Montana Diaries Creative Business Blog

creative business resources, Shownotes, extra media, and links from the pod!

Shayna Lloyd 10/11/22 Shayna Lloyd 10/11/22

39: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome w/ Small Business Strategist Melissa Koehler

MELISSA KOEHLER

Helloooo and welcome back to the Montana Diaries Podcast, I’m Shayna and I’m so freaking stoked you’re here because on today’s episode we have the incredible Melissa Koehler, a Small Business Strategist who is passionate about helping women build a business they can be proud of! On this episode of the MD Podcast, we dive deeeepppp into what it takes to build businesses as a creative woman, imposter syndrome, shifting careers, and much more.

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Overcoming Imposter Syndrome w/ Small Business Strategist Melissa Koehler

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MELISSA KOEHLER

LEARN MORE ABOUT VIDEOGRAPHY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

A chat w/ Melissa Koehler, small business strategist

Melissa began her career as a professional scrapbooker before eventually shifting into full time photography — she dives right into talking about her fears and objections she had during this time growing a creative business without feeling “qualified.”

“I think so many of us deal with imposter syndrome. In our heads, we think everyone else has it figured out and is doing better, or someone will figure out we’re not the complete expert in our field. That stops us from doing things that bring joy to our hearts. Every creative entrepreneur deals with that. With social media, we get to look at EVERYTHING everyone else is doing, and we think they’re doing it perfectly and have education in that thing. We think if we do the same thing...we’ll get criticized. At the heart of it, we’re scared of being judged.”

— Melissa Koehler

Melissa and I chatted about the transition from service-based business to education — she mentored other photographers during her tenor as a successful photographer, and this process of helping other creatives toward their goals became her favorite thing to do.
Melissa is big on doing “gut checks” in business, and she talks through how she periodically stops to ask herself if her business moves and lifestyle is bringing her joy. As she transitioned out of photography, she kept checking in with herself and asking her own why, which helped her work on her clients’ “why’s” as well. She credits her ability to communicate in a way that is “loving, kind, and constructive” to her success in transitioning to the education world.
As a story-brand certified and enneagram-certified educator with multiple businesses under her belt, Melissa now does small business strategy for every type of creative business. She has integrated a one-to-many model into her business to scale the type of help she’s able to give

Anndddd that was Melissa Koehler, the incredible small business strategist, isn’t she awesome!? My favorite part of the episode was how beautifully Melissa talks about imposter syndrome and her take on how to overcome it. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topics we discussed here— head over to the Montana Diaries Podcast Facebook group and write a post to continue this discussion, or just introduce yourself over there. Don’t forget to leave your honest review on the Apple Podcasts app — it helps us get more amazing guests like Melissa and I’ll give you a shout out on a future episode. Please go create something today, friends, and I’ll catch ya in the next episode.