Beyond Five Stars: Jeff and Marcie Harris Define Excellence in STR

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.

We have. We have. We've grown not only in size and number of units, but

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

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.

Yeah. And so you guys, as a family, decided to get into STRs and then join Casago.

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.

With her husband.

With her husband. So we're spread out across the world, I'd say.

Yeah, quite the adventurous family, huh?

Yeah.

And

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

there. That's fantastic.

We needed help. Yeah, we needed help. We knew we needed to upgrade, so. Yeah.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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

So tell me a little bit about what makes Kosovo Heber unique in its market.

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.

are

part of the big reason.

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.

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.

You can tell. You can tell.

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.

memorable story about a homeowner experience that you've had that just Shines or stands out.

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.

Yeah.

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. Yeah.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.