Paul Povolni / Brand Strategist. Creative. Podcaster. Speaker

Many businesses and individuals find themselves stuck in a cycle of knowing they need to change but not knowing how to start. They sense that their branding, strategy, or creative approach isn’t working, but they don’t have a clear process to break free.

• They feel stagnant – repeating the same tactics without new results.
• They struggle with creativity – especially those who don’t identify as “creative” by nature.
• They waste time and money – experimenting with half-baked ideas instead of executing a proven framework.

Imagine a business that evolves constantly, adapts with confidence, and stays ahead of competitors. Instead of guessing what to do next, you have a clear, structured system to generate ideas, refine strategies, and eliminate what no longer serves you.

• Your business stays fresh and relevant – consistently improving without fear of change.
• You tap into creativity, even if you don’t consider yourself creative.
• You waste less time on trial and error and focus on high-impact execution.
• You build a brand that not only stands out but resonates deeply with your audience.

The ReNewDo Framework is the roadmap to getting unstuck and unlocking innovation. It’s a structured, repeatable system that anyone—not just creatives—can use to bring clarity and action to their ideas.

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Paul Povolni is a creative leader, branding expert, and founder of Voppa Creative, with over 30 years of experience helping businesses transform their visual identity and branding. With a background in creative direction, coaching, and entrepreneurship, Paul specializes in guiding teams and individuals to break through creative roadblocks and refine their messaging for maximum impact. His expertise spans branding, design, leadership training, and innovative problem-solving, making him a sought-after mentor and consultant.

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (00:03.01)
Sometimes businesses get into this cycle of knowing that they need to do something different than what they're doing, but they don't know where to start. They're stuck. They're in this loop of knowing but not knowing what to do. And so this framework of ReNewDo is a way for them to get unstuck and to be able to effectively take the next steps that will move them in the right direction.


Hey, welcome to the HeadSmack Podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I am excited to have you along for the 50th episode. Woohoo! I can't believe it's 50 episodes that I have recorded of the HeadSmack Conversations with Misfits Podcast. And so I am excited to have you along this podcast. I am going to be doing this alone. I thought it'd be appropriate to just kind of share some of my thoughts, share some of my ideas and things that may be able to help you out as a business.

and I am pretty excited about it. And I have some stuff to share, a framework that I want to share with you that I developed several years ago, actually probably like 15 years ago or so on how to think creatively when you're not creative, especially as a team, especially if you produce any kind of service or product, this is going to be a great way for you to think about how you can be more creative, come up with creative ideas, even if you or your team are not creative.

And it is a different framework from my Headsmack framework, which is a brainstorming creative thinking framework that also helps out a lot. It's a lot more robust, but this is really just kind of a four phase framework that will help you out. And so I'm excited to share that with you. think it will help you as a business. Before I go into that, I do want to kind of share a little bit about the Headsmack podcast. I have had some amazing guests. It's pretty unbelievable. I can't believe some of the folks that I've had a chance to have conversations with.

I just really experts in their fields, people that had some pretty interesting stories, as they kind of grew up or as they started off in businesses, young people, and then hearing just some of the successes that they've had and how they've developed kind of their superpower, specialty. And so if you have any kind of interest in creativity and branding, in building a business, in being an entrepreneur, I do encourage you to go back and listen to some of those episodes.

Paul Povolni (03:03.468)
And you'll find a lot of great stories, great tips. mean, super high value. I'm just so grateful for the amount of value that my guests have shared openly and kind of look behind the curtain of some of the things that they've done. And I believe that you can be helped quite a bit simply by going back and listening to some of those. But Head Smack was a, an idea I had about on my birthday, about almost a year ago in April of last year.

And I really have wanted to do a pod smack podcast for quite a while. And, but just never had the big idea, you know, I never had really what I wanted to do with it. And, you know, I've had head smack as a seminar, as a workshop that I do with teams to help them think creatively, even if they're not creative, the word head smack has been a part of what I've done for almost 30 years. it's just been around for a long time.

And so I had that name, but I never really launched anything, uh, like super big into the marketplace. Uh, but when it came time to, uh, come up with a big idea for the podcast, I thought I'll call it head smack and maybe make it about creative thinking, but I just, I wasn't totally settled on that idea. And so I looked at and, uh, prayed about and thought about, you know, what could, what could I make, how to quit? I make this interesting. And one of the things I realized is I really enjoy.

talking to people. I enjoy conversations. And, you know, I thought about, what kind of conversations do I have? And I wanted to have really transparent conversations with people that maybe are outsiders, people that are maybe rebels, they're first in, ready to try something, they're risk takers, they're rebels in some ways. I wanted to talk to the misfits. I wanted to talk to the people that were pretty bold in what they were doing.

and stood out. And so that came to me on a drive home from St. Louis, believe it or not. My wife and I were driving home from a funeral of a super dear friend. And sometimes we just drive in silence. So my wife will read or do something like that. And I just kind of sit with my thoughts. It's kind of crazy how we don't do that a whole lot anymore is just sit with our thoughts and just let our minds wander.

Paul Povolni (05:22.426)
And so I was doing that and it came to me and the idea of conversations with Misfits. And once I had that, it was all systems go. And so I, I launched this podcast in about two weeks from when I had the idea from, to launching it, the branding, the production, the music, the intros, the outros, all of that stuff. I invited a bunch of people, didn't know if anybody would say yes, honestly. but.

Most of them said yes. And I was like, wow, now I gotta start recording this thing. And so straight off the bat, within a very short time, I had about 30 backlogged interviews that I had to release. And so I spread those out one every week and didn't do interviews for a couple of months because I just had such a backlog of interviews that I had done.

And I wanted to honor the people and get those out as quickly as possible. So now I'm doing a lot less interviews, grouped up and that way I can record them and release them, in a pretty quick pace to get them out there. but thank you for those of you that have kind of been with me on this journey. I'm super excited about continuing to do this in interviewing great people, having great conversations. And if you love it, please share it, subscribe to it, leave a comment, leave.

us some feedback. And, you know, if you have ideas or thoughts of what I could do to make it better, I am always open to feedback. And you can do that in the DM. You don't have to put that in the review. But I'm always open to that because I this I've never done anything like this. This is totally new for me. And so but thank you. Thank you so much for your listening and being a part of this. And so I want to launch into this creative thinking framework.

And this creative thinking framework came along probably about 15 years ago when I was part of a product development team. And I wanted to come up with a way for not only the creatives, but also for the marketing team, which weren't necessarily always creative. They weren't the creative team. weren't the ones that were, they were more left brain than right brain. And they liked data. They liked analytics. They liked.

Paul Povolni (07:44.578)
details, information and creative thinking wasn't always their strong suit. Now there were some that were creative, but for the most part they weren't. So I wanted to develop a creative way or a way for people to think creatively, even if they weren't creative, especially when it came to getting unstuck. And that's what this is about is helping people get unstuck when they know they need to move forward. They know they need to come up with something. They know they're not happy where they're at.

And they need a way to develop new stuff, to come up with new ideas, to evaluate what they're doing and see what they need to do next. And so this is kind of an unstuck framework for folks. And hopefully this will help you out. And I came up with the name Renudu. Now Renudu is actually a combination of words, renew, redo, do new and don't do. And so we're going to go through all four of those and talk about those.

Because what would happen a lot of times is I would go into these creative meetings, these creative thinking meetings, and people would be like, you know, we need to think creatively, let's think creatively. And then the whiteboard will be there or the posters like I have back there. And everybody will have poster notes and Sharpies, or sometimes you have Play-Doh, or, you know, just different things to try and get people to think creatively. so the moderator, the facilitator would stand there at the whiteboard.

with marker in hand, waiting for ideas and people will kind of just stare blankly. And sometimes that even happens when you're by yourself and you're staring at a blank screen in front of you and you're trying to come up with ideas and nothing is coming. You don't know where to start. And I believe that a lot of people can think more creatively if they just had the right catalysts to be able to think creatively, to kind of prompt them, to push them, to move them forward, to inspire them, to maybe have them ask

deeper questions or different questions that they've been asking themselves. so, so Renudu is what I came up with that you can take into a team. You could actually take this right into your meeting that you are having today or whenever you're listening to this and implement it with low prep, no prep. Literally, you can take this into a meeting with this word, Renudu, and you can have a brainstorming session that I believe will generate.

Paul Povolni (10:07.474)
tons of ideas and help you get unstuck when it comes to what you're doing. So let's launch into this. What is Renew Do? And so I already shared that it's about, what can you do new? What can you redo? what can you, renew and what, what can you don't do? I used to call it do-do, but that didn't quite work because I wanted to stay within those three words, re-new and do, but I stopped doing that. So I'm calling it don't do. And so I want to kind of launch into that. the first one of these is new.

And so what I want you to do is I want you to think about, what can you do that is truly new? this is the power of reinvention. many businesses get stuck because they're doing the same thing over and over and over and over. And if it's successful for you, carry on, like go for it. If it's doing fine for you, if it's working for you as a business, don't stop, keep going.

Um, if it's, you know, you're not stuck, you don't feel stuck. That's totally fine. But if you are looking for something new, uh, sometimes, or you're looking to get unstuck, look at what can you do that is truly new? Um, what is there that you can do that you have not done before? That is something that is, uh, different from the marketplace. That is a new product or feature or a new service, a new way of delivering what you do.

A new way that speeds up the process, efficiency makes it faster, better and all of that stuff. And you look at examples like Henry Ford, there's a famous quote that said, and I think Henry Ford was the one that said it. said, if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse. And so instead he came up with something totally new, which was the car. And so, sometimes the solution is not necessarily

what you already have, it's sometimes it's coming up with something totally new. You look at things like Netflix and Blockbuster. Blockbuster was thriving, was booming. It was where you went on a Friday night or a Saturday night to maybe discover some movies. I kind of missed that part of it. I kind of missed the discovery of going into a Blockbuster and just finding stuff that maybe you didn't go in there looking for.

Paul Povolni (12:28.214)
And it's like, well, I think I want to watch that. And it was a surprising thing. You also got some bad ones, but sometimes it was a welcome surprise outside of category where you were thinking. But Blockbuster was thriving. They were booming. They were doing amazing. And along came this little company called Netflix. if I, I didn't do the research, but if I understand it right, Netflix actually offered themselves to Blockbuster and Blockbuster said no, which was, it was a major.

a major mistake on their part, but Netflix was doing something new. They weren't just creating stores where you can go in and hopefully find the movie that you want to find. They were creating these way to get movies via mail. Now, of course, it was a little bit of a wait, so it didn't take off immediately, but you can get these movies and you can hold onto them as long as you wanted. And we all probably remember those really cool envelopes that was a self-mailer.

that you would get a DVD in. And so you would have that movie, you would watch it whenever you wanted to watch it, as many times as you wanted to watch it, there were no late fees, and it was something totally new. And of course, in between that, we also had things like Redbox, which was doing away with going into a video store. If you knew the movie that you wanted, and it was a new movie or a recent movie, you could go to a Redbox and get that immediately. And so that was also a new way of thinking.

And so sometimes what you need to do is look at what you're doing and see what can we do new? We've kind of got stale. We've kind of got old. We've kind of got, same, same, we've kind of got boring. what is something that we can do new? you know, Airbnb, another company that, instead of building more hotels, said, you know what people have rooms, they have spaces they're not using. what about if we made it easy for them to.

sell those spaces or lease those space or rent those spaces to other people. so Airbnb became that and it was something totally new for an industry. And so look at, know, what can you do new? What, what new product can you release? What new service, what new feature, what new way of delivering your work, you know, just like Blockbuster and Netflix, you know, Netflix was a new way of delivering videos, a new way of delivering.

Paul Povolni (14:53.87)
content or entertainment. so look at what can you, is there some way you can deliver your work in a new way? Is there a new product that you can add to your lineup? Is there a new feature that you can add to what you're doing? If you have a product, if you have a device, if you have an app, if you have a service of some kind, you know, is there some new feature that you can add to it? Or is there a new service that you can add to your lineup of what you're doing? But sometimes just simply thinking about what can we do new? Have we gotten stale?

Have we got to the point where we are just doing the same thing over and over and maybe it's time that we did something new? So that's my challenge. Write down something, look at what you're doing, get on a whiteboard or a blank sheet of paper or on your computer and look at what are some new things that we can do that we can improve what we're doing and make it better and get it out there. Something totally new, something totally different, something totally that we've never done before. And that is new.

The second thing is renew. And so we're going to renew do. so renew is reviving what still has value. And that's what renew is. What's something you've abandoned that just needs fresh energy. Sometimes an idea or a project doesn't need to be scrapped. It just needs a second chance. And so, you know, we can get into a, to a point where something has become kind of stale. Something has become kind of boring.

something has become, outdated, some it's a good idea. It's just, it's not as good as it can be. And so what, what, what is something that, you know, can just stand a, a facelift, a refreshing, a re look at it and say, is it still relevant? Is it still valued? Is it still what it needs to be? And look at what can we, what can we renew? What can we give?

something a fresh chance in what we're doing. And so you look at Apple, Apple, I'm going to probably use Apple a bunch of times, because I've been a fan of Apple, not as much of a fan now, Apple, think has kind of got stale themselves. But in the 90s, man, and the early 2000s, Apple was amazing. And so, you know, with Apple, you looked at the Mac, what they did with the desktops.

Paul Povolni (17:16.782)
what they did with laptops, you know, they, they had a lot of stuff in place, but they're like, what can we, how can we renew them? How can we give them a fresh look? And everybody probably remembers those candy colored, desktops that, they came up with the screen was the computer. Like the computer was part of the screen. You know, that was totally something different. So totally out of, out of, place in the marketplace. was something super creative.

And all they did was just kind of renew the idea of what, what could a laptop or a desktop look like. And so they came up with this candy colored computer that became a sensation and everybody started copying it. Cause before that, most of you that might be listening to this don't remember computers before then, but they were just beige boxes. They were pretty boring. They weren't exciting. They weren't something you would actually prop up.

on a, on a stand, in a business to show off or get attention or whatever. But I remember when the first, little IMAX came out, the candy colored IMAX people were proud of those. Like they were putting them up where everybody can see. I was going to conventions and meetings and IMAX was just popping up everywhere because they were just so cool. And so, you know, look at what can you renew? Is there something that, just needs some love, needs

some renewing in how you're doing it, some fresh energy, something that just needs a second chance. So look at Lego's comeback. Lego was near bankruptcy in the early 2000s, but instead of just folding and giving up, they renewed their brand by tapping into partnerships with like Star Wars and Harry Potter and creating these video games. And they just kind of started booming. And now, of course, they've got movies and things like that.

But you know, they just kind of renewed their energy for the product and said it's it's a great product We just need to give it some love. We need to look at new partnerships New ways of doing things and so Lego kind of made a comeback Converse the same thing they were quite a big brand once and then they kind of lost relevance for a while and Instead of fading away they renewed their

Paul Povolni (19:36.28)
Brand by embracing the retro style and collaborating with artists and fashion designers and things like that and made a comeback. And so sometimes you just need to renew. I need to give a fresh face. I need to give fresh energy to something that you're doing. It's a product maybe that failed the first time, but could work now. Maybe it's a marketing strategy that deserves another shot. Maybe it's a passion that needs to be reignited.

maybe you've, you've had a passion for something, kind of like I had a passion for this podcast. You know, I, I wanted to do a podcast. did radio when I was in college in California and I enjoyed that, but that wasn't very, it wasn't conversational. It was just simply playing cool music. but I enjoyed that, but podcasts came along and I've always wanted to do that. And I kind of had to renew my passion for it. And it wasn't until I renewed my passion for it.

that things started lining up and then here I am now with a podcast. And so sometimes it's renewing a passion, renewing an idea, looking back at your notes and saying, do you know what? I need to maybe give this some freshness. I need to give this some new attention and I need to renew that idea and give some time to it and give some energy to it and make it happen. The next thing is redo.

What can we redo? Fixing things that were poorly executed. This is especially for those things that the execution wasn't right there. It wasn't done the way it should have been done. It didn't work before. What can we do differently now? Is there something we can redo about it? Now, going back a little bit to Renu, there were a lot of ideas that were amazing when the internet happened.

Now I remember a world before the internet. I remember the early internet and I remember there were a lot of great ideas that were just brilliant. you know, people were just creating and innovating and being super, super creative with their ideas and super passionate about putting stuff out there and, creating a big business or creating a business online.

Paul Povolni (21:59.682)
The problem was the world wasn't ready for it. People weren't comfortable with putting their credit card into their computer and not knowing that they could trust that somebody's not going to steal their information. People were not ready for the internet at that time, but there were so many brilliant ideas, so many ideas that people were putting out there and they failed. Not because they were bad ideas, but it was the wrong time.

And so I want to encourage you that maybe there's an idea that you had that maybe it was an idea that you had years ago. Maybe it was an idea that you had decades ago. Maybe the right time is now. Maybe the right time is now to renew that passion, renew that idea, give it some, some freshness, give it some love, give it some passion. And maybe now is the time for that idea.

And so I want to encourage you that when it comes to Renew, because it's also similar to redo. And that's why I kind of circled back on Renew is maybe there's an idea that you had five years ago, 10 years ago, one year ago, a couple of months ago, that the execution, it wasn't a timing issue. It was an execution issue. Maybe it wasn't done as well as it could have been. And so I want to encourage you, is there something that you launched, that you did, that you put out there?

that maybe if you just did it a little better, maybe if you just redid it, rethought it, it would be a better idea. It would actually thrive. So is there something that it didn't flop because it was a bad idea, it was bad because it wasn't executed well? And so I want you to look at that. You look at Harley Davidson, in 1982, believe it or not, Harley Davidson was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The quality of what they were putting out there, you know, it just wasn't what it used to be. instead of what they, instead of just starting over and doing something totally new, they just said, you know, well, let's redo our approach to how we create products, how we talk about ourselves, how we put ourselves out there. And so it wasn't a new thing. It was just redoing what they'd done in the past that made them successful. And you look at Coca-Cola, they try to come up with

Paul Povolni (24:21.47)
a new Coke and it didn't work. And so they said, you know what, let's basically just redo what we had always done and just call it Coca-Cola classic. And so it's a matter of let's execute better. Let's do something a little better than maybe we did before Instagram the same way. At one point it was trying to be about locations, kind of like a four square, if anybody remembers four square.

and then that wasn't working. said, well, let's redo what we're about and, let's just make it a photo sharing app. And of course, they got bought out by Facebook and they're a billion dollar company. So what needs a better branding? What needs better execution? What needs, what do you need to redo when it comes to your marketing efforts? what do you need to redo when it comes to how you launched? did you kind of launch haphazardly? Did you launch weak?

Did you launch in a way that is not really as good as it could have been? Well, maybe it's time for a pause and maybe it's time for you to redo what you had done and do it better this time. And so that's the third part of Renew Do is what can you redo? Is there something that a process that needs to be tweaked, a system that needs to be tweaked? Is there a better way to roll it out? Is there a better way to brand it? Is there a better way to market it?

Is there a better way to execute it? And maybe it wasn't that it was a bad idea. It's just that it was not executed as well as it could have been. And so what do you need to redo? And of course this, this, this whole topic and this whole workshop goes a lot deeper, but I'm just sharing with you just some surface things that might be able to help you along. And the final thing is what the final thing is, is don't do what can you cut?

cutting the dead weight, what's taken up space, what's holding you back? What's, what's not serving you well anymore? because I do want to encourage you that if you're going to do stuff new, or if you're going to redo stuff, also look at, is there something that we can stop doing? Is there something that we need to pull back on and say, do you know what? We have just got ourselves to spread out right now. We are just doing, instead of doing a few things well, we're doing a lot of things mediocre.

Paul Povolni (26:43.604)
And so I want to encourage you to look at what you're doing, what you're putting out there, your activity, the time spent, the products, the features, the, is there something that we can pull back on and what can we cut back on? What can we don't do about what we're, what we're doing there? And so, you know, I, I, this is happening right now in our government. Our government is going through quite an upheaval, whether you like it or not. This is what's happening. And Elon Musk and Doge are going in there and saying,

Let's stop doing a lot of stuff that we've been doing that is not serving the American people. And so that's the message they're putting out there and that's the activity they're putting out there. But you can do this on a personal level or on a business level is also look at what do you not need to be doing right now? What's taken up space? What's holding you back? What's eating up your time? What's eating up your resources? What's eating up your finances that if you stop doing that,

You'll actually make space for the things that really matter for the things that maybe you redo or renew or do new Those are the things that you could look at. So, you once again going back to Apple When Steve Jobs returned, you know, I don't I don't know if you remember this but Apple used to do printers I think they even did shoes at one point Apple was doing a lot of stuff. They had a lot of devices They had a lot of stuff that was just silly silly stuff that it didn't need to be doing They were so spread out

And when Steve Jobs came back, he just basically cut everything and said, we're not doing all that stuff anymore. And like with a, a stroke of a pen, no more Apple printers and no more things like that. And so, you know, he almost killed everything at that point, but it also helped them focus on the things that really mattered. They focus their time, their research, their research and development, their marketing, their promotion, their, creative thinking into just a few things.

instead of being spread out so thin. so, you know, maybe that's what you need to do with your business is cutting out stuff. know, GM once had multiple struggling brands, Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer. They finally decided to cut what wasn't working and focus on the stronger lines, leading to a more sustainable business. And so you look at Google. Google is famous for doing this. Sometimes it's a little frustrating too, because you invest time in a new Google product.

Paul Povolni (29:09.962)
only to find that they cut it and delete it. But they're also very passionate about this. If you remember Google +, trying to compete with Facebook, and it didn't last very long. And while I see it on some people's websites still, Google +, was something that they decided to don't do. They decided to cut it. They said, we're not going to do this anymore. So look at what you're doing right now, a service, a product, activity, time.

you know, if it's a product, is it outdated? Is it like still relevant to your marketplace or to your customer? and that also comes down to knowing your customer and, you know, understanding what they like and don't like. And, know, are they kind of frustrated with your product? you know, because it's outdated and maybe you just need to stop putting it out there or you could look at, what can we redo, about it? You know, if it's a good idea, we can execute it better.

Or maybe there's a better product that you just need to renew and give it a fresh face and a fresh implementation and execution and it'll become what it needs to be. And so, you know, what are some other things that, you know, marketing efforts that you're putting out there that are just not effective? You just don't do it. Just stop doing it. Maybe there's a partnership, a pointless meetings that you're having throughout the week or maybe there's a bad habit that you have.

on a personal level, what can you don't do? What can you stop doing that's going to help you as a business? And so those are the four things that I want to encourage you to look at is what can you do new? What can you renew? What can you redo? And what can you don't do? And I think when you take that into your next meeting, when you take that into your next brainstorming session, or take that with a notebook and a coffee shop and look at your business, your personal life,

and look at what can I do new? What can I redo? What can I renew? And what could I don't do? And I think it'll be a great way for you to get more creative ideas, get unstuck and move forward. So that's what I wanted to share with you today. Hopefully you have enjoyed that. Hopefully it's been something of value. Hopefully it's something that can help you and your business and maybe your personal life to go to the next level. And this is my 50th episode. Woohoo. And so I am pretty excited about it and look forward to interviewing a lot more people.

Paul Povolni (31:31.35)
And you have an amazing day and all the best with Renudu and taking this and implementing it and making it happen. Cause one thing I know, one of the things that I wanted to have around HeadSmack, the idea of HeadSmack is these aha moments that we sometimes have where we realize, man, if I'd only thought of that before, or I'd never thought about it that way. Hopefully Renudu has done that for you. Giving you a couple of head smacks. like, wow, I had never thought about that before. And that's what HeadSmack is about. Those aha moments.

And that's why the conversations that I have with guests, I hope they share aha moments for you, those head smack moments for you that can change everything. Because here's what I know, that one idea, well executed, can change everything. One idea, well executed, can change everything. And I do encourage you to take some of the thoughts that I've shared with you today, implement them and put them out there, do them and see the change that might happen in your business. And I look forward to hearing from you.

If something changes, if you have one of those aha moments, those head smack moments from listening to this and implementing it, I love to hear about it. Reach out to me via VARPA.com, V-O-P-P-A.com. You could also check me out on socials. I'm at VARPA pretty much everywhere. And so I encourage you to check me out and I'd love to hear your ideas. All the best.