Speaker: It's the Casa Cast.
We've got Orange Credo.
The Casa Cast.
Our company's neat o.
The Casa Cast.
Created by Casa Go.
It's time for the show.
Let's go!
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Casa Cast.
I'm your host Steve Schwab.
Today I'm here with Scott Klein.
He's been a Partners Success Manager now for almost two years.
We found Scott when we were out looking for a PSM when we started to have too many
partners for Bill to handle by himself.
Scott's name came up multiple times and when we approached him, we found
a lot of valuable information that he had that a lot of us didn't have.
He's an expert at Streamline and has brought a lot of value to Costco
and helped a lot of our partners.
. So today I get the opportunity of interviewing him and introducing
him to maybe some people who don't get to talk to him very often.
Scott, welcome to the show.
Excellent.
Thanks for having me, Steve.
I'm glad to have you.
So let's catch up a little bit on Your background and you know where you've
come from, , and just let people get to know you a little bit Scott You're
originally from Nebraska, right?
Speaker 3: Yep, Lincoln, Nebraska Go big red big Husker fan growing
up and living out in Lincoln It was a great time with the family and
everything definitely enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Do you have a large family or?
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, pretty large, uh, two brothers, two sisters, parents split.
I felt like they came together.
They had me and then they split and did their own thing.
So I feel as though I'm the purebred of the family.
Yeah, you're the only one, the unicorn.
Speaker 2: Speaking of unicorns, you are a little bit into the metaphysical, right?
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely.
I've gotten deep into the spiritual and just understanding more of myself.
And with that, and it's allowing me to understand others as well and
how I can help out with the growth and just different ideas, just
kind of seeing how they're thinking and what different thoughts and
ideas can be brought to the table.
I like expanding people's consciousness for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Scott, when you think about the metaphysical studies you've done,
what's one morsel of wisdom that you could give to our listeners that's
got some practical application to it?
Speaker 3: One for me is just being where your eyes are.
We always worry about all these things that maybe won't ever come to
fruition and get caught up in that.
And it can sometimes create an anxiety and stress.
And a lot of that I feel as though is undue.
And we just need to be a little bit more present.
With what we're dealing with, what we're actually doing and not worried
about everything that could happen potentially and everything that
has happened in the past as well.
But I also like to go back and forgive my past self to allow my
current self to be a better person.
So understanding those past timelines of what it was that I
created and more or less kind of coming into the current timeline
and you can become a better person.
So I like that.
It's my little time travel way of going back and forth.
Being kind to your present self by forgiving your
Speaker 2: past self big time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's helped me out a ton.
I like that.
So you went to college and I'm not sure what were you majoring in?
Speaker 3: I couldn't even make a decision on majoring.
I went in there just because I felt like that was the path and life that
you take and it just didn't quite fit for me and had different ideas.
And after a semester of spending money and going through the steps
and I never really enjoyed the schooling and all that kind of stuff.
I liked going out and learning on my own.
I didn't like it.
Sometimes being structured and taught things that didn't have a relevance and
what I was kind of operating or doing.
So going out and learning myself and getting out of school allowed me to
get into business a lot sooner I felt like and I had a really good mentor
when I left Nebraska when I was 20 I moved down to Tampa and I connected
with an individual and Just became a big business mentor for me and really showed
me the ropes Of how to navigate phone calls with potential clients, right?
Sales was a big component of that customer service as well.
How to talk to people, deescalate situations as well, and just that
overall communication factor and then how that all ties into growing a potential
business and everything along those lines.
So, yeah.
So
Speaker 2: you went down to Florida and then you ended up through
this mentorship, starting your own business on student loans.
Yeah.
Speaker 3: Along those lines, we were client advocates for student loan
borrowers, essentially helping them get out of default or wage garnishments.
There's a lot of people that struggle with student loans, especially getting
thousands of dollars in debt at the age of 18, not knowing what you're going to do.
Sometimes.
A lot of the colleges would pry on that, right?
They inflate their costs.
So people need help, especially when they got out of school and not
knowing how they're going to pay.
There's many different government programs out there that governments didn't have an
outreach program to enroll people into.
We saw an opportunity to help out individuals and lower in monthly payments.
It was really cool when you can see someone struggling, right?
Having 25 percent of their paycheck just taken from the government.
And to pay a student loan, but yeah, it didn't do anything to the interest.
So it just continued to compile and burden them more and more.
Steve: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So ending that wage garnishment on paychecks and then getting them
enrolled into a monthly payment that they could actually afford and hopefully
forgiving their student loans, right.
Cause their new programs got rolled out and that kind of stuff.
So it was like a H& R block, but instead it was for your student loans.
Steve: I feel like in some way that must have prepared you to
become a partner, success manager.
Speaker 3: Big time.
Yeah.
We had to partner with a lot of these individuals.
Um, it was a lot of client based, um, talking with them, helping them out.
Some people not always in the best situation financially and figuring out
ways to allow them to see the value in the service that we're offering
where they had to ultimately pay for it to again, get that money back.
So it was a lot of trust that they had to put into us.
Yeah, we had to build.
That's really cool.
After you
Steve: finished with that, you decided to join Streamline.
Yes.
How did you find
Streamline?
Scott: It's a unique story.
I went through a pretty up and down period in my life.
And I was living in Brooklyn, New York at that point.
Life happened and I have a really good friend that I grew up with
in Lincoln, Nebraska, that lives out here in the Phoenix area.
And he allowed me to come and stay on his couch for a few months and just
kind of hang Figure out my life a little bit when I was there, just kind of
searching for different opportunities.
Um, in the Phoenix area, what could land me perhaps back on my feet.
I connected with streamline and soggery and Carlos helped me out with.
Offering me a job that I was really looking for.
I saw that I really manifested it.
I wanted something that it wasn't so much a money value that I was looking for.
It was experiences and opportunities.
And at that point, streamline was creating a division to allowing individuals to
go visit and work with some of their VIP markets, helping them out, consult with
those markets and utilizing the software.
The most efficient way.
So the stars aligned with that.
I did a lot of deep diving and growth during that timeframe.
So seeing that come into fruition.
Really provided me a lot more.
Steve: Yeah,
and you really love
Speaker 2: that travel and you got to visit like 75 different markets, right?
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Steve: what were some of the common problems ? Happening in those 75
markets that you visit without getting in too deep into individuals
issues But just like common issues you saw going through those markets.
What were some of the things you saw?
Scott: Just individuals not taking the time to learn the software that
they're using day in and day out.
How can it actually save them time?
That's what I really want to give people back, right?
If I can cut out sometimes 10 hours worth of work in a week and get that done in one
hour, Right now you have nine extra hours that you can either enjoy life doing other
things or you can continue to grow your business and improve along those lines.
So it was always just efficiency.
That's what I like.
One thing I always.
Look to do is I call it efficient luxury.
I want something to be luxurious, but I want it to be efficient at the same time.
It doesn't need to be overly done and just simplicity.
I feel like the absence
Steve: of friction is a luxury within itself.
Right.
Absolutely.
So you'd love that travel.
And so.
Streamline was sold to inhabit and they started having different ideas
of how they're going to run it.
You know, they have different missions . And they decided to end
the traveling advocacy program.
So he decided maybe that was the end of the road with, with streamline.
It was.
And then we gave you a call
Speaker 3: out of nowhere.
Yeah.
I was not even looking to stay in the vacation rental industry.
I mean, it's a great industry.
I love it.
I love the people.
I love, What it's about, what it's offering.
Cause again, I enjoy traveling.
So using that just wasn't something that I thought about sticking in.
Right.
I'm like consulting.
I like helping people.
So it was like looking in that pathway and that kind of stuff.
So I was searching for a few weeks and what kind of came along and long and
behold, I got a random phone call, I believe from you on a late Saturday
night, and I listened to the voicemail that night and I was like, Oh my God.
Steve Schwab late night.
What's going on here?
I was like, I don't know.
I think I was a little inebriated a little bit, I think too, when that call came in.
So I was like, I'm not in no position right now to handle this, but I
know we connected the next day.
Yeah.
I remember the phone
Steve: call.
I remember leaving the message.
I remember talking to you and trying to explain what we're doing and
what a role would be and, and the context to what I believed you loved
about the job that you'd had before.
Lo and behold came on.
Speaker 3: Yes.
So, yeah, it's been a great opportunity and thanks for reaching
out and making that extension.
And again, that's how the stars align, right?
You just have to be patient.
I was worried.
I'm leaning.
I'm not going to sit here and talk about like, well, how am I going to pay for this
or that when no income's really coming in?
Right.
But Just maintaining the patience, um, setting forth what it is.
And it comes a knock and you just have to be patient.
It's almost like you have to let go.
Right.
Once you fully release into it and accept where you're at, that's when
the doors will start opening up.
Steve: Yeah.
Isn't that funny how the universe kind of lines that up?
So you've been here now for two years.
Yep.
What's been your biggest surprise about working at Casago?
Scott: How much process driven it is.
Just getting things.
In order, right?
Like it's good that you can say all these things and do all these things,
but actually implementing it for efficiency, which I loved, right?
Like there's a reason behind the madness, so to speak, right?
Why are you doing the things, which is a good question to always ask, right?
So why are we helping out these partners?
What is the intention?
What do they want to achieve?
Why do they want to get that?
So asking those kinds of questions, I feel as though.
Steve: Yeah, we just came off of a three day session of working with all the PSM
crew and really trying to refine what our mission and our vision and what our
goals are and the processes for the PSM.
So you want to talk a little bit about that?
How'd you, how'd you see that going?
Scott: That excited me a lot more because it's always good to help
people from a support role, but if you can help them out, even beyond
that, that's what I'm excited about.
Bringing that value to these individuals.
Letting them see what we are offering to them, different ideas, new perspectives
that maybe they haven't thought of sharing those ideas amongst the different
markets that you're working with.
One market might have one idea and you can share that with another and having those
touch points I think is very valuable.
So, I'm excited to see how we are going to be.
Helping these markets potentially set goals, not only for
myself, but for them as well.
Steve: Yeah, we're really expanding your responsibility set, aren't we?
It's going to be an interesting ride for the next year.
It
Scott: excites me a little bit more because again, I like that bigger path.
Yeah.
I like helping those individuals out, see that bigger vision as
opposed to just sometimes getting lost in that day to day as well.
Steve: In a single sentence?
What's your favorite thing about the job you've had over the past two years?
Speaker 3: The way I view it is relationships with CEOs.
You're head of markets, decision makers, right?
Yeah.
People that can actually make decisions with your input.
Steve: Right.
Yeah, that's, that's a great way of thinking about that.
I've never thought about it like that.
We basically have 64 CEOs.
Yeah.
All around.
I love that.
That's great.
That's actually a little profound.
It really is.
So as we're winding down and thinking about like the overall picture and
where we've been and where we're going, You know, I'm going to bring up
orange and I'm just wondering what your favorite letter in orange is and why
Scott: for myself because I utilize it the most each and every
day is going to be G for guide.
Um, we're always building the team with our coworkers, right?
So helping them out be efficient.
I think that's probably my favorite.
And then I always like how it's kept at the end with the excellence.
So everything wrapped up in it.
It comes to the E in excellence, but you've got to guide them efficiently.
I feel like, so I like guiding the partners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
You know, I always consider G for guide our leadership letter.
And you know, when you tie that into excellence, one of the reasons why
I think excellence works so well is because we're not looking for perfection.
You'll, you'll exhaust yourself., but striving towards excellence is possible.
Expecting perfection out of people is impossible.
It's unforgiving, it's exhausting and unachievable.
So I think I really love the pushing for excellence, right?
So absolutely.
Well, Scott, I really appreciate you coming on.
Any last words that you might have as we end the show?
Speaker 3: Thanks again for having me.
It's always great to Be in these moments with individuals.
I love the face to face It's always great to see individuals on a screen,
but when you can actually physically be there it changes the entire Atmosphere
and how you can get things done I'm big on the the energy and reading
the room and helping individuals out maintaining the balance in there.
So Yeah, you're
Speaker 2: really great one on one, and I know that's one of the reasons
why you came over is because you love travel, and you love being face to face,
and seeing new places, and it, uh, I think it sort of feeds your soul, right?
Absolutely.
Big time.
Well, thanks again Scott.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
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