So far in our episodes, we’ve retooled mindsets, decoded credit, provided some resources for financial management and security, as well as explored the crossroads of building versus buying a business. Now it’s time to watch those lessons take shape in real life. Our guest today provides proof that reinvention isn’t theory, it’s practice.

Today, we step onto the job site of possibility itself. Deanna Sapp Phillips, photographer turned realtor, construction company co owner and perpetual reinventor, has proved that careers, like houses, can be framed, remodeled, and relisted into something bolder than the original plans. We’ll trace her path from behind a camera to the front of a job site spreadsheet and uncover the mindset that lets an entrepreneur swap tools without losing the blueprint for freedom.

Because whether you’re plotting your first side hustle or your next big pivot, Deanna’s story reminds us that the greatest property we’ll ever develop is the one between our ears. And every reinvention starts with laying a single purposeful brick. Welcome to Invest in you, where we map new ways to build wealth one daring blueprint at a time.

My name is Dena Glasgow. I want the discussion of money, financial literacy, and the creation of generational wealth to be less taboo. My hope is to help people break down the barrier walls they use as a defense mechanism when asked to talk about their finances.

For people to understand that they don’t need millions or even thousands to begin making their way to financial freedom, as well as offer insight and opportunities that are out there to take action to find their version of success and and path to wealth. Because there’s not one way to success. We simply have to find your way to success.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Why go solo with your finances? Thank you so much, Deanna, for being with me today. Well, thank you for dinner.

Some. I love it. You know, I always appreciate the time we get to spend together and bounce ideas off each other and make some dreams happen.

No, And I always find it a time of value, not just for our audience, for me and because we’re always learning something new from each other is spectacular. Absolutely. I love it so much.

So to start off, I mean, give the people just a very brief synopsis. I know I touched on it, but maybe a 30 second to a minute synopsis of your trajectory throughout your career, even before what I touched on, I love that. One thing I learned is you have to be agile in life in general, and you never know what the next person you meet will lead you into.

So 30 seconds. I’m gonna give you a quick elevator pitch. Yes.

So for 20 years, I landed into the world of wedding photography. Then along came a wonderful pandemic. And when the pandemic came, I ended up joining forces with my husband again.

Because we’re serial entrepreneurs, um, we joined forces together again. I joined his team of the construction company and got my real estate license simultaneously. Became first an operations manager, and now I’m chief operations officer.

And what I’ve learned is I have to keep reinventing me. I can never stop learning. And I have to encourage those that are in our circle to continue to grow and keep learning.

And because we can’t do it by ourselves, we beat the team. Right. There’s no I in team.

So just grabbing the right people around you. People that are goal getters, who are hungry, who are teachable, who bring a little bit something extra to the table that you may not have because you need several different perspectives. Right.

And everybody fitting in the work. Awesome. And tell the people what your companies are, who your affiliated.

Wonderful. So in photography, I still own photo announceit. Com.

I actually have five other photographers and videographers who still function at business for us today. So if you let me know, residual income, that’s my avenue. I’m still doing that.

When it comes to real estate, I do both. Sales. I’m a selling agent.

I will offer services to buyers. Believe it or not, most of my buyers are actually people I actually sold properties or homes or commercial buildings for already. So I do sales and I also do property management.

What don’t you do? I know. Laughter but because I like to eat, honey. Eating.

Eat well. Okay, okay. And so with my real estate brokerage, I’m with Century 21, Coastal Alliance.

My owning broker owns about eight different brokerages. Oh, wow. From New York to Florida.

And we do have some heavy hitters in our Coastal alliance family. So I absolutely love being a part of that family. When it comes to the construction company, we are Phil’s Home Construction, and that’s Philz with a P. We’ve had the opportunity to be on television, to be on radio, to be on podcasts like with Dena.

We also have a thriving YouTube channel called Building with the Phillips. And if you’re wondering where can you see us on cable, you know, you can hit rerun. We’ve been on the Discovery Channel, the own network, hgtv, you name it, we’ve been floating around.

So Google fields home construction and learn all about this. Fantastic. Love it.

Love it. Which came first for you, the passion to be an entrepreneur or the love for the camera. Always the passion to be an entrepreneur.

I was just explaining to my daughter who just graduated top of her class in high school and now she’s been accepted into a six year law program, so she can be a lawyer in six years rather than eight. Right. And I was just explaining to her this morning, it is amazing when you have enough foresight to know as a teen what you want to do in life, because that’s not the majority of people.

For me, I’ve always known I was going to be one or two things. An artist and a business owner. I thought that I would own a marketing firm and be able to draw.

And back then there was no computer graphics, but now there are computer graphics. Right. I thought one day that I would just own this company and be a marketing person and a graphic designer.

But as time went on, I evolved, you know, and it landed into hell. You’re a great salesperson and you ask. You love people.

Yes, you do. I think that’s your bane. That’s your babe.

That’s. And the fact that I could put together a great marketing campaign, the fact that my first degree was in communications and I knew early how to bridge gaps with people, how to bring folks together, how to talk to them, how to encourage them greatly, how to inspire people. Right.

When I learned that I had a gift to do that, it was on like Donkey Kong from there. So I always knew as a teenager that I was going to be a business owner. That’s great.

I am the complete opposite. You land in a news world. You know, it took me, I make the joke that it was only within the last few years that I realized what I really wanted to be when I grow up.

You know, it was just one of those things that I just was the passion for life and just experience the day and have family. And I was in sports all the time. You know, it was sports.

I was. Medical was my focus. And then, you know, college happened and a whole lot of things went.

Went in a lot of different directions that I never anticipated, you know, so we love late bloomers too. And you guys have the most fortitude because you see things from a different perspective than we do as serial entrepreneurs. So there’s nothing wrong with that.

First, you found your way. That’s right. You drained it.

Absolutely. And it took a while to evolve and really understand that my love for real estate and business and entrepreneurship was always there. It never just dawned on me that this is where I wanted to be.

You know, so that’s really awesome to hear people’s stories. Thank you for sharing that. You’re welcome.

What would you say is the common thread that pulled all these pivots together? Is it your love for entrepreneurship or is it the passion behind what you do? What is the thing that binds all these businesses together for you? I learned something in my younger years when I first started doing wedding photography. And trust me, I did not set out my life to be a wedding photographer. However, when I want to embark on a thing, I love a great challenge.

And I landed in wedding photography from a challenge from a would be potential client. And she came to my table where I was offering a service of graphic design, doing invitations and other little things with graphics. And she saw the pictures because I could design things well with pictures and nobody was doing it at the time, so I was making Visa money doing it.

And she says, oh, can you, you take pictures too? I said, no. And she swung her hair at me and she stormed off. And at that moment, I looked at my husband, I said, it’s not that I can’t take pictures because I actually took that in college through photography.

It’s just I just didn’t think that’s who I was. I didn’t have any respect for photographers, but I learned very quickly within a year just how much money could be made in that world, and I was on board. I have an innate need for money and self sufficiency.

So I like to prosper. I like nice things. I wanted a home at a very young age.

So when my husband and I got married, we were moving in our home simultaneously and we bought a home in my 20s. Oh, that’s awesome. Hello.

I’m 47 years old now. I own two homes and several pieces of property. And I feel like if you work hard and you take care of people around you, God will bless you and give you the things that you desire, you know, the desires of your heart.

So that’s how I looked at it. So the passion you asked me, what was it the passion of entrepreneurship or was it something I just wanted to do? I think I’m a passionate person in general. Yeah, I think I’m just anything I put my hands to.

I had a good friend of mine tell me about. It’s been about six years ago. She says, deanna, you’re not mean.

Because I have tall orders for folks, if you will. I have high expectations. That’s the better word.

And some folks would call me mean. And she was one of my leaders and I was serving under Her. And she says, that’s not Deanna.

She says, deanna just has a strong sense, spirit of excellence. And I said, no, you’re absolutely right. That’s right.

But I found that the same clients that I had 20 years ago in the wedding industry, those clients followed me into real estate, and those clients also followed me into construction. That’s why. And then you’d have to ask yourself why.

There is something about the passion and integrity. Those folks knew that if I said I was going to do it, it’s going to get done and get done in a spirit of excellence. And if I don’t have an answer, I partner with folks like Dena who are exceptional in their craft, and I make sure that I get answers.

And I like to connect with folks who have a proving track record because I want to learn from the best. So those are things that I learned. And it just kind of matched my energy and my passion for life and my passion to have nice things.

Money is what I’m talking about. To take care of my family. Right, Right.

And I do take care of three parents, two of my husband’s. I’m sorry, two of my parents, my mom and my dad. And we take care of my husband’s mother.

And these aren’t. Some of them are in their 80s, but they’re very spry people. But they do need a little over singing, if you will.

And so my husband and I have taken on that responsibility. So we manage a few households outside of our own. And just that passion, wanting to see our parents thrive and be comfortable in their golden years, this was a passion of ours as well.

And if. In case you didn’t know, if you haven’t looked@southfieldshomeconstruction.com, you’d see that my husband’s family is a family of immigrants. He migrated to the United States.

He’s from Jamaica. He came from a long line of builders in Jamaica. As a matter of fact, his family owns the Jamaican hardware stores there.

And if you look, looking at that last name, Phillips, you’ll quickly find out what our company is in. In Jamaica. But he brought those gifts and talents to America.

Right. And started from the bottom. We did not come from money.

Everything we had is earned. And we’re not sitting up here saying we’re rich because we’re not. We just work every day.

Right. But the. My husband, he came over, he started at a place called Job Corps.

Unfortunately, our current administration wants to close that. Yeah. But my husband got his start in Job Corps to become a Master carpenter.

He joined the brotherhood of carpentry through Job Corps. From Job Corps, he said, okay, I’m going to go to St. Petersburg College. And he realized quickly within the first year that, you know, college life is not for me.

I like hands on learning. So he took that certification from Job Corps, went over to the Pamela’s Technical Institute. For us locals, we know that that is P Tech.

And he took the building course at P Tech, stood out of his class, became the top building tech student and was offered a job by a contractor looking for an apprentice. Just goes to show you what drive and fire. Exactly.

Sheer grit and determination. And this guy I married had all of that and he still does. We have of a great construction company, custom home building company today, and we’ve served a lot of clients well.

We do an average of now 10 to 14 projects a year. Out of those 10 to 14, two to three of those would be new construction. So that’s a beautiful thing.

And we’ve grown into that. We’ve incorporated and filled out his construction license seven years ago. Now we incorporated and we’ve just continued to grow leaps and bounds.

And we’re as assisting Demon before the podcast. We’re even getting one more license under our belt. We’re apparently a crc as a certified residential contractor, we focus on homes, single and multifamily homes.

Now we’re going to expound on that and we’re going into roofing as well. So we just keep growing, keep encouraging others and keeping this passion rocking. That’s awesome.

Yeah. What would you say is one early failure then became foundational for you that sticks with you? Oh, man. Is it okay to say you can fall, but fall forward, you can fail but fall forward when you’re failing? And we’ve learned so many lessons along the way.

One of the things we are is we are workers, well, entrepreneurs. We happen to just want to do the task. So you’re not thinking about necessarily the contract, you know, you’re not necessarily thinking about.

Everybody that you come in contact with doesn’t have great intentions. We love, we strive on a high level of integrity, but not everybody else has that kind of integrity. And so one thing that got us in trouble was being too nice to everybody.

Hello. Yeah. And being too nice to everybody and not having what you’re offering to the client defined clearly in your contract can get you in trouble.

I don’t believe in verbal agreements. Everything you do should now be in writing. And it’s simply because I’ve had to pay very pricely for Expensive lessons.

Some of the most expensive lessons have been to hire an attorney to decipher what was a verbal agreement and what was in a written contract. And that’s tens of thousands of dollars and that costs a lot of money if you do not have that kind of money in the bank. So yes, one of those lessons is making sure that your paperwork is in order and that you’re operating on a high level of integrity or.

But not just integrity, but a high level of accountability. Yes. And accountability both on your end and the client facing in, if you will.

I love the. To really reframe. You know, I. I worded it as failure, but I like to reframe it as lessons more than failures.

It’s is one step at a time. Everything’s a lesson. Right.

And trust me, we learn. We learn very quickly when you’re paying for lessons, you know, even things as taxes. Oh my God.

I can go on and on about falling full, but quick as you can get you a CPA that knows what the heck they’re doing. Managing the money is not your thing. I am a salesperson.

I know how to get a client. I know how to keep that client happy. I know how to deliver a fantastic result.

But at the point where we are now, the financing is beyond my knowledge. So you want to make sure that your business is legal in the finance area. You want to make sure that your taxes are being paid properly.

The proper amount of taxes is being paid. Now we’re in a phase of workman comp and you name it. And you need a solid CPA ownership to help you keep that together.

Because when the IRS come to knock it, they don’t want to hear this thing about I didn’t know you wanted to say that. That’s not gonna work for you much more. So just falling forward, learning valuable lessons, shifting the conversation a little bit to the the real estate agent mine and the builder’s mindset.

How does knowing true build costs influence the way that you price listings or advise investors for you? I actually love this question, so. So I just brought on an interior designer at the first of the year. She is freaking amazing.

And she watches me do real estate. She watches me drove old a construction company and my operations officer capacity. And she has willfully said it.

Deanna, I just want to help. How can I, because I see you. How do I get here? Right? And so we’re going through the process now getting her her real estate license and all that good stuff.

But how I walk into a home and determine the price to Remodel it. Is it worth a remodel or do I help a client purchase some land to build something new? Right. And I brought my new hire up to you guys because that’s exactly what I taught her.

For the first time yesterday, I took her to a listing with me. I hadn’t listed yet, but I know I’m getting a listing. The paperwork is being drawn up now.

And what I did is I walked the home. The homeowner has already taken a job in another state. They just want to unload the house, but the house has problems and they thought they would sell it in a short sale.

And I’m going to tell you that as a secret. In real estate, there’s no shortcut to doing this thing right. Right.

The homeowner thought he would take the easy way out. He answered one of those letters in the mail by somebody that told him they would buy the house from him, but he would have to take a cut a lot. And the homeowner initially was gonna let me list it, but wanted to get out of it quick and decided to do this shortcut and was just gonna tell me in the end, hey, Ben, I’ve already taken care of it.

Don’t worry about that. I said, okay, no problem. But wouldn’t you know it, I checked on him.

Always follow up with your client. Wouldn’t you know, I checked on him about a week after he told me that he was closing his deal with this so called investor. I said, I sent him a text message, said, hey, this is the end.

I’m just following up with you, man. I hope the move was great. I’m hoping everything went well with the house.

He was like, I was just praying to God that he would give me a way to humble myself to call you back because the deal is dead. Oh. I said, really? Why is it dead? And he wasn’t in conversation for five months.

And he began to tell me the guy started backpedaling. The guy wanted to reduce even the small amount that he was offering. And as he was talking, I said, it sounds like he got caught up in the middle of a wholesale deal.

The person you’re talking to is not even a realtor. And what they’re going to do is they probably had you sign a contract that allowed them to assign it. He was like, how do you know all this? I said, because I am actually a licensed realtor and I am looking out for the best interest of my client.

Sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with assigning a contract. Most times when a person assigns a Contract.

That means that there’s a wholesaler who’s got you on the look, got you on a signed contract. They have to now go find a buyer. They got to go figure out how to find a buyer that’ll take your house as is and be a middleman and make some profit off it.

That’s not always in the best interest of the homeowner or the seller. So I was able to quickly, because of my knowledge and understanding that thoroughly quickly informed this seller. And the seller said, you know, you’re absolutely right.

I said, you know, you can cancel this deal, right? He says, yeah, I didn’t know. How do I do that? You know, I told him I had to cancel the deal, all of that. Next thing you know, I’m walking this house.

I have another wet seat. Mm, mm. Look.

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Contact us today at infoaymancreative.com or visit our website at naamancreative.com to get started. You know, nothing bad against wholesalers. There’s a million different ways to get real estate deals done and, and it serves a purpose and helps people and you know, there is an opportunity for investors to make money.

There is an opportunity for sellers to get out of a bad situation. You know, there’s definitely a cause for it, but is not always expedient for everything. Exactly, exactly.

And there’s better, sometimes there’s better opportunities that, you know, homeowners simply don’t know about. They need the education. So having that builder’s mindset in AI, I was going to bridge that gap for you, Dina.

The fact that I’m not just a realtor, right? The fact that I cut my teeth in renovations almost 20 years ago with my husband because he started doing renovations with this other top dog contractor that long ago. So when we incorporated the fields home Construction, had our own license, we ran out the gate doing renovations, not new construction. Right.

So I am able to Walk a floor plan, which is what I was teaching my new hire, and identify exactly how much it will cost to remodel a house and to get the best top dollar for my client. I was actually able to walk that floor plan and know that it’s going to cost me about $70,000 to invest in that property to bring it to where it needs to be. It would make my client about 100,000 DOL is more profitable.

On top of the seven day, though. On top of the 70. There you go.

So you go from a $300,000 sale to a $500,000 sale. Who wouldn’t want to do that deal? Exactly. And that’s why it’s great to have renovation loan lenders like Dena in the mix.

Because a lot of times the renovation loan lenders didn’t even spound on that. They’ll let us get the work done and sometimes they’ll be cool with closing at the table, get money back. All different kind of ways.

We can do interest only. It’s just so many different kind of ways to get the job done, to get the top dollar for the client. And I have a team of professionals that we can come in, do the remodel.

Dina, I love that fact that you taught me about three years ago that we could actually take a raggedy home, the worst home in the neighborhood, but the best neighborhood, and take it down to the studs. Do you know I use that as a selling point almost every pine? I talked to a person about renovation loans. Dina told me that being you can get a house down to the side slab, you can get it down to the studs.

As long as there are a piece of that old house there, we could practically build that client a new home. Exactly. That is so eye opening and mind blowing and powerful that people don’t know about it, you know? Yeah.

Let’s give the people some more gems. What would be right off the top of your head? Some low cost upgrades that add disproportionate resale value. I’m talking about low dollar, high reward on it.

I love that. Appliances, paint, landscaping. People are not builders in general.

People buy what they see. Yeah. So a low cost is paint.

Yeah, for sure. Landscaping. Your next thing is flooring appliances.

People like pretty stainless steel appliances. You know, those are low costing. A few couple hundred bucks, a few thousand bucks, you can get the house and get another 10 to 20 grand for.

That’s great. That’s great. And as far as time, because obviously we know time versus money is a bad thing.

The Longer you sit on the project, the more money is costing you. Exactly. So when you guys do a project, what is.

Let’s say I came in, I said, you know, Deanna, I really need this cosmetic. I mean, you. You educate me.

I need a cosmetic quick flip to really secure some capital. What would be your top thing that would be in a brief time frame, maximum dollar. That’s a tough one, Dina, because if you know anything about remodels, every project is different.

No remodel is the same, unfortunately. It’s just going to depend on the house. Yeah.

One thing that scares people is pest control. When you walk in the door and there’s cockroaches running around like mice. If you can handle that pest control, clean it, you know, Are there termite droppings? If there are termite droppings, pay attention.

Look under the countertops, look under the cabinets, even the bathroom cabinets. I got a project right now that the termites, the drywood termites, are even in the bathroom cabinets. That’s wild.

But being able to go ahead and tint that house, kill everything that’s moving. Now you have a certification on it that says it was recently treated. That’s one less thing that this new buyer is going to come after you to try to get more money off the.

Off the bill. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.

A lot of people don’t look in cabinets and things like that. They just take the surface window sills and cabinets. That’s good.

Good info. Give us a day in the life where your two rolls collide. Oh, my God.

In a good way. Whether it’s a good way or a mess, you are asking me some of the boringest questions. You just forget I’m just a worker.

I just do it. I don’t know. Take a day.

Try. Just do it. Okay, so one thing that we implemented here in 2025 on my team is that the entire team meets every single day.

The entire teams meets every morning, every single day. And that’s the operation team, and that’s about six of us. We sit around in our hub, and we go step by step through every project, and we talk about what was done the day before, what needs to be done, the deck day, and what should be coming.

And that way, there’s always accountability and everybody on team’s on the same page. The weekly meeting. I’m sorry, the daily meetings are about 30 minutes, but the Monday meeting is the long meeting because you’re coming through from the weekend, and as everything is happening or a bunch of stuff, because our guys work Seven days a week.

So it’s always work happening. That Monday meeting can be anywhere between two hours to three hours. But we’re so much better for.

For sure, we’ve dropped a whole lot less balls. There’s so much more accountability. There’s so much more communication that happens with our staff as long with the.

The homeowner as well. But anyhow, how do my two worlds collide? Yesterday in my office, I worked on two new construction projects. I have one that’s in the ground.

To me, when I say it in the ground, that means it’s being built right now. I have team members actively on the site. I have another one out here on the beach that is coming out of the design phase.

The engineer is about to stamp it. And the architect. We just gave an approval yesterday.

Before we gave the architect the approval, before we gave the architect the approval on that, my team sat around for almost 45 minutes and we scrutinized those plans from the. We have an interior designer on staff. We have a project manager that was in that meeting.

The contractor itself, myself as the operations manager, the coordination officer, was in that meeting. One of the apprentices was in that meeting. And we scrutinized those plans to make sure that everybody’s perspective was hit and nothing is missing.

Why do we do that? We do that because once those plans have been signed and sealed by the architect and the engineer, when you ready to go back to change something or to add something, it costs you not hundreds, but thousands of dollars. Absolutely. And time.

Time. And what if you’re out in the field and all of a sudden there needs to be a change on those plans? The project has to stop. And we know in my industry that time is money.

Okay? So that’s what I did my first half of the day. Not only did we meet, finalize those plans, get the approval over to the architect and the engineer, I was able to pick up the phone, call that homeowner, and say, hey, man, guess what? I got you in budget. We hit your target number, and I got you these extra things.

One thing about my team is we’re resilient. We have about three suppliers and three trades on teams in each category, whether it be electrical, whether it be plumbing, whether it be door suppliers. We have three, and that’s our.

We have three in each category. And we rub and massage these people like nobody’s business to let them know we love them, everyone that keep using them. But we need the best prices possible for our clients and the best quality of work.

Right? So that’s what we do. And so I was able to, with my team, massage all of our folks and get prices that my client could pilot. Who doesn’t love that? I’m trying to tell you, Amy’s plants for this and my client is happy.

The second half of my day, I am cross training my interior designer to. She’s going to now be a realtor. She’s going to be my apprentice.

I call her my mini me because I saw her spark in her. I saw the tenacity. What I have, I don’t think you can teach.

I think you kind of have to be born with it. I learned that from one of my first business partners when I was a teen. I had my first standalone business business building as a marketing company at 19 years old.

At 19 years old and we were doing small business marketing. I had. Let me tell you guys about me, man.

I ain’t bragging about this. This is how I am. So I was doing T shirts.

I didn’t own a T shirt company. I didn’t know how to print shirts. But what I did know was graphic design.

I learned how to design the artwork, the logos, the graphics for shirts, for hats, and also how to digitize. What I did is I went and found me some new friends. I end up partnering with the largest print company for T shirts and paraphernalia apparel in the county.

Because of that partnership, I’m a salesperson first. I love people. I ended up getting some amazing contracts between the age of 19 and 20 years old.

One of my contracts was the Pinellas county school bus drivers. No kidding. Because I got the contract with the Pinellas county school bus drivers.

I ended up getting schools. Wow. I was doing the apparel for the schools with their school logos for all the staff, the teachers and the students had big contracts between 19 and 20 years old.

And I started before I got bills. I was doing family reunions and birthday parties. The shirts and matter of fact, the service I did for one of the family reunions.

The lady was a teacher at one of the schools I got. She says, hey, you think you can come to my school and give a presentation? Let me tell you something about me. I do everything in my power, not to say narrow.

I try to find connections like folks like Thena. I keep saying that connections, people, if you’re listening, talking to you about needing friends, getting people who are smarter than you are in a certain area and serving them well so that they don’t have have a problem partnering with you anyhow, that teacher said, hey, come to my School give a presentation. I’m not even.

I’m a kid. I’m 19, 20 years old. I’m like, well, how am I going to convince these school teacher to have me? But guess what? I had.

I had a mentor that was in my high school when I graduated. I’ll never forget her. Her name was Emma Cabin.

She passed away about two years ago. Emma Caban was a highly college instructor and educator, and she was loved in Pinellas County. She had those years behind her.

She was a night school teacher. She ran programs. She was in a sorority that honed themselves on community service.

And I was in her college reach out program. And I went to Miss Emma and I said, Mrs. K. And I have an opportunity to sell some of my shirts to the school.

I said, because of who you are, you don’t even have to say anything, but I want you to just come and sit in the room. Because I know they’re going to do an introduction. They’re going to want to know who’s with and all.

She said, just sit in the room. I said, yeah, I just want you to come and sit there and let me introduce you as an educator for however many years. Because I knew she loved me.

I knew that I was one of her standout students in her college reach out program, and she would come and support that lady sat there and I introduced her. The people said, how much is it? That’s all. And wrote me a check on the spot.

There you go. In full. There you go.

Paid me in full for the school’s shirts, Right. And on the way home, I pulled out my checkbook when I dropped Liz Cavin off home, and I wrote her a check for 500 bucks. This is me at less than 20 years old.

I wrote her a check for 500 books. She says, what is this for? I said, thank you for showing up. So you’re the reason why I close this guild today.

Just your presence and who you are, people. If you learn anything from me, I’m telling you, Partnership, absolutely. Be an honorable, integral person.

Serve those who are over you well, and the Lord will bless you. That’s my life right there. It’s people.

It’s all about people. Always, you know. All right.

This has been fantastic. Oh, my. So much.

Emmy 70. So much info. I love it.

So much. We’re gonna do last few questions to knock out some. Some little rapid fire off the wall questions.

All right. And then we’ll wrap it up. Love it.

How about running company companies when your spouse. Superpower or super challenge? Super powerful. Man, I’m be honest, though.

I have people. Maybe I shouldn’t say this out loud because people know me and they’ll listen to pot, but I have had many couples over the years sit down, ask to buy my husband and I lunch or dinner, and want to talk to us about how we actually get along with each other and how can we run these businesses together. I will say that over the past, I’ve been married 22 years.

We’ve been together about 25 years. So let’s put that into perspective. And I’m only 47, so do the math, people.

You’ll get. Right. But they want to know a how so many bags are still smiling, how you still are happy, and how in the hell are you still working together and you loving it.

Right. Um, I will say that you really have to marry right in the beginning. Yeah.

I can give you guys a whole nother podcast. I’m talking about what marriage is and what love is not, and that’ll solve half the problem. So you have to connect with your partner right in the beginning.

And you don’t marry a person for where they are today. You marry a person for where they’re actively heading. And can you actively head there together? Right.

You know, and that’s just my small 2 cents from my small perspective. But that’s why we actually enjoy being around each other. It’s not painful for us to give him a lesson and just to work.

We’re uncomfortable when we’re not together. I am extremely uncomfortable when I don’t see them in the day and vice versa. He’s looking for, you know, he could be called, hey, babe, you ain’t at the office.

I’m here. Where you at? You know, it’s less of that now, simply because now we have iPhones and the I system, and you can kind of look on the Mac, see where everybody is. Right.

Okay. I know he’s at that project. Okay.

But how is can be very rewarding if you choose right in the beginning in spots. And I will be honest and say we have a lot of friends. Birds of a feather flock together.

We have a lot of friends who are couples, who are entrepreneurs. The majority of those friends have divorced. Oh.

But they’re about five of us that are still strong and those five that are so strong. Most of us married when we were younger, and we married people for where we were going, not for where we were. Right there.

That’s a good gem right there. How about best tool in the toolbox? Whether that’s literal or metaphorical. The best tool in the toolbox.

I touched on a few things in our conversation and I’m going to get really serious because oftentimes things can be glossed over and I’m a person that likes to bring value and I’m very intentional. I think Dina may even be learning more about me as the longer she gets to know me, she gets to learn more about me. But I’m extremely intentional with my conversations and with my engagement of people.

And one thing you never want to have a person feel about you is that you lack integrity. You do not want a person to believe that I thought you were this way. But in the end, you’re really not such a great person.

You want to be honest and you want to be transparent about your ability. And you have to be able to serve in the capacity in which you can serve. Right? And if you can’t serve a person well in that capacity list.

For example, Dina says to me, deanna, can you take on my client? And they’re a first time home buyer, right? But they need this first time home buying program. I’m going to be honest with Dina and say, dina, I will be happy to take on your clients. However, I don’t do it for a lot of first time home buying program.

My clients are normally folks who have a little bit of money in the bank to put down the down payment or need the fha. You’re going to have to help me along the lines to get me situated with this first time home buyers program. Dena’s going to respect me because I was honest for sure.

I didn’t lie to her and say, oh, yeah, I got you. Right, right, right. No, she’s going to respect me because I’m honest and she knows my character.

I’m going to serve that client absolutely well in the capacity that I have. And if I can’t serve her myself, I’m going to get the connection so that I can. Yes.

So that’s my biggest takeaway. Serve well in a spirit of excellence and maintain your integrity. Do not compromise your integrity for anything.

There’s a little saying that I have and it’s actually biblical. You know, that saying is a good name is better than money. If my name is good, I can always get a job and make me some more money.

Sure, if my name is good, somebody might even bless me with the money. But if my name is bad and I’m not trustworthy, I’m not responsible, I don’t have integrity, who’s gonna wanna give me something, right, Little Harry? So I Learned a good name is better than money, man. That’s it, man.

Winner, winner, chicken Bennett. All right, last one. Dream project.

If money was no object for you, I’m not gonna lie. This is not a project for a client. Right.

This would be a project for me and my husband. Yeah, that’s what I. And we do. We have a few things, and people can say, well, how much do you actually need? Remember I told you guys in the beginning that we have our family we take care of, so we serve our family well.

Right? But Phil and I have a project that we want. We want a home on a lake. My husband loves to hunt.

I love to fish. We want a house on several acres with a beautiful lake where we get up in the morning and look out on that lake and just thank God. Water is beautiful.

It calms me. I just love it. And that’s the end game right there.

Hey, girl. Get the house on the lake and be able to enjoy it before we need cane. Pop to the sabbatical.

Everybody got some land out there on the lake you want to talk to me about? Call your girl. Let’s see what we can do. That’s a perfect outro.

Tell the people one more time where they can find you. I was there. I am again, Deanna Zapp Phillips, your realtor and the COO of Phil’s home construction.

And that’s Philz with the P P H I l l s h o n e construction.com. you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and see what the latest is going on with us. And our YouTube channel is building with the Phillips P H I L L I P s.

And we look forward to building for you soon. That’s awesome. Deanna Sapp Phillips, your story shows countless times the passion and the integrity.

I love to share it with everyone. They definitely need to know that you can continuously reinvent yourself and that with drive and passion and that love for people and leading with integrity and being honest and true to yourself opens up so many doors. If our listeners took one insight from today, I hope it would be consistent, well informed action, no matter how small, moves you towards the future that you want.

Right? And I hope they take a moment this week to put one idea in place. Share what you learned today with someone who could use the encouragement and follow. Invest in you where you listen so you don’t miss out on what’s next.

Until then, keep moving forward and investing in the vision you have for your life and your work. Thanks for joining us. We love you guys.

Bye. Bye. Sam.