D2DCon 2024 | How Financial Planning Helps Door-to-Door Salespeople Build Wealth & Avoid Debt: Insights from Ryan Cook of Northwestern Mutual | The D2D Podcast

In this episode of The D2D Podcast, host Clint Root interviews Ryan Cook, a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual and a former senior tech leader who transitioned into the financial planning industry. Ryan shares his insights on how financial planning can help door-to-door sales professionals, particularly those experiencing rapid financial success. He highlights the importance of managing wealth and avoiding the common pitfalls that come with increased earnings, such as consumer debt and poor planning for the future.

Ryan discusses practical strategies for building an emergency fund, investing in the right assets, and planning for both short-term and long-term financial goals. He emphasizes how financial planning is essential for tech leaders and sales professionals who face unpredictable income streams. Listeners will gain valuable tips on how to preserve wealth, avoid debt traps, and secure financial stability in an industry where earnings can fluctuate drastically.

You'll find answers to questions such as:

• How should young sales professionals manage sudden financial success?
• What are the most critical first steps in financial planning for D2D sales professionals?
• Why is having an emergency fund essential?
• How can financial planning secure long-term wealth for salespeople?
• What common financial pitfalls should successful sales professionals avoid?

Get in touch with Ryan:
Website: Northwestern Mutual - Ryan Cook

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Transcript

00:07
All right.

00:08
We're here at Door to Door Con 2024, Door to Door Con 7. Some here, we're doing this. I'm sitting here with Ryan Cook, somebody I've known a very, very long time. I have to ask you, first time at Door to Door Con, it's like a whole new world for you, I'm sure. This is wild, this is crazy. There's like so much energy here that it's just contagious. It's pretty crazy. I bet you've seen people you know, right? I have, I've actually run into a lot of people I know. That's phenomenal. So Ryan Cook, for those of you that don't know,

00:37
it works in the financial space. The reason I wanted to bring you on, why I think you're so critical to the door-to-door world is because a lot of guys get into door-to-door sales, they start making a lot of money really quickly, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. So it goes from trying to figure out how you're gonna buy a pizza on Friday, and now all of a sudden you're like, well, I've got some big boy money, what do I do with it? And a lot of people don't do anything with it, right? Or at least maybe they go out and buy that Escalade with the spinners. So before we get into that,

01:07
So how do we know each other? Yeah, we go way back. We go way back. So I think I've known you since sixth grade. Seventh grade. So I know Clint's whole family, and I know your brothers, I know your dad, I know your mom. We live close by, and I have a fun memory of you. So you and I used to go down to this baseball card shop. We'd always look for cards for ourselves. But at this baseball card shop,

01:37
sold these really good suckers that cost 25 cents a piece. And we would buy as many as we could, and we'd go to the school and we'd sell them for a dollar. That's right. You remember the pogs? Yes. We also had pogs. Do you still have pogs? I still have pogs. I probably own about half of your collection of pogs still. All right, first question. What's your favorite slammer? I had this one that had bones and a skull. It was kind of thick, and there was a certain way that I would throw it down.

02:07
half of the pots that I have in my house used to be yours and I want them with that slammer. Dude, that's so funny. You know what my favorite slammer was? Why are we talking about slammers? You know kids these days don't even know what pogs are. You have to Google that. You do what with that? You do that this is fun? My favorite slammer was a picture of O.J. Simpson and one side of the slammer said guilty, the other side said not guilty. That's how long.

02:37
This podcast was like who's OJ Simpson?

02:45
So I'm glad to have you. So that's too funny. So just like, again, in the door-to-door space, I think you've seen this with social media. I know you have a lot of friends in door-to-door. You watch their careers progress, right? Just speaking from experience, myself included, you get out there and you find this success that really, for a lot of us, comes overnight. I mean, it's like going from high school to the major league.

03:14
weeks like pretty quick. So what I guess if I was a 20 let's say a 20 year old or 22 year old single person like what would I be doing right now with my money what's the smart thing to do crypto. Do I put it all in Dogecoin or whatever is that what's up. You could probably wouldn't be there tomorrow. It might be my quadruple maybe. Who knows. Right. To the moon. Who really knows. So what I what I did. I have my own wealth management business.

03:44
do is I sit down with people at different stages in life and I do planning, right? Planning is really individualized and it's comprehensive. There's not a really good blanket answer to the question because it kind of depends on your situation. Can you replicate that success next year? Have you proven that? Can you do it three years in a row? Do you have consistent income coming in? If you don't, the plan might be a little bit different than somebody who does. Do you want to keep doing it? Some people aren't a lunatic like myself and stay in it for 20 years.

04:14
years right? There's a means for that. I'm trying to get through college. I just need to do this for four years, you know, and then I'm off to be a, you know, a real job. I'm going to be a doctor and actually contribute to society, right? So like what would you say if I'm trying to budget as a 20-year-old? What are the questions I should be asking myself? I think number one is, you know, that the business is good right now, but will it be later? And if the answer is there's some doubt

04:44
too big with a particular purchase. Now with that said, life is meant to be lived and you've got to have fun and you've got to, and you worked really hard for some nice things and you're entitled to it at some point in time, but you've got to think about it in terms of long term, right? Not a lot of people that are in this industry are really thinking about a long term, right? They think, you know, wedding is really far away or my first kid is far away or maybe it's I'm not going to be putting that kid that I currently have through college for a number of years, but it really happens really fast.

05:14
value of money, if you have some big money in your early earning years and you can put that in in the right investments, that can be triple, quadruple, quintuple from you know at the time that you need to go use it. That's interesting. So let's look, I'm gonna ask you another question except now I'm not a 20 year old right? I've graduated from college, I'm making great money and now it's starting to be even more money than I was making the years before. I'm embarrassed.

05:44
to come in and sit in your office because I've squandered so much. I'm married at this point. I've got two kids with one on the way. What would you say to that person? I would honestly I would say be humble enough to know that you're in over your skis and know that planning should start at the best time that it should. Planning for what? Right? Planning for retirement, planning for a rainy day. I believe very strongly that you should have an emergency fund. That emergency fund should be three to six months. Start there.

06:14
Right? At least get cash reserves or cash equivalents. There's some really interesting things that you can do. And I mean, and I mean liquid, not, you know, something that's available to you. Not like something that you would stock away for a rainy day that I can't touch for a while because it's an asset in a private equity. That's not, that's not liquid, right? It needs to be three to six month cash reserve. You got to start there, right? You have to have cash reserve. Should be three to six months to weather a storm. After that,

06:44
should really look into how can I grow that wealth and should I have more than six months really sitting in a bank account and I think that most people would kind of say the answer is really no because I'm not gonna get the best return for that now I'm starting to talk about wealth you know depending on where you're at the conversation is a little bit different but you always got to start with do you have the emergency funds in place right that's interesting so what what are like the maybe the what are the industry

07:14
secrets, the things that you wish more people knew about. Oh yeah. Yeah, I wish I would. There's so many secrets. What do you wish you would have known when you were 18 years old or 20 or 24? The easiest one that I could give you is stay out of debt. Stay out of debt. Why? Now, there is good debt and there's bad debt. There's some good debt, might be a house or a home purchase or something, an appreciating asset. Bad debt is gonna be something that has a high interest rate

07:44
back. Most people that are kind of young and come into money, they think, hey, it's no big deal. I've got good money coming in. I can leverage something. I can go on a 20% credit card. It's really no big deal because I have high aspirations to pay that thing off. But what happens is over time is you end up paying the minimums. You float it from one month into the next month. It ends up catching up with you. You could be doing so much more with the money that you have today than you would have with the money that you

08:14
leveraging it against 20% consumer debt, right? It's a slippery slope, isn't it? You start going, hey, I just need $100. I'll put it on this credit card. I'm going to pay it off. And then it becomes easier and easier and easier. Before you know it, you're $10,000 in debt, and you're going, I can't even make the minimum. Or I got those shoes. They were really comfortable. I walk a lot. I need another pair of shoes. I don't really have the money right now. I'm going to get a second. But I don't have a red shirt to match that. I need a third. I need a fourth. So you've got to kind of live within your means.

08:44
I mean the secret honestly