The Carr Group

Build your business in a supportive environment

We know that building your own business is difficult without help. At The Carr Group, we are committed to building a cohesive unit of productive full-time financial representatives.

We believe a strong, supportive office helps our financial representatives be successful and more importantly, helps clients achieve their goals. Education, recognition and compensation are at the heart of our organization. How we train our representatives, who we recognize as being successful and providing a fair compensation structure ensure the future growth of our organization.

Training

The Carr Group provides tools, resources and training to help you discover and build your markets to develop a successful practice as a financial representative.

You'll receive initial industry and sales training as well as mentoring and joint work programs for hands-on experience. You'll have access to on-line education resources for polishing skills and keeping up to date on industry information as well as exposure to opportunities for ongoing career education and advanced professional designations to increase your knowledge and reputation.

Fastrack Training
The Fastrack development system gives you the confidence and skills you need to become a successful financial representative. Basics builds a foundation of knowledge in financial services. Sales School teaches you how to develop enduring relationships.

Fastrack Basics prepares you to enter Fastrack Sales School by finalizing your own personalized marketing plan. You learn field-tested sales language for use with prospects and clients. You also learn finance, insurance and sales cycle concepts, Northwestern Mutual's traditions and products, as well as how to manage your activity.

Your training will have a strong emphasis on the risk stage of your clients' lives—success in your career rests on your ability to help your clients meet these needs. Wealth accumulation and wealth preservation and distribution build on this foundation to help you grow your career and offer opportunities to work with Network advisors and specialists.

Sales School will help you build a foundation of knowledge in Northwestern Mutual's sales techniques, with an emphasis on the art of obtaining favorable introductions and comprehensive fact finding.

Sales School will teach you how to:

• Prepare to prospect, handle objections and effectively build relationships.
• Ask probing and challenging questions to uncover a prospective client's needs.
• Identify and understand a prospect's needs to help create unique solutions.
• Convey your conviction for our business and our needs-analysis process.

The Learning Network
You will also have access to The Learning Network which provides quality, job-relevant training in a timely, consistent and convenient manner. It has two main components:

• The virtual university offers on-line access to enrollment, tracking, testing and learning events, as well as a centralized library of courses and resources.
• The traditional university provides individual and group classroom training at your local network office or Home Office sponsored schools. Self-study, paper-based training is also available.

Coaching and Mentoring
Coaching and mentoring programs are also offered to help you be successful, including:

• Record Activity Compared to Expectation (RACE) Program—Daily meetings with a coach during the first two months.
• Weekly Business Coaching—Weekly programs to help you develop sound sales and business practices (after RACE).
• ClientBuilder—Monthly study group to help you grow and develop your business.

Internships
As full-time college students, interns generally work 15 to 20 hours per week developing business- and client-building skills. In most ways, our interns follow the same process for establishing their careers as our Financial Representatives.

Career Paths

The Network offers many opportunities for advancement through specialization or leadership roles.

Specialization
Part of the strength of the Network is our specialists in areas like disability income, long-term care, and investments and annuities. You may also choose to become a registered representative or financial advisor of Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC or a wealth management advisor of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company™.

Leadership Opportunities
Leadership roles offer growth opportunities through recruitment, development and retention of fellow representatives, by opening new offices, strengthening existing ones and supplying the overall structure and support to maintain and grow the Network.

There is no one way to explore leadership opportunities. Everyone's career path is unique. If entering a leadership role interests you, know that you can also maintain your own practice while helping other representatives build their own.

Through our distribution system, leadership opportunities include, but are not limited to:

L.E.A.D.: Through the L.E.A.D. (Leadership through Education, Achievement & Development) program you have access to an exclusive training curriculum that will help you develop the skills needed to take on a leadership role in your network office.

College Unit Director (CUD): Lead a group of energized college interns, taking part in "One of America's Top Ten Internships for 2006 (Vault Guide to Internships, 2006 edition.).

Field Director (FD): Assist in the recruitment and selection process in order to build a cohesive unit of productive full-time financial representatives.

Managing Director: Take on the unique challenge of balancing personal production and managing a district network office.

Managing Partner: Create a vision and be responsible for the overall success of a network office.