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The Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast explores the real-world strategies behind building strong work culture, improving organizational culture, and leading with clarity in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Hosted by leadership expert Nicole Greer, this podcast features conversations with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs who are shaping modern business culture through effective communication, leadership development, and intentional management practices.
Each episode delivers practical insights into leadership and business, including topics like team communication, project management, career growth, and creating workplaces where people perform at their best.
You’ll gain actionable tools, frameworks, and leadership skills you can apply immediately through coaching concepts, real-world examples, and professional development strategies, whether you’re a manager, executive, business owner, or emerging leader.
If you're looking for guidance on building a thriving organizational culture, improving communication, or advancing your leadership career, this podcast is designed for you.
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Nicole x Franco Greco
[00:00:00] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast.
[00:00:03] Nicole Greer: My name is Nicole Greer and they call me The Vibrant Coach, and I am here with another amazing guest today. Today I have Franco Greco with me, and he is the Chief Revenue Officer at New Day USA (write that down), a national VA mortgage lender. After graduating from Salisbury University in 2012, Franco joined New Day USA in 2013, quickly rising through the ranks from account executive to Chief Revenue Officer, with a focus on scaling operations; don't miss this, talent development, we're gonna talk a lot about that today; and customer service. Franco has helped New Day USA serve over 100,000 veteran families and help scale its workforce. So today we're gonna talk about all the good work that you're doing. So tell us a little bit, first of all, about New Day USA. Tell us about your company.
[00:00:53] Franco Greco: Well, first I wanna say thank you for having me on. This was an absolute pleasure to, to speak with you today. New Day, we're a mortgage company and we really try and be the absolute best in a small niche of helping a, a really underserved community, which is the veterans. And we work under our chairman Admiral Lynch, who is a 32 year Navy veteran and an Admiral of the Eisenhower Battle Group.
[00:01:12] Nicole Greer: Wow.
[00:01:12] Franco Greco: And we get the opportunity every day to come in and, and try to, to serve our veterans to make sure that we're doing a good job to, to show the admiral that, you know, puts his name out there for us that we are the absolute best when it comes to customer service, working with people who are stressed out during major life transactions. And hopefully like to say that we are, are the go-to lender for all veterans when they look to buy a home.
[00:01:36] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's so fantastic. And before we started, you shared this little little thing with me. You said, not only that Nicole, but we get people in their homes younger and faster. Will you tell us a little bit about that tidbit too. You guys are doing some amazing things.
[00:01:49] Franco Greco: Absolutely. You know, and that that's really where our talent development and our, our employees come in in a big way. You know, because we're a mortgage lender, we focus on teaching people from college graduates to become mortgage professionals. So the average age in America today of buying your first home is 40.
[00:02:05] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:02:05] Franco Greco: And the average age of a New Day employee to buy their first home is 26. And we really try and coach all of our employees, not only on saving your money, but having really clear financial goals.
[00:02:15] Nicole Greer: Yes.
[00:02:16] Franco Greco: And home ownership's a way of building wealth, that's better than none. And, and I think that that's something that not only we coach, but we praise, you know, we have a, a couple different, you know, fun interactions. When someone buys a home, we'll all have a big celebration for them and we make sure everyone feels really excited to, to go out there and make that big choice.
[00:02:33] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Talk about employee benefit, right? Is getting you in a home when you're 26 years old. Yeah. And you, you've gotta get that house paid off. You know, if you have the average 25 year mortgage, I mean, you don't wanna be doing that when you're 65. You wanna get it done early so you can start socking away the money so you can go on some trips. Right?
[00:02:50] Franco Greco: Exactly. Exactly. Couldn't have said it better.
[00:02:53] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. Okay. Well, so many of our industries out there a lot of the HR folks and a lot of the leaders that are listening to this, this podcast, they're like, it is so hard, hard is a four letter word, hard to find great people. Everybody has kind of got this rumbling going on that it is so hard to find talent and there's a shortage out there. Well, you guys are overcoming that. I know that you've got some really cool strategies that you're doing. Tell me more about the talent shortage within the mortgage industry and what you guys are doing.
[00:03:24] Franco Greco: Yeah. You know, there's a, there's a really interesting scenario in the mortgage industry is that in 2008 when the financial crisis happened, the word mortgage kind of became like a, a taboo word of people not necessarily wanting to work at a mortgage company.
[00:03:38] Franco Greco: And a lot of people left the industry. One of the things that happened with all major companies is they stopped hiring and they stopped training. And you know, I think our CEO and, and our Admiral, they did a really a deep dive into where we were as a business and said, Hey, listen, I actually think that we can be the company that leads kind of the charge to get back into, to training and teaching a new generation on how to be a mortgage banker.
[00:04:02] Franco Greco: So in 2012 we actually started our New Day University and started training. And because we looked to hire people right out of college with, you know, really good ability to learn 'cause they just left a, a university
[00:04:13] Nicole Greer: right.
[00:04:13] Franco Greco: We'll actually we will do a really unique way of being able to hire you know, close to a hundred LOs sometimes in a year. Whereas some companies will, will have to fight with you know, tooth and nail between other lenders to try and steal some experienced talent. Whereas for us, we have a really big focus on hiring brand new recent college grads who are hungry, who are excited to learn, and we try to teach 'em the right way.
[00:04:36] Franco Greco: And I think that's kind of our, our special sauce. And I, I, I'm confident in saying in 2012 when we started this method in hiring, I was a, a beneficiary of that. I started right out of college in, in 2012. You know, we were one of the youngest and, and most vibrant companies around. The average age of most.
[00:04:52] Nicole Greer: Don't miss that.
[00:04:52] Franco Greco: Yeah. Most, most mortgage bankers are 65. You know, I, I know I, I look very old and mature, but at a young age of 35, I feel like I'm one of the older people here. And, and what's allowed me to do is the energy we have in our business, I think is unique. And a lot of it's due to, you know, the, the people that we hire. So how we beat our talent shortage is going younger, finding people who are hungry and teaching 'em the business.
[00:05:15] Nicole Greer: Oh my gosh, that's so good. And that's my favorite thing is teaching people. Yeah. So that's so good. All right, so you guys have a different strategy, a different way of doing things. And and here's the thing that I would like to kind of poke on for a moment is don't miss how Franco joined in 2012. Did I get that right? Yeah. And then boom, now he's the Chief Revenue Officer. And you know, one of the things I hear everywhere I go, Franco, I hear people going, "This current generation is a problem."
[00:05:43] Franco Greco: Yeah.
[00:05:43] Nicole Greer: But what I just heard you say is that there are young, hungry people out there that are looking for a job and a great company who will invest in them. That's what I just heard you say. So there are good young people out there, yes?
[00:05:54] Franco Greco: Absolutely. You know, I think the big, and I hear that all the time too, and
[00:05:57] Nicole Greer: Oh God, I hate it.
[00:05:58] Franco Greco: Yeah. One of the things, I think that that why and how we kind of, you know, solve that issue is during our recruiting process. I think transparency is key.
[00:06:07] Franco Greco: You know, we almost sell for people to not work here so that they know every different challenging part of the job rather than necessarily selling all the benefits. You know, I think part of the, the recruiting process, we tell 'em all the great things, but it's almost like we, we try to make it seem like it's the worst possible thing ever. And if they still say they wanna do it, you know, they kind of know what to expect. We tell 'em, Hey, you're gonna work hard. You're gonna be in office.
[00:06:31] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:06:31] Franco Greco: You're gonna wear a suit, you're gonna wear a suit and tie.
[00:06:33] Nicole Greer: What?
[00:06:33] Franco Greco: You know what I mean? You can't sit at home and you know, even in the Florida sun, it could be 90 degrees outside. We're gonna be in suit and ties and, and I think that's some of the small things in our culture that separates us from a lot of other companies. You know, some people are like a more relaxed way, and I don't think it's wrong. That's their business. But I think that it brings a level of professionalism, and especially when we hire right out of college.
[00:06:55] Franco Greco: We kind of teach 'em that, you know, I always joke that we're not only training the mortgage business, but we're training general life skills. 'cause most of the people, we, hundred
[00:07:02] Nicole Greer: percent,
[00:07:03] Franco Greco: we we hire, you know, they haven't necessarily had a, a car payment. They haven't looked to buy a home. They haven't maybe even paid rent.
[00:07:09] Franco Greco: You know what I mean? They haven't had many major bills. And I think that we teach 'em that how to be professional, how to understand credit and how to be successful in life.
[00:07:17] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, I can hear parents listening to this going, I need to get my kid a job with Braco so that he can set 'em on the right path because, you know, you know, we try to teach 'em all these things as parents, but wouldn't it be amazing if your organization was helping your kid get ahead?
[00:07:32] Nicole Greer: Right. That just graduated from college. That's so fantastic. Okay. So you guys one of the things you wrote when we talked about you coming on the show is you said, our approach has always been to develop talent rather than to chase it. Yeah.
[00:07:44] Franco Greco: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:45] Nicole Greer: So, I, you know, one of the things I've always said to myself kind of like uninformed almost intuitively is I'd rather hire a great guy or gal and teach 'em how to do it our way than unlearn bad habits they got somewhere else.
[00:07:59] Nicole Greer: Right. So talk to me a little bit about how you develop your talent. You mentioned you have a university, so
[00:08:06] Franco Greco: Yeah.
[00:08:06] Nicole Greer: I'm super curious about how is that set up and how you do it.
[00:08:10] Franco Greco: So, here at New Day, you know, like I said, we hire most of our college graduates that we look to hire. We actually don't hire for mortgage skill.
[00:08:18] Franco Greco: You know, we hire for grit. We, we hire for somebody who is, you know, willing to, to work, maybe doesn't have a silver spoon, maybe. And you know, had a good GPA at a good university. And I, I think, you know, the, the reason we do that is because when they come in, it's gonna be six months of them really learning a foreign language.
[00:08:36] Franco Greco: You know, the mortgage industry is, is sometimes scary, right?
[00:08:39] Nicole Greer: Lots of jargon
[00:08:40] Franco Greco: lots of jargon, you
[00:08:40] Franco Greco: know what I mean? There's so many LTVs, DTIs that. You could almost be intimidated by hearing all that. So, you know, I, I think that we try and in the interview process, try and vet 'em as much as we can during the training process.
[00:08:51] Franco Greco: We try to overload them and, and make it as tough as, as possible for them to learn what it takes to be successful. And then, you know, by the time they're in the seat of they're originating or they're underwriting loans, you know, they have so much experience handling some of the issues that they're gonna face.
[00:09:05] Franco Greco: So, you know why we do it. And, and the, the way we do it, it really comes down to just. You know, wanting to serve the veteran community and do it in the most efficient manner. And you know, the VA space is kind of different than most other conventional loans. So there's a lot of little nuances and I think that's what makes us special, is that we really teach all of those nuances and we focus on just that.
[00:09:24] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And don't miss how Franco always circles back around to we are serving the veterans. And so I'm hearing like we have a mission and we talk about the mission and people understand who we're serving. And I, I think when you understand who you serve and what customers experience and what the impact on their life is.
[00:09:44] Nicole Greer: Like when a when a veteran gets his loan and he moves his little family in that house or her little family in in that house that's a big deal.
[00:09:52] Franco Greco: Yeah,
[00:09:52] Nicole Greer: to help somebody do that.
[00:09:54] Franco Greco: It really is. It, it's, it's so crazy because when I started, not that I didn't love the military, I just, it, it wasn't a part of my life or anything I really thought of or talked about.
[00:10:02] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:10:03] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:10:03] Franco Greco: And working here, you really start to understand the, the trials and tribulations that they go through. I mean, I can still tell you the first 10 customers that I was able to help just because it was, it was so impactful in their life and how I was able to help 'em, the feeling I made. So, you know, I think that's, you know, one of the things we always talk about here is.
[00:10:19] Franco Greco: You know, our purpose and it's mission driven versus necessarily profit driven. Yeah. And I think because of that, people who are young really can buy into that. And I, I, I know that you know what the income people make isn't always their number one choice right out of college, but I think they can work for a purpose.
[00:10:33] Franco Greco: And I think they see that when they come to New Day.
[00:10:36] Nicole Greer: Absolutely. Okay. And so, I love the three things that you're looking for in the interview process. You told me ahead of time, you said, we are looking for people with, and you just a minute ago said, grit, AKA drive. Right? And integrity and a desire to serve.
[00:10:51] Nicole Greer: So, in my mind, one of the things I teach when I teach people about building a vibrant culture is like we want to develop people of character, positive character, because they'll figure out how to do the work.
[00:11:05] Franco Greco: Absolutely.
[00:11:05] Nicole Greer: You know, they'll push through. Yeah. What do you, what do you think about that?
[00:11:08] Franco Greco: Yeah, no I mean, spot on.
[00:11:09] Franco Greco: I, I think the, the people that we're looking to hire, you know, when, when you're able to have a plan B or you have somebody that can kind of be a safety net for you, I think it really hurts a lot of the people who are graduating college to feel that way. And what we really try and look for when someone that's, that's coming in and, and what we train for, how we try to build them up is somebody who, hey, maybe has a chip on their shoulder, had a, had a tough time to get into college, had a work.
[00:11:34] Franco Greco: During college, had to play a sport during college, had to do something other than just go to school. Didn't get a chance on the summers to just relax, but they had to work.
[00:11:41] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:11:41] Franco Greco: And I think that type of grit is what we look for. And, and you know, it's so funny that the people that are like that, that are, are, you know, wanting to put themself in a better position than maybe their parents.
[00:11:51] Franco Greco: Those are the people who are always of the highest of character, always of the people who are the hardest working. And so that's really what we focus on. You know, we're, we're gonna ask you. Really nothing about any mortgage, mortgage experience, finance experience. But I want to know, hey, during college, what kept you busy?
[00:12:05] Franco Greco: Were you sitting at home and and doing nothing? Or were you out there active in the community? Were you part of clubs and organizations, things like that.
[00:12:11] Nicole Greer: Yeah. The other day I was interviewing this gal and I said, well, when you're not at work, what, what keeps you busy? And she said, well, well, me and my boyfriend play video games all the time.
[00:12:20] Nicole Greer: And I thought,
[00:12:20] Franco Greco: yeah.
[00:12:22] Nicole Greer: All the time.
[00:12:23] Franco Greco: Yeah.
[00:12:25] Nicole Greer: You know, you gotta, I was hoping she'd say she read books and worked at the homeless shelter. But anyways, you know, so, you know, is we're looking for these people that have to do the extra. I love that. Okay. All right. So you also say that we built a comprehensive development model that combines these things.
[00:12:40] Nicole Greer: So you might wanna write this down, everybody. So they have technical education, licensing, compliance, underwriting, leadership training, and personal growth. It's almost like you guys have a five pillar kind of leadership process that you guys are going through. So how did you eventually or originally get it together?
[00:12:58] Nicole Greer: Like, how did you decide what you were gonna train people on in your university? I think the concept of a university is genius.
[00:13:06] Franco Greco: Well, I, you know, the, the start of it was when we first really built the university, it was a lot of focusing on just the mortgage compliance and mortgage regulations and through.
[00:13:16] Franco Greco: Through that you kind of saw all the positives and negatives of training people. You know, I, I'd be lying to you tell you that we didn't always run into to issues and anytime you had an issue, I think we do a good job of looking at a problem and saying, Hey, well we messed up. How, how can we do something better?
[00:13:31] Franco Greco: And what we're really good at is, is over the years, because we've always hired a motor from within, you know, the average age of some of our, our VPs are, are early thirties, if not late twenties. So we've had some people that have made mistakes and some people that have done amazing, and, whenever we make a mistake, we always do an after action review, figure out what could we have done better by doing that.
[00:13:50] Franco Greco: You know, it involves and informs our training. You know, not only are we a culture of, of training young people, but we're learning ourselves and, you know, through the years, I really feel confident if you're a college graduate you know, leaving the university, that New Day is an amazing place to start your career at because not only.
[00:14:07] Franco Greco: Will you learn how to be a professional? How to understand credit? Do you understand how to work? You understand how to, to under mentorship, you know, one of the pool programs that we have is every new employee their first year is assigned somebody who's been here 24 months prior. So they've gone through the exact same challenges they're going through, you know, either a year that or two years prior to them.
[00:14:27] Franco Greco: It helped out them.
[00:14:29] Nicole Greer: So good. Okay. So you have an internship program and you're actually down in Florida right now. And you're yep. Visiting where that's going on. So, tell us a little bit about your internship program and the benefit to the company. Talk, talk about Yeah. Why you bring them in through kind of this model of an internship.
[00:14:48] Franco Greco: You know, when we interview people, we'll usually do three rounds. We'll spend about, you know, five to hours with them and, and you learn a lot about them, but really good to see how they work. So, you know, what we get a chance to do in this internship is, you know, we'll have 'em here for a week. And I always tell people it's a, it's a two-way internship.
[00:15:06] Franco Greco: Our job as the, the employer is to, to see how you work with inside a group. Are you have a good attitude? Are you engaging? Do you take information? Do you want to continue to learn about this stuff and on the flip side for them, you, you know, is this the role for you. You know, I think one of the best answers we can hear is, Hey listen, this is not position for me out of college.
[00:15:24] Franco Greco: And if we have that type of honesty back and forth, it allows for a good hire. You know, one of the worst hires we can have is somebody who doesn't really want the job, but we like that. And then they don't really in what they do, they come in, they're not excited. So, you know, the internship is maybe two things.
[00:15:41] Franco Greco: One for us to see, hey, is this the talent that we interviewed with? Do you think that they would be, do well here? Do they work well on a team? And the second side, do they have the understanding of the business and can understand what their job will be? And if it's a match our, our fastest track to leadership are usually our interns.
[00:15:59] Franco Greco: 'cause they really. Get what it job is when they come in. And it's super you know, all the people who were interns last year are already promoted, are usually in their first year. So, that's why we do it and, and why we found so much success doing that.
[00:16:10] Nicole Greer: Hmm. That's so good. Okay, so let's say I'm an intern and I am in West Palm Beach or at the Maryland campus.
[00:16:16] Nicole Greer: You guys have two campuses. What is a day in the life like for that internship and, and how do you want them to feel when they walk in the door?
[00:16:26] Franco Greco: Yeah. You know, I think they should have a little bit of nervousness and excitement, you know, to actually the first day of the internship. So, you know, today they'll, they're hear from our CEO on the vision of, of where we are today, where we're gonna be going over the next five years.
[00:16:37] Nicole Greer: Nice.
[00:16:38] Franco Greco: Which I think is always a, a cool thing for a college senior to understand. They'll spend time shadowing a lot of people who are actually in the job they're gonna be doing months from now. So looking get to see, hey, this is what a real day in the life is like. You always talk about it and, and every person in the interview asks about it, but until you sit down next to them for an hour or a few hours, we don't get to see that.
[00:16:58] Franco Greco: And then, you know, we try and spend an hour really trying to teach them about financial literacy. What a credit report is what a mortgage is and teach 'em some of the basics. You don't choose to come to New Day. They have a little bit of knowledge they can leave with. We try to always have some fun, take them out to see some of the cool spots in West Palm for the people in the northeast,
[00:17:17] Franco Greco: flying down to Florida for a week in in January isn't too bad either.
[00:17:21] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. And you know, I, I could just, just remember when I was first in my first career, like I, I worked in the apartment business, Franco and, uh
[00:17:29] Franco Greco: mm-hmm.
[00:17:30] Nicole Greer: They, they had me managing a property here in North Carolina and I got this fax, don't miss that.
[00:17:36] Nicole Greer: I got a fax.
[00:17:37] Franco Greco: Yeah.
[00:17:37] Nicole Greer: And the fax came through and it said, Hey, Nicole. Top secret, but we're gonna take over this portfolio of properties down in Miami, and we want you to go down there and for like, for two weeks and do due diligence and walk the units and meet the people and onboard everybody. And like to a young person, like I hadn't ever been many places, and so it was like,
[00:18:02] Nicole Greer: yeah.
[00:18:02] Nicole Greer: This is so exciting. Right. And so when I got there, I worked my butt off and I bet these folks do too. Yeah.
[00:18:09] Franco Greco: Oh yeah. They're so appreciative. I mean, to your point, you know, when I started a new day, it had been maybe a year or two before I had any company travel, and there's something cool about flying down to go do something that you're really proud to.
[00:18:20] Nicole Greer: Yeah
[00:18:20] Franco Greco: listen, I'm I'm going down here for work. And yeah. So to your point, they, we have a lot of energy today. Today's been a great day. And you know, we'll continue having. That throughout the, the session just 'cause like our team really tries to show up for them and then it's, it's it, it, they they work really well together with them, which is great.
[00:18:37] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So I know that like the grit part of this is the most important thing you're looking for in that intern. And so when you're deciding, you know, who to bring on full time, I know that that grit, that that resilience is really important. How do you, how do you notice that. in These, in these folks that are doing the internship, what are the things you're looking for?
[00:18:57] Nicole Greer: What behaviors show up?
[00:19:00] Franco Greco: Yeah. You know, great question. Anywhere from one to three hours with each person. Now, not myself, but you know, we'll have a team about 12 to 50 of our leadership team that'll really get to know. Each of the different pocket pockets of people, they're all gonna present. So we're gonna see how they present.
[00:19:21] Franco Greco: And you get to kind of see is engaging, who's not engaging. And it's pretty clear, which kind of funny, there's not like a secret solve like, hey, if we, they answer a question this way, they like, Hey, are they engaged? Do they want to be here? And you can tell that of people who are going through the motions and people who, who were really like, want to understand what the business is.
[00:19:40] Franco Greco: But actually isn't that when they're on site, when it's in an interview and you're virtual or you're, they're only in for two or three hours, that's where it's actually more challenging. So I actually think the internship, you know, is more of a, a longer interview process that we just really get to know who the people are and see if it match.
[00:19:56] Franco Greco: And, and it's pretty obvious I think once we get to it.
[00:19:59] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that you mentioned when we were going back and forth before the podcast is you said, you know, I think humility is super important in a new hire. Talk a little bit about why you think humility is something that we should be looking for when we're interviewing, we're experiencing these new candidates.
[00:20:18] Franco Greco: Yeah. You know, we hire and, and we have such a growth trajectory over the next three to five years. A lot of the people we're hiring today are gonna be people that are leaders 12, 24, 36 months down the road. And a, a selfish leader is without a doubt, one of the most debt to an organization. So somebody who's humble, humble.
[00:20:38] Franco Greco: Humble themselves and, and work alongside their team, not only provides a great people wanna be a part of, but also on the same side, people wanna work for them. And, and I think that when we hire people, we don't hire them to stay in the, the entry level role forever. We, we look to hire people that in their career have a level of ambition at the role they're in today is not the role they're gonna be in, in, in the next, you know, two to three years.
[00:21:01] Franco Greco: So that's why being humble and humility is so important. And the second. Second reason is, is that, you know, for us to be at our job we have to humble ourselves and set ourselves as, Hey, we're calling on behalf of Admiral Lynch. And there's a certain level of deference and respect that we want each of our account executives and credit analysts to, to have when they're on the phones.
[00:21:22] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. And then the other trait that just really resonate resonated with me is you said, I'm looking for this thing called willingness and like when, when you guys sent that to me ahead of time, I about lost my mind because I talk about willingness all the time. I, and this is what I say, Franco I say willingness is the one character trait that makes all the other character traits possible.
[00:21:49] Nicole Greer: Because you have to be willing to be courageous. You have to be willing to be hu humble. You have to be willing to be inspirational. You have to be willing to be wise. You know, it's, it's like this deep seated thing inside of somebody. And I I read a little book by Mike Kornacki long time ago, and it said, Franco willingness is the ability to do what needs to be done without reservation, refusal, or judgment.
[00:22:14] Nicole Greer: And I just love that so much. So I do too. I just, it's just so important. Like that's what I'm always looking for is this willingness. So talk a little bit about, you know, how you see willingness or why that's so important to you. 'cause I just, I couldn't agree more.
[00:22:30] Franco Greco: You know, I think it's, it's people who are willing, had a level of willingness to your point, our initiative.
[00:22:36] Franco Greco: And I think that a lot of, yes. Of the people who have found a ton of success here. Are the ones who, you know, they're not just given the instruction. You know, I always tell people, you look as you have a job or a career, a job, you come in, you,
[00:22:48] Nicole Greer: right, right,
[00:22:49] Franco Greco: do what you're told, and you go, go home a career. You find out, you know what, what can make me better?
[00:22:54] Franco Greco: How can level up can I progress? And what I'm doing, how can I run the role? How can I learn more about industry? Look at this, this opportunity as a career, the ones who have willingness are the ones who always lead. Leaders who do do so much better, make more money, help more veterans.
[00:23:10] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right.
[00:23:11] Nicole Greer: And I am also just so excited about what you just said because I say that I agree with all my heart and soul. So, you know, when you look at your lifeline, right? So there's a day you pop on the planet and the day that you pop off the planet, and if you look along that light lifeline, you're gonna work unless you have the silver spoon.
[00:23:29] Nicole Greer: You mentioned earlier you're gonna work most of that lifeline. You might as well, you know, give yourself over to your career in terms of investing in it. Right. You know, so talk about financial decisions, invest in your career. Go ahead and be willing to do what needs to be done. Oh, I love it. Okay. All right.
[00:23:46] Nicole Greer: So, tell me a little bit about like your career tra trajectory. I'm gonna go off kind of our, our question list a little bit here.
[00:23:54] Franco Greco: Sure.
[00:23:55] Nicole Greer: I'd love to know your own personal story, you know, so you were an intern. Now you're in the C-suite. Like, everybody don't miss that.
[00:24:02] Franco Greco: Yeah.
[00:24:02] Nicole Greer: Like, you know, that's, that's what we're after.
[00:24:04] Nicole Greer: Somebody who can go. All right. So talk a little bit about that and maybe, you know, some great decisions you made and, and maybe you could be humble and tell us one time you completely messed up.
[00:24:16] Franco Greco: Yeah, no, absolutely.
[00:24:17] Nicole Greer: And you're like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. Or if I had to go back, I'd redo that.
[00:24:20] Franco Greco: No, no.
[00:24:23] Franco Greco: There's a lot of those things, it's, it's merit talk. And you know, and I, I didn't know a single person here and have any relations to anybody who was in the C-suite at the time. And, and what the CEO at the time then said, Hey, help the person next to you and help build company. You do those three things, you'll do really well here.
[00:24:41] Franco Greco: And, and I just took it to heart. I listened to what he said.
[00:24:42] Nicole Greer: Oh, I love that.
[00:24:43] Franco Greco: Said. And, and they had such a great system of mentorship that it wasn't hard to find people to ask, can I do this better? Better. How can I, you know, find more, honestly, help me is, this is actually my third job out of college. There roles that were, you know, good companies and, and I had I was a financial advisor then I was selling windows and, you know, I didn't think, you know, in college I was like, I'll be a millionaire by 25.
[00:25:07] Franco Greco: And then I had kind of fallen my face in my first two roles. So I was really blessed to say, Hey, I found New day and it was the right time. And, and I, I heard a lot of people when I first started. Put your head down, work hard for 12 months. And that I, I did that. I just focused, focused on how to get better at my career.
[00:25:26] Franco Greco: So I was having, and I said, Hey, the formula's not hard. You know, don't be somebody who only learns something about the job. Go out and read something. And if you do that every single day, it compounds. So, you know, I just took the advice of people around me. I became tremendous for self-help, learn as much as I could about.
[00:25:43] Franco Greco: How to improve and, you know, was really, really lucky. Found. We had a, of coaches that our C helped me with, we have John De Julius, who is the customer service academy, and I look at him as a mentor, did Sheldon Harris, the CEO coaching, and I, I was hungry to learn. And I think that really my career, I, I really have fell in not only in love with the company, but we're in community.
[00:26:06] Franco Greco: And, you know, my wife always makes fun of me that, you know, on Sunday they build the Sunday scaries. I have the Sunday excitement. I can't wait to get in Monday. And I know that's probably not common for most people, but I think, you know, having a, a passion to, to build a greater and, and, you know, caring about yourself.
[00:26:23] Franco Greco: I love what you said. You start here, you end here. If you're not about what's in the middle, you know why, why do it? So, you know, what's the point? Not passionate. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I started as an account executive. Did well in sales got promoted to run our training. program Which was exciting then.
[00:26:41] Franco Greco: And today, all the sales and recruiting and training report into me. And what makes my job, I think, easy is that every role that I manage, I've done. So it's hard. It's really easy to say when someone's giving me a BS answer.
[00:26:51] Nicole Greer: Don't, miss that
[00:26:51] Franco Greco: and someone's, yeah. When someone's telling me the truth. So, that's my story.
[00:26:58] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Oh,
[00:26:58] Nicole Greer: that's such a good story. And, and one thing I wanna point out, what he said is he said instead of having the Sunday scaries, he says, the Monday excitement, I think is how you said it. But don't miss, like, people choose that, you know, like they're wasting their. One of their days off, you know?
[00:27:18] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And anticipating, you know, the angst of going to work where, you know, we can, we can stand in choice about like, what am I gonna get done tomorrow? You know, which, which, yeah, which veteran am I gonna get in a house tomorrow? Right? Like, that is such a cool way to live your life. I love that. Okay. All right.
[00:27:35] Nicole Greer: So, you do the internships you've got a really cool recruiting process. Well just quickly, you, you mentioned a few things about the recruiting process, but can you kind of tease out for us kind of your recruiting process? You know, like beginning to end, like if we could kind of see what you do in there, maybe we could pick up a tip and put it in our organization.
[00:27:55] Franco Greco: Absolutely. So, you know, I would say about 80% of our hires come referrals and out of it, it's because,
[00:28:01] Nicole Greer: oh gosh, wooo
[00:28:01] Franco Greco: I really believe this.
[00:28:02] Franco Greco: Yeah. They come from and, and we it all the time. It's part of the reason why, but, you know, people wanna work with people they like, people they know. So when looking for a job, if, hey, I got a friend here, or I, someone who's a, a mutual colleague they're more likely to, to really dive in and understand the role.
[00:28:18] Franco Greco: So a lot of the people that come into us, to our recruiting team, they're referred in will talk with them. We'll, we'll get 'em excited about the opportunities we have. Then we invite 'em in the office and we try to bring 'em in for about five hours. And in that five hours, the goal is really what our internship is.
[00:28:35] Franco Greco: We want them to understand the good, bad about the. Sit next to somebody who's doing the job, learn from all the good and the positive, have kind of an informal conversation about what the role is. And then from there we'll have a, a final interview. And, and from there we'll we'll have a hiring committee to look to hire them.
[00:28:52] Franco Greco: And I think there's a couple of really important key stages is if they don't shadow for, for at least two to three hours, I actually think that ruins the process, and sometimes people think, man, I'm sitting here for so long. But you know, if, if you don't know what to expect when you come in and you unfortunately Come in and, and it's not expected you're either gonna keep working and hate your life, or you're gonna quit. And in both scenarios, it's bad. You know, I, I think you had said it earlier, it's like, I, I don't, don't wanna go through or get not excited. It's a choice every single day to be excited about what you doing that's in choice and, and you Exactly.
[00:29:24] Franco Greco: If you hate it, don't do. Do it. We, we we spend a lot of time doing that. And then I think the thing we always try to do with all of our interns and, and, and full-time hires is we really invest in, in their first week. I mean first week we jump start where, where we will have anywhere from five to 10 executive speakers come in and give the vision and, and we kinda look at the mission And the reason why is that, that that is really the, the first impression you have of the business. And if you're a recruiter, I always tell people, you know, people, remember the recruiters more than our recruiters. I, I I take a lot of pride that they, they give not only a great representation of the company, but they have just a ton of passion for what they do.
[00:30:06] Franco Greco: So, you know, we, you gotta have that upfront. You gotta have their first week have fun and they work. Yeah. And then I think for a good career.
[00:30:14] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's so good. And I, I'll just share. I, I was talking to a young lady and you know, she got a new job and I said, how's the new job? And she goes, well, the first two days I sat in the break room watching videos.
[00:30:31] Nicole Greer: I said, of what? What did you watch 16 hours of videos on? She's like, safety and protocol. And then they had me read the handbook and I'm like, were you in there by yourself? And she's like, yeah. And don't miss everything Franco just said. You know, like, there's somebody right here with that new person loving on 'em.
[00:30:52] Nicole Greer: And in comes the, the leaders talking about the vision. Like what did, what two ends of the spectrum are we on here? So I really celebrate what you're doing, man. It's great.
[00:31:03] Franco Greco: Yeah, no, that, that gives me chill. I can tell you how it set somebody up for a career of just, you know, I, I really believe that the first really weeks, everyone is not sure of their position and I respect that.
[00:31:15] Franco Greco: They're nervous.
[00:31:16] Nicole Greer: Of course they don't know what to, I
[00:31:17] Nicole Greer: You, you have a new job
[00:31:18] Nicole Greer: remorse.
[00:31:21] Franco Greco: Yes. Yes. So, you know, I, I wanna make it as, as comforting as possible. And we actually have plans. We, like I told, we have mentors that, and every mentor usually takes their.
[00:31:34] Franco Greco: mentee to
[00:31:37] Franco Greco: lunch Once a week for the first three weeks, just because everyone feels, so we wanna try and make it as comfortable as possible.
[00:31:53] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. Okay. And so we do this intern program, we do this recruiting, we do this intern program. And so this starts to shape careers and we've talked a little bit about that already.
[00:32:05] Nicole Greer: But, you know, I think sometimes people. That are in leadership. They're thinking, I don't have a position up here available. Why would I talk to somebody down here about a future when I don't have the position available? Or I don't know that it will come available. But if you're gonna scale a business, you gotta scale the people.
[00:32:23] Nicole Greer: And so that's just how that works. Right. And so, tell us a story maybe about somebody else in the organization other than yourself, where they came in, they were an intern and it shaped their career and they're doing fantastic. Tell us another little fun story about a human that's been impacted by New Day.
[00:32:38] Franco Greco: Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, and, and there the guy who is in charge of our sales division down here in our Florida office, Trevor Magnuski one of our VPs. And he is somebody who was an intern in 2017, started with a full-time in the, the summer, or excuse me, the, the June July class we had then.
[00:32:56] Franco Greco: And you know, he has been somebody who has really just taken a hold of, of being a lifelong learner. And really proud to, to worked with him and mentored him at the time. And Trevor is you know, was a college basketball player, so he was used to you know, having long days working hard and, and this, the job here wa was essentially easy for him.
[00:33:16] Franco Greco: But he came in and, you know, he understood What the role was, got excited about what the role was and really excelled in in the position. So, you know, Trevor is a, is a good example of somebody who, from internship to account executive to captain to AVP to vp has taken each job and looked at it as, Hey, I gotta get drafted to the next role.
[00:33:35] Franco Greco: It's not over. It actually just now starts my whole training. Now restarts and re begins, and I think that level of discipline he has is, is really unique and what makes him great.
[00:33:45] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And don't miss that lifelong learner and the discipline and the, I got a new role. I gotta learn it. I'm not entitled to it.
[00:33:52] Nicole Greer: Oh, I love everything you're saying. Okay. All right.
[00:33:55] Franco Greco: So lemme
[00:33:55] Franco Greco: give you one Nicole about him
[00:33:56] Nicole Greer: please.
[00:33:56] Franco Greco: You know, and Yeah, yeah. So, and, and me and him share this, we have this theory, me and him, were both division three college basketball players. And if you don't, if you're not familiar with the college athletics, division three is the lowest level.
[00:34:08] Franco Greco: You don't get any scholarship money. You do it for. For the love of the game and you still have 6:00 AM practice, you still have the bus ride, you still have all the terrible things. So
[00:34:16] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:34:17] Franco Greco: So you know, when we look to, when we look to hire, we always look for some of these division three athletes, and part of the reason why is that they are choosing to raise their hand to do something not only for passion, but necessarily that's something that's tough, that they don't get any necessary benefit from.
[00:34:30] Franco Greco: And you know, I think that's part of the, the success here is that, you know, when challenges face people here today, the ones who are really, really good, they just brush it off. Hey, what can we do to get better? Hey, what do we make the mistake on? How can we get better from that? And and I don't think everyone makes mistakes all the time, but you know, there's always challenges when losing a loan and, and helping people.
[00:34:48] Franco Greco: People and working inside of hr, there's always issues that pop up. Of course. And if every issue becomes a a, a level five fire alarm, it, it's tough to word a place like that. And I think New Day is really, really good at training that, and partly it's because of who we hire. Yeah. And my theory of division three athletes.
[00:35:03] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Oh, I love what you're saying. Yeah. And you know, all the time, you know, when I'm talking to people about their recruiting process, how they go about hiring people, how to make a good choice in a candidate you know, oftentimes they'll say, well, you know, humans have six energies. You know, people talk about, oh, I have my energy's high, my energy's low.
[00:35:20] Nicole Greer: You know, this thing. I'm like, well, which energy are you talking about? And so, there's six, and the one is intellectual. And, and so you said lifelong learner, right? Mm-hmm. So intellectual energy mm-hmm. Is high. They love to learn. Then there's emotional energy, which is, I care about other people. I have emotional intelligence.
[00:35:37] Nicole Greer: I'm trying to socially fit in here, and I love how you're having this mentor right there with them the whole time feeding that energy scene if they've got the energy to give it back. But the one you're talking about with this, this basketball scenario is really spiritual energy. And that sounds weird, but, you know, have you been to a basketball game?
[00:35:54] Nicole Greer: I mean, my god, people are losing their minds over a of, over a free throw or whatever. And so, I, I find oftentimes that athletes have some of the best spiritual energy. Like Go Team, they have this enthusiasm, and the word enthusiasm means like, in god-ism like they're. You know, they're full of this great stuff.
[00:36:11] Nicole Greer: So I, I love what you're saying. That's so fantastic. I'm gonna share that when I when I talk to people, I'm gonna share your story. I love it.
[00:36:18] Franco Greco: Please do.
[00:36:18] Nicole Greer: Okay. Please do. Alright, so, we talked about the generations and I talked about the fact that, you know, people complain about this, this next generation, but as the Gen Z folks are in the workforce how.
[00:36:30] Nicole Greer: How do you see your program evolving over the next five years? Right. So you've had a huge success. And don't miss Franco himself was in there doing the training, doing the recruiting. Now he's the chief revenue officer. But you know, we've gotta keep moving things forward. What changes do you see that you guys might do in the next five years?
[00:36:48] Nicole Greer: What kind of be a futurist for us.
[00:36:51] Franco Greco: Yeah, for sure. You know, I think a lot of, I've noticed with Gen Z and, and how we train and compensate and, and focus on you know, developing people is. The, the newer generation is, is much more of immediate gratification. And not that that's bad. I think that they wanna see the work that we get something reward right away.
[00:37:09] Franco Greco: So we've actually adjusted a lot of our compensation structures to give more immediate gratification. And I think going into the. The future. And that'll be a continuing trend. And, and people try to time say it's bad. I, I try to say, Hey, it's the trend. What can we do to use it to our advantage and to, to work with it?
[00:37:25] Franco Greco: And I think that, you know, the way that we structure, we, we compensate people while training to do the job probably more than we ever have. And a lot of it's around the, hey, they're doing, they wanna know that they're successful and they want to know there's a, there's a prize at the end of that. So, you know, go into the next five years not really.
[00:37:41] Franco Greco: New day specific, but just for the industry and, and for hiring Gen Zs, you know, I think that immediate gratification is gonna be something that is, is to mind for them and they're gonna make, unfortunately, career decisions based on how immediate some of their gratification is. Mm-hmm. So the more immediate.
[00:37:58] Franco Greco: From their hiring that we can make. And, you know, it's all gonna make sense in inside of the business. But I think that's a trend that I've noticed really in the past 12 months prior than the last you know, years. So, going to the next five, my, my guess is that we're, we're still gonna have a situation where the world may not be hiring recent college grad.
[00:38:17] Franco Greco: So new day is gonna get an opportunity to hire some of the best talent, which is good and bad, you know. I, I think that entered the workforce during a time that was always the best to hire college, grad, grad. And it was tough for some people So I under, I can empathize with that, but I think what new day realizes is that because of that, we're one of the premier you know, places for somebody to land right.
[00:38:37] Franco Greco: out of college. So That's right. So, yeah, I mean that, that's what my next five year outlook kind of looks like and how I think we can you know, be the best company for a, a senior graduating college.
[00:38:47] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, here's the thing is you know, this, gen Z knows how to use this thing called social media.
[00:38:52] Nicole Greer: They know how to get on the glass door. Oh yeah. They know how to do, they know how to leave a Google review. They know how to do all this stuff. And so, if you can, if you can meet them where they are, you could really have an upper hand on having. Top talent, getting those eagles straight out of college.
[00:39:07] Nicole Greer: That's so good. I love it. Okay. All right. So you've built a successful career leading teams and developing talent. Talent. What piece of advice what is the best piece of advice you've ever received about hiring or leadership and how does it still guide you today?
[00:39:24] Franco Greco: It's a great question. You know, best piece of hiring. I think for, for the interviews and the, the time that I've spent hiring people trusting my gut, you know, and, and our CEO and a lot of the coaches I work with, they, they have a really good people always worry like, Hey, is that the right decision? Because I feel that way. And sometimes it's the unexplainable that's the, that you can kind of feel when you're speaking with someone that you know this, somebody is empathetic, somebody who has, has great energy.
[00:39:51] Franco Greco: Somebody who's enthusiastic, somebody who's ready to learn, and you kind of feel that this person is someone that, that could do the job well. So, you know, one thing that I think the, the coaches that I've had, the, the mentors. Our CEO is, has really entrusted in me is trust in my gut and, and trusting in the fact that, you know, the feeling that you have that someone could be good is, is a, is a legitimate feeling and have confidence in making decisions based upon that, with maybe not all the details and facts necessarily leading to that.
[00:40:17] Franco Greco: I think that's something that I've really you know, to use still on a daily basis.
[00:40:22] Nicole Greer: Hmm. That's so good. That's so good. Well, we are at the top of the hour. It has been so much fun talking to you because I think that like in our core values, you and I are like right on the same page. A lot of these, those the things that you shared just really resonate with me and I really believe in this next generation.
[00:40:38] Nicole Greer: So I love your story so much. So. Most of the time I ask people, do you have like one more nugget that you can share with us? And I know earlier when we were talking about you being on the show, that you talked about a guiding principle that came from Admiral Tom Lynch, you said, he said, leading with kindness, not niceness.
[00:40:58] Nicole Greer: So will you talk a little bit about that, because I think that'd be a great nugget to leave everybody with.
[00:41:05] Franco Greco: Yeah. No, we're, we're big believers in, in being honest and upfront when someone's not doing something right, you can. Be but tell 'em they're doing wrong. And I think that the biggest challenge I see with a lot of younger, a lot of younger people is they're sometimes afraid of confrontation or afraid of accountability.
[00:41:21] Franco Greco: And I think there's nothing better than radical candor and radical saying, Hey, you're dropping the ball. Hey, you're between the ball in this area. Amen. And you know, this is what you should be doing better and how to do it. Now you could do that in a mean way. And I think sometimes people do and, and then they don't like the, the confrontation.
[00:41:38] Franco Greco: Be kind and say, Hey, I, I, I, this is where you're messing up. Here's how you gotta do it better. Here's a plan of what you should do. Let me know where I can help you and, and if there's problems that come up, let's make sure we communicate. So I think Admiral, you know, gave us the principle and something we kinda live by of leading with kindness ness.
[00:41:54] Franco Greco: You know, we don't to to lie is it's lying, but, you know, not confront the, the challenge that somebody might have. But let's confront with the level of kindness and let them understand that we side of the table. Want them to win. And you know, I think all of the managers, the leaders believe that and, and be, I think that have a, a culture that people wanna work at.
[00:42:14] Nicole Greer: I think that is so good. And there, you know, there's a book out there by Kim Scott called Radical Candor. I teach it all the time.
[00:42:20] Franco Greco: Oh, of course.
[00:42:20] Nicole Greer: to Different groups. Yeah. And so, I, I just, I just believe in that so much is that, you know, and here's the thing when, since he's, he's mentioned over and over again that he's got these young folks coming in, he's teaching them life skills, work ethic, you know, we don't know what we don't know.
[00:42:37] Nicole Greer: And so somebody's gotta tell us, Hey, don't do that. That, that's not good. And so we need somebody to help us, to guide us, to mentor us, to take us to the next level. So I just celebrate what you're doing.
[00:42:49] Nicole Greer: I have just resonated with everything that Franco has said. And so here's what I want you to do. If you wanna know more about Franco, what you can do is you can go over to LinkedIn and his LinkedIn is FG Greco 20 F-G-R-E-C-O 20.
[00:43:06] Nicole Greer: And if you wanna know more about his organization, you can go to new day usa.com and find out more there. It's been another amazing episode of the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast, and I'm so grateful for Franco's time and energy.