Jeffrey Mendez Turned A $1,000 Investment Into $80,000 With Creator Wizard
When Jeffrey Mendez started his YouTube channel, El Jefe Reviews, he had high hopes. He was working a day job as a copier technician but was always buying new gadgets on payday to review online. He figured, why not make some side cash by reviewing those gadgets on YouTube?
He got started in 2017 and gradually grew the channel. When he passed 5,000 subscribers, brands came calling. Jeffrey was new to the world of sponsorship deals so he asked fellow creators for advice and got his first important lesson — you’ve got to negotiate. On his first deal, he quoted $1,000, but the brand came back with an affiliate deal.
“The affiliate deal was for 10%. My friend said, ‘listen, hit him at 25%, negotiate down.’ And we ended up landing at 20%,” says Jeffrey.
The deal was so successful that he ended up earning $8,000 — way more than his initial offer of $1,000. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Although Jeffrey negotiated, he neglected to get the offer in writing — call that lesson number two.
Scraping together knowledge from fellow creators and advice on YouTube carried Jeffrey through his first deals, but the biggest lessons would come later.
Going pro on YouTube
When Jeffrey got started on YouTube, he knew he wanted it to be a business, not just a hobby. He was inspired by tech review creators like Paul’s Hardware and Bitwit and was impressed with how they had both built communities around their content.
Jeffrey attended a meetup in the Bay Area for creators and started talking to those who’d been successful and it opened his eyes to the business opportunities that come with YouTube. Jeffrey was working long hours and supporting his wife with a disability and the possibility of supplemental income was a huge draw.
From there he started researching how to build a YouTube channel, consuming videos and guides. He posted his first El Jefe Reviews video on May 2, 2017 — a review of a dashcam. And from there, he simply didn’t stop.
It took less than a year to start getting a few small affiliate deals here and there, and by his second year he was able to pull in $1,000 per month between affiliate deals and AdSense.
“That was a game changer for a single-income family,” he says.
His subscribers and video views grew steadily — not with viral moments but by thoughtfully engaging a loyal audience who would come back again and again for fresh content.
That first big affiliate deal came about two years in, and not long after he got his first cash deal. A brand wanted him to make an in-person appearance for them at the Consumer Electronics Show. At first, their offer was just to cover his flight and event badge, but he got some smart advice to negotiate for his hotel and food costs to be covered, along with an appearance fee.
Piecemeal advice was generally how Jeffrey negotiated those early deals. He’d ask friends for advice or watch YouTube videos for creators, sometimes leaving questions in the comments.
“I was just trying to piece information from where I could, but I never even thought about trying to find someone or hire someone to answer these questions,” he says.
When Jeffrey discovered Creator Wizard
The first time Jeffrey encountered Creator Wizard and founder Justin Moore was after Justin appeared on the vidIQ podcast TubeTalk in November 2021. In that episode, Justin talked about how creators of any size can attract brand deals as well as best practices for landing sponsorship deals.
Jeffrey says he was blown away.
“Justin’s energy felt authentic to me, and it felt passionate. Like he cares enough about other creators that he wants to help them make not only as much money as possible but do it the right way where everyone wins,” says Jeffrey.
He was impressed with Justin’s deep knowledge and his advice for building lasting relationships with brands. He also picked up fresh advice, like putting time limits on content licensing — something that had come back around to bite Jeffrey before.
From there, Jeffrey followed the Creator Wizard YouTube channel, and everywhere else Justin was on social media.
He saw that Justin does consultation calls with creators, which caught his attention. Up until this point, Jeffrey had been doing a series of one-off, short-term deals. With one brand in particular, this had become a real pain because it meant a back and forth with the brand’s legal department every single time he struck a deal.
What he wanted was to build a long-term partnership with the brand and create a deal that would last for a year or more, but he didn’t know how to go about making it happen. That’s when he bit the bullet and booked a call with Justin.
New lessons from Creator Wizard
In that first one-hour call, Jeffrey learned more than in all that time of scraping together advice. First, Justin taught him that a good sponsorship deal is mutually beneficial. To do that, it’s a creator’s job to ask the right questions and find out the goals of the brand so that they can give them the best output. It’s not just a payday — it’s a partnership.
Another tip Jeffrey learned was to split up payments. A brand may be wary of how paying a large lump sum all at once affects its bottom line, so another option is to ask for quarterly payments. That makes the deal more budget-friendly for brands, allows the overall value of the deal to get bigger, and means the assurance of longer-term income for the creator.
Lastly, Jeffrey learned about how to negotiate content licensing. Will the content be used in paid ads? Where will they run? And what fees should be charged if they go over the limitations?
Justin also kept in touch, following up via email to problem-solve every issue. Unfortunately, that deal ultimately fizzled out due to turnaround at the brand. But that was okay because Jeffrey was able to apply all that knowledge to other brands and get new deals across the finish line.
“The beauty of this was I applied what he was showing me to other companies that I was already talking to. So within 90 days of that consultation, I had already 5Xed What I invested in the talk with Justin,” said Jeffrey.
And he kept it going. Now, Jeffrey says he’s turned that $1,000 call with Justin into $80,000.
“It was the best $1,000 I've ever spent in my content creation career,” says Jeffrey.
A whole new Jeffrey
Jeffrey now operates his YouTube business with a totally different perspective. He sees himself not just as a creator, but as an ambassador to brands.
A major thing that’s different is that Jeffrey learned he doesn’t have to wait for brands to come to him — he can approach them. That starts with building a foundation. If Jeffrey is interested in working with a brand, he now knows to feature that brand ahead of time with reviews or posts on social media. Then, when he approaches that brand, he can show them the results of those posts and videos.
“I’ll reach out and say, ‘Hey, so are you guys interested in a partnership at some point? My audience likes you guys. I like you guys. I think we can work together,’” he says.
He also comes prepared with a pitch deck or media deck. It outlines every reason a brand should want to work with him, like who his audience is, the traffic he receives, and the results he can deliver.
All that has added up to steady, reliable income from sponsorship deals, which is huge given that ad and affiliate revenue has been dropping across the board.
“It feels much more secure,” says Jeffrey.
Jeffrey’s advice for fellow creators
You can never stop learning how to be a better creator, but Jeffrey is at the point where he has some advice for anyone who wants to achieve what he has.
1. Get it in writing
Not getting a contract for a deal was a big mistake Jeffrey made early on, and one he’ll never repeat again.
And when you get that contract, don’t skim it. Read it all the way through and look for phrases like “in perpetuity” that you’ll want to negotiate around. Make sure you’re not allowing the brand your voice and likeness for as long as they want while only paying once. At one point in his career, Jeffrey had to ask a brand to stop using his image — he doesn’t want to have to do that again.
2. Charge more
“Whatever you're charging is probably far too low,” says Jeffrey.
This can be tricky because you don’t want to name a ridiculous price, but you’ll be better able to figure out what a truly fair price is if you know your own worth. Consider not just your subscriber count, but your engagement metrics and the multiple social media platform profiles you can leverage.
3. Invest in coaching
Jeffrey says that talking to Justin was an absolute game changer and he can only imagine what his business would be like now if he’d received help earlier.
Yes, that requires an investment. But for Jeffrey, it was more than worth it.
“You stand to make so much more with that knowledge than by winging it and hoping that brands reach out to you,” he says.
Make your creator dreams come true
Back when he first started on YouTube, Jeffrey only hoped for some supplemental income. Now he’s fully in the business of being a content creator. Even his day job has shifted — he now works with other creators at vidIQ.
Consulting with Justin allowed Jeffrey to turn his passion into reliable income. He’s gone from the idea of being a creator to building a brand, a community, and a bright future.
Jeffrey had engaged with a ton of content about how to grow his YouTube channel, but nothing had the same impact as Creator Wizard.
“This in and of itself was the most game-changing out of anything,” he says.
Learn more about how Creator Wizard can help you here.