The trade is learnt by filming. What blocks beginners here, however, is almost never the technique.
Step 1: understand what you are selling
You are not selling an audience, you are selling files.
The brand distributes what you deliver itself, on its accounts and above all in paid advertising. Your follower count changes nothing about what it distributes.
What it buys holds in four points: respecting the format, meeting the date, clean sound, and the ability to follow a brief down to the boring details.
That is good news: none of those four points requires popularity.
Step 2: shoot your first pieces
Three videos are enough to start, provided they prove three different skills.
Showing a product with your hands, speaking to camera, answering an objection.
Film them with what you already own, in a category you rub shoulders with daily. A recent phone, a window and a decent microphone are plenty, and the sound counts more than the picture.
One absolute rule: an uncommissioned example is presented as such, and never carries the logo of a brand you have not worked with.
Step 3: the administrative part
It is simpler than it looks, and it is described in the box.
Three questions to ask an accountant in one go: under what regime to declare this activity, how to issue a valid invoice, and what changes when the client is established abroad.
Add a dedicated bank account. It is not an obligation, it is what makes the year legible and any check simple.
Step 4: setting your price
Two price lists, not one.
One for the local market, with short rights and distribution on the client's accounts. One for foreign and exporting clients, with paid advertising, a wide territory and a fast response.
In both cases the price is defended with the list of what is included: number of files, formats, revisions, duration of rights. A rate announced without that list means nothing.
Step 5: landing the first clients
Through proof, and on foot.
The first clients here are not found online: they are a hotel, a restaurant, a workshop, a shop, a clinic, to whom nobody has ever offered a video.
List twenty places you know, choose the one whose product films best, and offer a short, dated order rather than a meeting.
Add exporting and service companies: they pay better, often communicate in another language, and are far less solicited.
The first thirty days, week by week
| Week | What you do | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Two videos with products already at home | The start of a portfolio |
| 2 | A complete profile and a price range | A page you can send |
| 3 | Ten messages to active brands | The first replies |
| 4 | One order, however small | A real sample |
What is decided before writing to anyone
A category, a city, two formats and a price. A creator who cannot answer those four questions gets no second message.
What is useless at the start
A personal website, a logo, a business card. Three sharp videos are worth more than all of that together, and cost only one afternoon.
Step 6: moving from the one-off job to the recurring client
That is where the trade becomes an income.
Three levers. The monthly retainer, sold as a fixed date in the month rather than a number of videos. The batch, which replaces a single order with several variants. And the regular follow-up of a short list, every month, with no sales pitch.
The marker showing you are there: on the first of the month, you already know most of what the month will bring in.
Sources
Checked on 4 September 2026. Thresholds and rates change: where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source is right.
