[Heather Bayer]
So, I am delighted to have with me today Jackie Norde from Casago. She's the Director of Partner Success and having said that you might think that that's just another title. But things have happened massively in the past three months that have made Jackie's job, I'm sure, a little more challenging and exciting. So welcome Jackie, thank you so much for joining me.

[Jackie Norde]
Thank you Heather. Thanks for having me, I'm so happy to be here.

[Heather Bayer]
We first met when Mike and I went down to Rocky Point and you met me at the airport in Phoenix and provided me with the car and then we went back and picked Mike up and then you sent us on our way with lots of snacks and water. It was absolutely great. It was such hospitality and I really felt that from the moment I met you. I thought this is someone who really knows what hospitality is about. We're going to talk about this a bit, about how you've experienced hospitality in many different places across North America in your travels. But I want to start with your story. Can you take us back to how you first got into this industry? I ask everybody this question, what made you do this crazy thing?

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, really! I actually didn't get started in the industry until 2019, but I was an avid traveler before then. I remember booking my first vacation rental on VRBO and not knowing the letters VRBO and so I had to ask somebody what does that mean? And they said Vacation Rental By Owner, and so that stuck with me, And so I used it many times and then Airbnb was introduced to me as well. But in 2019 I joined Streamline in their training and onboarding department. And it was a small company at the time, so you would wear many hats. I was also the StreamPhone product owner as well. And so that's where I got my start.

[Heather Bayer]
And do cover what do you do now, because it's quite the jump from there to your role now....

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, for sure

[Heather Bayer]
.... you know, what's happened over the last three months and how your role has changed since May.

[Jackie Norde]
Okay, so after Streamline I actually went and worked for a group of investors that owned a vacation rental in the Baja Sur Mexico and Managed that property for about 18 months They did not use any software except for Excel when I started and they had just a WYSIWYG web site That you couldn't book reservations on, so I set them up with Streamline actually, and with a brand new web site we increased bookings by about 150% over the year. I was there for a year and a half and just got to experience and put into practice hospitality, which was so much fun and I could talk for a year just about that experience.

And then I was with Guest Ranger, so guest verification for about a year. And then I moved on to Casago, where I was a partner success manager and then recently promoted to Director of Partner Success. So the partner success managers role is to just really hold the franchisees hand from the beginning until the end of time, just being an extension of their team and making sure that the onboarding process is going smoothly and just reiterating what the Casago standards are along the way in case they forget, or just need a nudge. As Director of Partner Success I manage a team of partner success managers, and now, as you mentioned, the last few months we've done a merge with Vacasa and those different locations are being sold off as franchises and so my team is helping to bring them onboard along with the Vacasa Transition Team and then again just being there for them to adjust as an extension of their team

[Heather Bayer]
So you are you dealing with people who are who were already franchisees, who are now taking on a lot more properties, as well as brand new franchises?

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, exactly. So it's such a melting pot. We do have existing franchisees who are taking on extra inventory, so growing exponentially overnight, which is something new and brings on all sorts of challenges. And then we have new franchisees that are coming in, some maybe with no vacation rental experience and others that have have been in the industry or aspects of the industry

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, and Casago has such unique philosophy as well the values the standards that run through the entire company. Do you find that's a really good foundation to help people get their first step on this ladder? Particularly those who have never been in vacation rentals before?

[Jackie Norde]
Absolutely. Yeah, the Casago standard. I actually have my book here with me. I keep it with me all the time when I travel and it's just the go-to for how to run your vacation rental and it's laid out in simple terms that anyone can understand and it also sets up the team for success. So if you as the owner are not present, your team has this to rely on when you're not there whispering in their ear. They've got the Casago standard always to look at.

[Heather Bayer]
In the time that we were working with Casago way back at the beginning of this year, that was the first time I was exposed to the ORANGE Standard and I was just blown away, because as you said It's simple. It's not a massive handbook. It's that tiny little booklet that encompasses so much. That's what I thought, because you could look at it every day and apply something different from it every day.

[Jackie Norde]
Absolutely Yeah, the ORANGE credo - O-R-A-N-G-E - each letter stands for something and it really talks about the relationship and how important that is and how to handle that always doing the right thing is really what it's all about.

[Heather Bayer]
Is that what drew you to Casago in the beginning? Is that what you said? This is where I want to build my career. What was it about Casago that just drew you in?

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, that's an interesting question, because I will say that I set that intention for myself when I was at Streamline and I first learned about Casago and I think it's that it feels like a family and the values, that foundation is so important and they were just doing things in a way, in a manner that I knew that I could emulate, and also aligned with my values.

[Heather Bayer]
So tell me a little bit more about the challenges of change, because I think every one of us in this industry has met change before, but not at that scale. How many properties did Casago have before May 1st and how many after?

[Jackie Norde]
We were about 4,000 before May 1st and.... oh my goodness how many after.... I think 35 or 40,000 maybe is the count. So yes, quite the amount of growth in a short amount of time.

[Heather Bayer]
You know what got me at that time and I thought a lot about it, Vacasa was always seen as this technology focused company and technology and sales and let's drive it all forward and then in comes Casago with this foundation of standards that focus more on the location, of the owners. Just tell me about that difference and how you've been able to manage that over these first few months. Particularly with the locations that weren't immediately absorbed into a franchise.

[Jackie Norde]
So the locations that weren't immediately absorbed are just running as is, until they are. So nothing has changed there. But for the location, so San Diego just closed on their deal. They'll go through about a 90-day TSA period where we'll work on Transitioning over and it's so interesting because yes, Vacasa was known as a tech company. However, if you get to know the people on the ground, they are a lot like us. And so the one thing I will say that they were lacking is that direct contact with that decision maker and the Casago model just puts that all into perspective and brings that together. Big Bear actually was our first franchise that acquired units, so they had about 300 units and they've acquired 40 or 50 units. So for them, it wasn't a big change, but there was someone local that they interviewed and thought could this person be part of our existing team or not? And they decided yes. She brings a lot of value and they've hired her onto their team, and now she is part of that family and has Nick to go to for questions and decision making. And then she also has the Casago standards to help with this decision making. So I think the core of Vacasa, the people, the boots on the ground, they were so close to where we are it's just takes a little hand holding and a little nudging and we're all going to get there together.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, absolutely. You're in such a unique position at Casago, because I talk to a lot of property managers in different places, but you are out and about and you're visiting these property managers regularly. And I've seen you do some really great posts on LinkedIn about this. So anybody out there, you need to be following Jackie to see where she's going.

Clearly you have a love of travel.

[Jackie Norde]
I Do yes.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, I saw you with Cascara[Vacation Rentals] in the snow, and then I've seen you in other places in Mexico, I think, where it's sunshine. So yeah, you are definitely making your way around the continent.

I want you to tell me what some of the interesting and innovative things that you've seen recently in how these managers are approaching hospitality.

[Jackie Norde]
Okay, I think one of my favorite little examples is Cannon Beach. Shannon is the franchise owner at the Cannon Beach location and she has a huge heart for hospitality. And when you walk into one of her units, first of all it's spotless and everything has a place and she knows exactly where that place is. But you're greeted by a little welcome basket, which a lot of people do with local treats in there. But one thing that she does above and beyond is these little lamps that you carry and they expand and then the light comes out. You might take it camping, but people in Cannon Beach will take that down to the beach at night and scour the beach for small treasures. And so to have something like that available when you come, you wouldn't maybe think about bringing that yourself. But just the little touches I think are so important.

And then the little amenities that she offers. She uses 'sojo' was just one of our preferred partners. And the little packets [toiletries] that no one has touched it before. It's all packaged in there, just for your personal use; your shampoo, and soap and conditioner. Just those little things I think make it really special.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, When Mike and I went down to Rocky Point and when we walked into our apartment.... I have to go back to the reception at Rocky Point, because that's very different. Is the whole of the Encantame Towers managed by Casago?

[Jackie Norde]
It is yes.

[Heather Bayer]
So you walk into the reception area and those are Casago Staff on the reception desk. I've never been anywhere to walk up to a reception desk where every single one of the people at that desk paid attention to us as we walked in the door and said Hello. And one person got up, and his name was Juan, and he took care of us. He came round from the other side of the desk to say Hello and it's such a simple thing. It doesn't take people out of their normal day to do that. But that tiny little gesture made such a difference. So I wanted to mention that because that has really stuck with me and it will stick with everybody.

But then when we walked into the apartment and there was this really nice little gift basket with all these candies that I'd never heard of before, never seen before, and a really nice handwritten message. And to me handwritten messages go such a long way and interestingly now you can get software that creates handwritten messages.

[Jackie Norde]
Of course you can.

[Heather Bayer]
It's not difficult to do, because I've walked into to so many rentals where it's just bland and cold. Even if the heat is on it just doesn't feel warm. But the warmth is in that hospitality, in that greeting, and I love that idea about the little lamp. That's something so personal to that location. Yeah Go to the beach at night.

I've seen something similar somebody mentioned once in St George's Island, Florida. And in Florida, because if you go to the beach at night, you can see the crabs come out, but you need a particular light, I think it's a red light, and some places just have that little red flashlight.

[Jackie Norde]
It really is those little touches. As a local you know what you would want if you were coming there on vacation and as a vacationer you might not know. So incorporating those things into your welcome is so special and Rocky Point, they do such a great job of making you feel welcome and making you feel like they're excited to see you, and it's genuine hospitality and it makes it so much more special.

I think the post that you saw recently when we went into our room, they had hand-drawn on the sliding glass door 'Welcome' to my family and there was a whale shark there and my daughter is a avid traveler as well and she loves swimming with the whale sharks. So it was extra special for us.

[Heather Bayer]
And it's amazing what that first impression, how that is lasting. It's something that I remember from my customer service training 30 odd years ago, first impressions count and it is still exactly the same today as it was then. It's just one of those timeless things if you can make a really good first impression then it's going to last

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, it definitely stays with you. And that impression, it sets the tone for the rest of the experience that you're about to have and when things, if things maybe don't go as planned, then that first impression experience trickles over into if something doesn't go quite right and you maybe are a little bit more forgiving.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, it can leak into everything else if you have that great first impression. Alternatively if you have a bad one, then we used to say in our property management company that  they will just start nitpicking once they find something is not right and doesn't meet their expectations. They'll move on to look for other things. We used to call it the 'and another thing' process.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, then I think there's a name for that theory when you see one thing wrong, then you begin to look for more. Yes.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, exactly. When you walk into a property, like when you walked into the room at Encantame Towers in Rocky Point, what typically stands out to you first? Let's say there isn't the beautiful welcome on the window or a gift basket. What else? What do you look for?

[Jackie Norde]
Unfortunately, or fortunately, since I've taken the Breezeway course, it's always safety. And so if everything is in place and there isn't anything that catches my eye when I look at cleanliness. But if there's a rug on the floor, I'm going to make sure it's not a trip hazard. And yeah, I think cleanliness and safety are the first two things that I really look at when I'm entering a new unit

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, how does cleanliness stand out to you though?

[Jackie Norde]
So I'm a Type-A. I'm a neat freak. I'm very clean myself and if there is dirt in a corner or on the floorboards, or on the ceiling fan blades, I'm gonna see that right away. If you're approaching a TV stand and you can see the top of it and there's a layer of dust, you're going to notice those things.

So I think it's easier to notice when things aren't clean, but when they are clean, I think you can appreciate that as well. You don't have to walk into a place and it has to be like brand new, which Encantame does have a lot of new things in it. But still you can tell if it's been handled with care and no fingerprints and that sort of thing. So I think it just stands out if it's clean.

[Heather Bayer]
I remember years when I started with my property management company, so we're going back to 2003 and I was taking on board and they were waterfront cottages in Cottage Country, Ontario. And these places have often been in the families for decades and nobody ever cared. You went to the cottage to go outside, not to spend time inside and that was my first experience of cottages. It was grandma's old throw on the back of the couch and there was dust and yeah, they were dirty. Nobody had paid any attention about cleaning under the stove and okay, so there were stains in the microwave. We had a lot to do to change the way that people looked at it.

This is fine for your family, but once you have people who pay for it, they've got expectations. And I had owners who would say their expectations should be that this is an outside thing, we're just providing a bed. I said you need to provide a bed that's less than 20 years old, doesn't creak and everybody falls into the middle. But yeah, that took a long time, but I think still in some of these areas there is not enough attention placed on cleanliness. There's simple things like going from an inside space to an outside space, let's say to a sunroom and you've got the track. Keeping that clean and keep yeah free of bugs and I fought mostly a losing battle to get these things done, because decades of dead bugs...

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, we actually teach standard property appearance. And we use follow the wall when you walk into a unit and you try to end where the kitchen is. So that helps you decide if you're gonna follow the wall to the left or the right. It's very specific. So when you walk into a unit that's been cleaned by a Casago team, in the kitchen all the appliances should have their cords wrapped the same way tucked behind so that you can't see them sticking out. The TV remote control is always placed in the same spot. And so any unit that you go into across the United States, Mexico, Latin America, should be cleaned the exact same way. The bed corners tucked in - we use hospital corners for that. The shower mat is folded the same way and we teach a very strict standard when it comes to cleanliness. And we're even getting down on the ground in every room making sure there's nothing underneath the dresser, the bed. We're pulling up the couch cushions every time, making sure that there's nothing left by the last renter. And I think that just when you walk into a unit that has really taken that time and that care to make sure that it was clean, it just puts you at ease. I think for myself anyway, because I am a clean freak. I notice right away if it's not clean, and then I can settle down a little bit and relax and enjoy my experience more.

[Heather Bayer]
We've had Durk Johnson on the podcast before and he talked about following the wall. So for anybody who's listening who's thinking, what is this 'follow the wall' thing? I will include a link to Durk's episode. It was a few years ago now, but it hasn't changed, that process hasn't changed; I do it in my own house now. I'll come if I'm doing housework - fortunately I do have someone who does - and I did teach her how to do it. Come in and just go to the right because that's the most logical way in my house, and then just go around; she thinks it's amazing.

[Jackie Norde]
It is amazing. Yeah, so you had mentioned before about how I do travel a lot and that is part of the travels. So each franchise gets an annual visit and we bring in the housekeeping and maintenance team on one of those days and we do follow the wall with them through a unit and make sure that... they may have heard it before, but maybe they forgot some things.... and we'll go through the whole place following the wall and talking about the Casago standards. So I think hearing it at least once a year, you may have been trained on it a long time ago, but it's good to have those reminders.

[Heather Bayer]
I love that. I love the fact you talk about standards, which at one time those standards were across 4,000 properties, now those standards are across maybe 34-35,000 properties.

There was a discussion this morning on LinkedIn about global standards and why aren't there global standards? And I'm thinking, actually you are the largest property management company in the US, and so it's really setting the standard for everybody else

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, we're so excited to share these things, these standards, because they work and they make everybody's lives easier. And it's a trickle-down effect about how the guest feels when they arrive and the reviews that we get. We have so many.

Our Las Vegas team, they have all five-star reviews, except for that one, and it's always a challenge for them to make sure that they get the five-star reviews. But yeah, it affects housekeepers and how efficient they are at their job. And it affects guests, and it affects homeowners.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, exactly. What about..., let's just step back a bit to safety. Because once again, that's a discussion that's very topical right now.

Simon Lehman posted this morning about a near tragic thing that happened in an Airbnb that he was staying in when a picture fell from a wall onto the bed his son was sleeping on. And it had a glass inside the frame and the glass shattered on his son.

[Jackie Norde]
That's so scary.

[Heather Bayer]
And it is the scariest thing. I can't imagine being a parent just waking up to that piercing scream.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, and that.

[Heather Bayer]
And he said there were glass shards across his son's neck. And he said his son hadn't moved, which is so fortunate that he stayed still. They were able to take the glass off him.

And so it really brought up this whole topic of safety again. Justin Ford does the most amazing job to bang that drum of safety. And he makes a massive impact amongst the people who get to hear him speak and see him on stage and have him come to their locations. Because I know he's been to yours as well. You've worked with him. But I'm going to be interviewing Simon and Justin on a safety topic very shortly.

But let's talk about you being a certified safety inspector. What actually led you to pursue the certification? And how is it influencing the way that you work now with your franchisees, with your partners?

[Jackie Norde]
I think safety is so important. And unfortunately, it comes to the forefront when things happen. And Casago, we just wanted to make sure that it was at the forefront of our minds all the time. And so we've partnered with Breezeway and Justin Ford. And our goal is to have at least one person at each franchise location safety certified, if not all of them. So we're starting with at least one person going through the course, which isn't easy.

It's intense. I don't know if you've ever gone through it.

[Heather Bayer]
Oh I've done it.

[Jackie Norde]
Oh okay. Yeah, it is a lot. But it really changes the way you look at a vacation rental. They'll just see it through a different lens.

And this June was just safety awareness month. And I think you saw on LinkedIn, we brought someone from fire and rescue into a unit and just reiterated how you would check your fire alarms, your fire extinguishers. Also, you mentioned the vents in the laundry room because you might not get those cleaned out and underneath and the vent that goes outside and so many factors to think about.

And I hear people say, Oh, I just I don't want to know. I don't want to be liable. But you really do want to prevent any accident you can.

And Justin speaks to slips, trips, and falls are like 80% of the accidents in vacation rentals. And if you could take out just those, like how much peace of mind would you bring to yourself and to your homeowners? And again, it trickles down. It's your liability, the homeowner's liability, the guests experience all rolled into one and can have such a major impact.

[Heather Bayer]
I went to a vacation rental last January, February, and there was an outdoor rug on the deck. And I walked out the first time, stepped across the threshold, walked out, tripped on the rug and fell and didn't really do any harm. But it could have been. And that was me walking in there for the first time. This is great. What a lovely place. Let's go outside. Look at this fabulous view. Walked outside. And that's not a good first impression. And when I looked at that rug, I should have seen it. But in terms of what I do, I should have noticed it. But I was in vacation mode.

[Jackie Norde]
Absolutely.

[Heather Bayer]
Missed it entirely. But it was a hard nubby bit on the corner that had just rolled up and I just tripped over it. Anybody could have done that.

And it's so easily preventable. It's just somebody looking at that thing and having their safety head on and going somebody could trip on that.

[Jackie Norde]
Justin talks about that. How as a guest, you are in vacation mode and you might not be thinking about it. And that's why it's our responsibility to make sure that it's front of mind for sure.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah. Any other safety tips? Give some safety tips from your perspective as a certified safety inspector.

What are the top things that anybody listening should perhaps go back to their properties and look at right now?

[Jackie Norde]
I would say make sure you're changing the batteries in your fire alarms, smoke detectors, at least once a year. Make sure that you're testing them every month so there's no shorts or connections.

A fire extinguisher is important on every floor and in the garages, we're seeing a lot of fires in garages. It might have to do with electric cars being plugged in. So make sure that you have a fire extinguisher in your garage. There is actually an expiration date on a fire extinguisher and sometimes there's a little dial and it's red or green if the fire extinguisher is good or not.

But I did learn that you should be picking the fire extinguisher up and turning it upside down to mix up those chemicals, so that when you do use it, that it's efficient.

There was also another tip for kitchen fires. Everybody wants to use water to put it out and that isn't safe. And there's a little spray bottle that you can buy. No, there's a blanket for kitchens that you can buy. You can have it near the stove and you can throw that blanket on to put the fire out. So fire blankets were something new to me this year.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, my sister told me the other day that she'd had a fire in her oven. She'd been using new recipe, she said, for carrot cake. And she said it seemed a bit sloppy, but she put them in the oven. And apparently it's got something to do with the carrots not be grated. You know, you grate carrots for carrot cake, but squeeze them out because they've got so much moisture in them and she hadn't done that. And these two cake tins they virtually exploded in the oven.

I honestly do not know how she got flames in there, because it's not a gas oven. But anyway, caught fire. And she said she was faced with this oven with flames coming out of it and had no idea what to do. And I said, did you not pick up the fire extinguisher? She said, this is my home. She said, I have no idea where my fire extinguisher is.

And then what she did was she had a blanket. She said there was a blanket, the fire blanket. And she threw that in there, which thank goodness.....

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah. But it's interesting that we had the fire service out to our house, just in the room right behind me, about a month ago because I smelled burning. And when I went in, it's the maintenance room where the furnace is and where the water heater is.

And when I went in there, there was a sheen of smoke on the ceiling and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. What it... cut a long story short is that it was the when they eventually came, they took off the front of the water heater and that was burnt out inside. The insulation had caught fire.

[Jackie Norde]
Wow.

[Heather Bayer]
But that's something that you cannot account for. How would you know that you can be as safe as you possibly can, but you don't know if you've got a short in a water heater. You wouldn't know.

So the fire alarm went off and we had a fire extinguisher. So they were there. So, yeah, I've had two incidents recently that made me really realize how important it is just to do this safety check really regularly.

[Jackie Norde]
I think something else that kind of blew my mind from the safety course was 20 years ago, you probably had a minute or so to get out of the house, maybe two minutes. Now it's mere seconds, like 17 seconds, because of all of the materials that our products are made of. They're so flammable that it's cut the time down significantly for you to get safe. And so that's why the smoke detectors and the fire alarms are so important.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, I'm fortunate that my son, Mike, my business partner, is also a full-time firefighter. So he does keep us up-to-date on all these things. When he comes over, there's two things he does. He checks in my cupboards to make sure the stuff I have in there is not out-of-date, which it generally is. Mom, you've got this mustard, sell by date was 2020. I'm going, I'll just eat it. It's fine.

But then more importantly, he's he will shake up fire extinguisher. And then we had a discussion the other day about the fact that we've been in the house seven years and our interconnected fire alarm system will need replacing in three years time after 10 years. So he said start budgeting for it now, because it could be up to fifteen hundred dollars to replace the whole interconnected system.

And that's a good thing because you don't want to suddenly be hit with a $1,500 bill that you didn't expect. So just something to think about. But yeah, the other thing that always comes to mind is televisions and large pieces of furniture being secured to the wall.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, something that we probably don't typically do in our own homes. But rentals are so important, because like you mentioned, you're in vacation mode and you might not think of it, or you might not know that this piece is a little wobbly. So securing them to the wall is important.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah.

OK, so you get behind the scenes view of a lot of operations. Are there any patterns in the really successful property managers? What is it that makes them tick and makes things happen so successfully for them?

[Jackie Norde]
I think the ones that are most successful just are really in the day-to-day getting their hands dirty and are following the standards. That's always helpful. And it's one thing for you as the owner to follow the standards, but also to make sure that your staff is as well. Those are the ones that are most successful.

[Heather Bayer]
And that's the thing with the standards as well, isn't it? That everybody has them. It's not so with many property managers who start out. They keep all the things in their heads.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah.

[Heather Bayer]
SOPs are kept in their heads and their values and they'll maybe talk about them. But the fact that you have the ORANGE book that everybody carries is that everybody has access to the way they should do things.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, I think that's one thing that a new employee always gets is the ORANGE book. And I don't know if I can share this or not, but I will. I might get in trouble later.

But this is for all of our franchisees and their employees. But Steve is releasing a book similar for owners. So owners expectations can be set and they can know what to expect from our team as well. So I'm super excited for that to be released soon.

[Heather Bayer]
I loved that idea when he first mentioned that to me. And I thought this is fantastic because owners are the lifeblood of our business. And so often they're just left on the sidelines.

Once the contract is signed, it's OK. Off you go, owner. We'll look after it from here. But to bring them in to understand what the standards are that are going to be used when a property is promoted and rented and where when any problems arise is pretty revolutionary.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah, I'm excited for it to be rolled out. I think the owners are going to be excited to hear it as well. And it's really.... they're just an extension of the team.

Like you said, there are essential to the business. Without them, we don't have business. So it's good to take care of them.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, I'm not doing any episodes at the moment without mentioning AI. And I know you enjoy using it.

[Jackie Norde]
I do.

[Heather Bayer]
So what are you using it for? And what are you bringing into your work?

[Jackie Norde]
I really do use it on a daily basis. I'm using ChatGPT. I've tried Gemini, but I'm not really a fan of it, maybe because I've used ChatGPT for so long. I actually first was introduced to it when I was managing the property in Mexico, and one of the investors is a lawyer, but he's also a property manager. And he's, Look at this prompt that I made. And it was lengthy because he's a lawyer. But what it spit out was just incredible.

And I went to after that a conference for AI. This was early on, probably 2022, maybe 2023. And it talked about how you give it a prompt, but then make sure if it's not exactly what you want, that you can layer on it and ask more questions. And now it does prompt you, Oh, would you also this or this?

I am working on a presentation for Principles of Influence later on this year. I'm using it for that. If I need help finding words to respond to someone that might not be so happy, I'll use it for that. And I am I'm not a great writer, so it gets me over that hump. And never, ever do I take exactly what it gives me and copy/paste it - ever. It always needs to be humanized almost, but also adding experiences. I think it's so important. And so making sure that it's learning my voice and it knows where I work and all of that is good.

But it doesn't know how I would say things yet. And I do appreciate it so much. I use it for everything. I have a list of prompts.

[Heather Bayer]
I think it was Steve Trover who said to me about a year ago, he said, AI first. Let's just go. Everything you do, think about can AI do this for me?

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah.

[Heather Bayer]
And I've got that sticky note on my PC now; AI first.

[Jackie Norde]
It's not always a first for me, but it definitely is something if I'm stuck, I'll go to it. And I feel like people that are very creative in my world are a little bit more hesitant to use it. But also, I know somebody that is very creative and they're using it just to enhance what they already do. So I think there's so many use cases for it.

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, I talked to Neely Khan last week and Neely is... she's a very accomplished writer. She creates the most amazing content, but she uses it too; just outlines. And I love it for that. If I want to do a LinkedIn post, or I want to do some content from my site, or create a course, give me the outline.

And because I have... my ChatGPT has every single solo podcast episode I've ever done, it's loaded in there. It's got 300 blog posts that I wrote over the years loaded into there. So it knows me. It knows my voice. And what I have to do is say, do this in Heather's voice and I read it and I think, Oh, that's so scary, because that is exactly how I would write it. And all I do there is maybe take it, bring in some date stories and relevance, but I use it to take away...not necessarily the writer's block, but take away a bit of the creativity block that I sometimes get. So yeah.

I'm looking forward to... and I don't know if you've got it yet... is ChatGPT Agent that has just been released and it now has PowerPoint in it, so you can now tell it what you want to put in your presentation.

And I've been using Gamma for a while, but this apparently is going to push Gamma to one side. And it also makes me I'm excited about this. Yeah, it also will create an Excel spreadsheet. So there was an example I was listening to on a podcast the other day, where the podcast host said he'd said to the GPT Agent, give me a list of the five latest podcasts that I have done, put them into a spreadsheet with these fields, give me a two sentence description of each episode, and then create a PowerPoint presentation to talk about it.

[Jackie Norde]
Wow.

[Heather Bayer]
And it took 30 minutes, but it did everything pretty much as he wanted.

[Jackie Norde]
That's amazing.

[Heather Bayer]
This is taking it to the next level. I know at this moment, as I record this, I haven't got my hands on GPT Agent yet. But I check every 10 minutes to see if it's come on.

So you would go to Chat if you've got the paid version, you'd go to ChatGPT, and then look at tools. And apparently, as soon as it's available, it will appear in tools.

[Jackie Norde]
So I love the use cases for it in business, but in life in general. Did you see Valerie Gangas' post on LinkedIn, where she used it to buy a car?

[Heather Bayer]
Yes.

[Jackie Norde]
Yeah. Brilliant.

[Heather Bayer]
I should get the link to that LinkedIn post and put it on the Show Notes as well.

Jackie, this is great. I want to ask you one last question. If you think back over your journey so far, have you had a piece of advice or a lesson that's really stuck with you? Something that you, aside from the ORANGE standards, what goes with you day-to-day?

[Jackie Norde]
Oh, I think just maybe surrounding yourself with people who really want to grow with you. I think it's important that people are like minded and have similar values. And also something that's close to my heart is lifting other people up. So lifting up people in the industry, I'll often give recommendations if somebody's looking for a job or somebody wants help with their resume, I'll put it in ChatGPT for them to customize it to the role they're using. Just surround yourself with good people.

[Heather Bayer]
That is a wonderful piece of advice.

Jackie, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I hope we were able to get together at some point soon, whether it's VRMA or a conference near us.

[Jackie Norde]
Me too, Heather. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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