#30 Zero Marketing Budget with Phillip Vincent
Today we have Phillip Vincent, the founder of Mom’s House. Phillip specializes in helping Seniors who want a stress free sale of their home and has designed a program for finding motivated sellers through an unconventional route that most people are not utilizing.
Tune into my conversation with Phillip Vincent to learn about something that nobody else has talked about on our show.
More about him – momshouse.com
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Itunes – www.TonyJavier.com/itunes
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Show Transcription:
Tony (00:01):
Welcome to today’s show. Today we have Phillip Vincent on the line, founder of Mom’s House. Philip’s been in the business for over 20 years longer than I have. And he’s got a really cool program for finding motivated sellers through an unconventional route that most people are not doing and not utilizing. So welcome to our show. Philip, excited to have you on to talk about something that nobody else has talked about on our show.
Phillip (01:06):
Well, thank you, Tony. I look forward to talking to your listeners. That’s great. Thank you for having me on.
Tony (01:10):
Absolutely. So you shared with me before we started recording here that you have no marketing budget, right? That you’ve got leads coming to you based on something you’ve built, a program you’ve built to reach out to retirement communities and things of that nature. I’ll let you jump into it. Tell us about your background, how you started and then how you got into I guess the marketing method that you’ve been doing really, really well with over the last several years.
Phillip (01:37):
Sure. Which way? Okay, so which way, sorry for the background, is that what you?
Tony (01:41):
Start with the background and then how you got to where you are now with the things that you teach.
Phillip (01:46):
Yeah. I’ll be happy to. Tony, I started this business. I would consider backwards. I started off when I was 20 years old. I built my first house. I started off in development and new construction and I worked my way back after 22 years into wholesaling. And so I think a lot of our listeners are probably the opposite. They’re wanting to be wholesalers or wanting to be wholesalers. They want to get into rentals, want to get into flips and dream about one day of getting into contracting. And for me, it just didn’t fit my personality. I was not a good adult babysitter, which is what I call being a contractor, general contractor. And so it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the process. I built new construction houses. I realized I’m 42 now. I realized just this last year, the reason why I like to do new construction is because I like to pick out the colors.
Phillip (02:30):
So the amount of work I did to try to fill that need was ridiculous because dealing with municipalities and permitting and contractors and you know, all those things. And so I’ve graduated now to where I know, I don’t think I want to do a new construction anymore. There’s not a need for it. And so I built this business now since I’ve been in business for 22 years, but since 2011, I’ve been working in the senior living industry. And what the start of that was is I went to work for a company as an acquisitions manager. And we had this mandate to be for every dollar we would spend on marketing to get a deal that I would go out and find my own networking deal as well. And so in my heart, I knew I could work all those deals that came in through marketing, no problem, but was I going to be good at networking?
Phillip (03:15):
Was I going to be good at finding my own deals? And it turns out Tony that that’s really what I was really good at is building relationships. And so, you know, I was at a company that last year did almost 200 deals and over a hundred of them, in fact, it was 105, came from free lead sources. So imagine it coming to a 200 deals a year and 105 came from free lead sources. That’s got a person everybody’s ears that are listening, right? And so the three things are realtors, obviously other wholesalers and the senior living industry. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today. My niche was the senior living industry. I didn’t really work focused on the realtors or the wholesalers, and let’s be honest, realtors and wholesalers are phenomenal, but they’re in our business.
Phillip (04:00):
They’re in the real estate business. So I have found that I might have even a couple year run with somebody, but then I become the flavor of the week or they go, they go graduate in their business. They do something different. They do something bigger or they replace me or they don’t need me. I’m the flavor of the year, maybe you could call it right? But with senior living, I’m doing deals with people just last month. I had two deals with guys that I started working with in 2011. Think about that. The, the lifetime value of that relationship is still being manifested today. It’s in the millions of dollars, right? I’m still doing deals with these people because I figured out to position myself as a solution for the senior living’s problem? What’s in it for them, right? That’s all anybody cares about. And so when you build this relationship the right way and you are solution for their problem, they use me as a tool to make more money with the clients they already have. So how valuable am I in their life that I helped them fix a problem that they have? And in turn, I get to buy houses that every investor wants to buy.
Tony (04:59):
Yeah, because I think all experienced investors that are listening to this and even maybe newer investors, if you look at the deals that you’re doing, a lot of deals are done from people that inherit houses or going through a state or probates or something of that nature, you know, people, mail probate lists and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, getting in front of that person from a referral source, number one and, or number two, getting in front of them before anybody else is, is probably very key. So tell us about your experience with that. Do you typically get in front of them and you’re the only one that gets in front of them or do you still have competition with within that method?
Phillip (05:39):
Great question, Tony and I liked what you said, inheritance or probate, right, are really great deals. Those inheritance and probate deals are my second favorite deals. And these pre-probate, these senior living deals. And I’ll explain it very clearly. And it’d be so obvious as to why, if Tony, you and I are, if we’re brothers and mom has passed away and we’ve inherited the house, we’re going to fight for every dollar that that house sells for. Why? Because what’s in it for us. It’s our inheritance, right? What I’m talking about with mom’s house, what we do with our pre probate deals, these are people that are moving their mother from the forever home into senior living. They have not passed away yet. They have not died. They are still alive and kicking right there on, they probably have about two or three years left on average.
Phillip (06:21):
That’s what the, that’s what the numbers say, but they have not passed away. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen it, where the family doesn’t care about as much about what the number of the house is selling for, but can be trusted to be there next month on the 17th to close, because we need to get mom moved into this community and her room’s only open for so long. And you know, oh, and Phil was referred from the community. And so he must be trusted, right? It’s very, very different that there’s five attributes of these leads that make the, I’ll take the Pepsi challenge with any type of lead out there in real estate. And the five attributes I won’t take too long on it, but are simply, they need to sell the house versus when to sell it. That’s true motivation.
Phillip (07:01):
They almost always have a hundred percent equity. They’re houses that we, as investors, can add value to. Meaning their grandma clean, but they’re not 2021 style, right? They’re not ready for the market. The fourth thing is that it’s a lead with less competition. This is answering your question, Tony. I’m usually it’s me or a realtor or me and a realtor. And I love it when I come after the realtor, because the realtor just made my value proposition even higher, because usually that person says two things – clean this place out and do this list of repairs before I list it. And then I walk in and say, no, no, no, no, no, take your heirlooms. Take whatever you want. I’ll be there in three weeks. And I’ll close. You know, I, I feel like the senior living industry and we haven’t really talked about this much, but that families they’re literally in crisis management.
Phillip (07:51):
That’s what they call it. They’re, they’re getting pulled in every different direction. They’ve gotten so much bad news lately. They mom had a hip surgery. She, she fell down the hip surgery went well, but the doctor said, Hey, in three weeks, when mom gets out of rehab, she cannot move back home. We were like, what? You know, you’re like shocked by this, right? Then the second thing is the place we took mom to. We don’t take her to the cheap one. We take her to the, what I like to call the prettiest chandelier. We take her to the place it’s 8,800 a month, but mom only has a $2,800 a month pension. And then we go with the brothers and sisters, who look at each other like, well, who’s gonna pay for that? And in that moment, Tony, they realize they’re going to have to sell the house.
Phillip (08:26):
That’s the second set of bad news. Then talking to the realtor because everybody’s sister has one realtor that they know, or everybody knows a realtor, right? That’s not a new thing. That realtor coming in is a lot of times the last straw. They’re like, I don’t, how can I rehab the house? I live in San Diego and my brother’s in St. Louis. And mom’s in Wisconsin, like who the who’s going to do all this, right? The logistics of rehabbing a house, let alone a forever home. That’s got 40, 50 years of stuff in it is more than overwhelming. And so that third set of news, I think when with Mom’s House buyers, when you get to work with these clients, I really say, you get to be the hero. You get to come in and say, Hey, for once you’ve been getting a lot of bad news in the past month or two here, you don’t, there is a better way.
Phillip (09:07):
And here’s my solution for it. And then I always say, you’re selling life vests to people who are drowning, right? They want this product. They don’t want, or this service, they don’t want to rehab the house. That’s why you’re there. And so if you can be competent, come in and show your value. You can buy a lot of houses. My close ratio is through the roof with these leads over the past 10 years because of those. And here’s the fifth attribute, a warm lead is exponentially more valuable than a direct mail or pay-per-click lead. I liken it to, let’s say the mailman would come to your house and say, Tony, don’t call these other 23 postcards, call this one, call this one guy. He’s the most trusted buyer and how that’d be pretty cool if the mailman would do that. Right. Well, first of all, the mailman doesn’t do that, but that’s the mailman.
Phillip (09:53):
I’m cool that he said that. But imagine this, if I’m getting advice on mom’s end of life care, if I’m trusting in that person to give me my mom’s end up my mom, her end of life care. If I’m trusting that person to give me advice, and that person says, Hey, I’ve got a guy that I trust or girl that I trust that will come and make this whole house, then go away. Do you want to talk to them? You can guess what the answer is. They will always give you the opportunity to come in and make an offer.
Tony (10:18):
Yep. So two big points that I just caught. One is it’s a referral source. Anytime I get a referral, it’s so much easier to close then than just a cold lead. And then two is you’re catching them before the probate or inheritance. And one thing you probably didn’t mention that I’m sure that you’ve seen is that when when someone’s selling a house, sometimes they have a certain, I can’t remember. I don’t know if it’s Medicare, Medicaid, what it is, but some good, well, no, but sometimes they just have to sell the house to pay the bills of their care in the family, in the person who’s selling is probably not going to get anything, right. Because it’s going all into the care. And so in that respect, where if you inherit the property, like you said, there’s two siblings or five siblings or whatever, fighting over the equity. Whereas if you catch it early enough, it’s probably going to the care of that person. And the price doesn’t matter as much because they know they’re probably going to liquidate all that money anyway. And then Medicare, I can’t even, I don’t even know what kicks in, but something else kicks in that helps pay their care. Is that true and correct?
Phillip (11:25):
It’s perfect. That’s dead on it. So I call it morbid math. So remember how I used the analogy of mom having $2,800 a month pension, but they build at 8,800 a month. So that six grand a month, if we knew how we knew exactly how long mom was going to live, it’d be easy to do the math. But since we don’t to answer your question, yeah, the kids aren’t arguing, they just want as much in that pot for that six grand and come down each month. And then when it goes away, the state of – fill in the blank – kicks in. Right? And it’s the thing, Tony, the kids know they’re not getting this money, right. Nobody’s mad at Nana because she fell down and it has to move into senior living. Nobody’s, you know, nobody’s fighting over, there’s fighting going on, but it’s usually over the stuff. The number one thing to care about right then is where’s mom going to get the best care and then how do we pay for it?
Phillip (12:08):
And then what do we do with this stuff? And so I’m in that, how do we pay for it? And I fix the stuff problem. I use this in my, in my coaching, I use this thing where I take a thing of 2000 beans. They’re like a solid bean. They’re not cooked, but they’re hard beans. And I pour it into a little what represents a 12 by 14 room. You know, you’re going from 2000 square feet to a 144 square feet. The overwhelming problem is the stuff. These houses are just full of stuff. And then give me the logistics of the kids to come in and get out, you know, take their heirlooms, take their chotchkies you know, what’s right by, you know, dad died eight years ago. Mom’s been doing the best she can. So she’s trying to do right by everyone.
Phillip (12:47):
And they’re just always, we haven’t talked about this yet. There’s always a most responsible child. There’s that adult child out of the four or five that was put in charge. And the average child lives over 400 miles away. So usually this burden falls on the one that’s still in town. That’s been taking mom on the appointments. That’s, you know, just been taking the brunt of it. And that’s usually the one that tells the brothers and sisters, Hey, there’s something going on here. You need to pay attention. And of course, no one wants to think their mom’s getting old. Right? So there’s this, all that most responsible child is, I use the term being “quartered”. Do you ever see back in ancient times where they’d pull somebody with horses in four different directions, they’d pull them apart. And that’s the most responsible child because they’re being, you know, their mom just got taken out of their home and put into senior living.
Phillip (13:32):
They’re usually cantankerous. The senior living community needs a bunch of paperwork and money. That’s a hard thing to figure out. You got your brothers and sisters to deal with and what to do with the stuff. And then I call her Mary, by the way. So Mary, you know, Mary is still married too. Mary has got a husband at home and kids and like her life didn’t stop. So she’s got, she’s being pulled in four different directions. Remember the analogy of them getting three pieces of bad news. And then they just heard from the realtor that the realtor wants us to rehab this place. She’s like, when they meet me, I get to be, Nope, things just got easier and better. And Mary sometimes, like when I buy the house, you can like, see the weight come off of their shoulders. They’ll be like, man, thank goodness.Anytime they can put something to bed in this situation this highly, highly stressful situation makes the family it makes it so much easier on them.
Tony (14:18):
How easy or hard is it to build the relationships with the retirement centers or the senior living centers? Like, you know, you walk in there, Joe Schmo and you just say, Hey, here I am. Here’s what I do. Like, what is your pitch? What is your spiel? Like how, how are you?
Phillip (14:33):
Yeah. I love what you said. When people hear what I do, the first thing they think is I walk in there. Way back in 2011 when I started, that’s what I thought I do. Hey, I’m Philip and I’m an investor and I buy houses. It’s not how it’s done Tony. In fact, that’s a good way to blacklist yourself in the community that you’re trying to, that you’re trying to break into. And so what I’ve done is I positioned myself and my company as a solution for the problem that the senior living industry is going through. So I want to be clear to the communities are about four of the 10 different stakeholders that I teach people how to connect with. There’s other vendors that are helping in that time of that crisis time to help the family and those people are giving mom and the family advice as to what to do.
Phillip (15:15):
And so building relationships in this space is kind of like real estate. There’s a couple of things that are similar meaning they like to network. This is not done by cold calling and walking in the front door. So I want all your listeners, if you think that’s the way it’s done, I’ll just say good luck with that because it’s not. And so they like to network, but what to say to them is what I teach, how to, how to unlock their brain. So that way they don’t think of you as a realtor and investor, even though you might very well be a realtor investor, there’s two reasons. The word investor can sometimes almost immediately people hear the word shark investor, right before it, even though, you know, we’re not, that’s not what we do, but they hear that word. And when you’re dealing with seniors who get taken advantage of more than any other class of people, you better believe their guard is up and their guard should be up.
Phillip (16:00):
Then the second thing is, if you’re just start with the, I’m a realtor, trust me, I’m a realtor. Have you ever heard, the term crocodile brain, like their crocodile brain shuts off when they hear your realtor, there’s like meat in a mortgage broker or financial planner in St. Louis. It’s like, okay, I know what this is. Like, I already know where this is going. Like, you have not done anything to help yourself if you start with a realtor, do you think they already know a realtor? The answer is without question. They do. So how do you stand out? And how do you build a relationship? That was your question. And so there’s ways to find those people in groups, there’s ways to network with those people in a way where you present yourself as a solution for their problem. Instead of coming from that investor realtor perspective,
Tony (16:40):
Do you even say you’re an investor or do you more just present the solution that your company happens to help? And then, Oh, by the way, part of it is that we take this part out of three or four different areas off of your shoulders.
Phillip (16:54):
I ask questions that I know the answers to. It was my way of letting people know what I do. Do you, do you ever find that these families have a tough time figuring out what they’re going to do with the house? Yes. Philip, every single day, right? You ask questions that I already know that they have this problem and say, are you working with anyone like that right now? In two sentences, I really asked for the sale, Tony, I haven’t said, I’m an investor. I haven’t said I’m an investor or a realtor. I haven’t said either one of those things. And so there’s ways to meet them when they’re not at work. I want to be clear about that. This is not cold calling. This is not walking in the front door. That’s not going to go the way that you want it. This is finding them in elements where they want to network, where they want to find solutions. And I want to be clear, this industry is collaborative when they trust you. But if they don’t trust you, you’re just going to have a tough go of it. It’s just not going to work.
Tony (17:44):
Yeah. So tell us about your program. So you have been doing this a long time. You get a lot of deals off of what you do. So tell us about your program, what you teach and, and, and what it all entails.
Phillip (17:59):
Sure, sure. So momshouse.com. It’s the best way to get a hold of me is momshouse.com. It’s just, this company is teaching investors like me nationwide to be able to go out and build these relationships. And then from a national perspective, we’re building relationships in the senior living world that push leads through our system. And so Tony, we were talking about this. I need investors that I can trust. This is all about trust. You know, if this was just, I needed a warm body in every city I could of did that in a week. Just if I wanted a warm body, that’s not what I need. I need someone that has integrity, that cares about other people, that will put the effort in, to use my methods, to go out and build these relationships with these different stakeholders. And that’s one of the things I want to be clear about too. Why people would use my training instead of trying to figure it out on their own is that there’s probably 200 job titles in senior living.
Phillip (18:49):
Right. But I found about 10 of them to be fruitful for me that continuously give me leads. We were talking earlier, I’ve got a couple of guys that I did deals with even this last month that I’ve been working with since 2011. So those people are, I hate to say the word exclusive, but I’m their guy, right? They keep coming back to me year after year, month after month deal, after deal, because I fix a problem for them. And I’m not in there. I’m not in their way. I’m not in their lane. They’re not in the real estate business, like a realtor or a wholesaler might be.
Tony (19:20):
Very cool. Very cool. So what are the, what are the keys to I guess success within that whole thing? So like you said, you know, people can figure it out themselves. Hopefully they get ahold of you and, and, you know, go through the program and all of that. But just to get people an idea, like, what are the keys to success? If you had to say the top one to three keys to success in what it is you’re doing to build those relationships, you haven’t already touched on.
Phillip (19:49):
Sure. I think back to me in 2011, I just kept going with my bravado and just kept walking in and hit my head against the wall. And I think if I would have had the training, I could have had success a lot quicker. There’s a lot of things in the senior living world that you won’t, you shouldn’t say. And there are things that the lay person thinks are okay. But when you say them, that person across from you automatically knows you’re not really in the senior living world and that you’re an outsider and you’re trying to penetrate into their world. And they just know you’re not based on the words that you might say. And it’s not because that person’s a bad person. It’s just that things change. That world is very PC and you’re going to put your foot in your mouth and you’re not even going to know you’re doing it.
Phillip (20:30):
And I think that having someone train you in the way that, whenever my students come back, we always get feedback. You know, interviews for my students. Their minds are blown and their heads are full because they just learned a whole entire industry that is not real estate. Right. And there’s much to learn in this industry. And if I would’ve had somebody back in 2011, I would have gone through that course gladly, because I know how much has been worked for me over this past 10 years. But it’s one of those – here’s an example I can give you that’s really simple. You live in San Diego, you said, and there’s real estate investment associations everywhere? You go to those meetings? Have you ever been to them? Right? You’ve been to a couple. Okay. So what does every REIA have usually at one time? Is there somebody showing the size of their most recent check? Have you ever seen that? Where they’re like, look at this deal I did.
Tony (21:24):
Yeah. People, I mean, I see, I see it on social media, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in the REIA meetings.
Phillip (21:28):
Sure. But what we’re talking about deals, and we’re always showing like how much money we made in all this up, how we talk as real estate investors and how you network in real senior living. They can’t be more – they’re completely separate from each other. Right? And so if you have this, I’m an investor mentality and you come in with the same way that you network in senior living, or in real estate and senior living, you’re going to, you’re not going to have the success you want. So I’ve been networking in senior living now for 10 years. I’ve never seen the size of someone’s check yet. I’ve never seen it. They just, it’s not that kind of world. You know, it’s just not the same showy, I guess what’s the right word. It’s just one side is care and love and collaborative. The other side is let’s learn how much money we can make.
Phillip (22:08):
Right? And out of the 10 different people I teach you how to network with, only one of them, maybe two, you really can have a money conversation with. The other eight are all about heart and taking care of someone. How can I help? And if you come from a different perspective, you won’t have success. So what I’m teaching people how to do is, here’s the psyche of each person, here’s who they are. Here’s how you find them. Here’s the icebreaker scripts on what to say. So they want to listen to you. So they want to use you. It’s all the things that I needed back in 2011, that I had to just figure out on my own, you know, the hard way. And so I, I want your listeners to know, well, it makes sense to listen, or like, you know, if you want to, and let’s talk about what comes from it, right?
Phillip (22:50):
How many of you have a marketing budget that every time you spend it, you’re like, man, I hope I buy a deal because if I spent five grand on direct mail, I sure hope I buy a house from it. You know, if I don’t I’m in trouble or with me, you know, I’ve spent millions of dollars on marketing. And now I’m to the point where my relationships bring me enough deals in the senior living world. Right. I don’t even have a marketing budget. So my business comes to me. I’ll get a text. Hey Phil, can you be at Bob’s house at 2:30 on Tuesday? Yes. Yes I can. And you know how you said, if you’re already teed up with a warm referral, you know, how much easier those relationships or those, those transactions go, they want to sell you the house at that point.
Tony (23:26):
Absolutely good stuff. Well, I love marketing methods that don’t have a lot of competition. You know, I teach TV, which didn’t have a lot of competition, something like this. I’ve never heard anybody talk about. I know that I’ve thought about it before. I’ve thought about you know, marketing to state companies and, you know, different titles, even senior living centers, I’ve just never gotten into it. So I look forward to, to seeing a little bit more in your training and how you do it, and thanks for sharing with our listeners. So again, go to momshouse.com. We also may put a put a link down below that that we’ll go to, to Phillip and his team. Any last words before we wrap this up?
Phillip (24:05):
Sure. I think when I look at the world right now, the condition of the world that I see, we need more love. There needs to be more love. There’s a lot of negative. We won’t get into that right now. Right. But there’s a lot of negative. This is one of the hardest times in these families’ lives. And I solve three problems. I solve the senior living industry problem. I solved Mary’s problem, that family. And then us as the investor, what investor is not looking for the best deals ever these teed up, ready to go, high equity, need to sell referral leads. It’s it’s the dream lead. I hear people talking about a lot about, I do a cold calling and I’m like, Oh, what a hard business? You know, you’re looking for the needle in the haystack when you’re cold calling. I talk to 10, 11 people a month and I buy three to four houses. So what, what lifestyle do you want? You know, all your listeners should know, you’re actually in the marketing business, as much as you’re thinking you’re in the real estate business. And so do you want it to come to you or do you want to always be tied to having do these other marketing efforts? So that’s my 2 cents.
Tony (25:07):
No, that’s great. It’s great. It’s good. It’s great that you vet your people cause you don’t just let anybody into the program. You make sure you vet them so that they fit. It sounds like you built a culture. It’s like, it’s not flashy. Like you said, it’s not, Hey, how can I go necessarily just get more deals, but it’s also, how can I help these people in a situation that they’re in? And I think that’s great because in this business, people are all about the money, all about the bottom dollar and what I’ve realized in my real estate investing business. You know, we, I do very well in that, but I have other businesses that are you know, do well also, but are way more fulfilling because they help people more and you know, that kind of thing. So with this, you’re kind of taking the real estate investing business and really putting a nice, like, loving, caring, touch on it.
Tony (25:56):
And you’re getting paid back in return for your efforts. So I love it. That’s good stuff. Good stuff. Well, thanks for jumping on Philip. Hopefully you guys get in touch with Phillip. See if the program’s right for you and look forward to catching up again with you soon.
Phillip (26:09):
Thank you.