We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Glessner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

Scaling up, for me, means taking on more significant projects rather than increasing the number of employees. We remain a nimble media production crew. Here’s how I started my company as a photography business and scaled it up to a full photo and video production company servicing Denver, Colorado, and beyond.

I started my business very young at the age of 16, and am now 23 years old. The strategies I used were simple yet effective.

1 Understand My Value – Recognize that not everyone will appreciate your worth, and that’s okay.
2) Create Opportunities- Go after opportunities that align with your future goals and objectives.
3) You’ll hear this a thousand times, You can’t fail unless you Quit.

Early on, I realized I was being undervalued and was destined for larger-scale projects. The moment I realized that, I honed in on building a solid, scalable team, with a network of over 400+ creatives available worldwide. Initially, I worked on smaller projects but put in so much more effort. As I transitioned to larger projects, clients truly understood and valued the services I provided, and the effort I put forward was well worth it at that point.

Creating opportunities means taking on projects that align with my long-term goals. My aim is to work on photo and video campaigns for iconic brands like Porsche and Nike. This requires bigger budgets, more preparation, larger crews, and a focus on solving problems, understanding strategies, and setting objectives. It’s no longer just about creating “pretty” projects.

Number 3 is self explanatory, but it’s true. I’ve had my struggles just like every business owner in existence, that’s a part of the game. But you can’t fail the game, if you never quit the game.

However, avoid doing the same thing over and over again, and expect a different result, that’s the definition of insanity. My dad told that to me when I was 10 years old, and it’s one of the only things that stuck with me now.

So don’t be afraid to try something different, and keep changing up your strategies, that can lead to new results that can help your business scale.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m David Glessner, I run DG WORKS, a Denver production company. We utilize strategic photo & video production to help transformative local + national brands thrive in today’s competitive market. We’re a team of innovative creative strategists, we’re here to help identify your brand’s pain points, problems, or the objectives of any project, no matter the scale.

What sets us apart from the competition is our genuine care for our clients and understanding of their perspectives when choosing a production partner. We also prioritize communication – as long as you aren’t spam, we’ll reply to your emails in less than 24 hours. Another thing that sets us apart is our streamlined process – we’re here ensure your experience goes as smooth as possible from start to finish.

I’m most proud of my constant ability to find more ways to understand our solutions from a client’s perspective. By putting myself in their shoes, I’ve improved our approach to better serve our clients.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients for me, has been undoubtedly LinkedIn. Every day, I am fortunate enough to connect with business owners, creatives, marketing professionals, and more. This platform has already led to some fantastic partnerships, and I can’t wait to see what opportunities it brings in next year!

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

There’s a lot of books that I can recommend so I’m just going to list them, they’re all very much worth it to read, and I’m postitive I’m not the only one with some of the books on the list:

In no particular order,

1) Profit First – Mike Michalowicz
2) Atomic Habits – James Clear
3) Any Hormozi book
4) The Mountain is You – Brianna Wiest

Contact Info:

• Website: https://davidglessnerworks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidglessnerworks/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidglessner/
• Other: Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/david_glessner/

Image Credits

Cover Photo by: Robby Reichert

BTS Photography by: Tyrel McIntire (Retouched by David Glessner)

All other photography is by David Glessner