working with these, with these companies? I’m just trying to so let’s say somebody came to you and they said, “You know, I’ve got a small business and I’m vegan, and I need to get it out into the world.”

SN: Yeah, I would start with a content strategy. That’s where I advise all new or small companies start. So your content is: your social media platforms, your blog. And I know a lot of people are like, Well, what do I need a blog for? Well, your website needs to update itself frequently so that it can be found in Google searches and it can be found in AI apps now. So having a blog on your site is a good thing. Doing that regularly.

And then same thing with sending out emails, because you own your email list, you don’t own a social media platform. So those are kind of my three. And of course, have a website. Do not just start your business on Instagram, because, again, like I said, you don’t own Instagram, so you’ve got to have your digital home, and that’s your website. So those are, that’s what I call, a content strategy, doing that on a regular basis, whether it be daily, weekly, monthly.

And then from there, you can layer on everything else. Ads, you know, pitching your business to the media, and podcasts appearing at events. Publishing. There’s like, a book or a podcast, so yeah. So I always tell folks when you’re starting out, you know, just have a solid content strategy, and then everything else you can layer on top of that.

JF: So I when you were saying about the social media, so I know a lady in Vancouver who recently, and she’s got like 30,000 followers, several groups that she was managing. Done. Finished, for no apparent reason other than they didn’t like whatever it was she was doing. And‌ I thought, oh, my goodness, you know, it scared the heck out of me, because my, majority of my businesses is on, is on social media and Facebook, I have website and all that other kind of thing, but it just gets you thinking about about, like, you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket.

SN: Yeah.

JF: Ask, get an email address from all those people and so that you still got contact with them. Because I’ve been, I’ve been on social media for quite a while. I do a lot of posting. I was in real estate and for 34 years, but two of my boys are still realtors, and I handle their marketing for them. So I’m putting out about 1300 posts a month across. Yeah, I know my hand gets sore, but that’s what you got to do. And of course, I do get from time to time where, you know, or Facebook will say, that’s against our guidelines. And I’m like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, so I’ll go and look and see what post it was. And I’m like, I’m not even that’s not even doing anything that you thought. But I don’t argue. I’m just like, I delete it right off the system, because I’m not fighting with the giant, because I will lose. But that’s the thing, that it doesn’t even have to be something really bad that you did. They just their algorithms and their bots and stuff. So, yeah, it’s so important to do whatever you have to do to make sure you keep that audience.

SN: Yeah, 100%. I’ve been coming across folks that have had the exact same thing happen to them. Their accounts have been taken away. They don’t know why, and then, and some of them have been able to get them back, which is great, but yeah, you don’t want your entire business operating from Meta.

JF: Yeah, no.

SN: And I also know my Instagram account was hacked last year. I had 2500 followers, nothing huge, but 12 years of content, just gone. I spent about four months trying to get it back, and in the end, they said, oh, we see nothing wrong with this, you know, disabled account, or the account that was taken from me and‌ I started fresh with a new name anyway. So, yeah, just, you never know when these things can happen.

JF: Yeah. Well, that’s a good lesson. I mean, there’s lots of good little tidbits in this‌ podcast for people to pick up on, but I think that was a really good one, is just, careful. Careful.

SN: And have two-factor authentication set up on all your social media accounts, because that’s the mistake that I made. I wasn’t secure enough with my Instagram password, and it was just too easy for them to get in.

JF: So, yeah there’s smarter people, technology wise, than us out there, and we have to be careful that they’re not going to take advantage of us, for sure. Yeah. So, why is—I wanted to ask about a misconception. So what is one misconception that people have about vegan entrepreneurs or the vegan movement?

SN: Yeah, I would say there’s a lot more about the vegan movement than entrepreneurs, because we still are, you know, a small group within a minority group. But I would say probably the biggest thing is that we’re just a bunch of angry, you know, protein-deficient folks, and I say, yeah, we are angry because we know what happens to animals. This is how it usually happens. We see some sort of graphic video where an animal’s killed, and we think to ourselves, does this really need to happen for me to have a meal? Yeah, and I mean, learn you can actually have a healthy and thriving diet with plants. And so we’re only angry because we just want everybody else to know what we know. And instead, and then there’s a whole bunch of other science and vegan influencers that you can follow that debunk the protein myth and the fact that we’re not getting enough protein or iron or B12 or whatever you know, nutrient we you want to throw at us like, you know, we can get it in the plant world or with supplements. You know, there’s nothing wrong with taking supplements. And so I think those are the two biggest things.

JF: Yeah, wow, yeah. I love the niche. I love how you found it, how you wrote the book, put it out there, speaking about it, marketing, helping other people build their businesses. I just think a fabulous idea. I know, you know, a lot of times people will be like, “Oh, I’m going to go work with this company because they’re environmentally friendly, and I don’t like what’s going on with the environment, so I’ll go over here.” So I think that it’s for anybody in the small business world. I think it’s so important that they have their cause, and even if it’s not environment or, you know, maybe it’s, maybe it’s just your local food bank, I don’t know, just something, but it’s so important to have a cause, because people will be attracted to that.

They’ll go, “Oh, because we want to work with people that are like us, and, she’s just like me.” And, you know, so I think that it’s so important. So I love what you’ve done. And for anybody that’s listening, yeah, do your research, because you may find that, just like Sandra did, you may find that ‌there’s a niche out there that needs to be filled.

SN: Absolutely, yeah, I like saying that your superpower is who you are, right? Like, I’m a vegan woman of color, that’s, that’s my superpower, and I feel so lucky to have been able to integrate my values as a vegan in with my business. I know not everybody can do that, but, but as you said, we’ve all got values, and if you’re running a business, it’s to your benefit to talk about your values and what’s important to you, and then you’ll resonate with that audience that also shares those values.

Every company that I see that does this is attracting the right type of audience, not just for them, but encourages consumers to be more aware and to do better, because, you know, who’s not like me, Jeff Bezos. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and all those guys. Yeah, I’m never going to be on their level, and nor do I want to be. I might use some, you know, I’m an Amazon user or whatever. But, yeah.

JF: No, I get it. Well, this, Sandra, this has been a fascinating conversation, just really great. And I just love how you found the niche. I think that is just so important. And I just know that for people that are watching, excuse me, and listening, that they’re going to get so many good tips from our conversation today. So in closing—oh, before I say in closing, I want everybody to know that Sandra’s contact information is going to be in the show notes. So if you want to reach out to her to talk about the vegan world, marketing authors, whatever it is that you’re up to that you might be in alignment with her, her information will be there, and you certainly can reach out to her, because you never know who you’re going to connect with. So that said, Sandra, is there anything you’d like to say in closing to the audience that’s listening?

SN: I just want to thank you, Julie, because you are someone who really exudes your values through this podcast and, and I’ve learned a little bit more about your books, too. I didn’t know that about them. So I’m just so grateful to you for this platform and giving me the stage to talk about what I’m passionate about, and, yeah, if you do want to learn more about veganism, I’ve got a whole of, like, I’ve got a whole resource section on my website just with my name Sandra Nomoto, and then you’ll find all of my other services and businesses and book there as well. So yeah, happy to chat with you on social media and connect with whatever may have resonated with you in this episode.

JF: Perfect. Well, thank you for that compliment. I appreciate it very much. You’re so welcome. Thanks. Okay, everybody, so that’s the end of this‌ episode, and we will see you again next time. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.

 

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