We were lucky to catch up with Helen Woltering recently and have shared our conversation below.

Helen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

For a long time I wish I had started my business sooner. While studying at the University of the Arts in London, I had conceived a business idea during my time in the fields of fashion and media production. Despite my passion for these areas, I sensed an essential element missing, leading to a sense of emptiness and an identity crisis at the time. My pivotal encounter with coaching occurred during a seminar in central London. Recognizing it as the missing piece to my creative career, so I blended psychology and personal development with my background in fashion, media and the creative industry, resulting in the creation of a magazine focused on women, fashion, and identity.

Though my post-university goal was to launch my business, the reality presented challenges. High living costs in London and uncertainties about where to begin and generate income prompted me to take a break. I decided to join a friend on a trip to Vietnam. I found clarity in the need to relocate to a more affordable, yet creative and international city, leading me to move to Berlin. Initially, I sought a job to apply my knowledge, securing a role as a Creative Directress at Refinery29, where I conceptualized and led creative campaigns for renowned brands like Nike, adidas, and Lancôme.

Despite professional success, the dream of starting my own business persisted and intensified over the years. The internal yearning reached a tipping point, where the demands of my professional and personal life became overwhelming. Motivated by a desire for change, I pursued certification as a systemic coach, a transformative experience that provided the courage to resign from my job and pursue my entrepreneurial ambitions.

Reflecting on the journey, I realize the importance of the time spent developing a strong personality and professional foundation. This period of growth was essential, ultimately instilling the confidence needed to embark on my entrepreneurial journey.

Helen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Helen Woltering, I am a Personal Branding Expert, Creative Business Coach and the founder of Wild Women Studios – an empowerment based branding studio for female entrepreneurs.

Combining “marketing” and authenticity is a challenge for many (new) entrpreneurs, especially when the question “what might other think of me?” triggers uncertainty. At its core, it’s always about security – “is it safe to show up as myself?” Particularly as a woman, our presence and opinions quickly become a projection surface. At the same time showing up and become visible is the only way to make an impact with our work.

My empowerment-based branding approach is the result of my own search for holistic business guidance, supported by experiences and validation from numerous clients, and over 10 years in the media and advertising industry, specifically targeting female audiences. The fusion of brand building, business mentoring, and systemic coaching not only imparts strategic, creative, and communicative skills but also supports women in their personal development and the cultivation of deep self-confidence. The result: a professional framework, aka personal brand, that provides security on the journey to become visible as a fempreneur.

Women often face a speicial societal pressure, as their cyclical nature is not considered in the (business) world. The pursuit of success, adhering to the outdated “hustle culture” generates this pressure, alienating us from important qualities such as intuition, foresight, and creativity. Without this connection, we tend to take unnecessary detours in both professional and personal life. Therefore, it is crucial not to simply imitate the dysfunctional pursuit of “doing more” but to find our own definition of success.

My mission at Wild Women Studios is to reconnect women with their true essence, with their inner “wild woman,” and to unfold their potential according to their natural predisposition, ultimately taking up space confidently.

If you are a free-spirited, creative woman who wants to live her feminine side and share her talents in an authentic and values-aligned way, you may have noticed that conventional business programs or coaching don’t work for you because they offer a “one size fits all” solution and do not consider that women often face different challenges.

Perhaps you have also noticed that many of the internalized ways in which we have learned to neglect feminine qualities become even more apparent in the entrepreneurial context. This can manifest as pressure to be creative at an unnaturally fast pace, believing you must apply tactical marketing tricks for quick results, or pretending to be something you’re not for success in the online world.

Empowerment-based branding emphasizes a gentler, more creative approach to authentically connect your true personality with your business.

The result? Inner and outer alignment. Women are no longer focused on how they appear to others, but rather on how they can unfold their impact naturally.

This led me to develop the “Inside-Out-Method”: You begin by understanding your identity, defining your vision of success, and identifying your true zone of genius. Subsequently, you must embrace and own your identity (position yourself in the market) before authentically showcasing who you are, creating a powerful personal brand and presence online.

I recently launched a new course called “The Art of Building a Brand” where I teach women the entire process of how to build a strong personal brand online and empower them to become their own creative director – in business, but also in life.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I converted my personal account into a business account, leveraging my existing network where 90% of my followers were already women. Instead of starting from scratch, I deleted private images, moved them to a separate private account, and began with a clean slate.

This approach had two benefits: a) I received positive feedback quickly, avoiding the discouragement of having zero followers at the start, and b) my existing network, who witnessed my professional endeavors, helped spread the word. Over time, some of the women who followed me even before I started my business became my clients.

Despite having only 3.5 K followers on Instagram, most of my clients discover me there. I share this to emphasize that the number of followers shouldn’t dictate your ability to run a successful business. Depending on your products and pricing strategy, you don’t need a large audience on social media, but rather consistent clients that are a perfect fit.

A proven strategy involves a creative and emotion-based approach to social media. I collaborate with a color consulting studio in Milan, offering my clients a neuroscientific color test. This test identifies colors associated with beautiful memories, creating a “chromatic identity” – a unique color palette like a fingerprint. The result is a distinctive and authentic online presence. Interestingly, I consistently attract clients with 3-4 colors in their palette that match mine, demonstrating that color fosters subconscious connections. Color influences purchases by 97.5% on a subconscious level. To me it’s about creating an aesthetic that is true to who you are and that aligns with the higher principles of your work – people can feel this.

By infusing your brand with emotions, creating a strong and memorable brand presence, and aligning it with your authentic personality and content that resonates with your ideal audience, you can attract the right people to your business.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Becoming an entrepreneur required me to unlearn several things, with the most significant lessons involving two key beliefs: 1. That making money is difficult, and 2. Being myself is dangerous.

Growing up in a small town where conformity was the norm in both lifestyle and attire, expressing myself through fashion and embracing my open, talkative, and forward-thinking nature often led to labels like “arrogant” or “too much” during my school years. In the pursuit of belonging as a teenager, I found myself adapting by making myself “less” or “smaller” to gain approval.

This pattern persisted in my professional life. Whenever I embraced my power, embodied my expertise, and took the lead, I encountered reactions from women characterized by dominance and manipulative tactics. I went to see a therapist at that time, who helped my cope with the situation at work and a crucial realization dawned on me: being true to yourself brings a sense of relaxation that others either find attractive or envy. In the latter case, some attempt to “dominate” you to mitigate their fear of feeling inferior. Dominance often stems from a place of “I’m afraid of being less than you, so I’ll try to keep you small to eliminate any threat,” whereas natural authority and presence convey: “I acknowledge your talent, and I don’t seek to dominate you. I embrace my own greatness and want you to embrace yours too.” This is how I came up with the slogan for my brand: “Your presence is your power.”

I live by this slogan now and I am less and less afraid to show up in my full power and I hope this will empower others, too.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wildwomenstudios.com
• Instagram: @wildwomen_studios
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-woltering/

Image Credits
Images by: Lotte Thor and Jessica Sidenros