Dan Nieto Plays the Long Game of Recruiting

A house is the biggest buy and monetary determination most individuals will make of their lifetime. That’s precisely why Neighborhood Loans has spent appreciable time, effort, cash, and power to streamline its mortgage course of, making certain its purchasers expertise a easy mortgage course of. “We wish individuals to know that their expertise doing loans with Neighborhood Loans is the finest expertise they might get,” says Dan Nieto, the corporate’s senior vice chairman of development and enlargement.

Neighborhood’s identify speaks volumes, however it doesn’t inform all the story. Headquartered in Chicago, Neighborhood Loans lends in quite a lot of neighborhoods and to a large demographic. “The corporate was named Neighborhood Loans particularly to indicate folks that we lend in all neighborhoods,” Nieto says. “That’s our method.”

The aim is to not be the biggest lender however to be the perfect. “We’re an organization for the plenty, not the courses,” he says.

Based in 2009 as a group lender, Neighborhood quickly expanded regionally earlier than spreading throughout the nation. At present it operates in forty-seven states. In 2024 it wrote simply shy of $2.5 billion in loans. “That’s over 8,500 loans delivered final yr,” Nieto says.

Nieto, now in his fourth yr with Neighborhood, is tasked with growing gross sales manufacturing by figuring out, recruiting, and hiring new management and constructing round Neighborhood’s already present high quality people and leaders. He makes use of a recruitment technique that’s relationship pushed, likening it to a preferred pastime.

“Recruiting is fishing, not catching,” he explains. “Recruiting is actually not an occasion. It simply doesn’t ‘occur.’ It’s not such as you’re in a ship and the fish leap within the boat they usually be part of the corporate and everybody’s comfortable.” It’s extra delicate and difficult than that.

He and his crew work to forge a relationship with every recruit by sharing Neighborhood Loans’ enterprise practices. If all goes properly, his crew persuades the angle worker to sit down down, speak, and in the end come aboard. “It’s a journey that takes time,” Nieto says.

Like Neighborhood, Nieto is dedicated to empowering Latino homebuyers and fostering monetary literacy within the Hispanic group, which makes him and his firm an ideal match. Nieto, who lives in Texas, was launched to Neighborhood whereas taking a enterprise assembly in Chicago as a senior vice chairman and proprietor for Nationwide Financial institution.

One truth about Neighborhood caught out, inspiring him to signal on. “I seen among the prime producers within the Chicago area, the biggest within the firm, have been Latino,” he says. “There are such a lot of prime producers that now we have and leaders which might be Hispanic. I believed that was neat.”

Though he has no arduous statistics, Nieto estimates that fifty p.c of Neighborhood’s staff are Hispanic and nearer to 70 p.c are individuals of colour. “We simply employed the highest Hispanic lender in San Diego. He’s our regional supervisor. We now have the highest Hispanic lender in Texas, too. I’ve by no means been at an organization that has such a excessive proportion of management, producers, salespeople, and mortgage officers which might be Hispanic,” he says. “It’s neat to see. It’s the perfect firm and the perfect management group I’ve labored for.”

Initially skilled as a journalist, Nieto has been within the mortgage trade for twenty-five years, working as a mortgage officer, department supervisor, financial institution proprietor, and recruiter. In that point, he and his spouse of eighteen years have additionally had two daughters, Serenity and Stella. Nieto is a proud dad who enjoys mentoring younger expertise and constructing excessive performing groups of recruiters. He’s studied quite a lot of leaders in his time, from world leaders to coaches.

“I’ve actually educated myself on totally different management types. My management fashion is trustworthy and direct with a deal with aim setting and accountability,” Nieto says. He emphasizes self-discipline, integrity, and work ethic. “That’s form of what I count on. It’s really what my leaders—that are the 2 CEOs of Neighborhood—have.”

Nieto’s crew is dubbed “Powerhouse Recruiting Group,” and it’s clear that “powerhouse” is a phrase for which the manager has a specific fondness. In actual fact, he based and operates a corporation of his personal known as Powerhouse Investing Group, PIG for brief. PIG launched in 2023 and has carried out far past Nieto’s unique expectations. “As of at this time, in simply 18 months, now we have expanded to shut to 150 traders in 23 states and three nations, elevating over $8 million for 7 firms,” he says.

When Nieto is just not crushing it within the mortgage trade, he’s crushing opponents at jiu-jitsu competitions. His moniker? Powerhouse. The proprietor of forty-four gold medals, Nieto calls jiu-jitsu “the hardest and most difficult martial artwork there’s.” The forty-four gold medals are “good,” he says, however what swells his chest with pleasure is the truth that he’s a world champion, an eight-time nationwide champion, and a three-time Pan-American champion.

“It requires a ton of endurance. You might do jiu-jitsu for a full-year straight, by no means take a time off, and also you’re nonetheless going to be common,” he says. “So, you actually should take a protracted method. It’s a marathon and it interprets into what I do for a dwelling in recruiting. It’s important to be affected person. It’s important to play the lengthy recreation.”