How To Start A Videography Business In 2027

Welcome to today's video. We are going to be going over how exactly to start a videography business in 2026 and into 2027. This is especially cool because I believe that moving forward, content and video creation is going to become even more valuable than it is now. It has seen a massive spike in interest and growth within the last, you know, 5, 6 years since TikTok came out especially, and how YouTube has developed into the biggest platform in the world. I think the, the time now, um, is greater than any other time of opportunity for a creative who loves making videos. And so if you're here today, my name is Darren. I've been running my content agency for about 5 years now, started outta my apartment. We'll get into that story a little bit. My whole goal here is to provide a ton of value for you for completely free, because I wish I had something like this when I first started 5 years ago. So let's go ahead and get into it. My story, a little bit of my story. I started actually in my college apartment. I went to college here in my city, went to university, and I got into real estate, decided I need to market for real estate. So I went to debt. I didn't have any money, so I had to use a credit card, which I don't recommend if you don't have to, to buy a Sony A7III. And that's how I started my entire journey. I got into real estate, Real estate media and real estate marketing started helping other agents market their properties and so on and so forth. So that was the whole business for 2 years. I did it out of my college apartment and out of our house when me and my wife first got married. 2 years in, I hit a ceiling, meaning I ran into the problem of Okay. I'm making okay money, right? And I say okay money. The first year I made negative $6,000. Um, that's what I reported to the IRS. I reported it as a loss only because I was in college full-time and I didn't have enough time to, um, go and do the whole thing that I, that I was supposed to. And I wasn't sharing this slide, so let me go back. Um, Started in a college apartment, obviously 2 years in. Um, once I figured out the problem, which being a freelance videographer is very limiting as far as what you can do and what you can offer, I decided, um, to kind of dig— take a different mindset approach of it. Um, and to be completely 100% transparent, one day I was about 2 years into running this thing, and I was like, Lord, what the heck do— what the heck is the next move? And I was doing a devotional, uh, in prayer, studying scripture, and I had a revelation. And the Lord told me to open up a podcast studio. At this time, I didn't know that was a thing. I had no idea that this, um, would lead to where I'm at now. But I was like, okay, I seem like weirdly confident about it. And there was like this unexplainable peace that came over me. But that's how you know it's from the Lord. The next day I went out and signed a 2-year lease for a little studio here in downtown. And yeah, our first client ever was $1,200 a month. And they're actually still working with us today, 3 years later almost. And we basically produce a podcast for them start to finish. We sell memberships, and so they're a member here at the studio, meaning they come, they get 8 hours of studio time, um, they get 4 episodes per month that we produce and distribute for them, as well as a couple Instagram Reels to go along with it to promote. With that being said, our humble beginnings. We, in October— Yeah. Our business reached a revenue of $33,600, which is a very big difference, right? And this is— that first $1,200 membership is whenever I first started realizing how powerful video is and how powerful podcasting and YouTube and social media can actually be for a business. So I kind of pivoted. We took the leap, got the studio, signed our first client. We were off to the races on this long, beautiful journey. Today's game plan for this video, I want to try to keep it as quick as possible because I respect your time. A little bit of my story, I already kind of explained how I got to where I am now. And so it's been really cool, a cool journey. Like, I wish I would have had something like this 5 years ago and I would have reached this a lot quicker. Let's just say that. the mindset behind, okay, how do you actually pivot from videographer to growth partner? What type of gear you need, how are you gonna get clients, what are you gonna offer them, and how to scale it up. Ultimately, like this type of business, if you're watching this and you're wanting to do like sports photography or sports videography or something like that, or just purely create as an art form, then this video's probably not for you. I'm talking about people who, hey, they are a little creative, they want to, use this creative skill that the Lord has given them to actually grow and scale something that can make significant amount of money. And so that's what we're gonna be talking about today. The mindset, like I'm saying, so you don't wanna be, I want you to reposition your mindset right now and change it from a videographer to a growth partner. Freelance videographers are all grouped into the same group and they are traded as a commodity service. What I mean by this is you go to the grocery store, you see, you know, you need a bag of sugar, right? There's about 15 brands that you get to choose from. Typically, depending on the person, you might go get the organic one that's a little $1.50 more, you know. If you don't care, you're gonna get the cheapest one. But people treat freelance videographers like this. If they need a video done, they're like, okay, these are our 4 Videographer options. Um, which one is the cheapest? Let's go with that one. That's typically how it goes. And so you're just fighting to the bottom. You do not want to be a commodity. You want to be treated as a partner. Trust me, you'll thank me later. Um, start thinking in long-term things and in your conversations even mention, hey, we only try to work with long-term partners. And so this looks like 6 to 12 month contracts. Mm-hmm. incentivize these long contracts, that goes a long way. Um, but that's what I'm trying to do is eliminate all the risk. If I am a videographer who is only doing individual jobs every month, trying to get new business every single month and nothing is recurring, I've been there the first few years. That's exactly what I did. I didn't know sometimes if I was going to make any money the next month. That drove me nuts. It made me want to pull my hair out, right? So our job as a business owner and the founder of the thing is to keep, keep it running, make sure it continues to run and feed itself and ultimately grow. And so mitigating the risk, getting rid of the risk is the best way that you can possibly do this. And in this type of business, this type of industry, it's via retainers. How can we work with people long-term? To build brands, to build businesses to where they see an ROI, where we see an ROI, everybody wins. When it comes to this type of business, the high-level overview of how this thing works, this is what we use for our business as well as our client's business. So it's a 4-step process, right? We get the attention through content, through podcasts, through YouTube channels. We make videos and content to get as many eyeballs as possible. Ultimately, we're doing marketing things. You're going to be making content about your own brand to start off with. If you're starting off and you have zero experience or anything, we'll talk about what type of content to post. But this is the high-level overview, right? So you're going to want to create Attention, as much attention as possible. Make content, use your page as a test page and as a sample page. It's an experiment, right? You're going to do a project, you're going to put out a video, you're going to see what happens. Take note of the result that it gets. Was it good? Was it bad? Why was it good? Why was it bad? Take note of it in your mind. Take note of it in your phone. Like, I don't care what you do, but you've got to constantly be learning and become a student of the game. So create as much content as you possibly can. You're gonna then create certain call to actions within your content, and you're gonna funnel people, the people who are interested potentially in your service, say, hey, I'm offering 50% off for the next month, or for your first month if you join as a member, as a, or as a content partner of ours. In the next 24 hours. So give a little bit of urgency, say, hey, we have 2 spots. We're wanting to add 2 more content partners to our list in the next 24 hours. If you sign up, you get 50% off the first month, obviously. So the people who take that, and this is one of many examples, the people who take that offer will comment the word video or fill out the form or fill out the application, go to the landing page. signaling that they're interested in that thing. You're going to then meet with them and you're going to talk to them. And I like to think of the 3rd step as like a doctor, right? You go to a doctor when you're sick, you have symptoms, you have problems that you need to be— you need to have solved. They're coming to you with problems that they need solved. And so whenever you're talking to them, use their language, like words like ROI, return on investment. But you're going to take what they tell you, and you're going to actually prescribe them what it is that you believe is the best plan of action for what their problems are. And so you're going to prescribe them, write them a prescription of exactly that, right? And then you, then you talk about the money. If you sit here and you know all their problems, and I'll talk about in a minute how to find out what those problems are. If you know all their problems and you can put pen to paper and be like, okay, I'll solve it by doing this, solve this by doing this, and you now have a game plan of how you're going to solve every one of their problems, they're willing to pay you pretty much whatever they want, whatever you want, which is then how you end up becoming a partner, right? And that could be a flat rate, a performance rate, however you want to set it up. Quick, also, If you're enjoying this video so far, which I hope you are, I hope you're learning something. I wish I would've had something like this 5 years ago. And so I have made a community that is for you to join if you're a videographer who is stuck in the freelance trap and you're trying to grow it into something that's a little bit bigger so that you can continue to scale. 'Cause whenever you're freelance, you're limited by your own time. And so if you're looking to scale, if you're looking to have somebody to guide you along the way, check out the link in the description. Let's get back to the presentation. I appreciate you for spending your valuable time with me here today. Let's keep going here. This business wins because it makes more than a regular job. You get to work fewer hours than a regular job. And when I say regular job, 40 hours a week. Sometimes you work more, sometimes you work less. Time freedom, you get to work whenever you decide and whenever you want for the most part. And you get to actually work with clients who you want to work with. You have to hire and fire clients. That is a part of the unfortunate side of running a business. But the first thing, let's talk about gear, right? What gear do you need? I would say the best gear that you can get is the one that you already have. If you have a camera, great. Go start making free videos. Go start getting a portfolio created that way, and testimonials, like get testimonials so that way Whenever people— you go to try to sell your next project, you have proof that, hey, I've done this before. These are the videos that we did. This is the results that we got them. And it's going to be that much easier to sell every time. If you have a bank of 10 of these testimonials, it's going to be very hard for the people to object to anything. So at the beginning, focus on experience, focus on getting the good relationships and the testimonials and the portfolio that you need. If If you have to take out money for a camera, then you got to do what you got to do. Like I said, I did this. Use your iPhone because iPhones are scary good nowadays and use that until you can actually afford to buy the camera. You can also rent cameras. Fun fact, there's a lot of rental websites that you can use. So you're going to need a camera. Just use the one that you already have to start off. You're going to need good audio. Good audio is more important than a good video. If somebody's scrolling and they see a video and it's bad audio, then they can't hear anything. They're just going to keep scrolling. If it's good audio, but they can't— it's kind of out of focus, they're going to keep watching. It's wild. Either find a place, you know, that has no outside audio, or Go and buy a wireless mic, um, and that will get the job done. You can plug it directly into your phone or camera. Uh, find a free editing software that you want to use. CapCut and DaVinci Resolve are good free options. Canva is a good free option. We use Adobe Premiere Pro. Um, that's a little bit more advanced, but there's plenty of YouTube videos teaching you how to do it. Um, and work ethic, which a lot of people surprisingly do not have nowadays. You have to be disciplined if you're going to be starting a All right, let's talk about how are you going to actually get clients, right? So you're going to be, first of all, making as much content as you possibly can. And so one of the formats that I love to see, to do, if I was starting today, this is the format that I would use, build in public, right? So day 1 of hitting $10,000 a month in my video business, and then That's the hook. And then just vlog the rest of your day. Like, what are you doing? Get some Meta glasses if you have them and record POV shots or get your phone and record what you're doing. People want to see this. People want to see you grow. They want to see you win. And they like to binge series. They like to binge series. And how do I know that? Look at Netflix, right? Netflix, people binge for days on end if they find a show that they like. So you want your content to feel like a show. That's a good option. So the next thing, whenever you're talking to clients, you have to talk in the language that they want you— that they can understand. What do I mean by this? Like I brought up ROI a minute ago. How do I explain ROI to a roofing company? This is a great example. Say I know a roofing company goes out and I even ask them sometimes, like, how does their profit margin look? I know they're charging $20 grand for a roof. It costs them $10 grand to do it. The other $10 grand is profit. So I know they're making $10,000 profit per roof. I can go to them and be like, okay, we're gonna charge you $7,000 per month. Hypothetical example. Or no, we'll say $5,000. $5,000 in a month. If we can make content in a way that brings you in clients, how many clients would it take for you to make a return on investment? And they'll be like, oh gosh, well, 10,000. I mean, $10,000 from one roof. I mean, that's doubling our ROI right there. That's doubling our investment. And so you don't really have to prove anything else after that. The value of the, the value that you bring to the table as a videographer. Like usually this is a good mindset shift because they're, they're now thinking less of, oh, I'm paying for videos and now I'm paying for results. Video is just the way to get there, right? So if you can speak to their pain points, if you can speak to these things and tell them what they want to hear in a language that they understand, that's whenever you start to unlock. These bigger contracts. And the more you talk to business owners, the more that you learn. So get out there and talk to as many people as you can. Another way is to get embedded locally, like get some roots, go to networking events, join the chamber if you have one. I know that's kind of old school, but join business groups, form a community of like-minded people who live in the same city as you. Go to a church. Go to a church is so huge. The church and the relationships that I have developed organically through the church have been one of the biggest reasons that I have been able to get here today. And I believe that because, you know, the Lord provides. If it's something that you're truly supposed to be doing, your plans will succeed. And if it honors God, your plans will succeed. That's in Proverbs. But get embedded locally, get— talk to as many people as you can. This is another way. I'm just giving you facts after facts of of ways that you can do this stuff. And I'm trying to do it in a relatively fast manner. Way number 2, you can cold DM people, right? So you can cold DM them with an offer to make a free video or to audit their social, something of value. I like a free video because who doesn't like a free marketing video? If you can film a 30-second video, I want you to do this right now. Right after you watch this video, go film a 30-second video vertical Right? So hold your phone up just like this and say, hey, my name is blah blah blah. We're doing—we're adding on two more clients this month within your industry, and I love what you guys are doing. Would you guys be open to a free, maybe thirty-second hype video for your business? Like I want to shout you guys out, and maybe we can collaborate and get in front of each other's audiences. I want to do this only in hopes of maybe we can potentially work together if everything. feels good, if you like the work that we do and we think you'd be a good fit, then I would love to pursue a conversation. Would you guys be open to a free conversation, a free video conversation? And when could I stop by? Boom, hit send. That does wonders. I'm telling you, that does wonders right now. Anything else of value? Any lead magnets, any sort of value exchange there? You don't want to ask for money too quick. Like, provide them value, show them you can do the work first, and it's going to be a lot easier to close them in the long run. Number 3, this is my favorite way of getting clients. And if you're good at talking on camera, if you're good at talking to people, this is going to be a literal cheat code for you. You're going to start your own podcast. Yeah, congrats. You are now the host of a podcast. I have my podcast and it's called the Brand Builders Podcast. The whole purpose of the show, not only to build local like authority, right? But I'm, I'm inviting people who I think would be great clients. who match all the criteria, uh, who have profit margin, who are in industries that I wanna work in, who maybe need some help with social, maybe need some help with some updated videos, don't know the potential of creating consistent content, but would massively see the upside on this. I invite them on, have a conversation with them. It's such a stronger foot in the door than any other form of outreach. You're taking the time to sit down, get to know them, get to hear their story, get to know their struggles. Mm-hmm. And by the end of that, you're going to have developed a friendship because you've talked to them for an hour at this point and they know, like, and trust you. You know, like, and trust them. It's the highest conversion event that you could possibly do for this specific industry. If you're getting to talk to the owner for an hour, you're going to know their problems. You're going to know what they're doing. You're going to know what they offer, what they need help with. Then guess what? Like we talked about earlier, you can go prescribe. What exactly it is that you think they need to do because you are the expert. So that's pretty much it. The offer ladder, this is what I call— these are some of the different things that we offer, right? And there's obviously caveats, like we do implement AI stuff. We build landing pages, websites, build AI automations within CRM systems. If you don't know what any of that is, again, check out the school community. And I will be happy. We do calls every single week. I want to help you grow. That's why I started the thing. I don't make that much money off of it. I just want to help you grow. So reels, let's talk about reels for a second. We do package for reels, you know, $3,000 a month, $2,500 a month. Typically we don't do 30. I don't know why it put 30 there. Typically it'll be anywhere from 8 to 16 reels. We do do 30 reel options, but it's a bigger package, right? It's a, it's, it's an upsell. If you don't know what an upsell is, it's something that you can add on to the additional cost or the additional quote that you know they're probably going to need. Just another way to up the price. Podcast retainers. So we call this memberships, podcast members. Basically, they pay X amount of dollars for us, we charge $2,850 a month. So that's $2,850 a month. And we film, edit, distribute, on all the platforms for them, including social media management. And we help 'em with the business side as well. If they're wanting to release merch or need an application page for their podcast, like we can build it out because we have access to these AI tools. Combo package, that's a big one. We do, we have some who range anywhere from, you know, $4,200 a month to $7,500 per month retainers because they're doing both at the same time. And so At that point, it's more like, hey, we are a true growth partner and we are going to do our best using all of the tools that we have to continue to grow and bring you more leads and your more clients. If you stack 4 or 5 of these clients, you could have a $10,000 to $20,000 a month very, very quickly. It's all about getting in front of the right people. You cannot go to a local taco truck who is not making— no offense to them, I love taco trucks. But those are not your ideal client, right? You need to find industries who have high profit margins. Dentists, lawyers, um, construction companies, roofing companies. Like find these types of people who want to make content and then show them how you can help them and prescribe them a solution to their problems. Because everybody, guess what? Everybody wants more business and not everybody knows how to get there or how to make videos or how to, um, develop applications using vibe coding apps. Like, You are in such a valuable role now that there are people getting paid $250,000 to $300,000 in salary roles just to do exactly what I'm talking about. I prefer agency because I get to choose whenever I want to do the things and I get to delegate out a lot of the work. So that's how you hit $10K really, really quickly. So this is kind of the progression, Right. So you get your first retainer and you get your second retainer and your third retainer and you start stacking 'em up. Then you're gonna hire an editor. I think hiring an editor, include that in your pricing. That needs to be one of the first things that you do because it makes you give a better product faster and more consistently. Um, cuz you can, instead of having to edit everything, go, you can go out and sell more and make more marketing and, and do, make more content and get more clients and build relationships. Then you're going to hire a producer. If you decide to go the podcast route, this is what I've done. I have a producer that I pay here. We have a producer and we have a content creator. The producer basically schedules the people to come into the studio, sets it up, hits record, does mic checks, all the things, make sure it looks good, sends the footage to the editor, editor sends it back, she posts it to all the platforms. The producer does. I'm still involved at a small level as far as operations go, but in order for us to grow, in order for you to grow, you have to be out of that operator role. So every job that you get, I want you to focus this first year, the first 12 months, not on making money. Again, I made negative $6,000. I made it. I'm fine. Only like make what you have to do. You got to do what you got to do, obviously, but don't be super concerned about the money that you make because it's going to pay in dividends in the next few years. Your primary goal is to get the reps, get the relationships, build your network, and build testimonials and good reviews. That's going to be more important in building your foundation than any other thing, any type of camera that you use. That's gonna be the thing that sustains you for the long haul and making consistent content and making yourself visible and known. So I did this here in my small town, and small town I consider 150,000 people, and we are now at over $200,000 in annual revenue with only 4 people. I only have, I have a couple people part-time. I gotta pay for the studio. You don't necessarily need a studio, but if you can get one, I think it ups your brand value a lot. If I can do it, I have a finance degree. I don't have a marketing degree. I don't have a video degree. If I can do it, I believe that you can do it. And I say that because you watched all the way to the end of this video. So thank you. Send me a DM on Instagram @darendrevon or comment down below the favorite part of this video and the biggest thing that you've learned or the biggest takeaway. Or hey, what can I add to make it better? How can we make my business better? Right? I'm always up and game for learning how to do new things, making things better. Again, if you want guidance, if you want somebody to guide you through every step of the way, every single week we have weekly coaching calls in the school community below. If that's you, I want to see you in there. If you have any questions, again, send me a DM and I hope to see you guys in the community. Peace.