¶ Introduction to Keynotes Podcast
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. My name is Steve Schwab, I'm your host today. And today, we have a special treat.
¶ Meet Mike Reinman: A Journey into Hospitality
We are here with Mike Reinman. He's the owner of Casago in both Kona and the Redwoods. Mike, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me, Steve. Mike, I've known you now for about six years? Thanks. Yeah. About six years now. Yep. And it's been such a pleasure to get to know you both professionally and personally as a friend.
You've always got such great wisdom and kind things to say and out of all the people that I know, I think you're one of the kindest hearted people that I know when it comes to just general day to day how you treat people and I've always really admired that. Mike, how did you end up? Getting into hospitality.
I think part of it goes back to when I was in the Peace Corps, where, where I met my wife as well and serving in the Peace Corps, I think as a going to a place and being a complete stranger in this different community, you know, where you don't speak the language or understand the culture or anything like that. I think you become very appreciative of hospitality and the folks, many of them did not have much at all from a. material world, but they had huge hearts. So I think that was it.
Yeah. That's really cool. And so when you got out of the Peace Corps, you ended up doing some consulting, if I remember right. And then you ended up starting up your own short term rental company before Casago.
Correct. Yeah. So I was a teacher. I was working. I actually, uh, to take a step back, like I was fairly close on 9 11. I was doing joint ventures and the like in New York and New Jersey. And I was fairly close on 9 11. And it just got us thinking about stuff. My wife and I only had two small kids. So ended up moving out to California. And sometimes when you move to a new place, you see yourself differently. and you see the world differently. Maybe the world sees you differently.
And I think that helps you to start to start something fresh. Cause I don't know if I would have been the entrepreneur if I had stayed in New Jersey, you know, I'm not sure. Maybe I would have been the corporate guy. So moved out. And one of the things I started doing was teaching and actually working with the Spanish speaking community. My first job moving to California was I would work with Spanish speakers that wanted to start a small business.
And I would teach these classes that were paid for by the small business development corporation with the government. And I'd have these classes and it was great. I do it in Spanish and stuff. And we had books and stuff and it was beautiful. And I'd go and I'd see their, they'd show me, Hey, we just opened our business and I'd go there and I still go back and I see their businesses and it's amazing. This is like 20 something years later. That's really a great story.
I know last time I was out there visiting you in the Redwoods, we traveled to a small little town with a little cape And you pointed up to a house in which you were helping people at the time, you know, years ago, taking care of people and educating them and making sure that they're okay. And I think that really speaks to The kind of person you are and where your heart is and where your mind is often. Thank
you, Steve Yeah, I hope so and I think when we work on building a team in this business a big part of that for me is Having like minded people with me that have that heart. Yeah people that are in alignment with you. Absolutely
Mike when it comes to hospitality What's your approach in delivering?
I think you've got to empathize with both. If you do that properly and that's your priority, you're going to hit it. So that's what we do. So we look at things from the owner's perspective and I am an owner, I own some short term rentals and that helps me have that perspective as well. And I think when I speak with owners, they're excited to see that as well. And then on the hospitality side for the guests. It's the same thing. It's, what are they looking for? What works for them?
How can you make it better for them? One of the things I tell my folks, including like in Kona, is look, that person that just got there, they're just called and maybe they had an issue opening the lockbox or something like that. Understand that might be hour 23 of their travel. Right. I mean, these guys came from depend if they came from the east coast or something like that, they got to get to the airport. They got to do maybe they're traveling with kids. It is brutal.
So you got to look at it from that perspective. How can we make it as smooth as possible for them? So looking at changing your lens as that person, as that host to see it from their perspective and the same thing with the homeowner as well.
¶ The Casago Difference: Owner-Centric Approach
Yeah, when it comes to Casago and you being the owner of Casago, What's unique about Casago as opposed to maybe others who operate in your market?
Yeah, I mean and I could have done this myself. I didn't have to do this with Casago. I wanted to do with Casago because I saw the strong culture of Caring that definitely is a match with how I see things and also The pride and the knowledge I saw you have got people that are phenomenal You that know their stuff so well for them. You succeeding is something that has to happen and they're with you. They're with you in your corner and they're helping you do that every step of the way.
Whether it's, I'm looking to expand my team or I need some different technology or I'm integrating with this other OTA and I'll make sure things go smooth or I'm having a problem with this OTA and I need help with that. You know, everything it's, it's, yeah, it's phenomenal.
when you became the owner of Casago you really embody that, local boots on the ground. And when I'm with you, the last time I was with you, phone calls came in and you're making the decision. and speaking to homeowners, when you speak to like the big box companies or other, companies that might be out there, I know that often if you want to talk to somebody who can make a decision. They could be several states away and several phone calls away if you're going to get an answer at all.
And you really become the person where, you know, the buck stops with Mike Reinman. Absolutely. If somebody wants to speak to the owner of the company, speak to the owner of Casalgo, they call you. And they get the guy that's in charge. And it's really cool.
I love that. And also our team, we are empowered. Everybody's empowered. And a lot of people do a lot of different aspects. So really any of us can do any of the job that the other person is doing, whether it's picking up a phone call. Wanted to make a reservation. They had a couple of questions first, going and doing an inspection of a property, right. Or doing the backend work on the, on the software side of things, all those kinds of things. We can all do that stuff.
And even the pricing like, yeah, I'm the expert, but my team helps that a lot as well. And they can do changes on that as well. And yeah, you're an owner, you compare it to the big box. So cool. Cool. You're an owner and you say, Hey, can you explain this pricing thing? Or Hey, what if we do this, now I'm going to, I'm going to do the analysis for you, maybe right there on the spot. Maybe I already know it. Or I'm going to say, look, give me a day to do the numbers on this.
I'm going to come back to you in a day, probably in person, because that's how we are. And we'll go through this stuff and say, Hey, That was a great question. Yeah, let's do that. Let's make that change. Or, well, we'd kind of recommend let's it, hold it on the pricing and stuff and see what happens, so we're the ones doing that. It's not somebody else out there doing it and we have the expertise to do it.
And fortunate where I've got an analytical background and a computer coding background, it makes it easy for me to,
yeah, so cool. it's really the sweet spot between having an international brand and enterprise tools to support you, but also being truly the local business owner. Boots on the ground, taking care of your property owners. Each one at a time is the perfect sweet spot between the two of them.
And I love it. And I love, and those relationships, with the owners, I know we're going to get to that in a little bit more, but those relationships, that stuff, that's so special. That's why I'm, I'm, I'm in this business for the relationships.
¶ Building Lasting Relationships with Homeowners
that's what it's about, not just with my team, but for the homeowners, I've got homeowners that are super fans, they're incredible. If we're thinking about doing something, we might talk to them about it. Hey, we're thinking about doing this. What do you think? The other thing I just talked to some of that, I said, Hey, look, once every couple months, I like to have a meeting where I want to rotate where I have three or four owners. That we're thinking about doing things.
We want feedback from you on these things. We want to say how are we doing? What can we do better? so I don't know. I don't think those big box places are doing that. No,
no, they're not getting a local Volunteer board of directors on a personal basis to be able to think about best decisions in that market, right? It's very cool that you do that. So you touched on a little bit. I'm gonna go into it now We have this credo inside of Casago that we all subscribe to. And it's really about how we take care of our homeowners and the stakeholders within, the ecosystem that's created by the short term rental, operations.
And the first tenet of that is being owner centric. And that owner centric approach is foundational to how we do business. Can you describe what owner centric is in your own words?
Absolutely. And, an owner, for many of them, that home that they are renting out may be one of their biggest investments. Right? It may be their biggest investment. And they also, they may have an emotional attachment to it as well. You know, it might be the house they grew up in. Or just that they worked really hard to buy that, as a, as a couple or as a family, or maybe it was brought down from their folks and stuff like that too.
So you see that attachment they have, but the other side of that is what are their pain points? What do they want? What are their priorities? It's asking and listening, right, before you start talking, right? It's dropping your own ego and really listening to them. What can we do? How can we do that? And how can we over deliver on that as well? So, what's their priority? Their priority might be, I want my house to be, Kept beautifully, I want it to look really well.
I want to always keep it updated. I want to make changes to it. I want to, maybe I want to make it themed now. Maybe I want to change the theme of it. The other thing we do with homeowners is we strongly recommend that they consider putting 15 percent of their income. Back into the property every year. It might be that for that year, maybe it's you're replacing some furniture, things like that. Maybe you're doing some upgrades in your kitchen, and maybe it doesn't take the full 15%.
We'll put that aside for the next year. And maybe that's when you add that other amenity that you've been thinking about doing. Maybe you add the hot tub or the sauna, or maybe you do the bathroom remodel, stuff like that, too. So for us, we're empowering the owner to both have that income, but also continue to invest and make that property better. Right. And that's, that's what it's about.
So awesome. So exciting. Mike, do you have a memorable story with a homeowner that highlights why homeowners should come on with Casago as you being the property
manager? Absolutely, Steve. And this one, like it gets, it's a little hard. We have an owner in the Redwoods. His first name is Jim. He's a little older. He was in early stages of some illness and stuff. Yeah. But we hadn't met him. He actually was introduced to us by his CPA who was also our CPA and said, Hey, you should think about this because he had this other property next to his that he had built for his brother that had passed away and he wasn't sure what to do with it.
So we looked at it. We met with Jim. Great guy. And we looked at the property and said, Look, we think we can do this for you. He said, I don't know anything about decorating or furniture and stuff. We said, Don't worry, we got that. And we started right away. Like that day we started getting the furniture and my wife worked on that. She was part of that, the design. We have friends that are really good at science. We had them to make sure it was themed properly.
when we had work done on it, we all, we managed all that stuff, really worked closely with him. And then we got to turn around. I think we had it live within a month or five weeks or something like that. You know, it was great. And now he's talking about putting a hot tub in there because it's been going really well. It's been something where he said, this is so nice for me. And. The key here also is he's been getting nice cash flow. That's all great.
But now as he's getting to a later stage in life, His daughter now has the opportunity to own something that's running, and it's generating great income, and it's staying in great shape, right? And it's growing in value and stuff like that. So that he gets to hand that, and that makes him feel really good. And he says that to us. By the way, he comes to our Super Bowl parties. You know? I mean, it's great. He comes. My wife loves playing, um, what is it?
They go in the, to these places, and you do the trivial pursuit. He'll come sometimes to that. it's fun. So we bring them into the family and it's great. I love it. I love that. Yeah. We also
talk often about building relationships that transcend business and that's a perfect example of building those relationships that it's not, they're not transactional. They're truly relationships that value the human, absolutely not just there for, to use the human. Right. And I love that about the way you operate, in everything you do,
Mike. Thank you. It's fun. It's fun. We enjoy it. Right. Right. And also you're also. Just because you build that relationship of friendship and trust doesn't mean you're also not giving your all as a business person and making sure that that house, which is also their business is succeeding. that's what we do.
¶ Contact Information and Closing Remarks
Exactly.
So Mike, if somebody wants to get ahold of you to talk about property management, maybe they've heard the podcast or have seen something and want to reach out and, and have a discussion about how you can help them with their property. What email or phone number should they reach out with?
Sure, they can call my direct number, 707 496 8746. And for email, they can use my Redwoods with an S, gm at cossago. com. And I'd love to talk to him. We love what we do. That's great.
You guys, if you get a chance to talk to Mike, even if you don't sign up, it's well worth the time just to get to know him. Mike, thanks for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate you. And we'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much, Steve. Appreciate it.