Advertise on podcast: The Den Lennie Show

Information is no longer the thing a video production company owner needs to pay for. AI will answer most business questions in seconds. What it can’t do is know your business, or tell you what you don’t want to hear. This is my first episode since August, and it covers two changes. The first is how far AI has gone inside the VBA Elite Boardroom. Members now run quotes, proposals and client-facing production trackers through their own AI operating systems, which is a different thing from asking ChatGPT in a chat window.  The second is why I’ve taken the training people paid thousands for and made it free, as close to 40 Field Guides for video production business owners. What you’ll hear: What an AI operating system does inside a video production business, and why “if you can click it, it can do it” is now the ruleWhy AI advice tends to agree with you, and what that costs when you’re making business decisionsWhat’s in the Field Guides: pricing, quotes, revision rounds, scope creep, follow-up, getting paid, LinkedIn, positioning, your first hire and getting your weekends backWhat’s still worth paying for once the information is freeOver eight years, VBA clients have generated more than $52M in additional revenue. The Field Guides are built from the processes behind that number. Start with the guide that matches your biggest problem right now: denlennie.com/start Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Twenty-six video production company owners turned up to a webinar about finding clients with AI. When every attendee got a personal follow-up email asking for their key takeaway, four replied. This episode is about the silence from the rest. If you run a video production business and keep telling yourself you'll fix it later, this one is aimed at you. Den unpacks what that silence really signals (not disinterest, fear), and tells the story of the January his own camera package, close to $60K of Sony F5 and Zeiss glass, sat in a corner gathering dust while he lay awake over cash flow. A mentor made him sell it. That was the turning point. What you'll learn: Why "I'll do it later" just means delaying success, and what it costs you nowThe gear trap: why the camera was never going to win you the workWhat 26 attendees and four replies reveal about fear in the video production industryWhy mass-market gurus leave you feeling behind, and why judgment from inside your niche beats inspiration from outside itWho the Elite Boardroom is for, and who fits Ascend, in plain termsDen has spent three decades in production, around a decade of it running his own production company, and has personally worked with 178+ video production business owners who have generated more than $52M in additional revenue. If you're at $200K a year or above, or ten-plus years in business, go to denlennie.com/mentoring and make an application for the Elite Boardroom. Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

The gap that matters in video production right now isn't between owners who use AI and owners who don't. It's between people who read about it and people whose business runs on it. This episode is sixty days of receipts from inside a video production business coach's own company: the $16,000 website replaced by a $70 subscription, then replaced again by pages he owns outright. The subscriptions cancelled one by one (Otter, Grain, ElevenLabs, Calendly, Typeform) because an afternoon of building now does the job better. A registration page built and shipped in an evening, no page builder, no developer. What you'll learn: Why the boring back office (follow-up emails, lead lists, landing pages, reporting) is where a video production company leaks money, and why that's now buildableThe word-of-mouth ceiling: why referrals stall most video businesses between £80K and £150K, and why that's a systems problem, not a lead problemWhat eleven owners built in a room in London, including a prospecting engine that finds and scores fifty leads while you make coffeeThe tool circus warning: why subscribing to five AI tools this afternoon is the wrong moveAfter eight years coaching 178+ video production companies, this is the fastest shift Den has seen. Thursday 6 August, one hour, live, free, two sittings so nobody's up at 3am. Twenty-five seats per session, cameras on, no replay. Register: https://denlennie.com/london-recap Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Most video production company owners can quote a hundred jobs and still freeze on every one. This is the first of a seven-part run on the thing your clients quietly wrestle with most: getting paid properly. If you run a video production business and every quote still feels like a guess, this episode names why and hands you the fix. The problem was never the number. It's that there's no method underneath it. Inside this episode: Why experience never cures the quoting freeze, and what actually doesThe four-part cost-of-delivery method that turns video production pricing from a feeling into a calculationThe costs most owners leave off a quote: their time, gear, overhead, and marginHow to set a floor you can explain, so you stop folding the moment a client leans on your day rateThe one move this week that exposes the gap between what you charge and what the work truly costsDen Lennie has spent eight years coaching more than 178 video production company owners to add over $52M in combined revenue, with average client growth around $292K in eighteen months. https://denlennie.com/growth-strategy-session Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Three video production company owners brought a half-formed idea to one coaching call this week. By the end of it, each had a new offer to battle-test, and one had a website live the same day. That only happens in a room of peers. Most video business owners try to grow alone, second-guessing every move with no one to pressure-test it against. Episode 408 is what changes when you stop deciding in isolation, told through the three very different conversations that came out of one VBA Elite boardroom call. What you'll take from it: How a peer group turns a vague idea into an offer you can test in days, not monthsWhy smart video production businesses are building a second, fixed-price brand (the Qantas and Jetstar move)The Richard Branson question that tells you what a client's pain is actually worthWhy chasing a shiny new offer is the wrong move while legacy clients and a 180-day-late invoice are still leaking your marginHow AI workflows are becoming the real competitive advantage on the back end of a production business, not just in the footageDen Lennie has coached 178+ video production company owners over eight years, with more than $52M in added revenue across the room. If you run a video production company past $250K and you are tired of making every call on your own, the VBA Elite Boardroom is the room. Details at the link. Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Too busy to work on your video business is the most expensive position you can hold, and it has nothing to do with price. In this solo episode, Den Lennie breaks down the loop that keeps video production owners stuck.  The quiet promise to fix things once the workload calms down.  It never calms down, because the fix is the thing you keep deferring. Den shares a message from a filmmaker who wrote the same sentence five years apart. The real cost of running your video business the way you run it now, and why two or three tools set up properly can hand back ten hours a week. If you have ever told yourself you will sort the systems out when things settle, this episode is for you. Listen to Scale Your Video Business with Den Lennie. Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Most video business owners don't lose money in the quiet months. They lose it in the busy ones, and they just don't know it yet. This episode is for the filmmaker who's busy right now and feels fine about it. Calendar's full, invoices are going out, the phone rings. Nothing feels wrong. That's the problem. In 14 years of coaching 178 video businesses, Den has watched the same pattern repeat every year. Summer feels fine. September gets weird. October goes quiet. By January, the calls come in. And the founders who get hit hardest aren't the ones already struggling. They're the ones who were comfortable through the busy months and stopped sharpening. Inside this episode: Why busy is not the same as buildingThe 90-day lag and what it's already telling you about your autumnThe four sentences filmmakers say to themselves that all mean the same thingWhy comfort is the most expensive position in the market right nowWhat sharpening actually looks like when the work is already thereDen also shares why the London workshop on June 23 and 24 is directly connected to this conversation, who's already in the room, and why the tools being shared are staying private on purpose. If you've been meaning to look at this and haven't, that's data. If you've watched the page three times and not booked, that's also data. Both are telling you something about the position you're in. Listen now. 🎟 London workshop, June 23-24: https://denlennie.com/london-ai-workshop Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

If you run a video production business and find yourself saying "I have to be there" about almost every job, this episode is for you.  Den Lennie tells the story of a video production client who was exhibiting at a major trade show and was adamant he had to leave for a couple of hours on the first day to babysit an important client.  When Den checked in later, it turned out the client work had been covered by someone else, because a bigger opportunity had come along.  The episode unpacks why so many videographers, freelancers, and video business owners confuse indispensability with importance, and offers a simple coaching framework for testing whether you're actually as essential as you think.  Useful listening for any videographer making the shift from operator to business owner. Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Most video business owners I work with are scared of marketing. Because when it doesn't work, they take it personally. But you're either winning or you're learning. Marketing is just a series of tests to figure out what doesn't work until you find what does. What makes it harder is the market keeps moving. What worked last year might not work now. In this episode I'm sharing my current approach, confessing where we got it wrong recently, what we learned from it, and how we're moving forward. Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

I'm going to say it: filmmakers have the loneliest job.  You already spend hours editing on your own. When you're not stressing about the current project, you're stressing about the next project, and A.I. is making it worse.  You're already overwhelmed by how much you have to do and how behind you are on the edit. Now every time you look at YouTube, you feel like you're getting behind on AI, and that just adds to your stress. Today I'm going to share the most important thing you could hear all year. Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

In this episode, Den discusses the psychological barriers that keep video production owners from scaling. By shifting from a "cameraman" identity to a "CEO" mindset, you can turn awkward sales calls into predictable revenue. Here’s what you’ll learn: Why selling feels fake or pushyCameraman vs CEO thinkingHow to approach sales as problem-solvingWhy long-term relationships matterIf you want consistent growth without relying on referrals, this is for you. Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

If you are still opening Premiere Pro every day, you have a $100,000 identity problem. You’re performing $30/hr laboor in a business that needs $500/hr leadership. Today, I’m breaking down the 'Technician’s Ceiling' and the exact moment you must put down the mouse to save your profit margins. First of the "shorties" back on the feed. Straight out of last week's Elite call, where two or three members were wrestling with the same stuck point: they're still in the edit, and it's capping the business. The belief underneath it is the one I want to kill in this episode. The idea that your client hires you because of what you do on the tools. They don't. That's an identity you've attached to yourself, and it's the exact thing keeping you stuck as the operator. Richard Branson doesn't fly the plane. Nobody thinks Virgin is a worse airline for it. I talk through one client with a $160K/year account that nearly walked because the founder over-promised, hit a capacity wall, and the edit became the bottleneck. And another Elite client who just won a $67K government project in a technical area he knew almost nothing about, with four more in the pipeline. Potentially $335K of work, because he built the environment and the team instead of trying to be the one pressing the buttons. Then I walk through the S.C.A.L.E. Staircase from the book: Operator, Juggler, Stabilizer, Strategist, Scaler. Most people think they're further up than they are. Most are still in Operator or Juggler. The move out of Operator isn't more AI agents, more tools, or a more complex stack. It's simplification. Delete first, delegate second, defer third, in that order. Pat grew from $160K to over $2M once he accepted that the creativity was in building the team, building the machine, and buying back his time, not in touching the last 10% of the edit. If you want to know where you actually sit on the staircase, the quiz is at scalemethodbook.com. The question I'll leave you with: are you still the bottleneck in your own business? Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Episode 400. Eight years. 150,000 downloads. Clients doing over $60 million in revenue across that time. This one's off the cuff. I was packing the car for a week's camping with Sam when I realised we'd hit 400 episodes, and I wasn't going to let it slide past without saying something. No guest, no script, just me on the mic. The $60 million number sounds big until you work out it averages around $280K a year in revenue growth per client, which is the figure that actually matters. And the thing I'm most proud of isn't the revenue. It's watching Caleb have three kids, Grant getting married this year, Andres going from $300K to over a million. That's what this work is really about. I also get into why I recorded the audio version of The S.C.A.L.E. Method myself instead of using a voice clone, and why I think the video businesses thriving in an AI world are the ones leaning harder into their humanity, not further from it. AI tools are tools. A great human who can interpret a concept and move someone emotionally is not a tool, and that's where the real opportunity sits. Fourteen weeks straight this year. Time to go camping. Thank you for being here. Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

In this episode, Den  dives into a trap that many filmmakers and creative entrepreneurs are falling into: the "productivity" of building things you don't actually need. With the rise of AI tools and "vibe coding," it has never been easier to spend hours automating processes or building custom calculators. But Den challenges you to ask: Is this moving the needle, or is it just "Creative Arrogance" the belief that being busy is the same as being productive? Key highlights include: The Decision Avoidance Trap: Why we choose the comfort of building tools over the discomfort of reaching out to clients.The Effective Hourly Rate: A simple calculation to determine if your time spent "tinkering" is actually costing your business thousands.Humanism vs. Automation: Why humans can sense "fake" content and why your unique human perspective remains your most valuable product.The Difference Between $100k and $1M Businesses: Insights from the Ascend and Elite groups on why high-revenue filmmakers prioritise outreach over perfect workflows.Real-World AI Use Cases: A look at how to build tools that actually capture leads—like a non-profit quoting calculator—versus tools that just create more formatting work.Stop using AI as a convenient distraction. Tune in to learn how to filter your daily tasks through one simple lens: Is this actively getting me in front of a customer? Upcoming Workshop Den is hosting a 2-day deep-dive workshop in Central London on June 23rd & 24th. We’ll be building the assets that actually move the needle for your business. Spaces are moving fast and will likely sell out before going public. Interested? Email Den directly at [email protected] for the details. Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

What do you do when a high-value client leaves for a cheaper competitor? In this episode, we break down a real-world case study of a $123,000 contract that turned into a five-year deal. The secret wasn't a better pitch; it was a consistent content strategy that kept the relationship warm while the business was on pause. Here is what you’ll discover: Why your pipeline is a mirror of your activity from 90 days ago.The reason high-end clients don't care about your "viral" metrics.How to use "behind the scenes" content to build uncopyable authority.Why "cheaper" competitors are your best marketing tool (if you stay visible).Moving from "Technician" to "Farmer" status in your agency.If you feel you’re "too busy" to create content, this episode is a wake-up call on the true cost of being invisible. Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie