Latest issue · July 2026
3rd Annual ‘Questions from Hellyer’
Big questions for MPs on ensembles, recruiting, margin and firm structure. Don’t let yourself answer “somewhere in between.”
The Driving FPP archive
Driving FPP
Leadership and sales ideas for Northwestern Mutual field leaders and advisors: how I think about advisor and leader development, and the books and research behind it. Every issue lives here, so nothing gets lost in your inbox.
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Showing all 31 issues
2026
3rd Annual ‘Questions from Hellyer’
Big questions for MPs on ensembles, recruiting, margin and firm structure. Don’t let yourself answer “somewhere in between.”
Simplify Early Planning
Pulling together 29 editions into one simple, integrated conversation for newer representatives and their younger prospects.
Constraints drive Creativity
What would you need to do today to reach your 10-year vision in 3 years? 1 year (gulp!)? Using constraints to sharpen planning and selling.
ABC & Me, We, Thee
Agency, Belonging and Cause, viewed through the lens of Me, We and Thee: two models for building office culture and client experience.
Life Long Learning: The Importance of Study Groups
Introducing The Peer Collective Network: facilitated study groups that help advisors and leaders find the right peers for significant growth.
Don’t Complexify the Complicated
Complicated problems can be solved once and built into a process; complex ones keep evolving. Knowing the difference gives you hours back.
2025
Impactful Joint Work
Make joint work about learning, not just selling: a simple pre- and post-meeting tool for advisors and their JW partners.
The Power of PLI: Planning on Your Plan Not Going According to Plan
A family hog farm in Iowa and the most important part of every plan: planning on your plan not going according to plan.
Granum and Building a Business
Data-driven versus data-informed: giving Granum context by teaching advisors the universal fundamentals of building a business.
A Question from Hellyer, Part Deux
Growing lives production: stop doing “Annual Reviews,” and help advisors write down the planning beliefs behind their recommendations.
Deliberate Learning at Annual Meeting
Experts are not built at conferences. Anders Ericsson’s fundamentals of Deliberate Practice, and a tool to make Annual Meeting count.
New Client (NC) Grid Enhancement: A Bonus or Investment for Growth?
Are NM’s new client incentives a short-term bonus, or an investment in systems that change an advisor’s growth trajectory for years to come?
Making Decisions versus Choices
Choices are about options; decisions are about commitment to an action. Mastering this is the heart of the Art of Sales.
Utilizing Mental Models
Using the Mentor Mindset’s high standards and high support as a mental model to open every session. All learning should be leadership development!
Sales Masterclass from Bon Jovi
Great anthems keep coming back to the refrain. Income is the refrain every PX module should bring prospects back to.
Building from the Approach
Contribution, Interest, Taxation and Time: the four elements that turn approach language into a more educational fact-finder and an uncomplicated PX.
Offensive and Defensive Planning?
The purpose of the approach is to get a fact-finder…period. Simplifying approach language for younger advisors.
2024
The Science of Motivating Young People
High expectations AND high support: David Yeager’s four mentor mindsets and five rules for mentoring the next generation of advisors.
New Advisor Productivity
Simplify, simplify, simplify: a little wisdom on subtraction and a pared-down sample PX for new advisors.
Annual Planning Season: Creating Clarity with Your Team
Keep the clarity from your planning retreat: a simple tool to define the project, the expected outcomes and the key milestones for every Rock.
Invert, Always Invert
Charlie Munger’s favorite problem-solving trick, how it energized a room of U3 advisors, and a planning-season exercise for your leaders.
Creating an Engaging Approach
A simple three-step process for turning a target market’s pain points into compelling approach language, with a default-versus-targeted example for a mid-50s couple.
A Question from Hellyer
Are you doing YOUR job, or THE job? Moving 5-19 advisors beyond the Granum basics with real business planning and the Traction VTO.
Leadership and Noble Followership
Lessons from jazz in Yes to the Mess: great leadership teams know when to lead and when to follow.
Teach to the Problem, not the Tools
Elon Musk on teaching the problem, not the tools, and why office training should be an engaging problem-solving session, not a topic presentation.
Heuristics: Anchoring and Loss Aversion
In memory of Daniel Kahneman: how Loss Aversion and Anchoring Bias turn Lifetime Earning Potential into a compelling planning story.
Developing New Leaders & Mentors
What the Blue Angels debrief teaches about honest self-assessment, feedback, and an After Action Review process for advisors and their mentors.
The War of Art
Rhinoceros Success still works for first-year advisors. The next level for every Rhino is Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, and how to overcome Resistance.
2023
Magic Words
Lessons from Jonah Berger’s Magic Words: turn actions into identities, and praise the process, not just the outcome.
The Psychology of Money
Frankl Consulting becomes Field Productivity Partners, and a 4-3-2-1 challenge: put The Psychology of Money in the hands of clients’ kids and your next class of recruits.
The Unsold Mindset
The first Driving FPP: why The Unsold Mindset explains what makes great salespeople great, plus notes from John Schlifske’s 30 Minute Mentors interview.
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