About Simon Banks.
Thirty years in video production.
Now I help agencies build businesses that actually work.
Production background
I've been in this industry since the early 1990s. I founded Tallboy Communications in 1999 and have been running it ever since, through the crash of 2008, through the shifts in technology, through the moments when the market changed overnight and you had to change with it. Clients have included Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Age UK, Tui, and Sony.
Along the way I've co-founded and run several other businesses, including Atlantic Television in New York, which grew into a multi-million dollar company after I left to return to the UK, and Tracc Films in London, where I was brought in as Managing Director and helped grow revenue to over a million pounds with a team of 13.
What the hard parts taught me
Running Tracc taught me something important. When you're managing a team of 13 and pushing toward a million in revenue, you can find yourself spending most of your time on people management and chasing sales rather than doing the work that made you good in the first place. When sales becomes the obsession, client satisfaction quietly suffers. I watched that pattern play out up close.
Then Covid arrived in 2020 and Tracc was gone.
What I took from that experience, and from everything before it, is a clear understanding of what actually makes a production business stable. It's not just more sales. It's the right clients, proper systems, genuine relationships, and a business model that doesn't depend entirely on the owner being switched on every hour of every day.
Beyond the coal face
In 2016 I wrote How to Get Video Right, a practical guide for businesses on building a video strategy that delivers real results. Interestingly, most of the people who buy it turn out to be video producers, which tells you something about how much appetite there is in this industry for clear commercial thinking.
Off the back of the book I launched Simon Says Video, a podcast exploring video, business, and the creative industry. I've also been a guest on a number of other podcasts, talking about production, business strategy, and what it really takes to build something sustainable in this industry.
I also teach film and video production at the University of Westminster, which keeps me sharp and connected to the next generation of producers.
Why this? Why now?
The Creative Business Academy exists because of all of this. Not despite the difficult parts, but because of them.
I still run Tallboy. I'm still in the industry. When I talk about the pressures of running a production business, it's not theory.
I work specifically with video production agency owners and experienced freelancers who want more stability, better margins, more repeat business, and a business that isn't entirely dependent on them.
Is your agency ready to grow?
The Video Business Scorecard takes about five minutes. It looks at your client relationships, revenue stability, pipeline, and systems, and gives you a clear picture of what needs attention first.
Take the Scorecard
