In the latest episode of Plant Based On Fire, Bryan sat down with V. Lynn Hawkins, co-founder of Vegan Visibility Productions, to dive into her inspiring journey of helping vegan and plant-based entrepreneurs gain visibility and success in the marketplace. V. Lynn is a business development strategist, digital marketing expert, and advocate for social entrepreneurship, and she has dedicated her career to empowering plant-based businesses with the tools they need to thrive.
A Lifelong Commitment to Health and Business
V. Lynn’s journey toward founding Vegan Visibility Productions began long before the business itself. As a fitness enthusiast and former athlete, her passion for health began in her early 20s when she embraced fitness and personal training while raising two children and navigating a successful career in commercial real estate lending.
Her work in the fitness industry and her commitment to living an active, healthy lifestyle led her down the path of holistic wellness, where she eventually discovered the benefits of a plant-based diet.
“I found plant-based living through my work with doctors and PhDs in the whole food plant-based movement, and I realized how much my lifestyle was affecting not just me, but the planet as well,” she shared.
But it wasn’t just the personal health benefits that propelled her forward. V. Lynn realized there was a bigger picture—helping other plant-based entrepreneurs amplify their voices and make an impact in the world. That’s when Vegan Visibility Productions was born.
Empowering Entrepreneurs to Grow and Succeed
Vegan Visibility Productions specializes in helping vegan and plant-based entrepreneurs grow their businesses through digital marketing strategies, crowdfunding, and virtual events like summits and podcasting. Through her work, V. Lynn has developed a keen understanding of what it takes to succeed in a crowded marketplace, and she has a unique ability to connect her clients’ business goals with their personal values.
“Business mission alignment is key,” V. Lynn explains. “I always start by asking my clients, ‘What’s your belief system? Who’s your ideal client? How does what you’re doing align with your core values?’ Understanding these things is crucial to building a business that not only thrives but also resonates deeply with your target audience.”
One of the ways V. Lynn helps entrepreneurs achieve their goals is by guiding them through the process of building their brand and amplifying their message.
“Visibility is everything in today’s digital world,” she said. “I focus on helping clients get seen, get heard, and ultimately get paid for the work they’re doing.”
Insights You’ll Gain From This Episode
During the interview, V. Lynn shared several valuable insights for plant-based entrepreneurs:
The importance of alignment: Align your business mission with your personal values to create a strong foundation for success.
Crowdfunding strategies: Learn how to fund your business using innovative crowdfunding platforms and campaigns that resonate with your audience.
The value of community: Surround yourself with a network of like-minded individuals who can support and uplift you on your journey.
Commit to visibility: Invest in digital marketing strategies that amplify your brand and message across platforms.
A Passion for Social Entrepreneurship
V. Lynn’s passion for social entrepreneurship extends beyond helping her clients achieve financial success. She’s a strong advocate for creating legacy businesses—businesses that not only grow but also make a positive impact on the world.
“My mission is to bring more success to women-owned, healthy lifestyle businesses and grow more social enterprises to do good in the world,” she shared.
As part of her work, V. Lynn coaches business owners in developing holistic, sustainable plans for growth, crowdfunding strategies, and ways to increase visibility. She also leads the Dream It! Fund It! 5 Essential Steps of the Crowdfunding Success Blueprint, a program designed to help entrepreneurs secure the funding they need to take their business to the next level.
For plant-based business owners looking to grow, gain visibility, and make a meaningful impact, V. Lynn Hawkins and Vegan Visibility Productions offer the guidance and strategies needed to succeed. As V. Lynn reminds us,
“Start where you are with what you have, and invest in yourself.”
Whether you’re just getting started or looking to elevate your business, this episode is filled with actionable advice that can help you grow in alignment with your values and vision.
Fun Fact: V. Lynn celebrated her 55th birthday by cycling 55 miles after a full day of work—her commitment to health and wellness is as impressive as her dedication to helping others succeed in business.
Business Lesson Thread: "Business mission alignment is crucial. Understand your values, your clients’ needs, and how your business serves both. This is the foundation for growth and success." – V. Lynn Hawkins
🔗 Useful Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/v.lynn.hawkins
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@veganvisibilityproductions
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p3academy/
Listen to: Crowdfunding, Community, and Compassion: Amplifying Vegan Businesses ft. V. Lynn Hawkins
Subscribe to the Plant-Based On Fire podcast on YouTube or your favorite streaming platform today and stay connected with our ongoing exploration of the complex plant-based business world.
LISTEN TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS
Episode’s Transcript
Please understand that a transcription service provided the transcript below. It undoubtedly contains errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions.
Bryan (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome to Plant Based on Fire where we talk about plant based businesses and their inspiring stories to thrive in our industry. I am your host Bryan and joining us today is V. Lynn Hawkins. She is the founder of Vegan Visibility Productions, a business development and digital marketing firm serving the vegan and plant based entrepreneurs. Welcome to the show V. Lynn.
VLynn Hawkins (00:26)
Thanks, Bryan. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
Bryan (00:31)
I am excited to talk with you. We've been getting to know each other a little bit through the Sage Circle Alliance, but this is the first time I sort of get to go a little bit deeper with you and find out some of your backstory and stuff. So tell us about your sort of journey to create vegan visibility productions. Take us back in time and bring us forward.
VLynn Hawkins (00:51)
Well, it actually started... I'm going to go back to 1980 when I really figured out that I was someone who loved the health aspect of life. I started working out.
I was 20 something years old. was already mother of two children and single parenting and starting a career that goodness knows took me 38 years into the future in this career of commercial real estate lending. But I had to do a career because I loved fitness so much that I spent 20 years as a fitness instructor, personal trainer.
bodybuilder and I really got my, I mean I was the coordinator of all of our extracurricular events, horseback riding, paddle boating, white water rafting and just a lot of the stuff that we would do as a group because when you find your community you do want to do other things together. We've all worked out together.
And I actually was very successful in that I had classes of 50 to 100 people consistently in the classes. I taught at five different gyms here in the Atlanta area before I ended up moving. In 1996, I moved to Northern Virginia close to where I grew up in Baltimore.
in the DC area but I found a gym I taught there I brought their little gym from you know three people in the first class to 50 people before yeah before too long and it's amazing how when you're having fun doing what you love it's a draw and I feel like that's exactly what's happening to me now but let me back up for a minute because
As I was in this health space, I was always athletic. And today, the athleticism that I was expressing during those days, we now call extreme athletes, extreme athletics. Working out seven days a week, I taught classes, but I knew how to teach classes where I wasn't physically working out all the time.
Bryan (03:13)
Great.
VLynn Hawkins (03:26)
But I was personal training. My kids grew up in the gym learning swimming and karate and racquetball. They both played competitive racquetball. Guess who their training partner was? So I played racquetball as well. you know, it's just those are the kind of things that you add into your life that
because you love them, they come so easily. I look at that today and I say, in the world did I do all of that, right? And then again, fast forward, I was doing a lot of running back then.
Bryan (03:52)
Mm -hmm.
Right.
VLynn Hawkins (04:04)
I would get up and run two or three miles in the morning, come home, clean up, and get the kids up for school and the whole work day and then working out. It was exciting and exhausting as I think about it. But that was my life for probably the first.
Bryan (04:20)
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (04:25)
Mm. Well, that 20 year period and my kids grew up, you know, graduating high school and they had this joke about me is like in a Jamaican accent. My mom got five jobs, mom. Because I had one job and I taught it four or five different gyms. And for them, it was, you know, how can we tease mom yet?
have that helped me to make fun of myself and us connect because that got me a lot of additional questions about what are they talking about?
Bryan (04:55)
Hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (05:05)
I've run countless 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons. only done two marathons. After my first one, I thought, okay, I made it. Maybe I'll do another one. The second one was like, I don't need to do anymore. You know, I know how people love their marathons, but that was quite enough for me.
Bryan (05:18)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (05:26)
And some years later, I was still running, but some years later I found cycling. And this was really a cool story I'm gonna tell you. A friend of mine said, hey, they've got this cycling club near me. You like to cycle? I was like, well, I haven't been on a bike and I don't know how long. Well, come and just, you I got an extra bike, just ride and I wanna check it out and you you can check it out too. I was like, okay.
I rode using that borrowed bike for three weeks and I was like, you know what? I think I like this. And so I went to the cycle store.
Bryan (05:57)
That is...
VLynn Hawkins (06:01)
perform his bikes and I was asked the guy's like, okay, so show me some bikes. I'm ready to buy a bike. ready to ride. what you got in a good 10 speed, maybe not top of the line, but you know, not bottom of the line either. Just, know, what's your price point? I gave him my price point and he's like, this was after he picked himself off the floor laughing at me about the fact that they no longer made 10 speeds at that point in time.
And I was like, what? You no longer make 10 speeds? Okay, so tell me what's going on. He said, well, they're making 28 speeds. I was the one that like, fell on the floor, right? I like, I don't know what to do with a 10 speed. And you're telling me about a 28 speed bike?
What the heck do you do with 28 speeds? He was like, after laughing at me again, might I suggest you getting into a cycling class? I was like, you know what? That's an excellent idea. I did. I bought the bike. I got in a class. I learned how to ride uphill, downhill, banking corners. The only thing I did not do was no hands. You know, I was like, you can keep that one.
Bryan (07:13)
Okay.
VLynn Hawkins (07:18)
I want to make sure this bike is underneath me. And then I went to challenge myself with clipless pedals. Right? If you know anything about cycling, you know about clipless pedals. And my thing was, how are they clipless pedals when you have to clip in, in order to pedal?
Bryan (07:36)
Right.
VLynn Hawkins (07:36)
Why aren't they clip in pedals, right? So anyway, after getting through that quandary and it's like, I'm in clipless pedals. It took a couple of times me stopping and going like this or like this before I was like, okay, I got the hang of it. unclip and put a foot in it. But I rode for, I don't know, 10, 12 years, my 55th birthday.
Bryan (07:55)
Yeah, I've been there. Yeah.
VLynn Hawkins (08:06)
I rode 55 miles to celebrate my birthday. And that was after working all day. I came home, changed clothes, I rode. I had this really cool training route that I had, 55 miles. And it was so exhilarating. I came home, I cleaned up and went and had dinner with friends to celebrate my birthday. I think I took the next day off from work.
Bryan (08:10)
Wow!
As you should.
VLynn Hawkins (08:36)
But you know, that's how into cycling I was. And I've ridden, I don't know, a dozen 100 mile bike rides. And I did a lot of riding for charity. My sister was diagnosed with MS and I did a lot of MS three day rides, two day rides where you rode the first day you could ride 25, 75.
or 50 or 100. And the first year I rode 50 and 50. The second year I rode 75 and 100. And the third year I rode 175. And I was gonna do 100 and 100 the next year, but then I had a major incident in my life. In 2012, my son was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Bryan (09:01)
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (09:27)
and I ended up moving from California back to Atlanta. My daughter was here and she and I ended up being blessed with the awesome privilege of raising my oldest grandson, who was 10 at the time. And he's now 22, one of my best friends and a beautiful human being. Really would love to get him in here with these real many plants. Yeah, really.
Bryan (09:41)
Mm
Let's do it.
VLynn Hawkins (09:57)
And you know I look back from here and it was 2016 I got introduced to a guy who introduced me to plant -based living plant -based lifestyle and the whole vegan movement and at the time it was really the whole food plant -based movement all of the luminaries and I was working with him because he wanted to do this project of interviewing all of the luminaries in any
anyone else who was a medical doctor or a PhD who was in this space of whole food plant -based and teaching people, teaching their clients and patients about the value of whole food plant -based eating and lifestyle and we created a program called Just One Thing for Health.
Bryan (10:47)
Mm
VLynn Hawkins (10:47)
If you had one thing that you could do every week that would lead you to a healthier lifestyle, what would that one thing be? Add another serving of vegetables or learn a new recipe to cook or do more within the six pillars of lifestyle medicine.
And that was so eye -opening for me that I went plant -based. It was a journey. It was a short journey because the more I got to interact with these people, we were interviewed, we interviewed 40 people. The more I got to interact with them, the more I realized about how what I was electing to do was not only hurting animals, it was hurting the planet.
Bryan (11:32)
Mm.
VLynn Hawkins (11:32)
And I was a lot more planetary conscious along with the food than I was animal advocacy and animal welfare conscious. And so for me, even then I was like, I'm whole food plant -based. I'm in it to win it. Here we go.
Bryan (11:52)
Yeah.
VLynn Hawkins (11:56)
And then it took me years before I decided that I would call myself vegan. The reason was because my perception of vegans and veganism was a fallacy.
Bryan (12:04)
Mm
VLynn Hawkins (12:13)
It was what I saw was the and i'll call them the seemingly overly aggressive VEGAS, you know the red paint and you know, all all of the things that I was like, no, I no not me
Bryan (12:22)
Yeah.
Right, right.
VLynn Hawkins (12:32)
don't want to be a part of the, want to be associate, know, cause guilt by association. No, thank you. And then I learned something in 2021. I went to the national health associations conference and I met someone who I'd been communicating with for a while. Dr. Marla Friedman.
Bryan (12:39)
Hmm.
Okay.
VLynn Hawkins (12:57)
and she had been talking about this thing called Ahimsa. And we got to spend some time together and she really explained to me the philosophy of Ahimsa and its relationship to veganism. And I thought, you know, bringing in the compassion, bringing in the understanding of compassion for self, compassion for animals, compassion for the planet, just compassion.
Bryan (13:10)
Mm
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (13:23)
in life, living a life of compassion. I was like, if that's what it's about, I understand the intenseness of the vegans who were in this frame that I saw as overly aggressive. I understand it now.
Bryan (13:26)
Yeah.
Yeah.
VLynn Hawkins (13:43)
And so I was able to say, okay, I can get with it. I understand it. I can explain it and I can be it with confidence. And so 2021 is the year that I said I'm 100 % plant -based, totally vegan and what's next? And then I met Kathleen Gage again. We met back in 2013.
Bryan (14:05)
love it.
VLynn Hawkins (14:12)
and I'd been following her. She probably didn't even know I existed, but I made such a presence of myself when we connected at this conference in 2021 that and we had so many shared values and it just flowed so well between us and we did a couple of projects after that and decided, you know what, let's do this together.
Bryan (14:37)
Mm
VLynn Hawkins (14:37)
And today she's decided that she's going to do things a little differently. And I've decided I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing because before Vegan Visibility Productions, I was in the same space, just under a different name. I was the P3 Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and for Healthpreneurs who were in the conversation of using lifestyle and food as medicine. And I continue that message to this day.
Bryan (14:49)
Mm
Mm
I love it.
VLynn Hawkins (15:05)
I serve those who are in this space of doing the work, helping people to understand the messaging behind the value of using lifestyle and food as medicine.
Bryan (15:20)
I love it. And I'd say like, a couple of things I was just writing down as you were saying that is, the teams that, that play together, stay together. And, know, I've seen that throughout my career as well. And, just love the journey you are on there. I got, I got like a couple quick hit type questions for you just to help me unpack a couple angles from what I was reading on your website and
just some of the stuff I know about you and, and whatnot from our prior conversations. what, what's your quick thoughts on the mission alignment piece? Cause I think that's a key. There's certain things that you do with vegan visibility productions that I really like how you unpack things for people and help them drive into that bigger picture. So how do you ensure that the business mission alignment
VLynn Hawkins (16:02)
Hmm
Bryan (16:15)
goes in with their values and the broader goals of the plant -based lifestyle like you were just talking about.
VLynn Hawkins (16:21)
That's a great question, Bryan, and it's a deep question because I always begin work with a client and it's part of the discovery process, actually. What's your belief system? Who are you working with? Who's your ideal client, first of all? And how is it that you, right now, express what it is that you do?
Bryan (16:40)
Mm
VLynn Hawkins (16:48)
for and with your clients. And that tells me a lot about who they are, their core values, their systems and mindset, and what their real passion is. And that gives me an opportunity to see and know the alignment that we're in. And just to back up a piece there too, because that is also part of what
helped me to decide when I first started my coaching business, was interested in working with women in business who wanted to grow their business. I'm an Accelerate certified accelerated business development coach. I'm a joint venture broker, I'm a certified digital marketer. And for me, it was understanding enough so that I could know where the acceleration options were for a client.
Bryan (17:21)
Mm -hmm.
Right.
VLynn Hawkins (17:43)
That's a piece of alignment. Knowing who their target market was, that's a piece of alignment. Knowing their passion and their value systems, that's a piece of the alignment process for me. And it allowed me to quickly understand too, who it is that I wanted to work with.
who it is I worked best with and who it was I did not want to work with. it turned out most of my clients were people in the health and wellness industry already. And I didn't even realize it was kind of like I woke up one morning and said, who's your ideal client? And I looked at my client base and it was like 85 % of them were in the health and wellness space.
Bryan (18:04)
Mm
Yeah.
Yeah. I, yeah, I mean, spot on there. I think that's so true. And you get that, get those core tenants sorted out and figure out some of those things. And then you can really get into the, some of the brass tacks stuff. So let's talk about the brass tacks pieces of it. there's the social, the social pieces of this. There's the sustainable crowdfunding digital marketing tips, like
unpack some of the stuff that you have done for past clients and you would do for future ones if they were to reach out to you just to give them a little flavor of the types of things that you touch on and some of the things you're the expert in.
VLynn Hawkins (19:06)
Well, I consider my expert in strategy.
And a lot of that comes from when I was in high school, used to, I'm bored, know, I'm finished my homework. What else can I do? You know, the kids are a little bigger now. They don't need the same kind of attention rhyme behind them. What can I do now? And my mom was the executive director of a nonprofit that served the elderly in Baltimore city. was around the same time that you probably heard of Meals on Wheels.
wheels was just starting and so that was a huge opportunity for her nonprofit. She got one of the oldest seminaries in the city of Baltimore that had was basically shut down.
They weren't housing any of the priests or nuns anymore. They weren't doing services anymore. So this huge property. And she said, well, give me a piece of the property. Let me bring in all of these elderly people from neighboring communities. We'll feed them. We'll clothe them. We'll take care of them. She had a doctor coming in, five different doctors every day of the week.
Bryan (20:02)
Hmm.
Mmm.
VLynn Hawkins (20:27)
we would, I was part of her marketing team, but I also got the opportunity to learn grant writing from her because she wrote a lot of grants. You can only imagine this was a million dollar plus enterprise and she got funding from local constituencies as well as city and state government and federal government and we had to write grants for all of that. So she taught
me how to research to find the grant funders and then she would she would do the initial grant writing but then I was like well I'm learning how to type I want to type I would type them all up and she would proofread them and make her changes and stuff no we need to put this here and that there so I would retype the page or pages whatever it ended up being but
I got to understand how when a funder is asking a question to answer that question, giving them what they wanted and what they needed to hear that was the value in what it was that you were doing through your project and your service project.
Bryan (21:32)
Mm -hmm.
Great.
VLynn Hawkins (21:42)
That translated to decades of grant writing for nonprofits, churches, and other nonprofits, millions of dollars over the years to fund nonprofits in their various needs. I even did a lot of, and this was before I became a joint venture broker.
I did joint venture partnerships with nonprofits and for -profit organizations, helping them to work together for the benefit of both. And then in joint venture training, I was like, well, I've been doing that for years. So now it's good to know that I can be a certified joint venture broker and really have some credentials behind it, as well as the experience. But that also...
was the path that led me to crowdfunding. And when in 2010, I started my business and the Obama Jobs Act opened up crowdfunding in a different way for the benefit of small businesses, I learned everything. I read all the statutes. I went to the old statutes. How did they do it before so that I could compare it to what new statutes were allowing for?
and I started teaching that to business owners. was part of, I was a member of three different chambers and I did presentation after presentation after presentation and between writing business plans and teaching crowdfunding for business, writing grants, that was my work for quite a while along with coaching business owners. And then I got into this space where I was like,
Bryan (23:08)
Hmm?
VLynn Hawkins (23:30)
That's a little, it's in alignment, but it's still a little disjointed. I wanted to bring people in. had learned you could do one to one.
which is a lot of energy, or you could do one to many. I was in commercial real estate, right? I tried residential real estate for a little while, and that was like the one -to -one. That was a lot of work, and I preferred to do the one -to -many. It was still one -to -one, but you had such a much larger aspect in the dollar value that you were working with, and the people were different. The mindsets were different. The things that they knew numbers, they knew the business aspect that they were,
Bryan (23:44)
Mm
VLynn Hawkins (24:12)
I was like, that's where I want to be. So that is really what helped me to know that commercial real estate was where I wanted to be. And I could translate that into small business a lot easier because you're still dealing with different things when you're talking about somebody's business versus where they're going to live.
Bryan (24:30)
Mm -hmm. Right.
VLynn Hawkins (24:33)
And so that allowed me to make that transition. But you know, Bryan, when I first started my own business, I had some real issues with identity. I still had that, you know, I'm a vice president in the corporate environment and here I was starting a new business. I was a nobody nowhere.
That took some getting used to. And I was like, okay, then I need to build my reputation. I need to build the client base. I need to have the testimonials. And what I realized was I was really good at doing this stuff. I was not good at retaining the value that I brought with me.
Bryan (25:15)
Okay.
VLynn Hawkins (25:15)
You know, and so like your resume, you would go and update your resume in the business environment once a year, once every other year. You know, when I first started business, I was like, gosh, now I have to remember who were those clients? How many people was in that class? We're in that class that I did, you know, versus codifying it right then and bringing those statistics with me. And so, you know, I advise clients now let's, let's, let's define it.
Let's put it on paper so that you have it as part of those statistics going forward because a lot of times you miss opportunities because you don't have that.
Bryan (25:58)
That's right. And like so many tips that you just gave out there. mean, that's clearly one of the things that I liked when we got to work together on the Sage Circle Alliance is really you have this, this depth of experience across many, many different areas. I'm curious what I think every entrepreneur out there should have some board of advisors should have some good friends that have some expertise to lean on. You can see the difference of opinions, just
Even when we get together at the Sage Circle Alliance to talk through stuff, but it's having that dialogue and unpacking the problems and stuff in your particular programs and stuff. What, and people that are looking for just business development programs that cover such a wide variety, like I'm just struggling with my business and I want some help. What should they be looking for when they're picking one of these programs and what do you think differentiates yours?
VLynn Hawkins (26:53)
What a great question. Because there are a few things that should differentiate anyone that you're looking at working with. And one, think we identify very clearly, are you in alignment with this person and the programs? And there's a lot out there. So you really do have to spend a little bit of time to get to know who's behind it before you just jump in and jump on something. One of the reasons that, you know,
Bryan (27:07)
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (27:23)
it's like vegan visibility productions is because I have in a lot of my work and a lot of my career been the behind the scenes. In my corporate career, I was the leader of the profit center.
of the business that was the number one profit center. It was the sustainable profit center, okay? In a commercial real estate, you've got originations and they can make you a lot of money, but that's not sustainable. You know, that shifts and goes up and down and sometimes they do nothing. I was responsible for the sustainability aspect.
of the business. I understood what it took to do that and the systems and processes and how to build the high performance teams and that became my specialty. So when you're looking for someone in business to work with you, whether it's in
Bryan (28:11)
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (28:18)
it's one -on -one or in a group or you're doing a program that they've developed, a digital program, you want to look at who's behind it. Do they really have the background that you need in order to get the expertise that gives you the ideas or the direction that you need to move your business forward? And in this space for me,
I've been on both ends and both ends is the non -accelerated and the accelerated. And I looked at, I spent a year in this certification program.
And, know, was a pretty rigorous end process in order to claim my certification. And I'm so grateful that I went through that because it helped me to understand how everything that I had learned came together and the principles of this accelerated business development model that I learned could be applied to what I already had in process.
Bryan (29:28)
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (29:28)
honestly what I'm already doing today and it's interesting because I've always been one to consider we're in business alone but we cannot do it alone.
Bryan (29:45)
Yeah.
VLynn Hawkins (29:46)
Even as a solopreneur, you need the support system. That's one of the reasons I love the Sage Circle Alliance so much. The number of people who are in there who are just looking to be supported in one way or another. And even if it's just a word of encouragement to keep going, you keep sharing your message, know, join the speaker bureau. Let us know what your podcast is. You wrote a book, put your book out there. Let people know that you've got a book.
Bryan (30:02)
Mm -hmm. Great.
VLynn Hawkins (30:17)
And you need those kinds of opportunities. A lot of people find that in chambers, but I still feel like chambers aren't as cohesive in supporting the individuals who are a part of your collective. Sage Circle Alliance is that. We're supporting everyone. We're figuring out the ways that we can support.
Bryan (30:31)
Mm
Yes.
VLynn Hawkins (30:43)
everyone. And those are some of the accelerated business development methods that I use. You know, we're on this podcast together because we're supporting each other. I want you to have the exposure of your podcast that you want for me. And it's just, it's that kind of a thing that we need that anybody looking to build their business needs, whether it's real estate or
Bryan (30:53)
That's right.
That's right.
VLynn Hawkins (31:11)
a medical practice, a dental practice.
You know, you're the leader of a networking group where you got all of these people coming in and you are a connector. There's still a point in time where if you don't do the things that keep you in the momentum of new people coming into your group and new connections being made, then things are gonna slow down and potentially stop for yourself. So how do you do all of that? You wanna find the right fit.
And I teach my clients, know, right fit clients are better than any fit clients, just like all money isn't good money that you can take from clients, potential clients. And so you want to, it goes back to again, this whole alignment piece. It's such a key.
Bryan (32:03)
Yep. I agree completely. I know you've already given us so many tips throughout this episode, but we're, drawing towards a close. What advice would you give for new entrepreneurs? So what is the one piece of top advice you would give to someone who is just starting out in our plant -based industry getting going?
VLynn Hawkins (32:25)
One piece of advice is maybe not one piece, but start where you are with what you have and invest in yourself. Invest in yourself by joining a community like SageCircle Alliance.
by getting a business coach that you are aligned with and following their advice and ask the questions that you need to ask to gain the understanding that you need to, to, have. And I know that to starting out, there's a lot of stuff that you just don't even know that you don't even know.
That's why joining an organization that has multiple people, that are multiple resources within the organization is a great place to start. You'll find potentially one or more people who can pour into you to help you to build. And then you want to participate. You know, there are a lot of people who are like the shiny object syndrome. Shut it down.
Bryan (33:38)
Sorry.
VLynn Hawkins (33:38)
Find one thing to get into, commit to it, and participate. Take advantage of everything. If you've got a coach and they're doing monthly or weekly something, commit to it, participate in it. I'm in a high -end coaching program every Monday, 11 a I am there four Mondays out of the month.
Bryan (34:00)
Mm -hmm.
VLynn Hawkins (34:03)
When Five Mondays comes along and I get to rest, I'm like, thank you. But yeah, you know, and it's the commitment piece. Commit to yourself, invest in yourself, and motivate yourself. A lot of newbies are looking for that external motivation, and it's got to come from within. Your why is your reason for doing. Yes.
Bryan (34:07)
Right?
Absolutely. I think it's you just have this way about you of just addressing the bigger issues while giving that that perfect advice to help businesses grow. I encourage everybody listening to give VLIN a call and book a quick chat with her and see if it is the right fit for you and them on that. If you're looking to help grow your your vegan visibility brand of some sort, reach out to VLIN.
on that front. I'm curious, Vylin, how can we help you as a community, all the people that are watching this, and what are the best ways to get in touch?
VLynn Hawkins (35:07)
Well, thank you, Bryan. I think one of the best ways you can help me is I am very vocal on social media. And if you see something that I've shared that resonates with you, like it, comment on it, share it for me and for others. And from there, you know, you can reach me at veganvisibilityproductions .com.
That's vegan visibility productions with an S on it .com and find out what what we're doing. We do a monthly networking group where you can come and network with other entrepreneurs, other vegan entrepreneurs, plant based entrepreneurs. And we do it monthly because we do it in a way that really we we want everybody to get to know as many people as possible.
and normal networking, you know, it's not about handing out your business card. It's not about just, you know, this elevator pitch. It's really about getting to know people and getting to understand how we can help each other because that's my thing. Amplifying the voices of whole food plant -based vegan entrepreneurs and the mission that they're on, the messages that they share, because we're all moving forward in the same direction.
Bryan (36:30)
Well said, well said. So please everybody check out veganvisibilityproductions .com and connect with VLin on her social platforms and help us amplify her voice and our voice. and please click like and subscribe on this podcast and check out some of the ones that VLin's been on for sure. That is all the time we have for this episode of the Plant Based on Fire podcast. Again, thank you VLin for jumping in here and joining and sharing your insights and experience with us.
and the rest of our community. Until next time, everybody, keep that fire burning.
VLynn Hawkins (37:02)
Thank you, Bryan.
Awesome. Bye everybody.