Episode one. Before the guests, the origin story.

I'm joined by my co-founder Reece Chamdal, Talent Management Director at

Cortex Collective Agency, to talk about why we built a creator agency

specifically for health and wellness, and what the rest of the industry keeps

getting wrong.

We get into how we actually met (student accommodation, first year of

university, mid-lockdown), why Reece walked away from dentistry after years of

studying it, and what working inside the pharmaceutical industry showed me

about the gap between how health brands market and how people actually decide

what to trust.

Then the part that matters. Why treating a clinician like a lifestyle creator

doesn't work. Why credibility isn't just a degree, and why lived patient

experience counts. Why a creator with a small audience is often worth more

than one with a huge one. And the uncomfortable conversation we have with

brands who come to us wanting conversions on day one.

We finish with rapid fire hot takes, including one we properly disagree on:

whether AI will replace GPs within twenty years. Reece says yes. My dad is a

GP. It got interesting.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome to Dose of Influence

01:36 Sport, science, and Reece's dentistry U-turn

04:06 Edric's pharma job that started this

06:42 What founders romanticise, and the guilt nobody mentions

13:26 How we actually met

18:40 Where health and wellness marketing goes wrong

19:21 Credibility is not just a degree

20:54 Why a small creator can be the right creator

24:20 The first red flag is the offer

29:31 The conversation clients don't want to have

33:19 What Cortex Collective actually does

35:53 What we look for before we sign a creator

37:21 What kills a creator deal instantly

41:32 Why clinicians hold back from posting

45:12 Where the industry is heading: balance vs extremes

51:10 Rapid fire hot takes

59:26 AI vs GPs

1:03:53 The perimenopause research gap

1:06:00 What would make this a failure in a year

1:06:41 One thing to take away

Follow Cortex Collective Agency: www.instagram.com/cortexcollectiveagency/

Visit Cortex Collective Agency's website: www.cortexca.com

Dose of Influence is for information and discussion only. It is not medical

advice.