Making Montana Diaires: My photo/video business story!

Salima Omwenga is a personal brand strategist and the founder of UFlourish, a platform where driven workforce professionals and entrepreneurs can learn how to develop a strong personal brand that will unlock new career and business opportunities all while living a life they love. She believes anyone that has a gift, talent, skill, or area of expertise can benefit from being intentional about developing a personal brand.

On episode 23, I’m joined by my dear friend Nicola Dixon. Nicola is an INCREDIBLE photographer — like, how of this world talented. She’s also a launch strategist and coach who helps photographers enter the digital product space. She gets so freaking vulnerable on this episode of the Montana Diaries Podcast — we go wayyyy back in her business journey and she is so kind to open up about failure, financial trauma, mindset, and her eventual successful pivot into the photo world. This episode is a must listen.

We have an incredibleeee business owner and productivity coach on episode 20 of the Montana Diaries Podcast here to give alllll the guidance and tangible tips — it’s one of my favorite voices in this online business world, the lovely Hannah Murphy! As a business owner who 9xed her client load in just six months, she knows how overwhelming the role of CEO can be - even when your business is thriving on the outside. Hannah helps creative business owners develop PROFIT focused schedules that allow them to outsource the tasks that don’t bring them joy, skip work on the weekends and say yes to more mid-week lunches with your friends, and intentionally dream and plan for the next few years. This is a must-listen episode, friends.

crafting your profitable schedule

As you take in this conversation with Hannah Murphy, remember: Assess all of the tasks you do, plan your schedule around the season of business and life you’re in, create systems that support your goals, and figure out what you can do to sustain those systems. You’ve got this, friend.

Lindsey Roman is a business educator, social media marketing guru, and photographer based out of Lawrence, Kansas. She’s one of the founders of The Heart University and she co-hosts The Heart & Hustle Podcast, a business podcast for creative entrepreneurs. Lindsey’s mission is to help women know their worth, value, and identity in who they are and boldly do what they were created to do. When she’s not speaking, teaching, or dancing on Instagram, you can find her spending quality time traveling and adventuring with her daughter, Eloise, and husband, Andrew.

Mackenzie turned her internship at RMB into a career as one of their incredible editors — she brought insight into the magazine industry as well as those juicy tangible submission tips!

Micah Larsen helps women creatives build audiences of engaged ideal customers so they can make a consistent income doing work they love. She is the Missoula-based marketing expert behind the 10 week program “How To Hustle.” She teaches everything from how to create a first impression to nurturing loyal customers.

John Piacquadio is a Montana-based artist and fly fisherman, often drawing inspiration from fly tying and fishing in his work. In this episode of the Montana Diaries Podcast, John shared his rich life story from growing up as the child of an Italian immigrant, to the tension between his religious upbringing and his education, to being an art student and drug addict obsessed with originality, to settling into himself as a sober maker and fly fisherman. John was incredibly vulnerable about creativity, mental health, and everything in between.

Hillary Folkvord is a force to reckon with — she is a mother, an amazing curator and social media presence, and a fourth generation Montanan who, along with her amazing family, runs multiple successful businesses, including The RSVP Motel, The Farmer’s Daughter Cafe, and The Sacajawea Hotel. Hillary held nothingggg back when it came to business advice, her lifestyle, or balancing motherhood with her ambition.

In this episode of the Montana Diaries Podcast, we have one of my favorite photographers, I mean, one of my favorite people — she’s a badass business owner with the biggest heart, our twighlighty Myspace queen with a ridiculous amount of talent, and a super cool hang, Dawn Jarvis of Dawn Photo! This conversation went SO FAST you guys, we talked about so freaking much and I could have talked to this lady all day.

Morgan Ser Voss is the owner of Silo Skincare, which is Montana-based skincare made for the wild women who lead an active lifestyle and want affordable, all-natural products that won't hold them back. How pithy is that tagline, like come on!? Morgan is the sweetest soul and I just know you’re all going to fall in love with her and her goats the way I have — in this episode, she talks alllll about following in her grandma’s footsteps and adapting a farmers’ market-style business to the digital age we live in. If you are in the weeds with growing your small business and navigating social media marketing and digital sales, this episode is for you — Morgan is incredibly honest and vulnerable about what it is to transition from a maker to a business owner while still working a day job, andddd what it is to be intentional about being content in your current circumstances without losing your ambition. She is amazing, so please please please review this episode and gas her up on social media!