Podcast

July 3rd, 2025

The Apple Cart: S3,E3: The Power of Great Ideas for Business Growth

In this episode of the Apple Cart, I’m joined by Jodie Newman to talk about the power of ideas for business growth. Jodie is the founding owner of the Business Allotment – the place where businesses grow, creatively.

She helps business owners move away from business-as-usual thinking to a creative approach and business-as-unusual thinking that helps the business be distinct, stand out and be memorable. Jodie is the author of Build Your Business on Ideas.

Listen to the Interview

How Jodie started The Business Allotment

Jodie started out doing traditional idea generation, now known as ideation – facilitating groups of people to be as creative as possible, to come up with hundreds of ideas. Following the recession and the birth of her children, she decided to rebrand.

“I took that entire toolkit of creativity and used it in a slightly different way with smaller businesses to help them to help them grow, help them with their strategy, vision and how they talked about what they did.

“I became more focused on growth as the outcome for my clients, and realised the business name I had didn’t fit anymore. So I put myself through my own process, and came up with the concept of not just services to help people grow, but a sense of place – a virtual allotment.”

How Jodie got into the Business of Ideas

Jodie says her secondary school education was creative: “There wasn’t such a thing as data and all that crap that people were obsessed with. I trained as a UM, did a product design degree and trained as a furniture designer. I am steeped in the practise of creativity.

“And I got really fascinated by the psychology of creativity – how you could rock up to the studio one day and vomit ideas out, and then the next day not manage a single creative thought. So I started researching it. Because what do you do when you need to be creative but you can’t manage it?

“It turns out that there’s a process and it takes a skill that as creatives we’re not taught. And from that I saw that while people’s output can be really creative, when they’re trying to market their businesses they’re not standing out at all. So how do we make the whole experience more distinctive?” 

Think Differently for Better Ideas

You could ask, why bother applying creativity? “Because every business really only needs to achieve one thing with their branding, which is stand out. When you’re actively marketing your business, your ideal clients aren’t actually in buying mode.

“So your only goal then has to be to make sure they remember you. For me, using creativity, having new ideas and standing out is the driving force. Your clients don’t know why they should pick you, so you have to tell them.

Creativity is one of the most powerful levers you can pull in your business. Because it will get you somewhere different. It gives you tools to have different ideas. And then you apply that to your business and get noticed.”

How to be More Creative

There’s a myth, says Jodie, that creativity is an inherent talent. “OK, there is an element of it, but research shows that it’s actually skills. And those can be learned. The reason that you and I feel creative is that we practise every day of our lives. So what you need are tools to help you do the same.

“Whatever you want to try, get immersed in it a little bit. Come with an open mind and know that you’ll be shit at the start. But you practise and get better, and you only have to do it in short bursts. Because what is comes down to is consistency.

“There are no hacks, and we all know that. I believe that everybody that walks into the allotment can be a better creative thinker. Even if they’re already super creative. because they won’t have used some of the tools I’m about to put in front of them. And that’s what everybody needs.”

Timestamps

  • 01:16 – 05:52: How Jodie started The Business Allotment
  • 06:35 – 07:08: Why the shed is a place for people to belong
  • 07:24 11:27: How Jodie got into the business of ideas
  • 12:43 – 14:33: How Jodie describes what she does
  • 15:03 – 16:21: What Jodie would do if she wasn’t running her business
  • 16:41 -19:18: The benefits of business networking
  • 19:34 – 25:20: Being an author and public speaker
  • 25:42 – 31:38: Why you should do things differently in business
  • 32:23 – 37:01: How to be more creative in business

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