Starting A Video Production Company

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Starting a video production company? Whether you’re just starting out in video production, or if you already have a video production company, I’ve put together a series of guides that will help put you on the path to running a successful and profitable video production business.

Matt Crawford Tweet

Starting a Video Production Company: What These Guides Can Do For You?

Having your own video business is fantastic.

Imagine this: You wake up at 9am, without the sound of an alarm clock. You open your eyes and dwell on the reassuring thought of not having to deal with an annoying boss who looks over your shoulder all day whilst you trudge away in a drab office cubicle.

No commute to work. No childish office politics.

You get out of bed, make yourself something to eat and shower whilst your coffee brews. You grab your brew and sit calmly in front of the computer. You work for an hour on some video editing work, catching up exactly where you left it on your computer screen the day before.

At lunchtime, you decide to chillout and go meet a friend at the local cinema to watch a movie. Why? You needed a break, but, more to the point, you wanted to.

You’re working for yourself. You plan for shoots when you want, you edit around your own schedule, and you meet clients when you want to.

This is the life I lead day in and day out. I take vacations when I want to. I get paid to travel all over the country and even overseas to shoot video projects for clients. I get to immerse myself in awesome cultures, meet fantastic people and live life on my terms.

Is This The Life You Want?

Having a video business is very achievable these days, and this guide seeks to lay down a foundation, a blueprint if you will, for starting out in business for yourself as a freelancer specializing in video production.

This site began in 2011 and was originally a place where I wrote mindset articles and kinda experimented with building a strong mindset for my career ahead. At the time, I was going through lots of changes in my life and building towards starting my own video production business.

Since then, I found great success by starting and growing my video business into a very successful company in the UK. I travel a lot and have great links in the USA, where I went to university for a while.

Lots of the early posts on the site are almost me kind of willing myself on to success. I have left them in-tact (mostly unedited) for all to see, because I feel they’re an important part of my journey and they could be great signposts for others plotting a similar course.

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A Little About These Guides To Starting A Video Production Company

So I hope you take this journey with me and follow along with the guides I’ve included on this site.

My hope is that they can help many more people out there achieve the kind of freedom and fulfillment I experience everyday from being out there doing something I love.

I’ll be adding to these guides and improving them day-by-day. My aim for them to be a launching point that people point interested parties towards.

As well the guides, I’ll continue posting all sorts of business and filmmaking related posts on the site. You can expect hardcore business and filmmaking posts, as well as practical, hands-on walkthroughs of technical tasks (like setting up a website for your business or starting a Google Adwords campaign).

Time To Get Started And Take Action!

In the video company growing guides that follow, I’ll include case-studies and back up my findings with hard evidence and screenshots where possible.

These guides and the plan laid out in them work, whether you’re looking at starting a video production company, or if you’re already established and looking for some pointers. But it requires action on your part. I’m not going to talk nonsense and say that you can get rich quick. This isn’t some scheme where you wake up one day and you’re rich. You need to take consistent action in order to make your video business take off.

With that said, take a look around, get used to your surroundings, and then knuckle down for some hardcore business building!

Happy Shooting!

Matt

PS, before we kick things off with the guides on starting your video production company, here’s a great video from Jordan Anderson (of Valley Films) on the first 100 days of your production company:

Sound good so far? Before reading further, click the image on the right, pop your details in and I’ll send you a free training on getting more video clients.

One of the biggest issues I hear again and again from people wanting to start their own video company is how to get clients.

There are 3 main ways to get clients flooding towards you, and I cover them all.

Starting A Video Production Company – The Guide

Getting Started – The Quick Start Guide

Lesson 1

Started This Site & Wrote These Guides

Introduction – Why I Wrote These Guides

I’d really appreciate it if you start this journey with this article and read through in the order I’ve laid everything out. It’s in your best interest, as the guides are set-up in an order that takes you from the start of setting up a video...

Introduction – Why I Wrote These Guides

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Lesson 2

Video Equipments

STEP 1: Getting What You Need – Video Production Equipment

These guides will take you from initial beginnings in video business, walking you by the hand through to a more intermediate understanding and will finish with more advanced concepts towards the end...

STEP 1: Getting What You Need – Video Production Equipment

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Lesson 3

Video Production Marketing

STEP 2: Getting Yourself Out There

You’ve probably heard about concepts like “marketing,” “sales,” “scalability,” etc etc, and wondered what on Earth they’re all about. I’m going to turn the business language down a notch for this Quick Start Guide and just...

STEP 2: Getting Yourself Out There

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Lesson 4

Videographer Workflow

STEP 3: Getting Your Work Done

So you understand how to market yourself and you know what kind of business you want to run. Now let’s talk about actually getting clients and doing the work. We’ve talked about ways to get your first clients...

STEP 3: Getting Your Work Done

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Lesson 5

How to Start Videography Business

STEP 4: Getting Paid & Growing

Now you’re well on your way to starting a video production company! One of the best parts about working for yourself is getting paid. In fact, one of the best parts of doing any kind of work is getting paid. We all appreciate...

STEP 4: Getting Paid & Growing

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Lesson 6

Starting Videography

16 Mindsets For a Successful Video Business, Part I

We’ve discussed some ideas about marketing, sales and doing the work, and we’ve laid a strong foundation in the Quick Start Guide for how we want our video businesses to be. It’s important to strengthen that foundation...

16 Mindsets For a Successful Video Business, Part I

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Lesson 7

Filmmaker Tips

16 Mindsets For a Successful Video Business, Part II

In this part, we’re going to cover a range of mindsets and answer lots of questions, including What Exactly Is Success?, How To Focus on The Future, How To Cover The Marketing Code, Why Money Is All Around Us, and more...

16 Mindsets For a Successful Video Business, Part II

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Marketing & Selling Your Services

Lesson 1

How to Market a Video Production Company

How To Have Clients Knocking Your Door Down, Part I

So we’ve learnt about the 16 Mindsets that we need to grow a successful video business. Next, we come to a section that a lot of people were probably looking forward to: how to get clients! We’re going to start from...

How To Have Clients Knocking Your Door Down, Part I

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Lesson 2

Video Business

How To Have Clients Knocking Your Door Down, Part II

We’re going to be handling all sorts of marketing topics and clearing up a lot of issues created by the worlds of business and marketing, who often make things fair more complex than they need to be...

How To Have Clients Knocking Your Door Down, Part II

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Lesson 3

Videography Marketing

Crafting Your Message: Your Audience, Your Ideal Client & Your Message

It’s time to start working on the message we want to communicate to our market. As we have already discovered, once we know our market and the services we want to provide to that market, we need a...

Crafting Your Message: Your Audience, Your Ideal Client & Your Message

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Lesson 4

How Much to Charge for Videography

Crafting Your Message: Packaging, Prices & Promises

If you’re following along with the process from the beginning, it’s now time to form our Penetrating Promise, as we move along with crafting our message. All great business relationships are based on trust and...

Crafting Your Message: Packaging, Prices & Promises

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Lesson 5

Crafting Your Message: Websites, Social Media & Your Network

We’re diving into more depth with creating the message you will use in your marketing. As always, if you haven’t yet started at the beginning of the guides, you can find them here. The first part of Crafting Your Message is here...

Crafting Your Message: Websites, Social Media & Your Network

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Lesson 6

Video Production Sales

How To Close The Sale Everytime, Part I

We’ve talked about marketing, positioning and crafting the message that you want your target audience to hear. At this point, you’ve been marketing yourself and getting Initial Meetings with clients...

How To Close The Sale Everytime, Part I

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Lesson 7

How to Sell Video Work

How To Close The Sale Everytime, Part II

It’s time to talk about developing selling systems and what to do once you’ve got the close and made the sale. We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s jump in and start selling our services!

How To Close The Sale Everytime, Part II

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Getting Work Done & Getting Paid

Lesson 1

Goal Setting Tips

Working To Maximize Your Success, Part I: Goals & Motivation

In this section, I want to talk about some different and more advanced methods of taking your business to the next level. I have lots of great tips on productivity, time management and ways to maximize your success...

Working To Maximize Your Success, Part I: Goals & Motivation

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Lesson 2

Productivity Tips

Working To Maximize Your Success, Part II: Finding More Time

In this part of Working To Maximize Your Success, we’re going to look at managing your time, avoiding procrastination and certain strategies that will improve your time management and have you working like...

Working To Maximize Your Success, Part II: Finding More Time

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Lesson 3

Filmmaking Clients

How To Deal With Clients As a Freelancer

It’s all about setting boundaries and becoming acutely aware of the potential for these nightmare clients to rear their ugly heads. In so doing, we eliminate the bad clients that we’re already working with and make our...

How To Deal With Clients As a Freelancer

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Lesson 4

business value

Business Value: What Are You Presenting To The World?

This is a concept that will literally change your results overnight if you embrace it in the correct way. It’s something that will move mountains if you understand and focus the armies of your mind on this quality...

Business Value: What Are You Presenting To The World?

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Lesson 5

Filmmaking Finance

A Guide To Videographer & Filmmaker Finances

Freedom is something that can’t be taken for granted. In fact, it’s your destiny. Something that people really don’t talk about is videographer or filmmaker finances. Money is one thing, but being financially free is where it’s at....

A Guide To Videographer & Filmmaker Finances

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Lesson 6

Make Money in Videography

Go Out There, Make Money & Be Successful

Not every detail and nuance can be gleaned the first reading through, and most people who are taking action on this will want to follow the guide through bit by bit whilst they take action on each segment...

Go Out There, Make Money & Be Successful

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12 Comments

  1. BIG List of Video Production/Filmmaking Resources

    […] Video Business Guides: "Whether you’re just starting out in video production, or if you already have a video production company, these guides will help put you on the path to running a successful and profitable video production business." […]

    9 years ago Reply
  2. EXPERTS SHARE THEIR TIPS ON VIDEO PRODUCTION PRICING - FILM FESTIVAL | INSTITUTE | PRODUCTION

    […] it down to just working with small business owners for this example, maybe the biggest challenge I’ve had with working out performance-based deals […]

    8 years ago Reply
  3. MKAY

    I love your job

    3 years ago Reply
    1. Matt

      It’s not too bad! 😉

      3 years ago Reply
  4. Mirabel

    Great! Thanks for an impressive guide!

    3 years ago Reply
    1. Matt

      Thanks, Mirabel!

      3 years ago Reply
  5. Estella

    great info on starting your video company!! thanks!

    3 years ago Reply
    1. Matt

      Appreciate it, Estella.

      3 years ago Reply
  6. david schuval

    wow ….. great article

    2 years ago Reply
    1. Matt

      Thanks, David.

      2 years ago Reply
  7. Mark P

    This was a breath of fresh air!

    6 months ago Reply
    1. Matt Crawford

      Thanks, Mark. Appreciate that.

      4 months ago Reply

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