🎥 Industry
Marketing & Advertising
⌚️ Time-to-Hire
2 Days
🖥️ Position Hired
Video Editor
💰 Savings
$50,000+
Steven Trister ran Video Sales Expert, a UK-based agency that produced video sales letters for service-based businesses — primarily digital marketing agencies and coaching programs. Every VSL ended with a call-to-action to book a call. That’s the business model. Clean, simple, high-ticket.
The problem wasn’t getting clients. Steven was closing deals. The problem was fulfilling them.
He needed a full-time Video Editor. Not a freelancer. Not a contractor he’d chase around for deliverables. A real team member.
He hired one through HireUA in 2 working days. Saved over $50,000 a year.
But before we get into how — let us show you what his editors actually produce.
The Proof: YouTube-Grade Retention Editing Built by HireUA Talent
Steven’s agency produced the video sales letters for HireUA’s website. The editors he hired through us are the ones who built the videos you may have watched before booking a call with us.
The first version was a text-based VSL that Steven narrated. It converted well. Then he redesigned it as a face-to-camera VSL — the version we use now. Our conversion rate went up significantly after the switch.
Here’s both:
Now, here’s why this matters if you’re looking to hire a Video Editor:
VSL editing is not normal video editing. It’s not “make it look cinematic.” It’s direct response. Every single frame has a job to do.
The pacing has to be relentless. Pattern interrupts every few seconds. Text overlays timed to narration. Visual hooks designed to keep the viewer from clicking away. If retention drops for even a moment, the viewer is gone — and the call never gets booked.
This is the same discipline behind high-retention YouTube editing. The formats are different, but the principle is identical: Hold attention or lose the viewer. A VSL editor who understands retention pacing can edit YouTube content. A YouTube editor who understands direct response can edit VSLs. The skill set transfers because the underlying problem is the same — keep people watching.
You can’t hand this work to a generic video editor who learned Premiere Pro from a Skillshare course and expect results. You need someone who understands direct response, retention mechanics, and how to structure a visual narrative that drives action.
Michael understood it. Within weeks.
That’s who Steven found through HireUA. And the proof is on this page.
The Freelancer Trap: Why Outsourcing Video Editing Keeps Failing
If you run any kind of content or creative agency, you’ve lived this story.
You find a freelancer. They do good work. But it’s not their main gig. Your project sits in a queue behind whoever’s paying them more that week. Turnaround times stretch. Communication goes cold. You spend half your day chasing people instead of producing.
Steven was dealing with all of it:
The timezone problem. His main freelancer was in Canada. 7-8 hours behind. That meant entire working days where Steven couldn’t get a response, couldn’t give feedback, couldn’t move a project forward. He described it as “waiting 7-8 hours a day to be able to engage with the freelancer.”
The priority problem. Freelancers have multiple clients. Your work isn’t their priority — it’s their side income. When deadlines slip, you have no leverage because they don’t report to you. They report to whoever’s loudest.
The quality control problem. When the Canadian freelancer referred someone else to handle overflow, it went sideways. Different quality standards, different workflows, no accountability. Steven was left holding the bag.
This is what happens when you try to scale a production business on freelancer labor. It works until it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, it usually goes wrong fast — right when you’re closing more clients than you can handle.
Steven was in that exact spot. More clients coming in, no reliable way to fulfill. Then the overflow freelancer blew up. Steven’s words: “a shitshow.”
That was the breaking point.
He already knew about HireUA — his agency was already a client of ours on the other side, producing our VSL. He’d also seen other people in his network hire through us and keep coming back.
So he pulled the trigger.
2 Working Days: From First Call to Hired
Steven reached out on a Thursday afternoon. Paid the engagement fee. Our team set up the Slack channel and started sourcing immediately.
By the next day — Friday — we’d sent over 4 CVs.
One jumped off the page.
“When I saw his CV, I was like — it jumped out above all the others,” Steven said. “Intuitively I was like, if I like the guy, I definitely want him.”
Monday morning, Steven interviewed. The first candidate was Michael — Ukrainian, background in film and movie production. Strong portfolio. The interview confirmed what the CV suggested.
Steven interviewed the remaining candidates to be thorough. Came back to Michael.
Two working days. Thursday afternoon to Monday morning.
“It wasn’t even three working days,” Steven clarified on camera. “Because it was in the afternoon that we spoke and paid on the Thursday. So really it was probably two working days because I interviewed Monday morning my time.”
From Weeks to Days: The Turnaround Transformation
Before Michael, a single VSL edit could take 4-6 weeks from start to finish. Between sending scripts to freelancers, waiting for timezone overlap, chasing revisions, and dealing with inconsistent quality — the production timeline was bloated.
With Michael working full-time on Steven’s hours (2 hours ahead in Ukraine, happy to work UK time), that dynamic changed completely.
Within a couple of weeks of onboarding, Steven could hand Michael a script and a voiceover, and Michael would produce the full VSL start to finish — without any additional input.
“I know that I can send Michael a script, a VSL script with a voiceover, and he can literally start putting it together now without any input from me,” Steven said. “It’s not been a month. It’s like a couple of weeks. That is insane.”
The target turnaround went from weeks to 4 days for a complete edit.
That’s not just faster. That’s an entirely different business model. Faster turnarounds mean happier clients, more capacity, and the ability to take on new work without the fulfillment bottleneck.
Steven estimated he was saving 3-5 days per project just on the editing portion alone. Multiply that across every VSL in the pipeline and the compounding effect is massive.
The Money: £3,000-4,000/Month in Savings
Steven broke down the numbers on camera.
A UK-based video editor with Michael’s skill set — someone who can handle dynamic editing, motion graphics, and full VSL production — would run about £4,000-5,000 per month. And that’s not cream-of-the-crop talent. Steven described that range as “middle of the road.”
Through HireUA, he was paying a fraction of that.
The savings? Roughly £3,000-4,000 per month. That’s £36,000-48,000 per year — over $50,000 in annual savings.
But Steven will tell you the savings aren’t even the best part:
“The amount of stress it has saved me… I now have complete faith in Michael and I know he’ll deliver.”
The stress reduction. The reliability. The ability to wake up, send a message, and get a response within minutes instead of waiting 7-8 hours. That’s not something you can put a number on — but it’s the thing that actually changes your day-to-day experience of running a business.
The Handholding Myth When Hiring a Video Editor
Here’s something Steven specifically called out that matters for anyone thinking about hiring an editor overseas:
Michael didn’t need hand-holding.
“He didn’t take long at all to grasp stuff,” Steven said. “He was like, ‘I want to be able to do this faster.’ I’m like — mate, we’ve just started working together, you know what I mean?”
Within two weeks, Michael was producing VSLs autonomously. Script in, finished product out. No micromanagement. No step-by-step instructions. No daily check-ins to make sure the work was getting done.
This is the difference between hiring from a traditional outsourcing market and hiring from Eastern Europe. Michael had real production experience — film and movie production background. He understood the craft. He wasn’t someone who needed to be taught video editing. He needed to learn Steven’s brand and workflow, which took days, not months.
Steven’s reaction when he first saw Michael’s CV says it all: “If I like the guy, I want him. And I think I would have put up with him even if he wasn’t a nice person — he’s obviously got the talent.”
Turned out he was both talented and a great fit. “I can totally see him being a significant part of the agency for years.”
Already Planning the Second Hire
Before they even started recording the case study, Steven told us he needed another video editor.
“I’m going to have to pull the trigger and hire another one from you very soon as well,” he said on camera. “It’s going to have to be done.”
The logic was simple. Michael’s hire proved the model. The savings were real. The quality was there. The stress was gone. Now the question wasn’t whether to hire again — it was how soon.
This is the pattern we see with nearly every client. Monarch Wave started with one WordPress developer and kept coming back. Visibly Marketing kept their designer for 4+ years before buying her out. Andre at KnowledgeX was already planning his next hire before we stopped recording.
One good hire changes the math. The second hire changes the trajectory.
Hire a Video Editor Without the Freelancer Headaches
If you’re running a creative agency, a content business, or any company that produces video — and you’re stuck in the freelancer cycle of inconsistent quality, blown timelines, and timezone chaos — there’s a better way.
We source, vet, and place video editors who can handle VSL production, YouTube editing, direct response content, motion graphics, and more. From Eastern Europe, Latin America, and beyond. Full-time or part-time, at a fraction of US or UK rates.
Candidates submitted in as few as 2 days. One monthly bill. No HR headaches.
For the full guide on what to look for when hiring a video editor, read our complete breakdown here.