From $2M To $20M: Casey Stubbs Shares His Trading Strategies And Success Story

 

In this episode, Casey Stubbs shares his incredible journey of scaling his business from $2 million to $20 million, offering invaluable insights into trading strategies and the importance of risk management. Mitch Russo delves into Casey’s experiences, revealing how he built his trading empire and the lessons learned along the way. Whether you’re a seasoned trader or just starting, this episode provides practical advice and inspiration to help you navigate the volatile world of trading. Plus, don’t miss the special giveaway: access to free trading signals to enhance your trading decisions.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

From $2M To $20M: Casey Stubbs Shares His Trading Strategies And Success Story

Welcome to this moment in time when you get to chill out, tune in, and extract wisdom that you can use to grow your business with your first thousand clients. By the way, if you’re a coach, you’re going to love what I have for you in this episode. My software platform is called Clientfol.io. It’s helped hundreds of coaches save time on admin, make more money, get better results, and generate powerful client testimonials. How would you like that?

Does that work for you? If you’re a coach, you need to see Clientfol.io. In fact, you can try it for a dollar. Go to Clientfol.io and click on the Try It For A Buck button and give it a spin. For anyone who reads this show, if you decide to go forward with this, I’ll set you up with a free training session with one of my coaches so you can implement it right away.

On to my amazing guest and his incredible story. I will mention that this is an encore appearance, and he was here years ago and told us all about his company, and he’s made an enormous amount of progress since. Let me tell you a little bit about his background first. It was 2006. He started a soap company in his basement, and it was going pretty well, except he hated doing it. In fact, he didn’t like selling it. He kind of hated everything about it.

I could relate. I wouldn’t want to be in that business, either. What he did was he tried carpet cleaning, and with the whole family’s support, as much as he tried, he didn’t like that either. He went into construction and carpet cleaning in the evenings. It wasn’t until 2008 when the economy collapsed and that wasn’t working, he wasn’t sure what to do. It turns out, on a whim, he started to help his dad set up a computer for trading stocks and discovered what he loved.

Has anyone else had a situation where, by accident, they discover what they love? Without a lot of thought but with a lot of passion, he dove into trading and discovered something very important about life, business, and success. He’s here to share his hard-won lessons about life, business, and pushing through the crap to get to your final destination, aligned with the universe, which has been there for you all along. Welcome, Casey Stubbs, to the show.

Thanks, Mitch. I’m so glad to be here. It’s quite an honor.

Discovering A Passion For Trading

Here you are again. Last time, we had a great interview, but this time is going to be even better. Before we started, you told me something very interesting. You told me about a new book, and I don’t want to talk about the book yet, but I want readers to hang in there because we’re going to get into the book content a little bit later in the show. As always, I want you to stay with us because, at the end of the show, Casey is going to have a little gift for you. Hang in there. Let’s get started. Casey, tell me about how all this started for you when you were first starting working with your dad to try and learn investing.

I didn’t have any idea what the markets were about at all, but I loved the idea of clicking a button and making money. I had immediate visions of becoming an instant millionaire. Of course, that isn’t what happened, but once I got a taste of it, I got hooked, and I tend to be a hardworking, hustling kind of guy. I like going after things, and that was it for me.

When you find what you love, dive in with passion. It might not happen overnight, but the journey is worth it. Share on X

You became a trader, and you probably, after some trial and error, made some money, but what got you into the business of helping other traders?

It particularly happened because of the economy in 2008. It was rough, as I’m sure a lot of the readers remember. It seems like it was yesterday, but it was actually a while ago. Some of the younger readers probably don’t remember that too much. There was no work in the construction industry at all. I thought, why not give my shot at a website and talk about what I’m learning in trading?

How did that go?

Surprisingly, it went well. I started it out, but I did have a very vague plan. It wasn’t a master plan, but I found a website called AssociatePrograms.com, and they had an article called Eight Steps to Make $1000 a Month Online. I followed the eight steps, and it worked.

Readers, you should know this. Casey and I worked together. Casey was my client first for about six months. What he said was exactly who he is. When he trusts somebody and he wants to make progress, he works with them and does what they say, like he followed that article. The reason I’m mentioning it is because you should think about how that would work for you, too. A lot of us get in the way of our own success. We interfere with a plan that pretty much has been laid out for us, but somehow, head trash, mindset, whatever you want to call it, gets in the way. Casey knows how to get past that, and I sure hope that this show becomes a little bit enlightening about how maybe you can, too. Casey, you built this business basically at that moment in time. What was your initial vision for the business?

The initial vision was very simple. It was trying to make some money to put food on the table. It was that simple because I had a young family, and I had to provide and there was a lot of pressure there. While I was doing this, I was hitting the job market daily. It wasn’t like I was doing this and then not doing anything else. This was a way to try to see if I could make some extra money while looking for another job.

What were you offering back then?

I didn’t know anything about making money online. I followed the format that they mentioned, which was affiliate marketing, but I haven’t gotten into that yet. The initial stages were just asking if I could make $1 on this thing. Initially, I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have anything until people noticed my website. People were getting attention, and I had people coming, and they’re like, “You could actually sell here.”

Tell us about that insight and a valuable one. What was it about your website that drew people to it?

The big thing was me being transparent and being myself and sharing myself. We see a lot more of that now, but in 2008, it was newer. A lot of the social media platforms were getting out. I would say a big learning experience for me was when some random guy approached me, and a lot of times when random people approached me, it was terrible. I’m sure you get this all the time, but he says, “Why don’t you send a couple of emails to my list? I’m doing a product launch, and it’s about trading. send it to your list.”

Transparency and integrity are invaluable in building trust with your audience. Share on X

I did it because I didn’t know what I was doing. I only had 5,000 people on my list. Small, getting started. I was literally blown away because I’d sent a few emails, but again, I like to follow instructions. I followed the instructions that he gave me, and he wrote back to me and said, “Your list did well. I’m going to be sending you a check for $15,000.” I was blown away. I was shocked.

We should get into this a little bit because, again, there’s some great wisdom here I’d love to share. The reason that I think you did well is I would say there were, let’s call it 2 reasons, maybe 3. The first reason is that you had a fairly targeted audience. They had a common interest, and the person who approached you knew that. That’s why they wanted you to help market. That’s the first thing, but this is the big one.

The second thing is the people on that list trusted you. The reason they trusted you is because you were transparent, because you were just, “Look, cards on the table. I’m new at this. Here’s what I’m discovering. This is what I got. You might be interested.” That’s a rare commodity in this life, in this world, as you probably know. Integrity and honesty are very highly valued. Sometimes, that’s how people are. They don’t even know that there’s a difference. They are who they are, as I believe you are. That’s what I think people were attracted to. You got this check for $15,000, and your mind must’ve exploded at that point. Where did you go next?

Remember, I had a young family. My wife was pregnant, so we needed to upgrade our vehicle. The very first thing I did was buy a car, and I got a great deal. We got a great deal on a Chevy Suburban. I have nine kids, but back then, I think it was like 4 or 5. We needed to upgrade. The Suburban wouldn’t even work now because now I’ve got a 15-passenger van.

That’s amazing. Think about all those college tuitions coming up.

It’s interesting because my kids seem to have an entrepreneurial mindset, and they’re more interested in starting businesses than going to school, which I’m okay with.

The Pivot To Affiliate Marketing

I bet you are. I hear a partnership in the making. That’s great. The idea is, “Aha, my list can make money.” Did you begin an affiliate marketing list for traders in a vertical market? Is that what you did?

That’s exactly what happened. Remember that article? That was the number one thing on it, affiliates. At that time, that’s when I got involved with Jeff Walker, which was his product launch formula. A lot of the other people were doing that in the trading business, where they were launching products. They’d get group JV things going together. I was starting to show up on leaderboards and participating. My main goal was I’m going to do the best that I can on every launch and make sure that the product I’m promoting is a good product. Try to get to know the person behind it, and make sure they’re good people. It worked well. People started to pay attention to me because I was placing high on the leaderboards.

At some point, you’re going to tell us about your pivot because the affiliate marketing thing was working. Your list was growing. You were generating more, probably steady revenue now from multiple offers to your list. There was a moment when you said, “This little website can do more than have articles. I want to offer something different.” Tell us about your thought process in making that transition.

The big one was being connected with Jeff Walker and following his products. It’s like I got to come up with my own product. At that point, I wasn’t real comfortable yet with my trading ability. I was approached by a trader who was like, “I’ll teach you everything I know about trading, and I’ll run the product, and you run the marketing.”

We formed a partnership, and I was a big visionary at that point. I was recruiting people to help, and I was laying out the vision saying, “We’re going to do a million-dollar launch.” I was laying out the vision to the affiliates, and I was supporting them, getting high on the leaderboards, and making sure that everybody in the affiliate industry knew who I was. I pushed out, and the big goal, the pivot, was to launch my own product and to do a million-dollar affiliate JV launch.

How did it go?

It was a great learning experience for me because I had never been so successful and depressed at the same time. The reason why is because I was recruiting this team, and I was basically convincing them to work for nothing because I was saying that we all had this big payday. I’ve got this big group of people, and we’re all working together late nights. It’s like the payday’s coming, guys, we’re going to do it.

Sometimes, the toughest lessons come from the biggest successes—like making $250K and feeling depressed about it. Share on X

We’re going to hit the million-dollar launch. When I actually launched, I did about 250,000 in sales. At the time, I was depressed because we had high expectations. A couple of weeks later, somebody said to me, “You made 100,000 or 250,000 is what I made.” He said, “Have you ever made that before?” I said no. He’s like, “You made that in about a week.” He says, “That’s nothing to be upset about.” I realized I never made 250,000 in a week before. It’s because it was so below my expectations. I was pretty upset at the time.

Another great mindset lesson here. As they say, you’ve probably heard this a million times, you shoot for the stars and you hit the moon. In this case, you hit the moon; you made $250,000. Was that net $250,000, or was that after all?

It was gross.

Were your partners that all worked for you on commissions satisfied with the $250,000? Were they complaining?

Most of them were. The main guy was pretty upset. As a matter of fact, he took off, and it was a major blowup. He told all of the customers that I was cheating him. We never spoke again after that, and it caused a major rift in the business.

Readers, if you’re enjoying this conversation, I want to remind you that the entire transcript of our conversation is over at YourFirstThousandClients.com. Go to Casey Stubbs’ show page, and there you’ll see every single word we said and a couple of very interesting things for you to look at, a download and a book offer, etc.

Casey, this is another moment where I need to hone in on something you said because you are talking about something that, unfortunately, is all too common in life. A partnership blows up. The difference is that you are not a person who is unethical. You are not a dishonest individual. You are honest. You are ethical. You did your best, but you didn’t hit your goals. How did you handle this issue when, all of a sudden, you had people turning on you because of your partner?

When you talk about the integrity thing, that is important to me. Another thing that’s important to me is to talk well of people. I was not going to say anything negative, speak well, wish a blessing, forgive, and then keep moving forward. Try to take some lessons learned. I felt like I was pretty transparent with the numbers and stuff, but I did.

I think a great lesson for me was that I had the control. I was controlling the merchant accounts, the email lists, and the website. It was important to me. I’m never going to give that up. If a partner wants to try to leave and bash me and do all those things, that’s fine. I’m always going to be in control of those things because as long as I have control of those, I’ve got the business.

Managing Business Partnerships

It sounds like a little bit of common sense here, but as we know, common sense is sometimes uncommon. In this case, that’s real wisdom. You knew in advance to make sure that you were the only one in control of the communication channels, and you held tight to those. After that launch, you picked up the pieces, dealt with an angry partner, and never spoke to him again. What was the next step in your business progression?

My next step was to start bringing some young people on, teaching them, and trying to get a team around me. We did want to get the million-dollar launch. I continued in that JV realm for quite some time and was able to hone that into a high level because there were a couple of things that I did that I thought stood out. Number one, I’d always perform at a peak level. I’m always like one, two, or three in their events. The other thing I would try to do when I was hosting my event was educate them. I would do big prizes for number one.

Number two, I would educate them. I’d do a video and say, look, this is how you need to do it. Step one is you need to say this. Step two is you need to do this. Step three is you need to do this and make sure you do all the steps. I would even film videos of myself writing checks. I’m like, look, I wrote a check to Morgan, and I’m sending Morgan a $140,000 check. It became like a frenzy. The affiliates were jumping on top of each other and going out of their way to promote. That worked well, also.

There’s another step in this process. You made another progression. You decided to offer your own products and products from different people. Let’s get into that and see if we can sort of categorize these steps as you take them. Readers can potentially do as you do, read and duplicate. Tell me what happened next.

I continued in that realm and did pretty well. I actually never did get to the million-dollar launch, though. The closest I ever did was about $900,000. I did $900,000. It was fantastic. It was beautiful. After that, in the trading world, in the small area that I work in, it’s a small marketing traders’ marketing. The affiliate thing started to die down, and partners weren’t doing it as much, and pretty much the industry completely fell apart. As far as I know, people aren’t even doing it at all anymore. I had to do another pivot, and that was to build marketing funnels and do internal launches with my own lists, all my own social media, and all my own platforms instead of getting JVs.

Would you say that, in retrospect, the fact that the affiliate business kind of went away or died down pivoted you into a more lucrative, more prosperous area?

Affiliate marketing seems glamorous, and it’s great because you get free leads and can blow up fast. The first launch I did, my list went from like 5,000 to 30,000, a fast email list. However, you’re paying the top premium for those sales. It’s a trade-off. You’re putting the risk on the partner because they have to mail, and they don’t know if they’re going to get paid. They’re taking a chance with their list by trusting in you. They take that risk, which is a big deal. The next part of it is now because they took that risk on the front end, I have to pay out much more. If I generate leads organically or I’m doing traffic, I can get those leads much cheaper than paying 30%.

Did you realize that after you’d been in business doing this for a little while, and did you pivot to buying ads and promoting through paid ads instead of affiliates?

Yes. I realized that the affiliate market wasn’t very active, but also it dawned on me that this is way cheaper this way.

Educating And Empowering Traders

Of course. Let’s fast forward a bit. What is TradingStrategyGuides.com all about? What’s the site and business about? What are you doing right now?

We primarily love to educate investors and traders in the markets. The markets have been so volatile. There’s so much going on in the world. With COVID, the market tanked like 30% and then came back. There’s a lot there. We try to give solid quality education to as many people as we can. We have different solutions that we offer to help traders get to the next level.

In a world of uncertainty, staying informed and adapting your strategy is key. Keep learning and stay ahead of the curve. Share on X

One of the most interesting things about your website is how simple it is. Readers, go to TradingStrategyGuides.com and see what I’m talking about. Basically, there is a short paragraph, a picture of Casey, and a button. If you scroll down, you get some testimonials, a podcast invite, and other things, but this is a model for how to capture traffic when they are going to your page.

I like what you did here. It’s actually quite simple. While it’s not an attractive website, I know you’re not insulted by that because you realize it’s not what you were going for. You’re not building an authority site here. You’re building a lead capture system, and for that, I love it. Tell me about the progress over the last couple of years. Trading has changed in so many ways. We have Roaring Kitty now on the scene, and we have the pops and drops. We have the Fed. We have all of the political stuff going on. How can people make money in the trading world?

It comes down to one thing, and that is managing your risk. It’s not an exciting thing to talk about, but it is what it is. In business, there are key fundamentals and principles that business people need to follow, and traders need to follow. It’s the same thing. When you’re trading in the markets, you’ve got to manage your risk. It’s not that difficult. It is difficult because it’s hard to manage yourself. Most people cannot manage themselves. I’m always struggling with it myself, but it’s a battle, and I’m working on it and winning. But most people cannot do that. I know that because I’ve trained a lot of people.

Tweets: The key to successful trading? Managing your risk. It might not sound exciting, but it's the foundation of long-term success in the markets. Share on X

You know this about me. I’ve been a trader since 2004, 2005. I learned options trading. I went all in and bought a $25,000 course to learn options trading. I was generating probably $20,000 a month in options revenue from that process. For me, though, the problem was dealing with my emotions. When 2008 came along and we had all of the ridiculous three standard deviation moves in a single three-day period, it basically destroyed my portfolio.

Luckily, I was working with a floor trader from the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, and he was my mentor. What he taught me more than anything else was, “I don’t care how much you make; I care how safe you are.” He insisted that I focus on the protection side of options trading, which I don’t have to explain. You know what that is. Here’s the thing. After all was said and done, after the crash, after the whole thing settled down, I had lost only what my profits were, not my principal. I didn’t like losing my profits, but I had also watched CNBC that day when there were 3 or 4 floor traders who blew up and were now gone after that day. I felt pretty good.

Mitch, that’s like in the beginning when I said I only made $250,000, and I was depressed about it. You know, it’s perspective. I know how that is because I’ve been in the same situation where you lose your profit. What I try to do to ensure that I never lose my profit is that once I make a profit, I pull some of it out. That way, I can never lose.

Your system, your business, is more than guides, and it’s more than cheat sheets and studies. You offer elements of your business that help others actually learn to trade. You have some live stuff that you do. Tell us a little bit about that.

We have some coaches on the staff who teach fundamentals. They teach market strategies, price action strategies, and all different kinds of markets, everything from options to stocks to currency trading to even crypto now, which is a big one, and everybody’s getting excited about the bull run that’s coming in crypto. I’m sure you’re waiting for that as well. It’s a great time to be in the markets. We’re at all-time highs right now. Honestly, even after COVID, that was my best trading year ever.

Mine too, actually. It was. Unfortunately, I was working with somebody who runs a newsletter, and he was still very bearish on the market. Although it was a good year, my returns were depressed because I was following his trades, too. It was a tough year. We’re in this period before the elections. If you’re reading this, probably not at the moment we recorded it, obviously. It’s July 2024. There’s an election coming up. There are two wars going on at the same time. There’s a stock market bubble, as some people think it is. There are all kinds of goings-on in the world when it comes to interest rates.

Here’s the thing that holds me firm in this market right now. I don’t know if it will keep me in the market, but for right now, here’s what I believe. I believe that the market will not drop until the election or after. I believe that we are probably going to stay in a bull market through this next quarter and the election cycle, minimum. From there, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody does. Here’s the stuff that I try and focus on, I try and focus on everything going on in the market, not the charts. How are you when it comes to stuff like that? Are you more of a chart guy?

I like to look at the charts for my trades. My primary focus is the charts. However, I do look at the fundamental picture. The election year is a big one. The history, you go with the statistics. Trading is a lot about statistics. How many years of election years have we seen down? Not too many. It’s the same thing this year. I do think that our economy is beautiful. It’s great. I do think we’re in a tough situation because, on the one hand, we have massive debt that the government cannot pay back. It’s getting to a point where they can’t pay it back. They desperately need the Fed to drop rates so they stay solvent.

On the other hand, we have inflation. Inflation has not yet been taken care of. It’s slowed, but it’s not there yet. If inflation doesn’t get under control, they’re going to have to raise rates anyway because the government’s not going to be able to remain solvent. They’re going to have to lower rates, and then inflation could stay high, which could then take our economy even further. To not be political, but the answer is to reduce spending in government, in my opinion, to be like normal people. Business people, we’ve got to control our expenses. Normal people have to watch their expenses. The government should do the same thing.

I totally agree. I want to add this perspective. There’s never been a time that I was in the markets that it wasn’t tumultuous, that there wasn’t a crisis, that there weren’t looming problems. There were very few times when I was trading where I would set it and forget it. I wait for my contracts to expire, keep my premium, and then move on to the next month. It was rare that something like that happened. I think we’re always going to be in times like this, and no one knows what the outcome will be. You know what they say, you can never win if you’re not playing the game. I think trading comes down to that as well. Casey, what would you suggest for the average person who doesn’t have a lot of money and who hasn’t done a lot of trading? Where would they start?

Investing In New Technology

That’s a great question. I have a good answer. I think that if you look at the history of markets, they have a history of going up, and things that go up are new technology. You want to find new technology, and obviously, revenues push that up. There’s a minimal amount of research that you need to do, and that is to find the new technology.

If we go way back to when steel was a big thing, or electricity, or the automobile, or even McDonald’s, they created fast food and all new technology. That’s why I’m a fan of Cathie Wood. She puts out this technology report. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, it’s brilliant. She believes in technology, and so do I, because the economy will go up and down, but human ingenuity is what makes life worth living, in my opinion, the awesomeness that humans do. Invest in some new technology; that’s number one. Number two, find the leader.

Find the leader because there’s always going to be twenty people chasing an idea, but there’s always going to be one person who’s head and shoulders above the rest. Find the Mitch Russo of stocks. Get around that person, get around the winning team, find a company that’s ahead or find a leader, a visionary leader. The guys who run these companies, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, are revolutionary people, and you’re never going to lose if you invest in them because they’re winners.

It’s absolutely true. It’s a great tip. To add to that, Jim Cramer, who I’m a fan of from an entertainment standpoint but not a fan of as an investment advisor for my age, said something I believe is true, if you are beginning, it’s probably best to choose an index and invest in one of the generalized indexes like the SPX, because like you said, over time, the market keeps going up. If you can somehow get a base foothold into a strong index fund with low expenses, odds are, as you start building your career and building your wealth, that’s going to serve you well.

The brilliance about that is that the S&P 500 does what I said anyway. They do the research, and they pick the top 500 companies. They’re doing all the research for you. You’re already getting, and that’s why it’s not a real picture of what’s happening in the US economy. They’re picturing the best companies in the United States.

Let’s talk a little bit about your new book because you told me about it. I was excited about it. You’ve learned a lot about trading, and you’ve certainly made some great money both as a business owner and as a trader. Describe to us what the book is all about.

Casey Stubbs’ New Book: The Complete Trading System

The book is called The Complete Trading System: How to Develop a Mindset, Maximize Profitability, and Own Your Market Success, and it takes you through the fundamentals of trading. It’s a system based on how to analyze charts, identify trends, build a winning strategy, build a correct mindset, and make sure that you’re not gambling. I talk about the gambling mindset because a lot of people go into the markets thinking it’s a casino when it’s not. It teaches all of that from a ground level. I’ve received a lot of great feedback on it.

I would say this about the book, too. Being in business and having a podcast is the whole reason I have the book. You’re a podcaster. You understand how great it is. The publisher reached out to me. I didn’t even have to work for it because I have a podcast. Wiley Publishing said, “We saw your podcast. Would you write a book?” It was interesting because I actually had all of the notes. I had it in my mind that I was going to write a book. I had all the notes. I said, “I’ve already got one written. It’s in a notebook.”

Readers, if you want to go to Amazon and get The Complete Trading System: How to Develop a Mindset, Maximize Profitability, and Own Your Market Success by Casey Stubbs, it sounds like you’re going to enjoy that book a lot. Casey, we promised a free giveaway, and I know you have a lot of resources and you’re pretty proud of them. Tell us a little bit about what you might have available for our readers.

Access Free Trading Resources

If you go to my homepage, TradingStrategyGuides.com, we have a great free guide. It is a price action cheat sheet. It’s right there on the homepage, and it teaches everything that you need to know about price action, which is reading candles, reading the candles, and understanding how levels in the markets work.

I saw the page. I haven’t downloaded it yet, but I love the idea of understanding what those chart formations look like because those are what most traders go by. If you understand the twelve or so basic symbols of how all that works, then you’ll be able to at least get on the right page, if not have an idea of where to go next. I appreciate you doing that. Before we close out this episode, I also wanted to ask you, do you still do affiliate marketing and do you still help other traders reach your clients, or is that now all in the past?

It’s dropped down quite a bit as far as the affiliate marketing. I do some now if I see something that I love or if I know somebody that I’ve known for a long time because I’ve got a lot of great relationships.

 

Of course.

Definitely, because I can’t fill everybody’s needs. If there’s something that I know somebody will benefit from, I’ll definitely share it.

Casey, it’s been a complete pleasure hanging out with you and getting caught up in everything that’s going on. I’m so proud of you. You’ve done so well. Thank you so much for the time. Readers, go back and read what Casey said and put some stuff into action like he did. Thank you, Casey.

Thank you. It’s been such an honor being here and working with you. You’ve helped me out. You’ve had such great insight.

Thank you, Casey.

 

Important Links

• Clientfol.io
• Casey Stubbs
• Associate Programs
• Trading Strategy Guides
• The Complete Trading System: How to Develop a Mindset, Maximize Profitability, and Own Your Market Success