Bailee Schuster

SPCH 457
Internship Fall 2015
During the fall 2015 semester I did an internship with
Northwestern Mutual Financial Network out of the Kearney and Grand
Island offices. I started my journey with Northwestern Mutual in June
when I passed my health and life insurance exam for the state of
Nebraska. I then got fully contracted with the company and started
weekly training in Grand Island and Kearney with my managing
partner, Steve Ryan. Steve has been in the business for 30 years and is
very knowledgeable in the financial planning world. His son Vince is
also a full time representative out of the Grand Island office, and I
learned a lot from him over the course of my internship. July 19-22 I
attended the annual meeting that is held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for
all of Northwestern Mutuals employees, and learned a great deal
about the company. While in Milwaukee I got to meet a lot of interns
from across the country as well as hear very successful people in the
company share their stories.
I attended weekly training in the Kearney and Grand Island
offices weekly, as well as calling into the Lincoln office for more
training every Monday and Friday. The Lincoln Northwestern Mutual
office has a full group of interns as well as a college unit director, so
training with them weekly gave my internship a great boost. One of the
reasons I think that the Lincoln office impacted my experience so much
is because of the size of their program as compared to the program in
Kearney. Our group out here is a lot smaller with just two interns,

Bailee Schuster
SPCH 457
Internship Fall 2015
myself and one other college student. I also did coaching calls with Nic,
the college unit director in Lincoln on a weekly basis and practiced my
phoning and sales language. When I wasnt at training or doing
coaching calls with Nic, I used the training materials that were
provided by Northwestern Mutual to further my education of the
insurance field. These materials included sales language C.D.s,
phoning language cards, and learning the process of the Northwestern
Mutual sales cycle.
On July 8th I purchased my first life insurance policy on myself
through Northwestern Mutual. I believed when I did my internship that
if I was going to be successful and sell insurance I would need to own it
myself. I believe in their products and I knew that would help me to sell
them to my clients. My first official meeting was July 16th in Kearney,
and I was excited to get in front of my first potential clients. As an
intern I did joint work meetings with full time representatives who had
been in the business for a while. After that day, I started to do regular
phoning sessions twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as
setting meetings on those days with potential clients. By meeting with
people I started to learn more about the approach language used in
meetings as well as how the fact finder worked for Northwestern
Mutual. A fact finder is a living document that we use as reps to learn
more about our clients now, and to build on in the future. Ive attached

Bailee Schuster
SPCH 457
Internship Fall 2015
a blank fact finder as an example, so one can see the kind of questions
I would have been asking potential clients in our first meeting.
If people decided to come on board as clients after going through
a fact finder, we would then create a Personal Planning Analysis
outlining our recommendations for them from a financial point of view.
After that second meeting the clients then decide if theyd like to act
on any of the recommendations we made and we continue on to the
paperwork and medical examination process. Once people decide to
become clients we meet with them on a semi- annual or annual basis
to review their financials and add to their fact finder, as life changes,
their plan would need to change with them. Throughout my internship I
learned a lot about myself and also got to help a lot of people that I
care about.
Phoning was a big part of my internship and I had to set aside an
hour a day in order to get all of the phoning in that I did. I filled out
what is called a Project 100 with 100 names of my closest friends and
family members of whom I could call on and set my first appointments
with. I also utilized what is called the one-card system, which is
basically a shoebox with notecards in it where I would file the names of
those people that I had called on, or organized when I needed to call
on them next. I also utilized my planner to set appointments and plan
for the next two weeks out ahead of me, in order to prepare to travel
for certain appointments in Omaha or Lincoln. I also used skype and

Bailee Schuster
SPCH 457
Internship Fall 2015
GoToMeeting to have appointments with friends and family members
that lived outside of the state in order to spread the word about the
work I was doing through my internship.
Not only was I going to training and having joint meetings, but I
was also trying to spread the word about Northwestern Mutuals
internship on campus. I worked closely with our recruiter, Jordan
Johnson, to get the word out on campus and get the internship noticed.
I also joined in on class talks with my advisor, Steve Ryan and Jordan,
as well as with the recruiter intern for Northwestern Mutual, Kiley. Not
only was I doing joint work and helping recruit on campus, but in
September I also took my first meeting by myself. It was a big learning
experience for me, but I felt confident sharing my knowledge of the
insurance world and Northwesterns background with the couple I had
sat down with. When taking meetings, I used Al Granums point system
to track my production for the week. Having a lunch meeting was
worth the most points, because it usually resulted in the best turn
around, and I enjoyed lunch meetings the most.
One of the hardest parts of my internship was the phoning
aspect. Doing cold calling was a lot of work and really stressful for me
because of the unknown element of what the person on the other line
would say. It took a lot of courage each day to pick up the phone and
call people who I normally didnt talk to. In order to get all of my
phoning accomplished, I utilized my time in my car to phone and set

Bailee Schuster
SPCH 457
Internship Fall 2015
appointments while I was commuting to class or work. Being able to be
flexible in this way helped me to get all of my work finished throughout
the week and to make the necessary dials that I needed to in order to
reach my goals. By September 22, I had reached my first goal of
writing five lives and was rewarded by being given a bonus check, on
top of the commissions I had made already. Lucky for me the internship
was paid, including training stipends, commissions on lives written,
and a bonus check for hitting my goal.
I averaged 25 hours per week for my internship between driving,
phoning, attending training, and conducting meetings. I learned a lot
from my superiors as well as from my recruiter, Jordan. I know that I
had a lot of personal growth and tried things I normally wouldnt of had
the opportunity to try. This internship gave me a real life feel of what
running my own business would be like because it was a very hand on
experience. The last few months Steve has been discussing full time
opportunities with me after graduation in May. While I do love the
planning side of the work, as well as getting to help people reach their
goals, Im not sure that this is the career path for me. That being said, I
am very thankful for the experience and look forward to seeing what
the future holds for me. Having my insurance license has opened a lot
of doors for me already, and Im anxious for the future. Overall, I would
say my internship experience was fairly good and I grew a lot as a
person, however I am sad to report that they will be shutting down the

Bailee Schuster
SPCH 457
Internship Fall 2015
Northwestern Mutual internship on UNKs campus. I think it is a shame
that no other college students on UNKs campus will have the
opportunity to grow personally, professionally, and financially the way I
have throughout this top-10 internship. Hopefully in the years ahead
they will decide to bring the program back on UNKs campus and let
the financial industry teach college students invaluable lessons.