Speaker: 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 your host, Steve Schwab.
Today, we're with Jeff and Marci Harris from Kasago Hebrew.
Welcome to the show, guys.
Thank you, Steve.
Good to be here.
You guys have been with Kasago now for two years?
Just shy of two years.
And since then, you've grown a lot.
Speaker 2: We have.
We have.
We've grown not only in size and number of units, but
Speaker: professionally.
. Tell me a little bit about your journey as you've come through Casago from
beginning where you started to where you are now, that professional portion of
Speaker 2: it.
Marcy and I started our own property management company called Key in Memory,
a small STR management company with properties in Utah and California.
Marcy is also the founder and CFO of a company called Organized Gains,
which is a bookkeeping firm that specializes in supporting real
estate investors and STR operators.
So we had kind of a good head start on a lot of other folks because we had a
lot of best practices we learned from others even before we joined Casago.
Speaker: Yeah.
And so you guys, as a family, decided to get into STRs and then join Casago.
Tell me a little bit about your family before.
Did you have children?
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, we have four adult children, two of which are married,
and one graduated college and moved to Florida, and one is serving a mission
for our church in Peru right now.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, and our two married kids, one lives close by in Utah with a master's
in microbiology, and And our daughter's serving in the Peace Corps in Morocco.
Speaker: With her husband.
Speaker 3: With her husband.
So we're spread out across the world, I'd say.
Speaker: Yeah, quite the adventurous family, huh?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And
Speaker 2: did you raise them in Heber?
We lived the first 50 years of our lives in Southern California.
Born and raised there.
All of our kids were born there.
It wasn't until COVID in 2020 that we moved up to Utah full time.
We spent a lot of time in Utah before that, but we didn't live there.
And then when all the schools shut down in California, we moved everybody up
to, the two kids we still had in school, up to Utah, and they finished school up
Speaker: there.
That's fantastic.
And so, how did you guys end up getting into CASAGO?
What was your decision to change over?
Speaker 3: We needed help.
Yeah, we needed help.
We knew we needed to upgrade, so.
Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had set a target in terms of number of properties we
wanted to get to, and we realized at the stage we were at at that point
that we needed help to get there.
And so we actually traveled to VRMA in Las Vegas a couple years ago.
I signed up for everything I could find that I thought would help me out, and
the very last booth I went to was Casago.
And I learned that I could have just signed up for a
franchise and got all of that.
And got better tech than what I had signed up for.
Because I didn't qualify for half the stuff that I really wanted.
I was able to get what I wanted by going with Casago.
And I should save money and have all the support.
It's been a fantastic experience.
Speaker: Oh, that's great.
I'm so glad you guys came on.
It's been such a fun experience with you guys.
Watching you grow and all the good interactions we have.
I personally have really enjoyed it.
Tell me a little bit about Your personal approach to
Speaker 2: hospitality.
Marcy actually kind of coined this, but we've always strived for it.
What we would call a six star experience.
So beyond five stars, right?
Five stars is the most you're generally allowed to, to give.
We want our guests to wish there was a sixth star.
When they raided us, and so we take that approach with everything we want them to
think back on the trip that they took.
And if they came to Heber city or whatever other properties, and they come to Heber
city originally for a specific purpose we want them to look back at six months
or a year later and remember that trip and remember more about the home and
amazing stay they had, as opposed to.
The fact that they were in Heber City, you know, they want them to think,
I remember that really great home we stayed in and how well we were treated.
Let's, let's go back there or let's, let's run another one from, from those guys.
Cause those guys were pros.
Yeah.
So
Speaker 3: I think kind of striving for six stars, things are inevitably
going to go wrong and people are more forgiving when you have good processes
and you're really striving to be, you know, the best and you feel like, okay,
if, if the air conditioning goes out, things are a little out of your control.
It gives you a little bit of room there.
Yeah.
Speaker: I've been thinking a lot about earning the right to fail with,
you know, a guest or a homeowner.
Putting goodwill into it, earning and striving for that sixth star
when there's something that's out of your control that happens.
You've earned the goodwill.
You've earned the right to fail.
They understand that you're giving.
Six star experience, right?
And when something goes wrong, they're like, we get it, right?
I feel like that's a big part of what you're talking about here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had a client years ago in a different industry Mentioned to
someone in my hearing that the reason why he did business with Jeff Harris was
because Not that things don't go wrong because things are gonna go wrong in
life It's it's how Jeff handles things when they do go wrong Yeah, and I've
used that as a mantra for everything I've done since then that's fantastic
Speaker: So tell me a little bit about what makes Kosovo
Heber unique in its market.
Well, I
Speaker 2: think it starts with the approach we've taken of the six star stay.
We also really work hard with a lot of feet on the street,
attempts to educate ourselves of what's happening in our market.
I spent a lot of time and Marcy and I both spent a lot of time in community
events, whether it's chamber of commerce events or local business networking.
We sponsor local charity events and street cleanups and other things we do
just to get involved in the community.
Um, we spend a lot of time networking with others that are adjacent to our field,
but are complimentary to it, such as realtors, home inspectors, even tradesmen.
Homebuilders and letting them know who we are, what we do so that when
they come across people that need what we do, they, they let us know.
I think that's what really separates us so largely from our competition.
Cause a lot of what we do is duplicatable, right?
But it's, it's the, why would you do business with Casago Hebrew
versus one of our competitors?
Well, I think that's, those things
Speaker: are
Speaker 2: part of the big reason.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so too.
I see all the cool things you guys do when you post on social media
or just through our conversations.
And I've always thought that was a differentiator for, for you all.
You know, you're the local heroes.
You're those boots on the ground.
You're not just there to use Heber.
You're there to love Heber.
You're making sure that you're being a good neighbor and that
you're, you're taking care of the community, your homeowners.
And it really shines through.
And I'm very proud of you guys.
I'm very proud to be associated with you guys when I see you doing those things.
It makes me feel a lot of pride.
It's a really good thing that you guys do.
It does
Speaker 3: help differentiate us from national brands as well, because maybe
people might think we're a national brand, and I think that's what won us a
recent contract, is that we were competing against a national brand, and they just
loved the Heber ness of us, I think, you know, because it's in our blood, kind of.
It's been really good for business.
Speaker: You can tell.
You can tell.
So we have something inside of Kasago called owner centric.
And it's part of a credo that we all talk about and discuss on a regular basis.
Can you tell us a little bit about what owner centric means to you?
Speaker 2: Sure, we are clear with our homeowners right up front as fellow
real estate investors that we know that they are putting a lot of trust in us.
And when it comes to that investment they've made and taking care of their
property, we go out of our way to communicate that and set the expectations
up front with those homeowners.
And then we reinforce that expectation every time we interact with them.
While we've lost a few homeowners that were not good
fits with our business model.
We feel confident every one of them knew we always were in their corner.
First and foremost.
As I said above, it kind of begins with our setting the clear expectations and
then reinforcing that and renewing those expectations as often as is required.
Having a foundation that allows us to demonstrate that we're
meeting those expectations and then frequently exceeding them.
Without something to measure our success against, It's easy for a homeowner
to see greener grass somewhere else.
And every time that that has happened, we've learned from that experience
and had to adjust our approach.
Do you guys have a
Speaker: memorable story about a homeowner experience that you've
had that just Shines or stands out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just onboarded a brand new property.
It's known as the A Frame.
And A Frame is one of those terms in a mountain town that, you know, may
describe a lot of homes up there.
There's nothing special about the word A Frame.
But this home is owned by a A widely known and well sought after influencer.
That home is famous for, for being one of the most highly
productive STRs in our area.
They have commercials shot there, weddings, even fashion shows, and
other events have been filmed there.
She specifically sought us out.
And asked us to manage her property after doing her own research
and on how Marcy and I operate.
So that's, that meant a lot to us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That our reputation kind of proceeded far enough ahead of us
that when she did her own research, and her being one of the most powerful
and influential properties in our area, when she decided she wanted to
step away from the management portion of it, we were the ones she wanted.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Speaker 3: And she knew what she was looking for because she was managing it.
You know, a lot of times our Homeowners don't have that frame of
reference of running it on their own.
Sure.
So that really felt really good to us that she was able to see through our
reviews, what people say about us, what people in the community say about us.
Like it meant a lot that she trusts us with it.
It's a super fun house to live in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think even adding on what Marcy said, that she said
about what other people say about us.
If you do any kind of search on Facebook, or you post on one of the local Ask
Heber page on Facebook, who's a good property manager, we get 60 70 percent
of the mentions right off the bat.
So cool.
Yeah, and it's funny we get mentioned by people we don't even know but
they know people who dealt business with us And I say these are the guys.
Yeah
Speaker: Speaks volumes literally So if a homeowner wants to get a hold
of you to find out more about Casago Hebrew, how would they reach out to you?
Speaker 2: Obviously via phone?
They were gonna hopefully they found our website number would be area code
nine four nine four five six 4 7, 3 6.
And what email would they want to reach out to if they
just wanted to do it by email?
Contact me directly at Jeff at Cago Heber.
C-A-S-A-G-O-H-E-B-E r.com.
I I love having direct conversations.
Homeowners have a lot of great questions.
Most of homeowners, this is the first time they're venturing this.
And there's a lot of fear and trepidation about it.
Hopefully after our conversation, they're not only better educated
and but maybe that education alleviates some of that fear and
we are going to be frank with them.
We spent a lot of time making sure that we are dialed into what it can and cannot be
done in our community, what the community will allow, what the city allows.
What regulations you have to worry about, what permits are
required, all of that stuff.
And we know all of that and I can speak to it without having to research it.
I live it every day and I'm happy to share all that knowledge with
the potential homeowner so they know what they're getting into.
And even to the point where we can provide pretty solid information.
Estimations of what that home might generate in terms of revenue.
Yeah.
, Speaker: thanks so much for coming on.
I sure appreciate y'all.
So proud of the work you guys are doing.
And we'll talk to you soon.
Thank you.