Today on Useful Creator we are answering the question: How do you grow your business…when people only trust you?

In this episode, I sit down with Conrad, the founder of Affordable Imports Studios and we unpack something most entrepreneurs don’t talk about:

How personal brand success can help your business grow while at the same time slow your business scaling. 

We talk about:

- The moment he had to leave his job and go all in And the the sacrifices required to build something sustainable

- The difficulty of transferring trust from a person to a brand

- Why investing in people beats investing in systems

We also get into his honest opinions on content:

- And why community beats cold marketing almost every time

- Why for him word-of-mouth is still king

- And how problem-solving, not marketing, became the core of his business

If you’re trying to build a brand…If you’re wrestling with the balance between personal identity and company growth, You’re going to want to hear this one.

What if going viral is actually the worst thing that could happen to your content?

Today I’m talking with Kess Ramsey stand-up comedian and digital creator about how he uses content strategically to build real audiences and sell real shows. We talk about content, comedy, brand deals and what social media is really for.

In this episode We break down:

- Why you stop obsessing over views and follower counts

- The difference between being funny online…and being funny on stage

- Why creators should expect their first 100 videos to fail

- And how creating content the way he loves to do it, got him a brand deal

If you create content, want to create content, or feel stuck posting my conversation with Kess will change the way you think about it.

My newsletter: 

https://jumabannister.com/newsletter/

Socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister/

https://www.tiktok.com/@jumabannister

https://www.instagram.com/jumabannister/

Audio Only Podcast:

Apple: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/useful-creator-i-help-professionals-become-consistent/id1702087688

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/1oRjO5e0HJCrnHXwLIXusl

In this episode I sit down with Brendon, founder of a high-energy experiential events company that’s now celebrating 20 years in business, long before Instagram, TikTok, or even real social media marketing existed.

We talk about:

→ How he discovered he was dyslexic and how that completely changed the way he learned and built his business

→ Why word-of-mouth built his company…but content is now essential for attracting the right kind of client

→ His strong opinions on behind-the-scenes content and why showing the human side of production matters more than polished highlight reels

→ And how he thinks about content as a way to pre-sell the feeling of an experience before a client ever meets him”

This is a conversation about growth, storytelling, and using content to attract alignment not just attention.

My newsletter: 

https://jumabannister.com/newsletter/

Socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister/

https://www.tiktok.com/@jumabannister

https://www.instagram.com/jumabannister/

Audio Only Podcast:

Apple: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/useful-creator-i-help-professionals-become-consistent/id1702087688

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/1oRjO5e0HJCrnHXwLIXusl

What if the biggest mistake most content creators make…is talking too much?

Today I sit down with Julian Rogers, a veteran Caribbean journalist who’s spent over 6 decades interviewing everyone from politicians to everyday people and he has strong opinions about how content should be created.

In this episode we’ll cover

Why silence can be more powerful than talking, and how leaving gaps can expose truth… especially when someone isn’t being honest.

Julian also explains why preparation is non-negotiable, including the extreme lengths he’s gone to just to be competent enough to ask the right questions.

And we go deep on storytelling why most modern content misses the human impact, and how one event can ripple across families, communities, and history itself.

And finally, he breaks down why storytelling isn’t about headlines, but about understanding who is affected, how, and why that story actually matters.

If you’re a creator, journalist, podcaster, or business owner using content to build trust, this episode will recalibrate how you show up on camera.

Enjoy my conversation with Julian.

Watch on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD5Ryz2rkEE

Connect with me:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister/

https://www.tiktok.com/@jumabannister

https://www.instagram.com/jumabannister/

Audio Only Podcast:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1oRjO5e0HJCrnHXwLIXusl

My newsletter:

https://jumabannister.com/newsletter/

Socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister/

https://www.tiktok.com/@jumabannister

https://www.instagram.com/jumabannister/

What started as a simple husband-and-wife adventure has grown into one of Trinidad’s and Tobago’s most loved content creator duos.

In this conversation with Rendel and Melina of Rendelina, we dive into their Useful Creator journey, how they built trust with their audience, grew to over 300,000 followers across platforms, and stayed true to their values while creating content that helps businesses thrive.

👉 In this episode, you’ll hear:

- How Rendelina built an authentic husband-and-wife brand that resonates with thousands.

- Why positivity and trust are at the heart of their content.

- The story behind their viral doubles reviews and the emotional connection people have with food.

- Lessons on working with businesses, building partnerships, and navigating criticism.

- Their future plans beyond food content: Production, storytelling, and maybe even a Caribbean action-comedy film.

💡 Whether you’re a content creator, business owner, or just a fan of doubles and good vibes, this interview is packed with inspiration, real talk, and practical tips (including Rendel’s top editing advice).

Recorded on location at Next Gen Brewing, San Fernando (thanks to Kareem & Priyanka for hosting us!).

🔗 Connect with Rendelina:

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@rendelina1

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Rendelina1

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/rendelina_

Follow me:

📩 Join my newsletter: https://jumabannister.com/newsletter/

💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister

What if rejection was the very thing that made you a better creator?

In this episode of the Useful Creator Podcast, Guest host Lorenzo Hodges interviews me and we explore the lessons that shaped my creative journey, from the precision of print design to the wild west days of early web animation.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this conversation:

How rejection early on built resilience and sharpened my eye for detail.

Why trial and error is the secret weapon of every great creator.

The surprising connection between useful content and innovation.

And the mindset shifts that turn problems into opportunities.

If you’ve ever struggled with creative setbacks, or wondered why some content connects while others flop, this episode is packed with insights to help you level up as a creator.

This is part 1 of a two part series. Don't forget to come back for part two:

🔗 Connect with our guest host Lorenzo Hodges:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenzohodges/ 

Follow me: 📩 Join my newsletter: https: https://jumabannister.com/newsletter/

💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister/

What happens when a business owner decides to stop hiding behind their company logo and start creating content? In this episode of Useful Creator I sit down with Kendal St. Louis, a CEO who made that exact decision and completely transformed his business and personal brand.

We dive into:

✅ Why Kendal started creating content (and the fears he had to overcome)

✅ The unexpected benefits of putting yourself out there

✅ How content shifted his role from operator to thought leader

✅ Practical tips for business owners who want to start but feel stuck If you’ve ever wondered whether creating content is worth it, this episode will change how you think about visibility and growth.

🔗 Connect with Kendal:

https://www.instagram.com/mrladnekofficial/

▶️ Check out his podcast on

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@daigoodtalk9873

Follow me: 📩 Join my newsletter: https: https://jumabannister.com/newsletter/

💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jumabannister/

The real questions you get on sales calls are hard They're not basic stuff. Are they they're harsh people want to know harsh truths And the good thing about pulling faqs and like a little carousel at the bottom of your pages You'll find they get read quite a lot You And you'll also find that it saves you time on sales calls.

Cause you're addressing these objections and these queries and these hard questions up front. It makes folks more likely to convert because they actually see you as transparent and trustworthy rather than just trying to get their contact info at all costs. Hello and welcome to the useful content podcast. And today we have a brand new teacher in our useful content classroom. Sam Dunning. Hi, Sam.

Hey Juma, thanks for having me on, man. Looking forward to the conversation.

It's great to have you on Sam. Uh, I've been following your content for a while. And you have been in my LinkedIn feed for a while as well. And so it's great to have you on today to talk about B2B strategy and SEO. So that's a topic that I think I'm going to enjoy and the audience was going to enjoy as well.

But before we get into that, could you please tell the people what you do and how you help your clients make useful content?

yeah, yeah, sure thing. So we, we tend to work with slightly frustrated B2B service tech or SaaS companies that are maybe a little tired of seeing their competitors above them in Google's organic search results. Every time a dream client searches for their offer direct. Maybe a problem that they solve or compares them to competitors.

Meaning those competitors to them are stealing traffic, mindshare, and most importantly, inbound leads, demos, or sales calls. So we fix those issues with a slightly unusual approach to SEO and content marketing, uh, breaking B2B, which I'm sure we're going to dive into soon.

Hmm. What is the slightly unusual approach you're talking about?

there's, there's a lot of mistakes when it comes to B2B SEO. Yeah. Both serviced and technology companies and software companies make all the time. And rather than so many folks, when it comes to an SEO strategy, get caught in what I call a traffic trap. So they try to acquire as much traffic to their website as possible. As a result, that often means they're going for more informative. Based keywords or ranking informative based blog articles, pages, or similar on the website. And the trouble is when you focus on that it drives more what we call top of funnel traffic. So people that are maybe just looking for a quick answer to a question Maybe looking to educate themselves And they're probably going to skim your page, skim your article, skim your blog, whatever it may be, but they're pretty unlikely to do something bottom of funnel, AKA book demo, book a sales call, whatever that relevant next step you want to feed your sales team with.

So we, we tend to go for a bottom up approach. I, how can we make this as commercial sales ready as possible? And how can we work out what a prospect is likely to search when they're actually ready to have that sales conversation and how can we craft content that's going to rank resonate with folks and convert a lot of that is down to great customer research, understanding what dream clients care about, and then building out content to attack that.

so the unusual approach taking it from the bottom up, because I know many people will talk about, you know, create content so that you can get me known. And people talk about that, even though I have spoken about creating content and why, why that is important. Um, but we all know that not all companies need to invest in SEO. In your experience, what are some of the symptoms that you're seeing? That you see that can tell you for sure that a company needs to invest in SEO.

when you look at the marketing world and the type of marketing tactics that you can do, probably there's like, I can easily count 100 things that you can do to grow your brand, but it depends on. What's my strategy? What's my budget? And what's my resources with resources meaning that who's the team who's going to execute this? if you don't have the team in place to do that, you cannot do email marketing, PR, influencer marketing. You cannot do them all. You have to pick your playground. Hello, and welcome to the useful content podcast. And today we have a brand new teacher in our useful content classroom. Iter Erslan. Hi Iter.

Hi, Juma. How are you?

I'm doing, doing pretty well, doing pretty well. And I'm happy to have you on today. And I know we have lots to talk about, but brand strategy and about marketing. But before we get into that, could you please share with the people what you do and how you help your clients make useful content. Mm hmm.

thanks for inviting me, by the way. Uh, and I'm, I hope that I will be able to, um, invite you soon, very soon as well, because I have a lot of burning questions about content and video production and so on. Uh, so, um, I'm, I ha I own a boutique marketing company. Uh, I. Try not to say it agency because the thing that people understand from agency is completely different.

And, uh, and since I founded my company, which has been, which was seven years ago, I always say I'm not a marketing agency. Uh, but what I do is I'm a brand strategy, uh, and marketing expert. And I partner with brands, uh, to. Grow their brands, uh, meaning that I do a brand strategy and I helped, um, uh, manage their brand teams, build their internal external teams. Uh, but I also work with, uh, the industry experts in, in branding, visual identity and tone of voice. So when I do the strategy work, depending on the needs of the customer client, uh, we also work. Like an agency, although I say I'm not an agency, but which means that we develop the branding, the visual identity, the tone of voice. We also build websites, but this is where I partner with the. Some of the best people, uh, freelancers, solopreneurs or studios, and that I could find in the world,

So what do you prefer? Do you prefer to do the thinking part of the business, which is the brand strategy part? Or do you prefer to do like the creative doing part of the business?

uh, that's, uh, um, this, that's the biggest dilemma of probably any marketer because, uh, there has been some times when I tried strategy only, and there has been some times where I do strategy and execution. And it's always with mixed feelings because when you only do a strategy, you Executing it because you just, you know, just let it after like two or three months of strategy work, you let some, someone else do it. Uh, and somehow you want to be a part of it. If you are so left out, you just want to be involved in and still help the brand. Uh, but when you are too much into execution, then there is this. It's everyday tasks, operational things, people are asking sometimes to me, like, are you the graphic designer? Can I ask you my graphic design needs?

So, so anyway, you know, so. It's a dilemma and how I find the best ratio for me. I'm not in that best ratio right now with my business is a 70 percent strategy and 30 percent execution. And why I need that execution is the feeling, the feeling of seeing that execution to come to life is what makes a marketer so happy for me.

It's the same. It's that thing. Uh, but it's also makes me fresh and up to date as a marketer when I execute.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is good for all the, all the, uh, agency owners, well, agency owners and all the people out there who. Give this type of service for them to...

I joined an engagement pod in 2018. I it ruined my LinkedIn it took me a long time to bring back the right people into my audience. When I was creating content, the only people that would ever see it Were the people in the pod and the people in the pod weren't interested in what I have to do for a living or interested in what I'm selling, so it took me a long time to get rid of those people and then start curating a new audience all over again.

So from experience, I can say it's going to ruin your LinkedIn. Despite what the owners of the engagement pod try promoting. Hello and welcome to Useful Content. And today we have a brand new teacher in our Useful Content classroom. Gus Bandel.

Hi, Gus.

Hi Juma, how you doing?

doing

well. I'm doing well. And I'm sure you are doing well out there in Coventry.

It's

great to have you on.

I am. Yeah, It's uh, it's all good here. Not, not so sunny right now, but, uh, I mean, usually the sun always shines in Coventry, but, uh, not so sunny today.

Yeah, Coventry is the center of the

world.

Yes.

Of course, center

of the universe. Yeah. That's the hashtag.

All right. Great. So Gus, um, I know we came here today to talk specifically about some LinkedIn related things, cause that's what you're into. That's what you do. So could you please share with the people what you do and how you help your clients make useful content?

Absolutely. So what I, um, I'm a LinkedIn trainer. I teach people how to use LinkedIn. I tell people I'm the UK's number one LinkedIn trainer, according to my mom. Um, and essentially I, I teach business owners, senior executives, and teams how to make the most of LinkedIn, how to really leverage it for their business and make sure that, uh, quite frankly, they're using it like a proper social media platform.

Right. So what makes LinkedIn so different than any other, uh, social media platform?

My favorite thing about LinkedIn and particularly the thing that makes it different to other platforms is the fact that you can curate the perfect audience. One of the best things about LinkedIn is that. It has a search box. We can use it for free. Um, and essentially we can search for anybody that we want to search for and anybody that we want to connect to. Whereas every other platform, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, anywhere else, you're relying on people to follow you. You're relying on people to find you on those platforms. On LinkedIn, you get to do the outreach and you get to connect to exactly who you want to connect to. In essence, curating the perfect audience.

Right. And so would you say that one of the most powerful features on LinkedIn is actually search? Cause I don't really hear people talking about that much. People often talk about how bad the algorithm is. They talk about video versus text versus carousels. But are you saying that search is something that people.

Really overlook as one of the more powerful parts of

LinkedIn.

Absolutely. I think there's a lot of LinkedIn trainers that will talk about things like having the perfect content strategy, which is obviously a good thing. Um, and also how to, you know, kind of work the algorithm, et cetera. But I think a lot of people forget that there's a search box where we can curate the perfect audience. Most people go through life on LinkedIn and just connect to everybody that they've ever worked with or everybody they met at networking or friends or content that they want to see, et cetera. And that's all great, but ultimately what happens is your audience becomes very disparate, so that when you are creating your perfect content, it's not necessarily seen by your ideal audience. So the searc...