Steve V2: Welcome to Keynotes, a podcast just for Casago homeowners.
This is where we explore how to get the most out of your relationship with
Casago, learn tips and tricks on how to make more income with your property,
and learn a little bit about the short term rental industry along the way.
I've been a vacation rental nerd since my 20s, and the team has finally let
me have this podcast so I can share everything I've learned with you.
I'm your host, Steve Schwab, and this is Keynotes.
Hey, welcome to Keynotes.
. I'm here with Michael Austad, the owner of Casago in Willamette Valley.
Michael, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Glad to have you here.
You've been with Casago now for a little over a year.
Yep.
Started May 1st of 2023.
So awesome.
And before Casago, you were working in retail for 20 years.
Can you tell us a little about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Uh, it was a family business.
Me and my family opened the franchise of Good Feet Stores and we started
in Portland and we grew from there.
I opened personally with the help of my family, of course, uh, Boise, and
we kept growing and By the time I left, we were at twenty six stores.
Wow.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Yeah, thank you.
Some successful business.
And you have a beautiful wife and a little boy.
Yes.
So he's, he's young.
You guys are, you got your young family taking off and going?
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker: he's just started kindergarten.
It's nice.
So nice.
What made you decide on Willamette Valley?
Speaker 2: Uh, well, you know, that's where all my family lives.
I moved around a lot, but I always liked Oregon.
Beautiful place.
It's green all year.
Like, what can you say about a lot of places to be green,
we're not having water issues.
It's a nice place to be, and that's where I live, that's where
all my families are, for sure.
Speaker: Michael, what made you decide to get into the hospitality industry?
Speaker 2: You know, I started out looking for, because when I was in retail
for so long, the problem with retail is, you're kind of on your own a lot.
What do you have to do?
Everything for your store.
Even, uh, competitors that come in, because even though we weren't shoes, we
would still have shoe companies come in.
They'll scope out your store, take a bunch of pictures, like, Cognito style.
Then they'll start demanding stuff, or pushing things around, and
you just had a lot of adversarial relationships with people.
And when I started looking for another business after leaving, and I want to
stay somewhere local, I didn't want to grow and have to grow it in other cities.
I wanted to stay in Oregon.
And that's when I ran into hospitality.
If you want to grow, there's plenty of homes out there.
You just grow your inventory of homes.
And then the other thing was even entering, To this industry, just
how collaborative everyone is.
It's about building relationships with your homeowners, with your clients, your
guests that are coming in the house with vendors that are in the industry and also
with Casago and other franchisees and you guys, the franchise or it's been so nice.
Just, it's such a collaborative place to be.
And that's what really
Speaker: sold
Speaker 2: me.
Yeah,
Speaker: that's great.
Speaker 2: Michael, what led you to decide to be
Speaker: part of Casago?
Um,
Speaker 2: I actually explored another franchise in the industry before
you guys, nothing against them.
It's just wasn't a good fit.
The part reason for that was the first thing they talked about was money was how
much money you can make, how much this, how much that, and then it was about
a list of how we can nickel and dime our homeowners and ways to, to maximize
that and still have the low, like, you know, rental commission to be as low as
possible, but we're gonna, we're gonna go on the back end and get all that money.
When I went and looked at your website and your franchise opportunity part,
first thing you guys talked about was quality, was about orange, uh,
our orange credo, which is, you know, First thing owner centric or being
owner focused and taking care of it really showed is just about taking care
of everyone around you, your owners, your employees, your guests, and then
eventually they will take care of you.
And that was the first focus you guys had.
And that's what the biggest selling point for me was like.
Wow.
This company really wants to stand up on high morals rather than
just about making that quick buck.
Speaker: Yeah.
About, about the stakeholders instead of just the cashflow, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker: exactly.
I believe the cash always comes if you do the right things.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: And are consistent with them.
Speaker 2: And I, I believe that cashflow shows, uh, or like a good
cashflow shows the health of a business.
It's like a health check, but it's not the end all be all.
Cause if your money was gone, would your industry be there?
Is that industry really worth it?
If it would be gone, that's always a question to ask yourself.
Speaker: It's a good question to ask.
I'd ask you the question what your personal approach is to a
great vacation rental experience.
And you mentioned KISS and you had kind of a unique spin on it.
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 2: Well, we all know the acronym KISS.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like to say, keep it simple Socrates.
It was part of our, my last business as well.
We would say that.
It was part of our motto.
But, keep things simple.
Don't over complicate everything.
Especially in communication.
Because if we go into too much complicated words, or make it too long,
or too wordy, or, or start pulling out words that people don't even know,
um, you really lose your audience.
You lose the people.
And I was in, like I said, retail, which is sales.
We had a lot of sayings like, people don't care how much you know
until they know how much you care.
And how to show that is usually in your way of communication with them.
If you can go into a long, wordy thing or you try to elevate yourself above them
through the words you're using, you're going to not only lose your audience,
but you're going to make them feel small.
And you never want to do that.
And so I do believe in business, keep it simple, and especially with communication,
Speaker: yeah.
Being authentic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: And building a relationship, right?
Speaker 2: For sure.
Yeah.
Speaker: I feel like you do a really good job at having authentic
conversations with people.
I've never ever felt like you've ever been anything but authentic.
Less than perfectly genuine in every, in every interaction I've ever had with you
and it shows through in your opinion.
I mean, what do you think makes Casago different than other
property management companies?
When a homeowner is thinking about signing up with somebody else,
Speaker 2: you know, saying I have is we have the power of a large company, but
the touch of a local owner, all those Benefits of a big company, lower rates
on certain things we can get, having better priced items coming in, so it
keeps things lower margins, helps we can get more products into the home.
You know, uh, companies don't look over, overlook us because of our size.
But as a homeowner, if you want to call your property manager, you just call me.
You have my cell, you can text, you can call, you can email, whatever you like.
And that's a huge thing.
You don't have to call a call center.
You don't have to deal with a random person every time.
Uh, you may, you know, some places I've heard, they don't
even know their property manager.
Like they never meet up with them.
They never seen them in person.
They never have any insight of who they are as a person.
And that's the thing that's so different with us because we're, Again, we're a
local owner, we're there to help you, we're there to work with you, and I would
like to visit and just say hi and talk, not just be about business all the time.
If
Speaker: somebody wants to call the owner of Casago, they get to call you.
Yes.
Because you're their property manager, you're also the owner of the company.
And you get to make the final decision.
You don't have to go up a chain of command or find for something, find
out, you know, what's going on from somebody in a whole different state.
They get to speak to the ultimate authority because you're the
owner of Casago and you get to be on the ground with them,
building relationships with them.
And I think it's a really valuable and unique place.
Value proposition for homeowners.
Yeah.
Speaker 2: You'll never hear from me.
Corporate said, right.
Yeah.
Corporate said this, I'm sorry.
No, you don't have, we don't have that.
No, cause it's your business.
I'm corporate.
Speaker: Michael, what does owner centric mean to you and how
do you put that into practice?
Speaker 2: Well, owner centric is what it means.
It's, it's owner focused.
So we're there to always be an advocate for the owner, take
care of their needs first.
So a big part of that is how we look at ourselves versus them.
Cause so many people look at what am I getting out of this situation?
How am I.
My money, how am I going to make my thing?
Or this is a lot of work.
I don't know if I want to do that.
And I heard a story a while back from you guys in Mexico where it was on one
of our orange calls where someone had to go to the like utilities or somewhere in
Mexico and, and they just know the result.
It's, it's not going to go well.
But they still went because they're advocating for that homeowner.
They say, I went to that place.
I, I went to the office.
They said, no.
And even if they, you guys knew they're going to say no, you still
went because again, we're there to advocate for the homeowner.
And I believe in that is the first thing you want to do is advocate for their
property, protect it, take care of it, and also produce as much revenue as possible.
So they are making their money.
So they're able to afford that place and take care of them.
Speaker: I love that.
You know, advocating for the owner.
In their absence is our highest and best value.
I mean, they're not there.
We're there on the ground to be the stewards of the property.
And just like you said, like advocating when they're not there and they
can't do it on their own is such an important part of what we do.
And are there other parts of, of our job?
Certainly the revenue, you know, communications, guest experience,
these are all important, but they all serve the homeowner and
advocating for that homeowner in their absence is the number one thing.
That you do there on the ground, taking care of
Speaker 2: their interests.
Yeah, definitely.
And in the conference not too long ago, I heard someone talking about a
homeowner coming up to them and saying, Hey, here's some notes I have for you.
Can you fix these?
And they did it immediately, fast as possible.
And it just, it shows the owner, cause when is there any time to
show that you're there for them?
It's usually when there's a problem, right?
Cause when everything's smooth sailing, everything's good, everyone's happy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when there is an issue between what your homeowner is feeling
with your service, how do you handle that?
Are you dismissive immediately or talk down to them in some way?
Or are we there to like, listen to them, take what their input is.
And even if it's not exactly something we can do, Maybe we can fix it another way.
Maybe we can find a compromise so we can help each other out
instead of being competitive.
Speaker: Even if you have to say no, allowing your homeowner
to be seen and heard is so important to that relationship.
And quite honestly to their comfort level of entrusting you with a massive
asset, a major asset in their life.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker: definitely.
Michael, if a homeowner is interested in speaking to you about property
management for their properties in Willamette, how do they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2: Well, you can go to Casago.
com.
My information's there.
I'm under Willamette Valley.
I also have my own website is Casago wv.
com.
You can go on there and I have all my information on there.
I'm on Facebook.
I'm on Instagram.
And, yeah, you can find my information in many places.
That's great.
And is there a
Speaker: specific email they should use if they just want to just type
it in right now and you quick?
Speaker 2: It's a long one, so pace yourself.
It's, uh, WillametteValleyGMatCasago.
com And that's my direct email.
It goes right to me.
No one else sees it, so.
Speaker: Well, I know you're always really responsive anytime people are messaging
you, so I'm sure that will be right away.
Michael, thanks so much for coming on.
Really appreciate the time.
And if you're interested in having your property managed by Michael in Logan
Valley, make sure to reach out to him.
Thank you.