Straight answers on pricing, sales, marketing, positioning, hiring, growth and mindset for video production business owners. Den Lennie is an author and business coach for video production company owners, and these are his field guides: the questions owners actually ask, answered plainly.
Author and coach for video business owners. Three decades in production, five books, and VBA members generating $52M+ in additional revenue.
Coaching, community and tools: the Elite Boardroom and the proprietary AI toolset. Who it is for.
$52M+ in additional revenue across members, and what video business owners say about the coaching and the room.
The five disciplines a video business grows through: Survival, Control, Alignment, Leverage, Expansion.
Five books for video business owners over more than a decade, from Business for Filmmakers to The S.C.A.L.E. Method.
A video edit that blew past its agreed revision rounds and ended in a walkout. What the missing boundary really cost.
A hundred quotes in and still freezing on every one. How a real method ended the pricing anxiety.
Envying a competitor's calendar, not their clients. How a monthly retainer turned spikes into a rising floor.
One programme, one price: the VBA Elite Boardroom, with the price and what it includes.
The cost-of-delivery method: time, gear, overhead, margin. Build a price you can explain and hold.
The four things you give away for free (travel, delivery, storage, admin) and how to name them up front.
Name them, count them out loud, and have the money conversation before the work, not after.
What goes in the quote, and the three emails to send the client at each revision round.
When a budget is lower than the work, hold your rate and reduce what's delivered.
Margin, cost of delivery, break-even. Financial literacy is the quiet foundation under every confident price.
Give a real range, make scope the variable, and open a conversation instead of closing one.
Price from your numbers, not your nerves. Six checks before your next number leaves your mouth.
Free extra work is a boundary you never wrote down. Six checks that keep the work paid.
Four sections, one contingency line, and the fee that pays you to run the job.
Don't send the showreel and wait. Ask a diagnostic question first and quote the outcome, not the footage.
Authority isn't performed with jargon, it's demonstrated by asking better questions.
Stop asking permission. State the next step. A follow-up creates momentum, it doesn't ask to be chosen.
Drawing a line isn't losing the relationship. Absorbing the cost teaches the wrong lesson.
Warm is a wasting asset. The money leaks in the follow-through, not the introduction.
Owners over-engineer content and under-execute outreach. Pick one channel, execute, adjust from data.
Mine what you've already delivered before you commission the next shoot.
The swings are the shape of your marketing. Market a little every week, busy or not.
You don't have a lead problem, you have a "who am I for" problem. Niche on where your profitable work clusters.
Your background is usually your strongest positioning asset, and most owners walk straight past it.
Turn a deliverable into a monthly system so your business stops resetting to zero every month.
Account expansion is faster money than new logos, and most owners reach for the new logo first.
A big anchor client is a gift and a risk. Audit your clients, then find more like the best one.
Interview to filter, pay to decide. Never hire on the showreel alone.
The fear is always the same: what if the work stops? Use your profit to buy your time back.
Better systems rarely means software. It means getting the business out of your head.
Many tactical questions are a proxy for reassurance. The answer is usually evidence, not another tactic.
More revenue won't give you your weekends back. Build the business around the life.