Warren R Davis
Financial Representative
Region: Southern

A Rewarding Career Shift 

Before becoming a Financial Representative, I served as an officer in the signal corps of the US Army and as a television producer/director at a university television operation. I found out I wasn't an 8 to 5 type of guy who liked reporting to other people who controlled my potential.

 

The greatest reward in this career is the opportunity to make a good living on my terms, and working with people who need what I do.   

 

The career has its challenges, too, such as the amount of time and money I spend doing non-productive computer activity and compliance meetings instead of seeing people and the anti-business regulatory environment such as no-call lists, etc.

Early in my career, the biggest challenge was learning what I needed to know about financial and tax issues to be able to help the business and estate owner's I worked with, and getting in front of enough of them to grow my business as rapidly as I would have liked.
 
Along the way, however, I've learned that I am capable of doing what I set out to do and that I like to work toward specific goals and objectives.
 
A Time I Made a Difference 
My personal physician, who has been my client for over 30 years, closed his private practice and started working as a medical director for a nursing home. 

He told me he wanted to drop his disability insurance as he didn't feel the need for it any longer since the facility he was working for provided some group coverage.  

I scheduled a meeting with him to convince him that he ought to keep his Northwestern Mutual coverage as long as he continued to work since the group coverage was basic at best and I was able to prevail.  

Some weeks after our meeting, he suffered a disability which left him unable to work. Shortly after that, one of the many hurricanes blowing through our area in the last couple of years destroyed his home.  

He calls me regularly to thank me for selling him coverage in the first place and for convincing him to keep it at a critical time. He is still waiting for his group carrier to pay on the claim.
 
Notable Milestones
Some milestones stand out in my mind: $100,000,000 of career production, gaining Senior Financial Representative status which will allow me more time with my grandchildren and travel with my wife of over 40 years, and finally, twice winning the recognition of the company through the community service award for my volunteer work in the fight against cancer.

Some Career Advice
If you want to make a real difference in people's lives by selling a unique product with the best in the industry, and you have the right stuff, there is no other career I can imagine that is as satisfying.

This is career that can be challenging, rewarding and frustrating like any other, but I cannot imagine any other career which can do much more to impact families' and individuals' financial well being.  

It is enormously satisfying to be paid for helping people do what is right for themselves and their families through the purchase of life, disability and medical insurance to meet goals and obligations.

The Northwestern Mutual Difference
As long as Northwestern Mutual Financial Network remains true to its mutual roots and gets back to understanding that the core products which got us to the top of the mountain and it is core product which will keep us there, Northwestern will remain unique among its peers as simply the best.

Outside of Work
After I lost several family members, friends and clients to cancer, I wanted to do something about it.  

Some of my good clients were active in the American Cancer Society and encouraged me to get involved. I have been in leadership and fund raising activities at the local, state and national level of the organization since 1985. 

During that time, I was instrumental in bringing Relay For Life to fight cancer in Florida and in 2001, I led the fight to make Florida a clean indoor-air state by getting a constitutional initiative on the ballot to stop smoking in the work place. 

In 2002, I chaired the Celebration on the Hill in Washington, D.C., which brought in a cancer survivor from every congressional district in the country to lobby congress for more funding for cancer research.  

I was twice honored by Community Service Award grants from Northwestern Mutual and once by the Million Dollar Round Table Foundation for my work to fight cancer.

W. Ray Davis has been a Financial Representative with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network since 1973. Visit his website to learn more about him, or call Ray at 850-994-8957.