Welcome to It's Good to Relate Podcast - The Origin Episode

Juma Bannister: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the It's Good to Relate podcast. I am Juma Banister, 

Ayinde Smith: and I am Ayinde Smith. 

Juma Bannister: And today we have a very exciting episode because this is our very first episode. We're not too sure about what's gonna happen, but we do have a structure.

Juma Bannister: Hopefully we can stick to it a little bit entertain, educate, and get people started on a good journey with the very first episode of this podcast. 

Ayinde Smith: Yep. This first episode we thought would be good if we could introduce people to to us again let people get to know who we are and our background, and particularly how, our relationship works, and how we use relationship as a way to make our business better.

Juma Bannister: And with that in mind, we are going to do some interview questions. Ayinde has around eight questions set there. I don't know what the questions are. He knows what they are, but I'm gonna have to answer them and he's gonna have to answer them as well. And we're gonna see what happens with it.

Juma Bannister: Hopefully the edit will fix all of our mistakes and make this good to listen to. 

Ayinde Smith: so the question, we're gonna answer these questions, cold meaning. I haven't tried to answer them. I have nothing prepared. Juma is hearing these questions for the first time and I'm probably reading these questions for the second time, so let's go with the first one.

Ayinde Smith: The first one is actually kinda easy. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got started in the creative industry? 

Juma Bannister: Okay. So I, I am, I am not an anomaly at all. I kind of had a similar process to most people in creative industries in that I liked art growing up.

Juma Bannister: And then did well with art in school. I wanted to do graphic design as a career when that was still a thing. , right? Many people would argue, but that might not be a thing these days. Many people would argue that. Anyway, I went to John D to do it. Didn't get into graphic design. Ended up in print, and print, opened up a whole door.

Juma Bannister: Into the world of creativity that allowed me to move from print to lithography, to then graphic design, to then web design, to then photography and, and all the way here having this company relate with Ayinde where we now do marketing and production stuff. Yeah. And that's how I got to where I am in a nutshell.

Juma Bannister: I mean, I can go more in depth, but I want to give my Ayinde a chance to talk about how his process was.

Ayinde Smith: Well before we go into my process. Just a little follow up questions. I mean we still feeling out the format of this, but I think it's a good discovery process. So . You talked about graphic design. Mm-hmm.

Ayinde Smith: what, what is it about graphic design that drew you to it? 

Juma Bannister: I was, I was pretty talented in the area of visual things from a very young age. I was into pencil drawings a whole lot. You know, when you find something young that you're, that you're, that you're good at. If your parents are paying attention, they, they tend to tell you, Hey, continue to do that.

Juma Bannister: And in my household, my father was an artist and he was into arts and he was always this creative type. So it was easy for me to lean into that part of my development. and you know, I was kind of known in the neighborhood as the guy, the small man who would do posters, you know, used to, they used to bring Bri Bristol board and I used to take a pencil and some marker and make posters for people for their cake sales and for their, for their, you know, it might have a party or something.

Juma Bannister: I used to do all that and and actually my father used to paint banners. We had a big born in the. This kind of upstairs in the hallway that he used to paint banners on, he used to paint banners for all different sorts of stuff and sometimes much of my chagrin. And I would get roped in to help paint these banners.

Juma Bannister: And they was paint all over the place until my mother kicked him out of the main house and he had to build a whole art room on its own. So Canada's how I started off, I was almost destined to be in visual. arts and creative stuff. And I guess those are not synonymous, but visual arts is part of, of, of the creative industries.

Juma Bannister: Right. 

Ayinde Smith: You mentioned your dad. How supportive were your parents in you wanting to get into creative side of things as opposed to more traditional type jobs that I teach? Or, or doctor 

Juma Bannister: or something like that they will offer it. I think there was an email question as to whether or not that would happen because even though I kind of did pretty well at C X C and, and in my family, , I was the first person that passed for a five year school.

Juma Bannister: My sister then subsequently came and passed for a seven year school, which made my accomplishment look like nothing. But at the time it was a big deal. And and they felt as if, yeah, okay, I'm talented in this particular thing. This is where I am looking like I'm going, encourage me in that particular direction.

Juma Bannister: So they were pretty, pretty much On board with it. Not that I didn't have doctor or engineer or lawyer potential, but yeah, that would've been a stretch in our, in our current circumstance. Well, back then in our circumstance. Right, 

Ayinde Smith: right. 

Juma Bannister: All right. So what about you in the, the, how did you get involved and get started in your creative journey in these creative industries?

Juma Bannister: Well, 

Ayinde Smith: the earliest. The earliest creative endeavors I could remember is back in primary school doing drawings, like you mentioned, doing drawings. Mm-hmm. I know my kids do a lot of those drawings remind me of myself just drawing stuff. Re and you know, when you're young you just kind of copy stuff you like, like those our age not so young anymore.

Ayinde Smith: We remember fidi. I remember doing a bunch of fidi drawings or feet fri that I know as some people might. , it was this bird I used to draw. I can't remember where I saw the original piece from, but I always used to be drawing this bird standing on a stick. Very kind of like stuck in my mind, stuck in my memory.

Ayinde Smith: So I always liked drawing. I always like art. I, I went to a primary school in Bari Bar, Anglican. There was no art per se, as part of the curriculum. There's nothing like schools that today where, you know, you had art and drama. Mean, my kids do all these, these kinds of things at primary school level, but we never had that.

Ayinde Smith: We kind of just had to pass common interests. . Yeah. And, and just kind of focus on that. And even when I did go to secondary school, I went to Q R C we had art, but I didn't really focus in on it even when I had to choose my. I didn't focus in on art. In fact, I wanted to do art as a extra subject.

Ayinde Smith: And then that year they decided no more extra subjects after school because the kids are just wasting time. And I said, you know what? No art business, because you know, you're thinking how do you feed your family? How do you move up you and your entire family in life? So you don't wanna do things that are, you're not to show up about anything.

Ayinde Smith: But that creative book ha has never left. and if I take a, and next jump, another significant moment. I remember my mom used to work at the Y M C F Tri and Tobago, and they would do all kinds of one flyers and different things that they would need for programs and so on. And I remember taking clip Art and wood and, and breaking it up to cran cre.

Ayinde Smith: New flyers and new kinds of graphics so that she can do her flyers and print them out and stick them up and stuff. And so that's where I actually started doing graphic design similar to you. Once I got into graphic design, I couldn't stop. And then this program I would have to say the name Pedro ESP Esposa, because he, he was the guy who let the door 

Juma Bannister: hold.

Juma Bannister: Yes. Brenda, you doing something? I'm recording the podcast right now. Oh, 

Ayinde Smith: we need to leave that . 

Juma Bannister: What's that? Kites you have to take from the kites. Okay, I'll, I'll take down kites on the darling. No, not a problem. All right. Brenda? Yes, my wife, she didn't interrupt. She came to add to the podcast by asking about taking notes and kites.

Juma Bannister: The, the children have a, a walk turn tomorrow, but I need some time off Friday in the morning to carry my children to walk, turn at the school, walk, keep on saying walk to a ton, like. , maybe that's what we're gonna do. Walk, turn. Anyway, Pedro, go ahead. Right, 

Ayinde Smith: so, yes, so, alright, lemme just kind of give it a little intro.

Ayinde Smith: So, so I started doing graphic design, being more interested in graphic design. So I decided to do a course as you up to do in Tri Toba you do a course in something you, you are interested in. And of course it's basically a short program of, of intense study that for those who don't come from that kind of back.

Ayinde Smith: So I went to do this and I, the, the course entailed learning different graphic design programs, so just learning the programs, not necessarily learning how to design. So learning illustrator all at that time, all us still owned Freehand, so it was all us Freehand, coral draw, illustrator, and learning all the programs and yet at different levels.

Ayinde Smith: It was very interesting to me because apart from the programs, he also kind of introduced. , and I'm saying him because Pedro had, had, had that impact on me. But he had other teachers. There was a school and he, the, the introduction was to design for business or commercial design. And I really got into that and then I just took off doing that.

Ayinde Smith: And that's where I think it kind of led into photography. I always liked photo. If we cannot speed, speed, jump to the next level of, of, of my development photography, would've then I would've then been introduced to photography because my mom asked me, well, she noticed just like Jim's parents, she noticed my interest in photography and so she, I think there was a choice between two gifts.

Ayinde Smith: I can't remember what the other option was as like a camera or some, something. Actually, I forgot the, the, the first camera I forgot was a Kodak one 10 camera. It was actually a surprise. I think I got it. Either done my 15th birthday or 16th birthday. One 10 film is very small film. Very small camera. I actually still have the camera.

Ayinde Smith: It would be one of these episodes I've pull it out and boom and see like a Kodak one 10 camera for those of us who could remember that far back. But even then a one 10 camera was old technology, but it was my first. The point at which I had to choose a camera over something else was a Nikon fm. I remember the Nikon fm.

Ayinde Smith: I was buying it to use from, I'm trying to remember, I think I did a photography course and the teacher, I'll remember his name and will put it in on the screen at some point in time in post or something like that. And he was selling his neck on fm. And was this or something else. And I was like, this thousand dollars, let's go.

Ayinde Smith: Only spend once, can't, can't get both things. And I was like, give me the camera. So I got the camera. And that kind of catapulted me to where I am and to where we are. Because without that camera, I don't think Jim and I would have been in business together necessarily. Or maybe, who knows, maybe doing something else.

Ayinde Smith: But that definitely was a catalyst towards bringing us together. . 

Juma Bannister: Yeah. I was gonna ask you earlier, do you still have any of your drawings from the early days? 

Ayinde Smith: Hmm. I may have one or two because mommy kept a couple of them in Alabama and she may have a couple at home. I'll have to look though. I'm not a hundred percent sure.

Juma Bannister: Yeah. Was that the same Nikon FM that we onerously lost in a tragic incident in 2012. 

Ayinde Smith: It's not lost. They stole it.

Ayinde Smith: And and. Yes and yes. We are still toting. If you're out there and you stole the Nikon FM camera, we want it back. 

Juma Bannister: Yeah, that's the same one. Yeah. You'll go to your grave , Jesus. Come back. Come back. Or you go to thinking about that camera, that camera. Clearly was a saw point, you know, and I used it too as a, as a, as a lovely camera.

Juma Bannister: I remember he took it with me on a, on Tobago to see a client, a potential client, which turned out to be nothing, but I borrowed it and yeah, and it was a nice camera. The fm 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah. Nikon fm. And that's also what started us in, in the Nikon world. Yeah. Is the first camera, and then you just kind of stick with it because you start by any lenses.

Ayinde Smith: And so we still have an icon after today. These actually on icons right now. Yeah, I think that's a good segue where you wanted to ask another question. 

Juma Bannister: No, no, that's it. There was the, was the other, the next question on the list. All right. So, 

Ayinde Smith: so the cameras brought Juma and I together photography.

Ayinde Smith: So I think that's a good segue into the other question. We. Kind of approach, which is how did, how did we first meet or how did we first encount each other, discover each other and what led to us working together. Now, I could ask this question directly to Juma because he approached me. So what led to you thinking, okay, I could approach this guy to work with him?

Juma Bannister: You know, I, I just, I cannot remember exactly how we first met. I know we run in the same circles. I know that I, the, the church that I there goes to and the church that I go to are in the same network. So we had just seen each other around. Yep. But I can't remember exactly how we first met. I, I, I want to say, That you were doing photography somewhere.

Juma Bannister: I think you know this story better than I do actually. You might remember more than I do. I do have a bit of the story about what was significant to me was when we actually, you, you asked me to go into Port of Spain with you. That, that's the story I'll always tell to do some photography, but it really wasn't to do photography with you was to be a bodyguard because you're going to, for, to participate in the nighttime.

Juma Bannister: And you know, I'm a and I'm way around and you wanted somebody to be there with you. You know, it didn't, didn't. Heard that I was a big, tall dude. Well, in intimidating, looking in in Port Spain to take some pictures for work. I remember that story. See, 

Ayinde Smith: I could see how could be interpreted like that, but I don't think, in my mind it was strictly a bodyguard kind of situation.

Ayinde Smith: It, it was more of a company kind of situation, you know? You know you're gonna do something like this. You don't necessarily want to go on your own, especially at night. So I actually wasn't thinking bodyguard. I was just thinking. I guess safety and numbers, but yeah, I remember what it was. I could actually see some of the, we could, we'll get some of the photos and put them on your screen cuz I might be able put my hand on those photos.

Ayinde Smith: Mm-hmm. , I was working at an agency and advertising agency and I, I don't, can't remember if I was creative director or Okay. 

Juma Bannister: Account had, or something like, 

Ayinde Smith: I might have just been a graphic artist, who knows, but we needed photos, we needed photos for our project. Well, you know how it is with some of these small agencies.

Ayinde Smith: No budget, the hire photographer. So of course I was doing photography at the time and, and I said, I'll take the photographs. So I need to get photographs of R B T T. Yeah, that in those days it was still R B T T. I needed to get photographs of R B T T branche. So I took a couple in, into Augustine, and then we came to town to do the head, the, the main building in Port Spain.

Ayinde Smith: That's what it was. And as the first time we, we could say that we worked together, I would've seen you taken for doing photography at other kinds of events before. I must say I was never really impressed because your camera, to me, , 

Juma Bannister: I I've heard this before, people 

Ayinde Smith: I'm not shocked. And this is where the Nikon Snap comes in.

Ayinde Smith: Cause at that time I had my Nikon fm, so I was like a real photographer. And, and Juma had a digital camera. And of course in those early days, your digital camera was a little bit junky, a little bit small and too silver, too shiny. And, and in my mind it was like, That's, that's also photography. But in my mind, photography was like this fine art and you had to take your time and you had to develop film and you had to shoot on a proper film camera and nothing smaller than 25 millimeter.

Ayinde Smith: And so I just kind of looked at him. I was like, that's nice. Never thought that a couple years later I had asked him to come in and work with me. I never actually had no. , we would actually have, have a business together. Yeah. So maybe, do you remember how we started the 

Juma Bannister: business? I think what happened?

Juma Bannister: Let me tell you what happened. Right. So, I, I had left my job, left Teos at that time, and I had gone full-time doing photography and it was mostly wedding photography. And I remember what had happened is that I was playing basketball and I, I think I twisted my. And and that was like on a Thursday and the, there was a wedding in Tobago on the, on the on the Saturday.

Juma Bannister: Right. And I said, you know what? I can't shoot this wedding by myself. I'm not sure how fit I'm going to be. So let me ask, I there to come to Tobago with me. And and I did ask, and he said yes, and he went and we, and we shot the wedding together. So that was the first wedding I did. I, you know, it was so early in the.

Juma Bannister: that we wouldn't even, what we weren't even doing off camera flash and fancy stuff like that. It was just like, oh, this is a wedding in Tobago. I have a website. I'm getting clients. Let's just go shoot the wedding. Right. And I think, I think that may have been our f our first four out in the field together.

Juma Bannister: Right. 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah. I remember those days. . Also a time of snobbery because in my mind, wedding photography also was at the bottom of the room. I was like, this guy wants me to do a wedding field. Photographers don't do weddings. So a little misguided in my youth, but from a good place. Once I started doing weddings with Juma, though, I realized there was a high level of artistry.

Ayinde Smith: I think I had that mentality because of the way weddings were traditionally shot. Yeah. and they, I understand why they had to shoot them like that because of cost and where you develop rules of film and you had to be very judicious, so you kind of had to plan your shots and they were very stayed and, and, and planned and.

Ayinde Smith: Not artistic enough for me, but once I started doing weddings with Juman, of course by that time we were, shoot, we never shot a wedding on film actually, so we were shooting digital. Mm-hmm. . So we had a little more freedom, and I realized how creative you could actually be, how you could actually express yourself through the creation of photographs for somebody, the creation of photographs, so you can be creative and still commercial.

Ayinde Smith: I think that's the revelation I got. Starting to do weddings with Juma. At that time we weren't really studios at that time. We were flow photo photography, I believe. Yeah, so you were, yeah. So you were flow photo photography. So that's when I first started realizing, hey, you can be creative and express yourself and you can do it for someone else that pays you.

Ayinde Smith: I think before that I was a little bit like, you know, the R to C type. You know, you have to be pure in the art that you create. And I think I've now, I've now been cured of that delusion. 

Juma Bannister: Well, hopefully by now you're cured. Yeah, you were definitely a purist in the beginning. I, you know, you looking down upon me like a peasant first of all with my, or my digital camera.

Juma Bannister: Then subsequent with my choice of photo, . But that all, all panned out well because I think at the time I too was kind of like it. We, weddings have has to be more than this and I found that the industry and the how, the, how they re how weddings were done in Trini and Tobago were, was quite boring.

Juma Bannister: And it didn't really reflect what capture should be. No, these were my internal thoughts, right? I, I didn't share that with anybody. As a matter of fact, I was a nobody. So nobody would listen to me saying those things. And the people who I encountered, they all were just doing the same thing. I, you know, I, I tried many times to connect with people and they were all just shooting weddings the same way.

Juma Bannister: So I had to kind of look outside of Sri Lanka Tobago for inspiration. And that's how I bounced up on the Wedding Photo Journalist Association. And so all of this stuff that you saw in, in the early days was, Looking for something that was better than what we currently had. And that was, I found that tribe or that community in the W P G A I joined up and, and that's how the development of the style or for Flo photo, which eventually turned into Relate got, got that's where the foundation came from, from that documentary creative style of wedding photography, which we both adopted and then grew over a number of years.

Juma Bannister: Yeah. 

Ayinde Smith: And you mentioned. Documentary style. I think that's one of the things that was a revelation to me because one of the types of photography, so my interest in photography was very much artistic and the other big impact for me was National Geographic. I actually used to collect National Geographic magazines.

Ayinde Smith: In my mind, the absolute best photographers in the world shoot for National Geographic. Mm-hmm. , that's, that's like that kind of photojournalistic style of photography was always to me, the epitome of photo. . So when we started exploring that in terms of doing weddings, it clicked it, it said to me, Hey, you can explore that side of, of, of the art form.

Ayinde Smith: And I, I really feel like sometimes you shooting weddings. I, I feel like a documentary. That's how I feel. I feel like, you know, , you're documenting this thing as opposed to taking photographs. You, you, you're saving this thing. You are, you're creating a legacy. And as the, the approach I think I took and as the approach, I think I saw you taking, and so I kind of followed your lead in doing that.

Ayinde Smith: And 

Juma Bannister: yeah. Yeah. And, and I, and I, I felt too that that was part of the seed, the foundation of relate in that we, apart from the fact. Well, the name is a whole story on its own, which we may get to at some point. But apart from the fact that that was part of it, the documentary part, but then it was about what, what are we doing this force people so people could hold this thing for the rest of their life.

Juma Bannister: It was helping people presume something for, for the rest of their life inside of wedding photography. So it was a long-term thing and, and the idea of building things for the long term has always been in the dna. of of relate well then flow photos soon to be relayed. Cuz I think we, I think, I know we transitioned in 2011 when we officially started the new business.

Juma Bannister: And I think we were shooting together since what, oh eight or oh nine or something like that. Yeah, I remember. But yeah, so that was part of the of the thing too. And, and, and unfortunately you endured what could have been a rocky start and and grew with the, with, with the company until the company transit.

Ayinde Smith: Yeah, I, I don't think it was, it was anywhere near a rocky start. I think for me, even though I had mentioned looking down, that's, that's just by the way, but it was easy for me to get into. And also Intrada, we have a culture at PJs, so even though you have a job, you always have a next job, you always have a next job, you always have a side hustle.

Ayinde Smith: So for me, it's like, okay, if my side hustle could be photo. and then I'm doing something I like to do and I can still have a job. I didn't know when I started that. Eventually I'd be like having discussions with Juma about how do we leave that job and, and when do you leave that job? So when we started having those kinds of conversations, I was newly married and so newly married.

Ayinde Smith: I think I may have had a baby by then when we started having those conversations, definitely when I decided to 

Juma Bannister: 2010. That was 2010. 

Ayinde Smith: No, that would've been 20. Yeah. 2010. Mm-hmm. . So Zuri. Well now cut out Zuri. So my first daughter, yeah. So my full daughter would've been born in, in 2010, which means she would've been a baby in arms.

Ayinde Smith: And we are having this conversation about, Hey, how are you gonna leave your job? And it was very interesting exploring that. What I will say is that you could plan and you could plan, and you could plan. And just like it says in the, in the book plans of mice and men often go awry. And that's exactly what happened.

Ayinde Smith: But I think God was faithful and there was no crash and burn and only sustain, sustain sustenance. There was only sustenance coming out. My interesting period of discovering how you move from working part-time, working full-time, sorry. An interest, interesting process of how you move from working full-time and pursuing your business and your passion part-time, and then having to transition to doing that business full-time.

Ayinde Smith: A lot of different things will come up. Like how you gonna pay your bills is one that's definitely going to come up. What happens if the business fails? Do you go back to work? Do you go back and take another different kind of nine to five? So all of those kinds of thoughts started coming up. Now, luckily for us, we are how many years in and we haven't gotten to that point and.

Ayinde Smith: You don't know where all this conversation 

Juma Bannister: is going. ang we where we, we haven't gotten to that point, you know where we many business continue to be preserved and grow as well. I know we kinda, we kinda went off on a tangent a little bit. Don't wrap it all, but I know we have other questions we need to answer.

Juma Bannister: Yeah. 

Ayinde Smith: I think as Relate Studios, we kinda exploring relationship where we always talk about relationship is paramount to us. In fact, we, we, we probably should have started by talking about relationship is more important than photography. And that's something that we always say that's coined by, by Juma.

Ayinde Smith: The next question I think we, we look at is what have been some of the biggest, biggest challenges we. In this business relationship and how we may or may not have worked to overcome them. So you could probably give one. I'll give. 

Juma Bannister: Oh, I can give so many, but I will talk about I'm gonna be a little bit, a little bit selfish and talk about the fact that I had to change a whole lot.

Juma Bannister: I, I, I had a particular type of personality and I had never been in a business partnership with anybody before. And and I think one of my major challenges, which just me, which is my character, like having to change, having to be able to , resolving myself that, yeah, I could see how this business would be built.

Juma Bannister: I could be a visionary. I, I could lead and that that's not a problem, you know, and that I don't have to know everything. And like resolving some of those things inside of my own mind and my own heart was one of my internal challenges that I had. And even sorting it out through conversation and through the process of discovering where we have to go.

Juma Bannister: Doing all that with a business partner while trying to do work, get clients and keep the business afloat. It could be a very complicated thing if you think about it too hard. But fortunately for me I d is a good fella and also God know what he was doing. And so over time I was changed, I was transformed, and I'm still being transformed to be somebody who.

Juma Bannister: Who could navigate in a, in a way that is accepting of the. Of the things I need to adjust in order to get the business where it needs to go, while also considering that is, is done in a, a, a purity of leadership and it's done in a context of collaboration and allowing for those things to be able to, to take To shape how we make decisions and all those different things.

Juma Bannister: And and, and the reason I I I, I, I know that's important because there had been in different businesses before I got to relate. And, and, and I've seen some good things and I've seen some bad things. And those things have informed where I, where I felt the business needed to go and where it shouldn't go.

Juma Bannister: And and I think that was one of my internal. Personal challenges? Not, I don't talk about it on a related level, but I felt it was important to say that. 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I think similar to that, one of the challenges that I would've faced is as a creative person, creative endeavors tend to be individualistic and is like when you are an artist, you have an idea of what this thing looks like when it's completed or when you've expressed.

Ayinde Smith: One of the things I had to learn was collaborative creativity. Mm-hmm. And I think people coming from a creative background, a lot of the people we, we will be talking to will be coming from creative backgrounds coming into business. And I think any, anytime you want to transport your creativity into a business scenario, you have to learn to be collaborative, lead creative.

Ayinde Smith: You have to learn to create with other people. You have to learn. Allow your creativity to be influenced by others and also be willing to share your creativity because you can have artists can be both, both arrogant and puffed up and also very reserved. And so sometimes you have an artist and they're too reserved.

Ayinde Smith: They go into a business situation and they just kinda let the environment ride over them. And then you might have an artist that thinks I'm a genius and you have to do what I say, or I'm gonna be pet. . Yeah, and I think one of the things that, that is good that we, we've been able to discover is the way that we could collaborate inside of our creativity and now each other's creativity to feed into the process, to actually do something more superior to actually do something superior, to actually create a better product, to create a better business, and eventually actually make us better businessmen and better artists.

Juma Bannister: Yeah. Yeah. And and it's true. I mean one of the things I, I think, like in preparation for this is that I, I kind of formulated a couple of questions that I would've wanted to ask you as well. But riffing off of what you just said is like when you start to, when you are an artist or you in any creative feel, whether it.

Juma Bannister: Painting, singing, dancing graphic design or any of these sort of visual and, and, and things that you could do, you do is usually individual as you said. So I would've possibly started let me see, I think like four different businesses before I, I ended up on Relate. Right. And all those were just me.

Juma Bannister: I tried to do it with somebody a couple times when it failed. But I never wanted to, to be in business alone. I, I, that was never my heart. I never wanted to be in business by myself. Right. As a matter of fact, I think to some degree I didn't want to lead a business, even though I was starting businesses, I still didn't want to lead them.

Juma Bannister: Mm-hmm. On your side, I would, I would kind of interject. How many business endeavors did you have before you ended up in. . Hmm. 

Ayinde Smith: As I, I was actually thinking about this recently, and every, if we include informal businesses, I probably would have started my first business in form four, and what I would have done, I would've, so back in the day, back in the day, there was the drag.

Ayinde Smith: On Frederick Street. Mm-hmm. . If you know the drive model on Frederick Street or where it used to be right now, I can't even remember what, what is there now? Mostly car park is there now. So the drive mo, 

Juma Bannister: so no, no. Sorry. I just remember, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. My bad. Let mean to interrupt. Yeah. 

Ayinde Smith: So in the drive model you can buy perfume oil, but this, the, the thing is in the, if you go into the model, you can buy them in.

Ayinde Smith: So around town, it was a thing in, in the nineties, you would have men selling perfume oil, all kinds of different scents, and it would be like an oil and little vials and you can buy them for 5, 10, 15, $20 kind of thing. And they sold them on the streets. They sold them in in city gate, that kind of thing.

Ayinde Smith: and then I see guys in, in school bought them. And so everybody bought them. And you, you know, you put on perfume before you go down the road, that kind of thing, because of course you're going an all boys school and when you go down the road, you're gonna see girls. So you wanna smell a little bit better than when you left.

Ayinde Smith: So then I realized, why am I, I, no. What I realized is that I could go into the drag mall by bulk RA oil by the vials. Go home, parcel them out and of course, make a profit because then when I come and I sell them, I'm gonna make a profit. So I think I did that maybe for a school year or maybe a school team in, in form four.

Ayinde Smith: And that might have been like my very first a business. And then I, I remember getting into t-shirts and designing t-shirts for sale. That was P B A. Yeah. Yeah. And then the last business that before I met you that I was in, actually, I actually had a school teaching photograph, not photography, teaching Photoshop and other design programs to other people.

Ayinde Smith: So I had a school doing that. So I had a computers and I would go to teach and, and that kind of thing. So. I would say I've always been interested in, in doing some kind of business, and that might have come from my dad because he was definitely a PJ man when and when. You know what we mean by PJ Andre Baker, right?

Ayinde Smith: Private job. So he worked as a building inspector, but he always had some other additional job to do as a draftsman. So you withdraw houses and draw buildings. and, and design houses for people. And so he was always doing a pj and I would see, like when he does a pj, he would get cash. Like I never saw his salary, but I always saw this PJ Cash.

Ayinde Smith: So in my mind it's like, yeah, business. You kind of have to get into business. And even now as I'm saying this, I'm not realizing how some of these things are influence me into getting into business. While being still, still definitely creative, but realizing, okay, business is the thing I want to get into and, and explore.

Ayinde Smith: So yeah, that, those would've been like the significant business endeavors that would, would have formulated part of how we developed and how I got to where I got to having met you. 

Juma Bannister: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think all of those things add value and really gave us a platform on which to build the this current business for such a long time.

Juma Bannister: And even if we didn't start our own businesses, we were also employed inside of businesses, that gave us the opportunity to see how some of these things work. And in particular, I think the. Place. The last two places I was in, I was employed at before going off a full-time on my own were very significant and I would explain why.

Juma Bannister: Now. That's for another episode maybe. Yeah. But I would just say that that was the case. Yeah. 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah. That's interesting. I always, what's interesting to me is that relates to, if I count it as a job, it's the longest I have been employed in a single company in my entire. . I actually have worked in numerous places.

Ayinde Smith: I can't even remember how many different places from, I started working at 14 part-time, of course at 14. When I did A Levels, I was working part-time and I never stopped working. Literally never stopped working. I have worked every single year since 14 till now. I, I just worked a number of different businesses and I've worked in small business.

Ayinde Smith: whereas just one person and is like, okay, this guy looks a little crazy doing some crazy stuff here. Big businesses and in between. So very interesting. And I never thought anything was wrong with it. It is always like, I will take another job as a progression. The, the new job would always be a progression.

Ayinde Smith: So it never felt like, , I was changing jobs because I was unstable. I definitely didn't feel like that, didn't I, I dunno if my mother might have thought that. I definitely didn't feel any kind of instability. Always felt like progression. And the other day I was thinking about it, it's like really serious.

Ayinde Smith: The longest job I've ever had. Yeah. Which is, which is good. I not a bad thing is a good one. 

Juma Bannister: I mean, you have a good boss. , you know? Yeah. , but rather mean yourself. Excuse me, what, what is the what is the next question that we have to go onto? 

Ayinde Smith: So we talked about some of the challenges of working together and challenges of relationships inside of business.

Ayinde Smith: Maybe we should probably talk about what are some of the factors that contributed to our success as a partnership over the. , 

Juma Bannister: right. So, so a couple things I think are very important when it comes to I mean, I guess, you know, I, well, first of all, I am, I'm always very hesitant to say, use the word success.

Juma Bannister: Only because I figured, I figured that we are on a journey and success is not like one point success. Continuous thing. You continually growing. So I could use the term loosely to define. The fact that we've been able to accomplish a set of small goals along the way of a longer journey, I can define it as that.

Juma Bannister: And even when you try to define success at the beginning, you can't, cuz you don't know where the journey will take you. All, you know, at the beginning is you want enough money to pay your bills. You know, you, you don't want to fail. All you know is that you just don't. To fail. Right? And in our case, we, we were also thinking about what was the purpose of this?

Juma Bannister: Why are we here? Was the purpose of this photography company and why are we here? And so from very early we were thinking about the deep things of why does the business exist and what was the real purpose behind having this thing running any way it should. Right. And, and I, so, so do you think that I spoke about Earlier.

Juma Bannister: The flip side of that, being able to develop in character also contributed to the success of Relate. Mm-hmm. . So me being able to submit myself to a process of transformation, personal transformation contributed to that. And also having you as a business partner was massive because it gave me a lot of flexibility to learn.

Juma Bannister: Like I wasn't always right about everything and I, I, you know, I didn't always approach everything in the best way. , but you know, you know the type of person who would be like a, I strike down with tools and walk out the job. You know, you're very tolerant and patient and you're kind of the antithesis to my personality in some ways.

Juma Bannister: Like I could be very much like Oh, we want this. Let's do it now. Let's buy this now or get this now or, or do it. You know, I put, put my hands in things and I will, I will, I will want to try it and I will work. And that's just the way how I develop. I learn things by doing. You are a lot more measured and you were like, well, why or why are we doing this?

Juma Bannister: And, and, and so on. So what happened is that there was a dynamic going on that allowed for us to grow in cycles that, that was, were safe, were just enough. , we're just bold enough to grow, but we're safe enough to keep the business sustained. Mm-hmm. . So we didn't string out ourselves too much and crash, but we also were not stag until the same time.

Juma Bannister: So I think the, the, that synergy and I would use this. Very loose company with synergy that, that, that synergy of both of us working together really was a big contributor to success and understanding too. I think a big part of it was understanding too des structure of how the, the, the, the, the business flowed.

Juma Bannister: As in, you know we know I'm the leader, but at the same time it doesn't make me. Act in a way that is detrimental or, or oppressive to anybody. As a matter of fact, I often would, I've learned to often just shut up and not say anything and listen and see what happens and even to listen. So over the years I've learned to do that, to listen more cuz I have a tendency to talk a lot.

Juma Bannister: And I think that that is something that has changed in me over the years. So they're all little different bits and pieces and I'm not even talking about, so you, you. I'm not talking about being business savvy or marketing or anything of that sort. All of these things are con, are, are connected to how you treat the person who you're working with and your character, your development into your character inside of establishing and growing the business.

Juma Bannister: And and I guess if you were to talk to business stuff, that could go on for a long time, but I think those are the most important things for me. Yeah. 

Ayinde Smith: I think you kind of pointed in similar direction that I'm. . I think one of the things that has made the relationship successful is a commonality of values.

Ayinde Smith: And I think those shared values are, are critical. And you people might have heard things like that before. Unless you actually work with somebody who either shares those values or don't share those values, it doesn't really hit home. And the worst thing is to be, is in a business relationship or any kind of close, dependent relat.

Ayinde Smith: with somebody who has different values to you, you're always gonna end up in problems. And so if you are, if anybody's thinking about working together with somebody, that to me, that's the starting point because I think that's one of the things that really allowed us to be successful. So they would be challenges, but if they point at which we approach those challenges is from a, a similar platform or similar value stance then we can be successful in resolving.

Ayinde Smith: and, and also when you're pursuing certain things, if you wanna pursue this thing on this side and I wanna pursue this thing on this side with two completely different sets of values, then there, there're gonna be problems. I think, I think definitely those, that's one of the things that that's one of, that is one of, if not the major factor in our success as as business partner.

Juma Bannister: Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I, and I love that you ended up with that term business partners because I think that people often think that having a business partner is a bad thing. As a matter of fact, there are some people who advocate not having a business partner. . And of course in a world of business, we've seen it go both ways.

Juma Bannister: We've seen people who have had business partners and done extremely well, and we've seen people who have had business partners and has crashed the business. And and in the early days, I think even in recent time, people have approached me and said, well, how do you, how do we as business partners make this thing work?

Juma Bannister: And and you know, I mean, I mean, you could probably do an episode on that, on how the dynamics of duality or plurality in leadership? How does it work and how you structure that system in order for for it to work? We could probably do an episode on that sometime in the future. Yeah. But I think understanding that it's not just one person who has to put their hands and everything.

Juma Bannister: There are lots of stuff I do not do or I don't have to think about, and that for me is a massive thing. There's some things that I doesn't have to think about. There's some things that both of us don't think. . Right. And, and, and I think building structures where people can focus on the things that are important for the growth and advancement of the business is, is very, very important for the success in business as well.

Juma Bannister: Right? 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah.

Ayinde Smith: Okay. 

Juma Bannister: All right. What's next? My water.

Ayinde Smith: How much time, how long, how much longer you think we should, we've 

Juma Bannister: been talking, we'll be talking for 48 minutes. Yeah, no, 

Ayinde Smith: yeah. I see now. But how, how much longer do we think we should do the last 

Juma Bannister: three questions? Yeah. Do one more and we'll see how it goes, and then we close off. All right. I'm gonna do our advice.

Juma Bannister: So alternatively we can just talk and we could split it into two. Mm-hmm. , if you wanna do that.

Ayinde Smith: All right. Okay, so next question I, I think we want to tackle is what advice would you give to others who are looking to build long lasting and successful business relationships in the creative industry? Now, I know you just mentioned we could probably do our entire podcast, and guys, if you want a podcast on that particular topic, our entire podcast on that, let us know in the comments or send.

Ayinde Smith: Send in your comment. and we can do that. But just in the time we have now, what advice would you give to somebody who is looking to build long lasting and successful business relationships, particularly in the creative industry? 

Juma Bannister: So when you're talking about business relationships, are you talking about internally or externally?

Juma Bannister: I was thinking, 

Ayinde Smith: I, I. Well, you could approach it from both areas, but Primar primarily coming off of our previous question, I would think 

Juma Bannister: internally. Internally. All right. Okay. So if, if you're talking about somebody, well, first of all, if you have a business partner, you're starting a business, it's very important to have somebody that you know is the clear leader inside the business.

Juma Bannister: And how it works is that, The site of where the business goes, comes from the top and it floats down into all parts of the business. And you establish relationships based on the understanding of the, the vision of the leader. Now that's not just the leader come in and telling everybody do this or do that.

Juma Bannister: It's not a doing thing. It's a site thing. And and it's an interesting dynamic because sometimes the leader. Herself or himself, they don't have all of the answers to the questions that, that, for the things that they're seeing and they're working it through as well. But being able to communicate and tell the team, or tell the persons who are closest to them, this, I'm seeing this thing and we have to work together to build this thing.

Juma Bannister: Right? I don't have all the answers, but that's where you come in. You as somebody who is now co-owner of this particular vision, of this thing that we are building. You cannot come alongside and help build it. And the closer you are to the leader, or let's just call the leader, the, the source of the inspiration or the, or the vision or whatever's happening, the more you are able.

Juma Bannister: See the thing anymore, you are responsible for helping that thing get built out. And and I think understanding that even in a partnership, even in a 50 50 partnership on paper, there has to be somebody who is the primary carrier of the vision of the company or knows the heart of the company or where it goes.

Juma Bannister: And out of that person outta that singular person comes. A sense of direction of where the business has to go, and then people gather around that. Now, again, it doesn't make the person, the, the how to put it, it doesn't make them infallible or it doesn't mean that they know have all the answers, or they shouldn't act in a way like, this is my vision and my thing.

Juma Bannister: The, the only way it works is if they understand it's not. That it is something that has been given to them to steward and they are bringing people alongside to build the thing out. And that's, and that's why relate is what it is. Even though and, and I will repeat, I said this earlier in, in, when we were speaking, I said I didn't really want to be, have a business for myself.

Juma Bannister: I, I wanted to always be in business with somebody else. But also, also to some degree, I didn't want to lead a business kind of way to some degree. I got over that pretty fast after we started together, but I could, but I didn't know how. and, and I think that for anybody, if they want to be successful and build those proper relationships, right one of the main things is that people understand where they fit in the structure of, of how the flow of vision goes.

Juma Bannister: And once they can grab that and understand that they are a owner and they're coming on site to build this one singular thing, if everybody has the same sight of this thing and everybody wants to build a singular thing, . And then it becomes much easier for the business to move forward because with people with alignment comes momentum.

Juma Bannister: And once you, once you have that, then you are able to, to, to build and move stuff. 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah. Very interesting that you talked about the singular leader. So I, I teach a class from time to time and I, I, I teach I actually say that exact same. So in talking about how our business develop plans and develop marketing plans in particular, I always started like at, at the very, very beginning, which is division.

Ayinde Smith: And one of the things I always say is exactly what you said. Division can only come from a single, single person. There's no vision by committee. There's no vision by management team. There's no vision by consensus. , a vision literally has to come from one person because anytime you add two people to the vision, you now have division or division.

Ayinde Smith: And and so I, I agree with that completely. And I think people kind of get caught up with who's the boss. Hmm. And, and so people go into situations and they're always concerned with who's divorced and I. in a business like ours, it's good that we don't have to worry about that kind of thing because there's no boss, nobody's coming to, to rough you up.

Ayinde Smith: Nobody's coming to tell you what to do, nobody's coming to, to, to drive you like a slave master is. That kind of dynamic just doesn't exist in, in relationship. But there definitely is visionary lead and. That's one of the things I agree that every business should have. You must be clear who the visionary leaders, and you must, and the visionary leader must be clear that that's their rule and their, and their job.

Ayinde Smith: And, and the way I put it is that their job is to ensure that everybody catches division. Their job is to ensure that everybody lay holes or appreh. Or, or comes into a full understanding of what division is, and then inside of what you are doing, you then pursue that so that you don't have people building kingdoms inside of the kingdom.

Ayinde Smith: Yeah. Cause you don't want that to happen. If I had to think about a piece of advice that I could give, give to people, I would think they would. Flexibility comes to mind. I think when you are working with other people, you have to learn to be flexible. If you are inflexible, if you're rigid.

Ayinde Smith: Immovable. Things will be a lot more difficult and you'll see a lot less success on teams. And I think if you pursue that side of yourself, so even if you think you are, I'm so inflexible, I think if you approach it from, okay, well, let me learn more about myself and let me teach myself how to be something different, you will actually grow as a person and as you.

Ayinde Smith: your relationship with that business partner would grow and that business will actually grow. So that was one piece of advice. I mean, we probably have a bunch of other things that we could probably say, but I think those two things are, are actually pretty spot on for people thinking about working with somebody else.

Ayinde Smith: Mm-hmm. in, in a business, and we'll probably do a whole podcast on team building and team 

Juma Bannister: management. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. I think that's, that's, as you said, spot onto your spot on, I ink that that is exactly right. All right, so we've been talking for 56 minutes. Should we, you wanna go ahead and then end it off?

Juma Bannister: Or you wanna do 

Ayinde Smith: Yeah, we can end it off. Yeah, so let. A little thing here. So guys, we are just starting this podcast and we are exploring what this is gonna become as we are delivering it to you. So if you have ideas, if you have things, topics you want us to cover, if you have ideas for different types of shows, feel free to write in, let us know.

Ayinde Smith: Comment below and let us know what you want us to do as we discover the shape of what is good to relate. Podcast is gonna. 

Juma Bannister: Yeah. And I, and I, and I would add to what I end this saying is that this is unlike, this is not a how to show, no, that's not what I want to say.

Juma Bannister: This, this, so this, this is the type of

Juma Bannister: rah ra ra ula la Okay. Nah, I'll not do that.

Juma Bannister: I was gonna say that. And this is not really a show that's gonna talk about the basic stuff, but this is gonna give you insights and ideas into some things that you might not usually hear. And in particular from a perspective, oh my God, what I wanna say, even you, this thing, I know I wanna say now, but I just wanna get it out.

Juma Bannister: Ah, they thought it is running away from 

Ayinde Smith: me. It's not a practical. Application shows more of a deep dive into understanding business 

Juma Bannister: relationships. Yeah, that might be it. Yeah. What ik

Juma Bannister: Yeah. And this, and this show is not, not so much about practical things that you do day to day. It's not tactical. You might get some tactical value out of it, but really it's a deeper dive into ideas, thoughts on how to run a business, what creativity is like. How you can market and create content as well.

Juma Bannister: We're gonna touch on that a little bit, but it really is a little deeper than the how-to version of a show like this. So we are hoping to really go deep and to talk about things that we don't usually talk about. In fact, I think this is probably I and D's. First, this is our first public thing together on social media like that we are doing together and it's probably This is your first social media thing.

Juma Bannister: I there, I'm not sure. I think no, 

Ayinde Smith: there was that one episode of the u CCC Show. Useful Content Creation show. Oh yes. Shameless plug. Useful Content Creation Show will be back season three. Yeah. Season three. Yeah. Season three of the useful Content creation show will be back. So check that out. 

Juma Bannister: Yeah. That's the, that's, that's the how to version of of it. That's, that's the tactical one. Yeah. Right. Thanks for joining us on It's Good to Relate podcast. We'll be seeing you. The show is gonna run once every two weeks. And you know, I was thinking, I, I was thinking Ayinde doesn't know this, but I was thinking it could be it's good to relate then a useful content creation then it's good to relate. So on the weeks that we do have, it's good to relate, we could have useful content creation and we can run it like that for a while and see how it goes.

Juma Bannister: And that might make. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So thanks everyone for joining us. I'll see you next time on the it's Good to relate podcast. Bye.

Ayinde Smith: Thank you everyone.