Interviews
Internet Marketing Guru, Ope Banwo, Itemizes Gains of His Free 7-Day Digital Business Workshop for Creative Artistes
Dr Ope Banwo, the CEO of the American Internet Business School, has said that the reputable business school will be organizing a free 7-Day Workshop for artistes, musicians, comedians, producers and entertainment executives as part of a digital business empowerment and awareness initiative for the entertainment industry. Tagged ‘Digital Business Survival Workshop’, the programme which kicks off on Monday June 29th and ends on Saturday July 4th, 2020, Banwo said, would be a lifetime opportunity for entertainers using the internet to create multiple income streams for themselves from their talents, catalogue, and brand and fan base.
In this interview, Dr Banwo declares that his team of time tested internet business experts will be breaking down one digital business income stream specific to the entertainment industry and providing attendees with the blueprint on how they can get started in monetizing their skills, creative assets and fan base as entertainers or entertainment executives.
He provides more insights below…
You are organizing what you call a digital empowerment workshop for entertainment practitioners, how do you plan to convince skeptics of the essential gains of the project?
Frankly, I don’t think I need to convince skeptics at all. I am not interested in those who automatically distrust any initiative to help them. No one can help anyone with a closed mind, so I don’t bother to try anymore. I have learnt over the years that it sucks too much energy and costs too much wasted time trying to convince doubting Thomases about any new initiative that can help them. Instead, I have learnt to focus all my energy on those who are looking for what I am offering. In order words, those creative artistes who doubt that the internet can help them maximize their brands and create alternative income streams for their careers, catalogue and brand, do not interest me at all. They are free to continue burying their heads in the sand about the amazing possibilities that are emerging from the digital marketplace and exploding all around them. Rather, I mostly try to download everything I know to help those who are curious, interested and longing for understanding and knowledge about how to exploit the benefits of the internet to improve their bottom-line as entertainers.
So, where does that leave the doubters?
One thing I have learnt in my lifelong career as an innovator and ideas catalyst is that the skeptics would come running once some of the other people have started manifesting the possibilities explained in my workshops. I have also deliberately made it 100% free to attend so the entertainers have nothing to lose by attending and, hopefully, they will learn one or two things.
Do you envision 100 percent success of the workshop considering that your targets are not all acquainted with this type of package?
I always consider my workshops to have been 100% successful as long as, at least, one person attended and benefited from whatever I have to share or teach. As long as there was internet connection and I was able to deliver the little I know, then it’s successful. Those who are skeptical about my wild ideas today and mock when I first come up with them often end up begging to pay for the content a few weeks or months after the launch. It has happened to several of my workshops in the past in different industries and these new monetization ideas I’m sharing with the entertainment industry would not be an exception.
Tell us more about the empowerment workshop that could be beneficial even to readers.
Topics that would be discussed during the programme are; ‘Affiliated Marketing Income Stream for Creative Industry’, a blueprint for using social influence, brand and following to generate affiliate marketing income online with other people’s products. Day two will cover ‘Info-Marketing Income Stream for Entertainers’ meant to create profits with brands and creative skills as well as launching info-marketing products. Day three will discuss ‘Freelancing Income Stream for Creative Artistes, which focuses on how to sell creative skills and services online for massive incomes for professional creative artistes in the global freelancing marketplace. Also, to be discussed is ‘Celebrity Dropshipping Income Stream’. This focuses on how to create a sustainable commercial line of client celebrity-themed products in 30 days or less with dropshipping without putting personal funds at risk, no investment, no inventory or distribution challenges. Day five will discuss ‘Celebrity Membership Sites Income Stream’, aiming to teach how to create and sustain a recurring income stream as a creative artiste with valued-added membership sites for fans and brands. The topic for Day six is ‘Social Media Income Stream for Entertainers’. This is said to be discussing simple strategies for turning social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter into bigger, more consistent and more sustainable income generation avenues. So, interested participants should key into the free workshop through www.Aibsonline.com/nolly Like I have said earlier, this is an online workshop where we will be sharing some of the digital business strategies we have learnt over the years that any creative artiste or executive can also use to create multiple streams of additional income for their brand, creative works and fanbase. Our American Internet Business School recognizes that even before the Covid-19 pandemic came and decimated the finances of many individuals and companies in virtually every industry, many creative artistes have struggled to understand how they could generate extra incomes from their talents, artistic catalogues and huge fan bases without huge investments of capital, technical skills or digital business experiences.
Do you particularly expect a large turnout at this new idea?
I do not measure my conferences or workshops by number of attendees, though we, of course, would love huge turnouts. Realistically, we know the majority of the creative artistes and entertainers will not show up and would be too busy for the opportunity to learn new things. That’s why the majority of artistes, in fact in any industry to be fair, are earning well below their potential all over the world. You can’t generate new income streams if you refuse to learn new things. Only the serious and the determined can make meaningful progress and those are the ones I excitedly look forward to seeing at the workshop. I also know that it takes a while for great ideas to be accepted by people, so skepticism is expected and I don’t use that as a barometer of my success or failure. It would have been 100% successful as long as some people catch the vision and start implementing some of what they would be learning at the workshop.
The aim of the workshop, obviously, is premised on the challenges that might arise post Covid-19, what are the long term returns for participants?
While the workshop is meant to help artistes to generate new sources of income for their brand, participants will learn to, one; create new streams of incomes from their existing and future repertoire. Two, creative artistes will learn something better to create recurring streams of income to protect themselves for years and years or come. Three, they will learn how to provide enhanced values for their loyal fans as well as monetize their fame in a way that will long outlast Covid-10.
You’re known to have a knack for planning multiple online-based events simultaneously, how do you set key milestones that result in smooth running of these plans?
The digital workshop for the entertainment industry is just a training camp to allow creative people understand some of the income stream opportunities that they can exploit. Since I understand the value of follow-up and further coaching for ultimate success, I always provide several follow-up opportunities that would be open to all attendees depending on their needs. To be frank, since I am not the government or a charity organization, those follow-up opportunities are mostly not free. In each of my presentations, after breaking down the blueprint of what people need to do to create the sustainable income streams, I always offer them an opportunity to go to the next level of implementation by themselves, or work with me and my organization.
In essence, the workshop is not 100% free…?
(cuts in)… The workshop is free but most follow-ups will only be for the very serious and mostly not free but they are there for anyone interested enough on going to the next level. The workshop is about creating multiple streams of additional income for creative artistes and as far as I know, any stream of income is about putting food on the table, and having clothes to wear. So, that’s our focus.
How do you derive the energy to keep working out ideas round the clock?
We can only give God the glory for the energy and good health to function at this level. For me, there is no secret. I have always believed that if you are operating in your calling and what you are doing matches what God has created you to be, you will always wake up with boundless energy everyday regardless of your age. When you love what you do, the energy to sustain it will always come. I believe I have been created to be an innovator and a catalyst. So I wake up each morning ready to innovate or catalyze ideas.