So here's my personal, anecdotal, possibly informative experience with Northwestern Mutual. In the late 2000s my ex-SO and I were solicited by one of their agents, who had been given our contact info by our mortgage broker. He described himself as a "financial advisor" and said he would meet with us to go over our financial situation, discuss our goals, and recommend a portfolio. Sweet! Ex-SO and I were looking for that kind of help at the time. I was in my late 20s, and had an OK level of financial literacy for my age in that I understood various kinds of investment vehicles and why one would contribute to one or the other. But I thought I would learn something from having an impartial third party review my overall situation. My SO was terrified of investing and vaguely opposed to the stock market on moral grounds. So he had tens of thousands of dollars in a savings account, plus a small inheritance that he intended to use for philanthropic purposes. We thought an advisor could help us come up with an investment plan for him, too.
We both go in for our initial meeting with the guy. He listened attentively as we described our various assets and debts, life goals, etc. We were super specific about things like not wanting kids, wanting to use the inheritance for philanthropy, etc. ER wasn't a goal of mine at the time, so that didn't come up. He discusses various directions we could go in, and makes some suggestions that were helpful at the time, but I now recognize as just garden-variety personal finance. He gives us an overview of NM, and discusses all their insurance offerings in detail. He says he's going to run some numbers and then we'll have a follow-up meeting where he presents us with a suggested portfolio. I'm a born skeptic, but my BS meter wasn't going off too much at this point, though I recognized he was obviously going to try to sell us something that he would make money from.
Second meeting was a few weeks later. Sure enough, he recommends that we buy the full-course menu of what NM has to offer, including whole life insurance. Also we should talk to our parents about long-term care insurance, and if we pass along their contact information someone in their area will follow up. His recommendations did not address any of the very, very specific things we talked to him about. When we asked "But what about how we're not having kids and we both work? What about the philanthropy thing?" he brushed it aside and kept pushing that what we really needed was lots of insurance. Ex-SO and I were very non-confrontational people and afraid of saying no to the nice, helpful man. But my BS meter was ringing very loudly at this point so I said we'd think about it and call him.
Ex and I talked about it, and I said I didn't think what he was offering met our needs. In fact, he hadn't even addressed our very, very clearly stated priorities, which I felt was just bad customer service, in addition to poor advice. So we said no, thank goodness.
Edited: Various typos, weird phrasings.