[Top Agency Series] Quitting Solopreneurship With Michele Tonkovitz of Green Onion Creative

Michele Tonkovitz is the Founder and CEO of Green Onion Creative, an agency that helps companies nationwide grow their brand awareness and achieve their marketing goals. She has over a decade of experience writing creative copy.

Michele also offers design, social media, PR, and vendor relations services. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communications from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Why owning an agency was Michele Tonkovitz’s childhood dream
• Michele talks about people and mentors who influence her copywriting
• The struggle of moving from solopreneur to building a team — and strategies to grow through the challenges
• Tips for finding great marketing talent
• How Green Onion Creative helped a nonprofit rebrand
• Big mistakes people make with SEO
• Website design pitfalls to avoid

In this episode…

One of the hardest things for a business owner is transitioning from a solopreneur to building a team. The struggle comes from the extra time and effort needed to take on new tasks and roles required to build a team. It is also the mental stress of transferring knowledge to employees when it will take you minutes to get the job done.

Making that transition is more challenging in the creative space. Letting go and allowing someone else to take the reins can feel like you’re in a room with no air, especially if you hate administrative work and managing people. But the truth is you’ll have to let go if you want to grow your business. After seven years of riding solo, here’s how Michele Tonkovitz quit solopreneurship smoothly…

Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Founder and CEO of Green Onion Creative, Michele Tonkovitz. They discuss Michele’s struggles and strategies for transitioning from solopreneurship into building a team, how to source talent that suits you and your clients, SEO, website mistakes people make, and more.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Green Onion Creative
• Michele Tonkovitz on LinkedIn
• Email Michele Tonkovitz: [email protected]

Special Mentions:

• Patrick McGovern on LinkedIn
• Cheryl DeShambo on LinkedIn
• Nikki Ackerman on LinkedIn
• Emory Churness on LinkedIn
• American Marketing Association Milwaukee
• ANA Business Marketing
• The Idea Collective Small Business Incubator
• Bostik

Books Mentioned:

• The Boron Letters by Gary C. Halbert
• The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters by Joseph Sugarman

Related Episode(s): 

• “[Top Agency & Chicago Business Series] Making Boring and Complicated Brands Come Alive With Allie LeFevere of Obedient Agency”
• “[Agency Series] Combining Traditional and Digital Advertising to Good Effect With Darcy Garbin and Debbie Pontera, Managing Partners of D2 Media”

Episode Transcript

Jeremy Weisz 0:19

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here Founder of Inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspiration entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different Michele Tonkovitz of Green Onion Creative before I formally introduced Michele. Michele, I always like to point out other episodes people should check out and since he’s our powerful Top Women leader like yourself, and especially agency owner, check out I did Allie LeFevere of Obedient Agency, they kind of mix in comedy with the brand message of a company. So that was a fun episode and Darcy Garbin and Debbie Pontera D2 Media, they do more traditional stuff like TV, billboards, yes, all those stuffs still exists, radio still exists today and still work. So check out those episodes out. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25 and Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships. And we do that by helping you run your podcast. You know, for me, Michele, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way to do that over the past over a decade to profile the people and the companies I admire on my podcast and tell everyone share with everyone what they are working on. That is cool. So you’ve thought about podcasting? You should you have questions you go to Rise25.com or email support at Rise25.com. We’re happy to answer any questions that you have right? Today. I am excited. And I want to give a shout out to Patrick McGovern from Ascedia. And also the American Marketing Association Milwaukee who introduced Michele to me and Michele talk of it, like I said is Founder of Green Onion Creative and you know she’s been you look young Michele, but you’ve been writing creative copy for over a decade. And her offerings don’t just stop at Creative copywriting. They also do design social media PR, and much more. And we’re going to dig deep today on growing the business also on some of the client stuff that you do. So Michele, thanks for joining me.

Michele Tonkovitz 2:21

Thank you so much. And I appreciate the compliment of looking young, I will be turning 43 in July. So I accredited to moisturizing and I don’t have too many gray hairs yet.

Jeremy Weisz 2:33

You know it’s funny I say that because most people don’t go you know, when I grew up, I want to have an agency. Right. But you actually did say that?

Michele Tonkovitz 2:42

I did. So talks about that. So when I was growing up here in the Milwaukee area, my aunt was a media buyer for a few of the agencies in the city. And so as a kid, I got to do really cool things like go see Disney on Ice, get tickets to the Milwaukee admirals game, go to the Wisconsin Dells, and I get to experience all that through my event. And so I bet she was about eight years old when I decided I want to be in advertising when I grew up because she got to meet Mr. T. And Jay Leno. And while I haven’t met Mr. T or Jay Leno, I definitely knew right away when I hit college, going through that career path of being a copywriter and then taking the plunge right into the agency world after graduation.