The Content Crib Podcast
The Content Crib Podcast is where bold ideas meet real execution. Hosted by Eric Anderson and Chris Grosse, this show breaks down how to turn content into trust, attention into opportunity, and your story into strategy. No fluff. No filters. Just what works. Welcome to the Crib.
The Content Crib Podcast
From Caregiver to CEO: How Derek Berkey is Transforming Telehealth Through Personal Branding #10
Derek Berkey, founder of Invigor Medical, shares how he's building trust in healthcare through personal branding and consistent education while navigating an industry often defined by its worst actors. Through his transparent approach to complex telehealth and compounding topics, Derek demonstrates how showing up authentically creates meaningful connections and business opportunities.
• Grew from 1,000 to 6,000 LinkedIn followers in just seven months by providing value rather than trying to extract it
• Uses AI as a tool to amplify his voice while maintaining authenticity and adding his unique perspective
• Started career as a caregiver, witnessing healthcare challenges firsthand which now fuels his mission
• Emphasizes that healthcare interventions only work when combined with proper lifestyle changes
• Chose LinkedIn because it allows for deeper, more nuanced conversations about complex topics
• Creates content by finding interesting topics, researching deeply, and sharing surprising facts with practical applications
• Believes personal branding is essential because "people want to do business with people, not corporations"
• Recommends providing value and giving others a platform to share their expertise rather than flexing your own credibility
Welcome. Welcome Content Crib episode number 10.
Speaker 2:Today we are joined by a very special guest, derek Berkey, founder of Invigor Medical, he's truly cracked the code on building trust in healthcare, which is why we're here doing the podcast and we thought we would have him so. Through his powerful personal branding, Derek is not hiding behind the corporate speak. As a CEO, he's making complex telehealth and compounding topics one of my favorite topics accessible while navigating an industry under fire.
Speaker 2:Derek's approach show up, educate, constant education. Today he had a great post and lead with intent, because staying quiet means getting defined by the worst actors, especially in healthcare. Derek, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Hey, chris, thanks for the introduction. It's an honor to be here. Yeah, yeah, we're really really excited to have you. Yeah, thanks, derek. It was actually Chris who came to me. He's like no, we have to have Derek on the podcast. He's the man, he's doing cool stuff out there. He's, uh, he's really, you know, shaking it up and which is which is you know we? We talk about all the time about creating a ruckus and, uh, you're obviously creating a ruckus out there. So how did you all of a sudden get the or enter into the thought process that you were going to start doing what you're doing on LinkedIn, and how did that all come about?
Speaker 2:You know, that's a really good question. It's funny A while back I started in Vigor Medical. We started working with a company called Influencer Press. It's a PR company run by a guy named Ulysses Asuna and he's a really good guy, but he was giving us all these opportunities to kind of get in Vigor. Out there we got featured, um, and a whole bunch of really great articles, uh, by psychology today, um, forbes, you know a bunch of things like that.
Speaker 2:We got uh ad displayed in, uh, new York times square and it was just like a lot of really cool things happening and I had no platform to show them on. I'm just like there's all this cool stuff that I have nobody to show it to, you know. And so it kind of dawned on me I'm like I need to start working on my personal brand. I need to start working on um, building something, so that way, when these cool things that we're doing happen, I have, I have something that I can share them with, I can celebrate them with, and that you, I can, we can tell people what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So that kind of impetus started back in really the beginning of the year I was sitting at about I don't I'm fairly new to linkedin. Honestly, um, I so I don't know what's good or what's bad, uh, but at the beginning of the year, I started with about a thousand followers and today, literally right before I hopped onto the call, I just crossed over 6,000 followers. So essentially within the course of about what is it? We're in August now, so seven months, seven or eight months I gained about 5,000 followers, and so it's been a complete ride. I'm not expecting any of this whatsoever. I was just kind of trying to figure out okay, let me get my voice out there and find cool people that want to talk about health and about medications and peptides and compounding, and there's a large community of people out there, and I've learned a lot. I've met a lot of really awesome people, and that's honestly just been my overall strategy is just have fun with it and have really cool conversations with people, which is what we get to do today, so I'm really glad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I mean everything you're doing in terms of education and content creation, while also creating a personal brand. It's. It's awesome. I've been following along for quite some time now, probably pretty close to when you decided to let it rip on the platform we know as LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:So I wanted you to tell me a little bit more about why you chose LinkedIn over all the other social media platforms. Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm a millennial right? I'm 31. And so we're? We're in the same boat, chris wait a minute.
Speaker 1:All right, we're not, we're all millennials.
Speaker 2:Come on, guys but so the the natural indeclaration is. I looked at instagram. I'm like, okay, I should probably be on here, but like the more I looked at it, I'm like this just is not my format. I don't know how to start here. I don't know where to go. I did like to go.
Speaker 2:I didn't know the first thing and when I looked at LinkedIn, I'm just like you know, there's a lot of professional things that we're getting into and there's a lot of really cool things that I think people there would be more interested in. And, honestly, as I read the content that was on LinkedIn and I saw what the types of things people were posting on LinkedIn, I'm like this is more so what I gravitate towards, what I resonate with. I appreciate people that are willing to have deeper conversations about topics, that aren't just willing to boil things down to just like um, oversimplified fodder for the masses. Like I want to get into the nuances, I want to get into discussions with people. So that's really kind of what. What prompted me to start with LinkedIn is. The environment is just, if you want to take it a level deeper, it's the platform for that, and so that's what I really appreciated for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said it perfectly as to why I got on LinkedIn years ago. When I did it, I realized I need to have a voice in what I was talking about and I wanted people to hear it, but I didn't want to dance on TikTok or anything like that. Right, and that's just not me. But what was the two things? What was the easiest thing you found about LinkedIn and or creating content? And then, secondarily, what was the hardest thing you found?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I feel like the easiest thing was for me. I guess my general approach is I just like I'm not, I'm not here trying to impress anybody, right? You know, I feel like there's there's a bunch of different people on linkedin. There's people that are and absolutely no shade, right, because like we all got to make our living some way but like there's there's people that are there for b2b connections, there's people that are there to, you know, uh, coaches for for busy executives. You know that's everywhere and you know there's like certain levels of how good, good ones to not great ones, or you know, and everything in between.
Speaker 2:Um, but really it's like a lot of people are using linkedin as a platform to earn their living and I was just seeing it as like this is just a great platform for me to build my voice, and so I'm just gonna have fun with it, like I'm just gonna let my voice come out and and not have to worry about trying to impress anybody. Not, we're trying to worry about trying to like, um, get, extract value from people that I'm interacting with and rather really try to show up and provide value to the people that I'm interacting with, because, like to me that's like, if you want to grow a presence or if you want to build any relationship, um, providing value is like foundational to that. And then at that point, reciprocation at least the the real ones, as the kids say, like the real ones. They want to reciprocate that value back, you know. And so, um, that's really kind of what I was looking for. I'm looking to put value out, have fun, have good conversations and, yeah, it's been, it's been a great ride. Um, so, in terms of, like, what's been easy, it's just been easy to engage with so many great people, you know um, in terms of what's hard, um, you know, at the beginning I was just really trying to find a format that would work for me.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of hits, I had a lot of misses. Um, it's funny. I remember the first post I ever made that kind of went viral and now, looking back, it's barely a blip compared to some of the other posts I've made. Um, but the first post I went viral was about the hymns, uh, glp, one commercial, uh from from the super bowl, and I made a comment about it and I just it like I think I hit 50,000 impressions, which at that time I was just like completely blown away by Um.
Speaker 2:So I after that it's funny, the mindset I had is like okay, this is a big dopamine hit, this isn't gonna happen again for a while. So I'm just I took that mindset of like I know this isn't gonna happen again for a while and I just I'm just gonna continue to tinker with this and have fun. And so that took me a long time and so that was my first hit was in january, and then I didn't have another really big hit until and my first post that truly went like viral didn't happen until I think it was May or June. And so, like it took me a good amount of time to really hone in my process and figure out like what exactly makes something good take off, what exactly makes something go viral. And uh, it took, it took quite a bit of time to kind of figure that out. Yeah, so we have a mix of listeners. It's our content crib crew. That's pretty uh, you know in the thick of it and creating content.
Speaker 2:Then we have kind of the outliers that are posting here and there but like they just feel, like they don't have a structure or you know, plan of attack on how to shape their voice, but they're trying right, they're working on it, and then there's a small amount of people that just don't post at all. That listen, the lurkers. Yeah, the lurkers. Yeah, You're there in terms of like approach, planned off the cuff somewhere in between. What's your style? Yeah, you know it's funny. A lot of times it's very off the cuff, but then I try to add structure to what I like, what I'm thinking. So I scroll through LinkedIn and I see all kinds of content that like speaks to me, and one of them was the original post that went viral, was the Hems Super Bowl ad, and I saw so many people essentially attacking him, saying like, oh, this is terrible, compounding is like this terrible thing, and I'm like there's so much here that just needs to be unpacked and just like completely like debunked and things like that. So I just made a like. I had all these thoughts like surfacing in my head and so I'm like I just need to get it out there, and so I just whipped something together really quick and put it out there and it kind of blew up and I'm like okay, so this is the format, find something that is interesting to you, find something that you're just percolating on. You know that is like bubbling in your mind, um, and then, since then, I've actually created a um, I, I, and I'll be I'll be very open about this and, like I'm not trying to hide anything, I use ai for almost all of my posts. Every single post that I make like, for the most part, is, is written by ai, um. The one thing that I try to make sure I always do, though, is that I'm not just like serving ai slop to the masses, right, I'm not just trying to like no, definitely not. Yeah, and, and really.
Speaker 2:So my approach is I like do a brain dump into chat, dbt, of all the things that I'm thinking about. They're like this is there's so many nuance of nuances to this. You know, these are all the aspects to take into consideration. These are all the things that I'm really interested in. Then I I use like my favorite feature on chat to BT, and as soon as I came out with this, I was just abusing it is the deep research function, and I'm like, now, just like find everything you can on this topic, and it's like what kind of sources do you want? I'm like I want the highest clinical data. I want things that are empirically backed, backed. I want things that are done in randomized human control trials, like. I want the most significant data that actually means something to to not back what I'm saying, but to understand what the reality of the situation is.
Speaker 2:And then from there, I actually have a pretty set sequence of how I make a post and I'm more than happy to share it here as well. Basically, as soon as I get that deep research back, I tell it okay, cool, now give me the 10 most surprising and impactful points from what you just found. And so it gives me this list of like, these really hard hitting facts of like and I try to make sure it's specific facts like it's either a stat or it's like some sort of number of some kind, because, like, we want concrete, like, like, as humans, we want something concrete that we can latch on to. So it gives me these 10 like, really surprising facts. From there I then craft a hook that utilizes one of those really surprising facts, that then draws them in, and then build the rest of the post from there. Um, and really like.
Speaker 2:It's been a huge success. I've had quite a few. In fact, I have one recently that's really taken off. Well, yeah, that's really taken off, and it's using this format, taking things like research studies that I see from examinecom or from other really credible sources and really digging into it and then creating a post that unpacks it, not in a headline kind of way, but more of like here's what this actually means, here's the actual practical application of what the study can mean for your practice or for you personally, in your health or for any number of things. So that's kind of my process, um, and it seems like a lot of people have gotten a lot of value from it, and so I'm just like, oh, let's just keep doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause it's one of the things that we talk about a lot is you don't you know? There's this thing called the dead internet theory, where you know 90% of what the internet is. Is AI talking to AI, about AI and? Um, but I don't, you know, when I'm reading your content, I don't, I don't know at all. Obviously, you must put your own personal spin on a lot of it, which is great, but that's one to get. Since you brought up AI, I want to get your opinion on this. Do you think we see the day where we hit a button and AI does all of our hosting for us and takes care of everything?
Speaker 2:Or what are your feelings about that? That? Yeah, that's a really good question, and I remember, uh, in one of the first episodes, you brought up the dead internet theory and it really got me thinking. I think so it's like every other episode at this point. But yeah, yeah, I think I think the dead internet theory is true in the sense of and I'd probably call it more of like the dead internet hypothesis, because, like, we don't actually we don't actually know for sure, but like I this, so this, so this is derek's uh, dead internet in a theory or hypothesis is that when it's a chatbot talking to a chatbot, that's just creating ai slop, that's just creating spam that none of us want to have to deal with. Then, yeah, that's now taken up what 80 of the internet and like, and it's just all. That's just creating spam that none of us want to have to deal with. Then, yeah, that's now taken up what 80 of the internet and like, and it's just all that's going on, and it's completely separate from what humans are doing.
Speaker 2:But when you think about how ai works, it's incredibly iterative, so so it doesn't have necessarily any original thoughts of its own. Literally everything that it does is pulling from another source and iterating on it one way or the other. And really, people that complain about AI art, they shouldn't be necessarily complaining so much about that. It's stealing from other people. They should be complaining about that. It's iterative, but that's a whole different uh discussion. But essentially where I'm going with this is that the human, like human, humankind is so diverse. Humankind is so like each one of us are so unique not to get into the snowflake mentality but like each one of us has such a different approach to life that all you have to do is like, put your own thoughts and your own life experiences into this, this thing, and then it'll iterate on that and like, like if you think about the number of limit, it's almost a limitless number of combinations of things that exist in the world and your experiences. It like there is no way, even if if ai ran for a hundred years, that it could finish every single one of those combinations. It's like.
Speaker 2:So that's that's more of the approach that I take with it is it's like if you can utilize ai as a tool to amplify your voice and not as just like a replacement for your voice, it actually makes you so much more influential.
Speaker 2:It makes you so much more impactful because you can and this is what I've seen as well Like I would not literally like the amount of hours I would have to spend to make the posts that I have made on my own would have been prohibited. It would have been in the thousands of hours I've been able to do it, basically just like in my off time, and I'm able to still provide a ton of value Because, like, maybe somebody else is wanting to spend that off time to do the same thing that I'm doing or doesn't have the same unique perspective that I have, and so that's kind of how I see it. So I think that, yeah, there's 80% of the internet that's dead, that just bots talking to bots, but as soon as you insert that human element, you create this level of variety and uniqueness that literally can never be found anywhere else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great answer because I and I totally agree with you. I think it's. This is a huge opportunity right now. Obviously, ai is great for ideating and helping you create, you know, frameworks on what around what you want to do. But the minute you inject a little bit of human element in there which and I'll go down a deeper hole I don't think the other platforms do it very well. I think Instagram and TikTok and a lot of those are just, I mean, it seems like it's all AI based. And what's interesting is, I think and I said I posted this a little while ago but YouTube now won't let you monetize AI driven content, which is a huge, huge, it's a huge game changer, I mean, because it just obviously original, genuine content is going to be what those are. You know obviously what the well, at least what youtube is going to be pushing. So we'll see what the other platforms do. I, who knows, maybe that's coming next for them I hope they follow.
Speaker 2:Well, you brought up a good topic. Who knows, maybe that's coming next for them. I hope they follow. Well, you brought up a good topic. You brought up a good topic, eric, about monetizing and money, and I want to touch on this because there's a lot of people out there that are think to themselves well, I don't want to post on linkedin like what am I going to get out of it? What am I going to get paid? Am I going to make money off this?
Speaker 2:And I wanted to ask you what's been your biggest, you know, roi monetarily or not moment from showing up consistently. Really, it's just, uh, I think it's just the networking, honestly, like just being able to connect with so many people and have opportunities, just like land in my lap. That would have never happened otherwise. Um, honestly, like, when I saw that question, I was kind of like what, what is the biggest roi? And it's it's the cliche you know 80s answer it's the friends we've made along the way. You know it's like. But like, honestly, that's how I feel. It's like there's having so many great people on my network, so many people that I that I've met um and be able to like just talk to anytime I want that are just like these resources of, of of knowledge is just like a huge privilege in my mind.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm, that's why I'm on it. I can't even put an ROI on what I've gotten out of LinkedIn, just the you know people that I have done business with to the people that you know I will be doing business with in the future. I would have never known Chris if it wasn't for LinkedIn. So, yeah, there's a yeah, right. Well, none of us would have known each other for sure. Yeah, so it's. It's pretty interesting. Where do you see the future for you, derek? I mean, what is what is this? All you know? What are you striving for as you keep you know on your content journey?
Speaker 2:right now it kind of looks like I just find really cool studies and I share that. Um, you know, like for me, the, the thing that really drives a lot of this is actually like I've been in the healthcare field for over a decade now, um, and I actually started. I like it's funny somebody called me out for being in such a like cushy job of ceo and and you really need to spend more time out the field and like you're, you're just making all these decisions from your office and you're so far removed from everybody, um little. Do they know that like I started my career as a caregiver, working 16 hour days, completely understaffed, like seeing people lose their minds to dementia, people who were completely capable before, like having to sit in their own feces for 30 minutes while they wait for something to show up, um, and like that completely changed how I viewed health care and I'm really really glad that I started there. Um, I don't know where this is going to be in my future, but like health span and longevity and anti-aging, all that of trying to make people's lives better as we reach the end, that's a huge part of my mission, and so I'm really still trying to discover, like, how can I continue to push that mission forward? Because I've seen it firsthand. Like, how can I continue to push that mission forward? Because I've seen it firsthand?
Speaker 2:And you know, I started as a caregiver. I worked in physical therapy as an aide. I worked at an addiction therapy clinic where I help people get off of heroin and fentanyl. You know, and you know, I worked at a prosthetics clinic where I saw people in their later years literally lose limbs to diabetic neuropathy. You know, lose limbs to diabetic neuropathy, you know. So, like, I've seen this full gambit of how bad health can affect us in our later years on so many different fronts, and so I'm just trying to figure out how can we make sure that we get as many people across that finish line, you know, kind of at the end of our lives, that are living the best that they possibly can, and so I'm still very much in the process of discovery there and uh. But that that really is my mission is I want to try to help as many people there as I possibly can. Yeah, it I think, uh, in terms of what you're doing, it in vigor and with telehealth and educating on compounding and supplements and studies, and I want to get in to further into that, but I first wanted to get your take on how you're building your personal brand. Ties into building trust in the healthcare and how that's building to also grow your business. Yeah, you know, I think you included this kind of in the intro.
Speaker 2:Um, I think that the personal brand is so important to any kind of business right, because people want to do business with people. People don't want to like they see a corporation and and like their guard immediately goes up. They're like, uh, you know, here's some corporate that just wants to sell me. But like, if they know, like hey, no, derek is. Like he's not just trying to get me on some pill he talked about like the simple things that work all the time, like that's, if I had one beat drum to beat, it's. Like this doesn't have to be complicated, this is so easy. Like you just need to do a little bit resistance training, you just need to make sure you're eating, you know enough protein and fiber. And like real canned chicken, right, best, best value out there, 100, 100, you know. And so like it.
Speaker 2:But if they know like he's not just trying to push these drugs or pill on me, like he's all about lifestyle, then when it comes time for another like medical intervention to actually show up, then they might actually take it seriously. They might actually you'd be like, no, actually this could be good. Like, example, um, you know, like samoriland, for example, you know it's a peptide, uh, that a lot of people might not know about um, but I feel like could help so many. In fact, we've had so many patients come in one in particular comes to mind and obviously I won't share any info but like uh, they were experiencing osteoporosis and actually reversed their osteoporosis because they were taking samorlin. Like and like.
Speaker 2:To me, that is such a huge, it's such a game changer to be able to basically be anti-fragile in the sense of like you're, but you're protecting your body as you continue to age, and so, like samorlin is like, absolutely one of my favorites in your body as you continue to age, and so like samoreland is like, absolutely one of my favorites in terms of um, being able to increase lean muscle mass, being able to increase uh tendon strength and increase bone density and those kinds of things that, like uh, if more people, as they age, actually knew about it, could improve their quality of life. Um, so you know, but, like, if you're only taking some more Lynn and you're not exercising and you're not, you know, walking on a regular basis and you're not, you know, eating the right food, it's, it's. It's not going to move the needle, you're just going to be sitting in the same spot and you're going to be like saying why isn't this working? And but it's like it only works if you do the work. But when you're doing the work, in combination with this therapy, like, the results can be absolutely astounding. So, um, but that's a bit of a tangent.
Speaker 2:I think that, going back as well, to like, why is it important to get your voice out there, um, and to essentially represent your brand? Is that there are so many bad actors that are out there. You, you know these research chemical like, specifically in the compounding space, in the peptide space. You have these research chemical websites that are pushing these. Um, well, I should not throw around unapproved. I'm really worried that scott bruner will come after me.
Speaker 2:Um, and let's put down the slide. You know the bad hammer, but, specifically, like, medicare is not FDA approved for human use? Yeah, and not FDA approved for human use. On, the FDA's do not compound list, right, and it's like, if you're finding this on a site, then it's like most likely they're not getting that from a legit source. You know, they're probably just it's probably sitting in some 50 gallon drum in their garage right with their loan to cut corners because there's no regulations, 100 and so like. If you don't speak up, your industry is going to be defined by those people that then cause all of these terrible things to happen. So yeah, it's, it's definitely something I'm very passionate about.
Speaker 2:Well, tell us what are the big happenings with Invigor and where you see the next year or two going for you. Telehealth, I think you know we're really only in like the third inning in terms of telehealth and it has had a big. You know. They've had a pretty big first few innings, to say the least, with the GLP-1s exploding. But what's going on with Invigor and any things you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, with Invigor it's we're honestly just kind of staying the course. You know it's not really a sexy answer at the moment. We have some other endeavors that we're trying to get launched at the moment that aren't really quite at the stage where I can announce them yet. But you know it's definitely something to be looking out for.
Speaker 2:But in terms of invigor, we're just trying to double down on what works and, you know, like trying to make sure that we're making our customer service even better, trying to make sure that our telehealth partners, that that partnership is really good and that the workflows through there are going going really well. You know, honestly, um, we about last year we just started partnering with a company called dr telex and they've been they've been phenomenal to work with and, uh, it's been, it's been really awesome to be able to see the kind of level of care that they're able to provide to our patients, and so, um, really just doubling down on that. Uh, in terms of anything else, I I don't necessarily have anything more concrete to share with the world until it's like ready to go. So, but no very exciting stuff happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. Well, you got all. You got all kinds of great stuff going on. Derek and um, I want to thank you so much for coming on, and I can't believe our time is pretty much up right now, but thank you for coming on and sharing your journey and, uh, congratulations on all your success with your content and, obviously, educating the masses. And what you said more than anything is you're you're helping people, which is which is huge. I mean, you've helped me today. I was making some notes as we were talking, so I want to thank you so much for doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, derek, really really appreciate it, and I wanted to give you a chance to give one more piece of gold, because it's been amazing, thank you. But if you had one underrated move that's helped you grow your network or business through content on LinkedIn, what would it be of linkedin? What would it be? The one there, I think I think the one thing that it would be, and I'll just say this um, I think linkedin is a place where a lot of people want to get on and flex their credibility, they want to flex their knowledge, they want to show how credible they are. Um, and I would just advise people not to fall into that trap. Um, because as soon as you do that, then it's like really what it comes down to the way you grow your network and then, granted, you want to have your face out there and you want to be able to have people be able to know who you are and trust you.
Speaker 2:But where you're going to see the most growth is by having the mindset of I am going to provide as much value to these people, to my audience, as I possibly can. And if you think that the majority of the audience on LinkedIn are people that are trying to flex their credibility and flex their, their knowledge. If you give them the opportunity to do that, you're you know you're going to blow up, and really that's kind of did. My mindset is try to give value to these people and try to give them a platform to be able to show their expertise and just and it starts such great conversation that really gets things going. So that's really my, my one tip, that is, provide value and, uh, don't be too full of yourself. Make sure that there's there's something that can give other people kind of the spotlight, because, uh, really that's what it comes down to. That's how you're going to get more people in the door.
Speaker 1:Very very well said and uh, with that, thank you so much again, derek, for coming on and uh giving all those uh great nuggets and all that great information.
Speaker 2:Really appreciate it it's been an honor. Thank you guys. Thanks derek.