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Sam Tejada is the Founder and CEO of Liquivida, a leading wellness company offering vitamin IV therapy, medical aesthetics, and weight loss solutions across the US. Under his leadership, Liquivida has grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Sam is also a former firefighter and the author of How To Win In Modern Wellness, a collaborative effort with the top CEOs and leaders in the wellness industry educating readers about the benefits of preventative therapies.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [04:22] Sam Tejada talks about the inspirations driving his unique approach to modern wellness
  • [05:57] How Liquivida was born from a side hustle on a firefighter’s off days
  • [08:09] Why cultivating strong relationships is key to growing wellness business partnerships
  • [14:23] How Liquivida developed a proprietary, safe, and convenient IV therapy product used by physicians nationwide
  • [17:23] Sam discusses the comprehensive testing methods that set Liquivida apart
  • [23:17] The evolution of Liquivida’s services and its dual franchise model
  • [32:50] The marketing strategies that have helped Liquivida gain visibility and attract patients
  • [35:37] The American IV Association and its mission to standardize and promote the IV therapy industry
  • [39:46] Sam explains the benefits of having mentors as an entrepreneur

In this episode…

What is it about transformative wellness that draws people in? Could it be the allure of personalized health solutions that cater to individual needs — or perhaps the promise of a better life? In a world where stress and unhealthy lifestyles seem to reign supreme, how can a brand turn the tide in favor of holistic well-being?

A former paramedic firefighter, Sam Tejada, tackled these pressing concerns by embracing a unique approach to modern wellness. He uncovers how he founded Liquivida, a multi-million dollar wellness franchise offering personalized health services. Sam reveals his strategic approach to developing his business by seamlessly integrating Liquivida within an existing wellness center and cultivating profound partnerships. He shares his innovative solution to create safe and standardized IV therapy products, now used by physicians nationwide.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Sam Tejada, Founder and CEO of Liquivida, about the evolution of modern wellness. Sam discusses Liquivida’s inception, how cultivating strong relationships is key to growing wellness business partnerships, and explains how Liquivida developed a proprietary, safe, and convenient IV therapy product.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special Mention(s):

Related episode(s):

Quotable Moments:

  • “The first step we take is we do a lifestyle assessment and questionnaire.”
  • “Relationships are one of the most important things when it comes to business.”
  • “Everything has to be fireman-proof, fancy word for ‘idiot-proof’.”
  • “Focus on three things: visibility, notability, and becoming the authority in your space.”
  • “You never know who can be your business mentor; it could be your customer that’s right in front of you.”

Action Steps:

  1. Embrace a comprehensive health assessment: This approach provides a data-driven foundation for a personalized health plan, addressing root causes rather than just symptoms.
  2. Build strong relationships and networks: Cultivating relationships with mentors, business partners, and even customers can provide invaluable insights and opportunities.
  3. Invest in continuous learning and content creation: This not only establishes authority in your field, but also increases visibility and notability.
  4. Explore innovative business models: This flexibility allows for scalable growth without the high costs typically associated with starting new ventures.
  5. Prioritize quality in products and services: Use data and research to develop high-quality, standardized products and services to build trust with customers and differentiate yourself in a competitive market.

Sponsor for this episode

At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.

We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.

What do you need to start a podcast?

When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.

The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.

We make distribution easy.

We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.

Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90xAtariEinstein BagelsMattelRx BarsYPOEOLending TreeFreshdesk, and many more.

The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.

Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.

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Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different. I have Sam Tejada of Liquivida. Sam, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of podcasts people should check out, since this is part of the health and longevity series an Inspired Insider, some other ones to check out. I had Dr Michael Rose, who a 40 year research project of does aging stop? And I think he had it was 40 years of this fruit fly study, Sam was super interesting of how he increased the lifespan. Now, the fruit fly lifespan is not large, but that was his research for 40 years ongoing. Another one was we talked about immortality and ultra-marathons with Dr Bill Andrews. I was watching this Netflix special on longevity, and Dr Bill Andrews and Aubrey de Gray were on there. And so I’m like, well, I might as well ask him to come on and talk about it. Another good one was Yuri Elkaim. He has the company Healthpreneur. Really interesting one. And many, many more. One of my favorite ones is Dr Michael Fossel, MD, PhD, talks about his research on telomerase therapy, so that was interesting as well. Check those out on inspiredinsider.com. This episode is brought to you by Rise25.

At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. And how do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. Sam, we kind of call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background to make it look easy for the host so they can run their company, create amazing content and create amazing relationships. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com, or email us at support@rise25 and we’ll answer any questions that you have.

I’m excited to introduce today’s guest, Sam Tejada. He’s the author of How to Win In Modern Wellness. He’s actually a former paramedic firefighter. His company has taken a personalized approach to modern wellness with his company, Liquivida. This is a special place in my heart because my background in biochemistry as a chiropractor, they really help get to the root cause of some of these issues for people. Sam’s one of the co-founders of Liquivida, which is a multi-million dollar company with franchise locations throughout the US. We’ll talk a little bit about what is the qualification. So if you’re like, oh, this sounds great, you could possibly contact them if you’re a fit.

Sam actually couples his medical background with a deep desire to help others lead healthier, happier lives. And actually the company helps with transformative wellness services. They cater to individual needs. So we’ll talk about some of the services, but IV therapy, weight management, regenerative therapies, hormone replacement therapy, advanced esthetic procedures and many more. There’s a cool 40 minute video on YouTube that kind of actually gives a full tour of the office and the services. So Sam, thanks for joining me.

Sam Tejada 3:52

Thanks, Doc, thanks for having me here.

Jeremy Weisz 3:55

Just start off with I know that you came from the Dominican Republic, and, of all places, moved to Wisconsin, I think your parents were trying to torture you, like, If I lived in Dominican, I’m like, okay, let’s go to the coldest place ever, which is Wisconsin, because I’ve lived there, talk a little bit about growing up, because I’m sure you got some inspiration for your parents and maybe that entrepreneurial spirit as well.

Sam Tejada 4:22

Absolutely, and you’re, you’re absolutely right about the Dominican in Wisconsin. Everyone always asks me, they say, how did a Dominican end up in Wisconsin? And I would ask the same question all the time, but the answer to that is my uncle and my aunt, they both were living in Wisconsin. My uncle actually came to the United States to study and he met his wife, my aunt, Choice, but she’s already passed away. And they’re both architects, and my parents are architects. So when my parents decided to migrate here to the United States at that point in time. This is back in 1988 there were certain programs and visas that were available, so they had to make that decision, because that’s the time when it was available.

And the best decision to come to the United States wasn’t the typical route that Dominicans go, which is New York, right? They end up in Washington Heights or somewhere there in Manhattan. They went where my uncle was at, because he already established his footprint as an architect. My parents are both architects, so my parents were able to come here to the United States and be able to work in their field of study, which is architectural.

Jeremy Weisz 5:39

So I know, fast forward a little bit. You were a paramedic firefighter, and you had to, well, a lot of firefighters start a side hustle, right? And so how did the idea of Liquivida come about?

Sam Tejada 5:57

So, I started at the fire department at a young age of 20, and I worked in the fire department as a firefighter paramedic until age 32 got vested in the pension, was able to retire, and halfway through that 12 year career, that’s when I started Liquivida. So how did that come about? So the first six years at the fire department, I was working part time on my days off with a company called senogenics. So senogenics was one of the pioneers in alternative medicine, where they did a lot of these executive physicals, and they catered to some of the who’s who, right, some of the most affluent individuals on this globe. And a lot of these individuals, they have homes all over the world, right? They have homes in California, Colorado, have homes here in Florida, and then many other places around the world.

I started having a lot of these patients when I would go see them about every three months for those six years or so. I’d go to their home and I’d draw their blood. That’s what I did for senogenics. And they were bringing up this whole vitamin IV therapy stuff. So by the time I had, like, the fifth patient bring this up and tell me about, when they go back to their homes in California or Colorado, it’s typically an off duty firefighter paramedic who does these IVs. I said, you know what, let me look into it. So I started, you know, surfing the internet, and I saw what was going to be my competition, which a lot of them are my customers now, and I said, you know what, I can do this, and I can do it better. And then that’s where the idea was actually launched.

Jeremy Weisz 7:36

Sam, I know you gave a TED Talk, and it’s really about relationships. And one of the things that it seems you have a great skill set in is cultivating talent. So talk about when you decide to start, because you started Liquivida with $500 but that’s not really the whole story. The whole story is you really cultivated and created this amazing team, right? So talk about the talent that you surrounded yourself with when you started Liquivida.

Sam Tejada 8:09

So relationships are everything. And early on, when you’re doing the introduction of the podcast, you mentioned that, relationships is one of the most important things to you. And I caught that because that’s same thing with me. It’s one of the most important things when it comes to business, and it’s relationships with everything relationships with your business partners, relationships with your vendors, relationships with your customers, with your business mentors. Those relationships, when you cultivate them, they can become into bigger and greater relationships, and that’s what I talk about on my TED Talk. So when I first started the company with $500 in my back pocket, it was really supposed to be just a side hustle on my days off from the fire department, just like how most firemen, they always have a side hustle on their days off, because we were 24 hours on, and then we’re off for 48 hours. So we always try to supplement our income.

So, when I started the company, and I started seeing the traction that we were creating, and people were driving an hour and a half to come get these vitamin drips, that’s where I said, you know what? I got something here. I got to develop this into something bigger and greater. And the hard part for me is on a fireman salary, it’s not the easiest thing to do, especially when you start thinking about franchising. So after a year of opening up Liquivida and starting the business, I decided to put a new entity together called lQV management, which has five partners. It has the Chief Medical Officer, it has the Chief Marketing Officer, the legal counsel, the CFO, and then myself as operations. So my goal with that was to create a group of partners that would put in sweat equity to build this company to what it is today. And it worked. Obviously it comes with its challenges. Partnerships are not the easiest things to do or handle, but as long as you can focus on building strong relationships with those partners and making sure that you’re aligned with the mission and the goals that we’re trying to accomplish as a business, it can be very successful.

Jeremy Weisz 10:25

So Sam was the original. And by the way, if someone’s watching the video, if you’re listening to the audio, there’s a video version. We’re on Liquivida site, and we can see the about page here was the original, then version of Liquivida Mobile, like you’d go to people’s homes and do the drips, until you actually had the first physical location.

Sam Tejada 10:48

It wasn’t. Actually the mobile service is something we added to it. So I think you’ll get a kick out of this one, because obviously your background as a chiropractor is my first Liquivida location. What I decided to do, I said, you know, I don’t have the cash to actually open up a brick and mortar. How can I go ahead and start this IV business and still have that retail location in a brick and mortar? So there’s a chiropractor close by my house, Dr Howard Newman, and he had a beautiful Wellness Center. He was a chiropractor that was just far beyond the times, right? So he’s the chiropractor. So his facility was called East West physicians, where, basically he took eastern and western medicine and integrated together. So he had a facility that was doing not just your typical like PIP injuries and stuff. He had medical integrated into it to actually handle a lot of these injury cases and pain management. But he had an acupuncture, he had esthetics, he had hydrochlonic therapy.

He had physical therapy. It was just a beautiful facility that encompassed everything you can think of when it was about health and wellness and taking that proactive approach to your health. Now, just like any doctor, right? You go to their facility, and typically they have a few rooms that are just collecting dust. So that’s where I went in there, and I told them, I says, Hey Doc, you got this room, this physical therapy room, that you don’t have a physical therapist right now, it’s just a bunch of equipment. Let’s get this room to make you some money. And I gave him, I threw him the proposition. I said, my days off, I’ll come here. I’ll be the operator of this business unit for the IV vitamin therapy stuff. I’ll run it, I’ll physically do the IVs myself, and I’ll give you 20% right off the top. And he looked at me like I had something growing out of my head. He says, hold on. You’re going to come here, put in all this work front, front the money to build out the room, to the brand specs and everything that I’ve developed. And I have to do absolutely nothing, but just give you the space, and you’re gonna give me 20% I said, yeah.

So my goal with that was basically creating something that didn’t make me put too much cash out of pocket, and the cash that I had to put out of pocket, I wanted it to go to building up the business and bringing in new business. So my goal was, let’s develop the MVP, the minimal viable product. So I went into that office. I didn’t have to pay for utilities, I didn’t have to pay for a medical director, I didn’t have to pay for a receptionist, and I didn’t have to pay rent. So now all of the money that was going into the business was actually going into producing revenue. So that’s how I started Liquivida, and then we started adding a lot of the other modalities and stuff to it.

Jeremy Weisz 13:47

That’s really smart. It’s really a proof of concept, and it’s very low overhead. It’s low risk for you. It’s also low risk for the office, actually, because it’s found money for them, and they get an added service that benefits their patient base as well. So really smart. And we’ll go into how does it work with the franchising from an existing location to a new location. But I do want to talk about you mentioned the partnerships, and you have your chief medical officer, Dr. Christopher Davis, and talk about how you met Dr. Davis.

Sam Tejada 14:23

So our initial chief medical officer was Dr. Robert Willicks, which Dr. Willicks was also the Chief Medical Officer of senogenics. He was world renowned, and he would teach doctors from all over the world. He would teach with the a 4m the ammg, all the accredited functional medicine organizations that are out there, he would teach for them. He’s also, you know, published author of many, many books on preventative health. Unfortunately, Dr. Willis, who was my mentor for many years. He was a former heart surgeon who decided to get away. From heart surgery so he can prevent patients from going on the operating table. Dr. Willicks passed away right before Covid at the age of 80. Unfortunately.

Jeremy Weisz 15:09

Sorry to hear that.

Sam Tejada 15:09

So, yeah, yeah, he interesting guy, big into energy medicine, and his story is just a very wonderful story of, he actually passed away while meditating. That’s how they found him actually meditating, right before he took his first patient for the day at the office. Um, which, you know, if you’re into energy medicine, that they basically say you’ve crossed over to the other side at that point. So once he passed away, I had to think about, well, who’s going to go ahead and step in his shoes as the new Chief Medical Officer of Liquivida. So Dr Christopher Davis actually came on board as a franchisee for integrated Liquivida model, where basically his cardiology practice that he was currently at that time switching over to more of a functional medicine practice with a hyper focus on cardiology. He put a Liquivida lounge inside of it, doing the IV drips for his patients.

Dr Davis, strong cardiology background, similar to Dr Willicks, very smart. He’s a researcher himself. He’s also on the Scientific Advisory Board with the Association, and he was just the perfect fit to step into Dr Willicks’ shoes. So at that point in time, I proposed a partnership deal with him to come on board as an equity partner, and we’ve been spearheading Liquivida collectively together and focus on the mission.

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