TERI IJEOMA: “I think any time is a good time to start investing, even during a recession, which I know people are fearing. The thing is, different situations require different tools. When the market is going up, it's easy to make sure that you're picking the right companies, make sure that you have a good risk-management plan, a good charting system. I'm a technical analysis trader, which means I look at charts to figure out when's the best time to get in and out of a trade.
“But during a downturn, there's other things like short selling and gaps and Globex trading and options trading. And I know all those words sound like gibberish, but the key is, it's always a good time to invest in stocks. You just have to know the right tools.”
INTRO: I’m Amy Porterfield, ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-seven-figure business. But it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, the budget, and the time to focus on growing my small-but-mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned, and you'll see the business I have today, one that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible, one that used to only exist as a daydream. I created the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast to give you simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies to help you do the same. If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, or one in the making, who's looking to create a business that makes an impact and a life you love, you're in the right place, friend. Let's get started.
AMY PORTERFIELD: The Duct Tape Marketing podcast, hosted by John Jantsch, shares marketing tips, tactics, and resources for small- to midsize-business owners and marketers. John recently did an episode where he talked about the topic of analytics, specifically tracking results either for your own business or your clients who you work with. The episode’s called “What You Should Be Tracking in Your Marketing Efforts and Why.” And I know my audience. I know you love to know benchmarks and numbers and analytics and what you should be tracking. So you are going to love this episode. He also talks about the other marketing aspects, like how to support your customers and build an online community.
So, you can listen to the Duct Tape Marketing podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy.
Hey, there. Amy, here. Welcome back to another episode of Online Marketing Made Easy.
I’ve got a question for you. When it comes to investments in stock trading, are you (a) All in and loving it?; (b) You dabble, but very cautiously?; or (c), Nope, you're not going to touch it—too risky? Are you A, B, or C, or maybe on any given day you're kind of a mix of all of them? I get it. Investing and trading and stocks can feel a lot of different ways to many different people.
But if you could use stocks to make, say, one thousand dollars a day consistently, and you get to put that towards your business, would that pique your interest? Or use that thousand dollars a day to ease financial burdens so you can focus more on putting time and energy into your business and what you love? Now, would that pique your interest? Because you may even be saying, “Amy, did you just say one thousand dollars a day? That's not possible.” Oh, yes, my friend, it is. And I have someone on the podcast today that's going to share how she teaches that and some of her success stories from her students, which is always a little fun.
But a quick note. We are not providing any financial advice in this episode or guaranteeing any kind of revenue generation. We’re just sharing some inspiring stories and somebody else’s journey into digital courses. So, just had to make that disclaimer.
Okay. So my guest today is Teri Ijeoma, and she is the queen of investing and trading stocks. She went from making sixty thousand dollars a year as an assistant principal to making millions each year with her approach to trading stocks.
Now, today is extra special because we're going to talk about stocks and investing, but we're also going to talk about digital courses and how Teri took this passion of hers and turned it into a multimillion-dollar digital-course business. So we actually get to talk about both on the episode, and I think that's extra special.
So I invited Teri on to help illustrate how you can actually supplement your income in order to invest back in your business or to invest in anything that meets your needs or desires. So we're also going to talk about leaving your nine-to-five job and officially becoming your own boss and what that has looked like for Teri over the years. So Teri is going to share a little bit about herself. You're going to be amazed because she's got a really cool story. And, also, she's going to share with you how she's done what she's been able to do in her life and in her business, because it is pretty incredible.
So I think you're going to love this episode. I've been waiting for a while to get Teri on the show. This has been one of my most favorite conversations, so take a listen.
Well, hey, there, Teri. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
TERI: Hey, Amy. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
AMY: Oh, my gosh. I have wanted you on the show for over a year, and finally, it worked out. And I was so excited to see you on my calendar this week because I love everything about you. I love what you're doing in your business. I love the person that you are. I love the lifestyle that you're living.
So we got to get into all the things. So let's start at the very top. For someone who doesn't know you, will you just tell your story? Like, how you got into what you do. Talk about what you do. Share a little bit about where you live. Like, give me all the things.
TERI: Oh, and, Amy, I love you, too. Like, I just thank you for coming on our Trade and Travel tour last year.
AMY: So fun.
TERI: It's been amazing watching your journey and just meeting you.
AMY: Thank you.
TERI: But so who am I? My name is Teri Ijeoma, as you said, and I trade stocks and travel all over the world. Like, literally, that's who I am. But it didn't start that way, at all. Like, I literally thought I was going to be a youth pastor in a church. Like this, it was not in any of my dreams at all.
So I worked in education for about ten years, but I would trade stocks on the side. I had learned about it at M.I.T., when I went there for undergrad and interned on Wall Street. So I would trade to supplement my income because, you know, as educators, we don't make a ton. So I always had a side hustle, you know?
And eventually, though, it got to a point where I became assistant principal of an elementary school. And, Amy, you would think that would be the dream. But I hated it. I hated going to work every day. I would dread it, and then I had all these bosses. We had just opened the school, so I actually had, like, four different bosses, always telling me—
AMY: Ugh.
TERI: —different things to do. I never felt like I could get it right, because one would tell me to do one thing, and then I'd do that. Then, the other one would be like, “Why did you do that?” I remember times where I'd be in the office and literally felt like I had just done a great job, and then one of the other principals would come up and say, “Well, I told you to do something different,” you know? And it’s like, oh, my gosh.
And then it would be the small things. Like, I remember doing this huge project, and we were making these banners for the kids, right? And they were huge banners. They went all the way up the walls, and, like, it took me weeks to get them ordered and get them made. We had all my friends and family come help me put them up. It was a big project. We got them all up. I'm waiting for the kids to come in. The kids love it. And then one of my bosses, comes up and says, “Well, you know, one thumbtack was a different color than the other thumbtacks.” So I—
AMY: Stop it!
TERI: Yes, girl. Yes!
AMY: Oh! What!? You just can't win. Come on.
TERI: Not win.
So with all that being said, you can tell I was just past tired. I was beyond tired, beyond stressed. I said, “I got to get out of here. I got to have an exit strategy.”
So I decided to start really, really practicing my trading. Like, if I could just make three hundred dollars a day, that would replace my assistant-principal income. And it's so weird. When you think about it, you're, like, just three hundred? Like, all you need is? Like, yeah. When you boil it down, our jobs, they're really not that much a day, and we work a ton of hours, right?
So I started trading. I started practicing that whole year, that whole school year, because by the end of the year I wanted to leave. And I know I'm going long, but, oh, my gosh—
AMY: No. Share it all.
TERI: —I think this story is important. Someone else probably out there can relate. But I started practicing. I said, “You know what? I'm going to get good enough at this so that I can replace my income.”
And I did it, Amy. That year, at the end of the year, I was able to quit my job and start traveling. You do not know the freedom and the amazing blessing it was to be able to leave and not have a boss. And it wasn't even about the boss. It was, like, not having anybody send me emails at crazy times in the morning. Although now that I'm a business person, I send myself crazy emails. Like, you know it still is in there, but at least—
AMY: This is different.
TERI: —I don’t have to worry about someone else.
AMY: Yes. So true.
TERI: But it was just freedom. I could go anywhere in the world. And I did that. I went to South Korea for a month. I went to Thailand for a month. I went to Vietnam for a month. Australia, everywhere. But I was affording it by trading stocks.
So while I was out there, people started asking me, “Teri, will you teach us how to do this? How are you trading to afford your hotel room, afford your planes, afford your dinners?” And I did. First class in Thailand, second class in Vietnam, got back to the States. I did a class in Dallas. And then people everywhere started saying, “What about us? Come to Atlanta. Come to Detroit. Come to…” And I said, “How about I’ll just do it online?”
AMY: Yeah!
TERI: And I did. And now we have highest-grossing courses on Teachable. It’s been great.
AMY: Okay. So I'm going to make everybody wait. But you just hit a milestone in terms of the revenue you've generated from your digital courses. We're going to get there, but people have to wait because we got to really break it down. You guys will be astounded.
But before we do, you know, I wrote a book. It's not out yet. It's out in 2023, but it's called Two Weeks’ Notice, and it's all about leaving your nine-to-five and building an online business. And although this conversation today is not about the book or anything like that, I do have to ask you, how did you find the courage to leave behind a job that was paying you consistently; that was solid, so you had the benefits and all of that; and then to go out and—what you were doing feels even a little bit scarier or riskier than just building a business. You were trading. So talk to me about taking that leap.
TERI: Oh, my gosh. Amy, you sound like my mom. She was like, “What about insurance? You got to stay in that job. How are you going to get insurance?”
AMY: Right? Yeah.
TERI: And it's true. I was extremely scared to leave because what oftentimes we don't think about is the fact that when we're in this job and we're having a really tough year, there's the assumption that, well, next year’s going to be better. And what I kept thinking in my head is, “Dang, I did all the hard work. Now somebody else is going to come in this job, and it’s going to be easy for them. And everybody’s going to feel like they did better than me because I set the foundation. So if I would just stay here, then it’ll be easier next year.” That was the fear going through my head. And then, of course, it is, like, “Oh, well, what about the insurance? What about just the fear of the unknown?”
Like, Amy, this is the craziest thing, but sometimes I get afraid of long flights. And I'm like, “I'm going to get on that plane, and something's going to happen.” And I'm going—
AMY: And you’re going to be stuck. Yeah.
TERI: Right. So all of those things were going through my head.
I literally hid out in one of my best friend's hospital room because I was too afraid to tell my boss I quit. I know this sounds so crazy, but during the summertime, my boss was trying to get in touch with me to call and have the conversation, like, “Hey, Teri. We want you to come back.” And I knew that's what he was going to say. But I kept pushing off the conversation because I know that I had to tell him that I'm not coming back. And I was so afraid.
The thing that got me over the hump was my grandmother. My grandmother called me, and she said, “Teri, I think you can do this.” She said, “I've been praying about it.” She said, “I've been thinking a lot about it. I've been praying about it. And I think you can go. I think you can go and take that trip.”
And after she said that, and on top of that—I'm a God girl, and there are so many things that just went crazy. Like, I bought this apartment. It flooded on the twenty-fifth floor. And I was like, “How in the world can it flood?” Everything was gone. So then I was like, “You know what? I don't have any reason to stay. I got two suitcases left to my name.” Then the program that I was traveling with, they said, “Oh, we have one more seat left.” So all these little things kept happening at the same time. And then on top of that, my grandmother said, “Teri, go. You can do this.” So that was what it took to just leap out on faith.
AMY: Yes. A lot of faith, definitely. I totally believe you. And then looking around for signs, I’m all for that. That flood was totally God guided. Like, “I’m going to give you a little extra nudge just to get you out that door.” And anyone listening now, look for those signs because—or surround yourself with people like Teri's grandma, who's going to say, “I think you could actually do this.”
I always say, when you're going to leave your nine-to-five job or leave anything behind and start your online business, be selective on who you tell because a lot of people are—like, my dad was freaked out about me doing this, and he didn't help me at all in terms of my mindset. So you got to be careful who you tell your dreams to. Would you agree?
TERI: I totally agree. And I agree that people will put their fears on you.
I saw a TikTok that you did, and you were saying that. You were saying, like, what they’re saying is a mirror of how they feel about themselves. They are putting their fears onto you. And you've got to kind of step through that and realize that you can do all things. And the worst that can happen is you fail. Okay, let's try again. All right. We've established that. And now we keep going, right? At least, you got to try first.
AMY: It's so true. It's so true.
So this interview is actually a little special because I'm going to go two directions with this. One, I want to hear about your digital course. The great thing is you didn't set out to create a digital course. You didn't leave your vice—what is it called?—assistant-principal job. I was going to say vice principal. It’s the name thing, right?
TERI: Same thing.
AMY: Okay. You didn't leave that job to say, “I'm creating a digital course so I can travel the world.” It kind of happened in a different way. I want to talk about that and what that course looks like and what it's done for you and your lifestyle.
But before we get into all of that, what's special about you is we get to talk about investing as well—your area of expertise—and how that actually might be a viable solution to some people listening now who are looking to supplement some income. So can we go both directions?
TERI: Of course. Let's do it. I’m here for it.
AMY: First, let's talk about investing. So I think that investing in stocks is such an exciting part of building a diverse financial portfolio. And I also understand that it can be intimidating. It certainly has been for me over the years. So can you talk a little bit about when is the best time to invest in stocks?
TERI: I think any time is a good time to start investing, even during a recession, which I know people are fearing. The thing is, different situations require different tools. When the market is going up, it's easy to make sure that you're picking the right companies, make sure that you have a good risk-management plan, a good charting system. I'm a technical analysis trader, which means I look at charts to figure out when's the best time to get in and out of a trade.
But during a downturn, there's other things like short selling and gaps and Globex trading and options trading. And I know all those words sound like gibberish, but the key is, it's always a good time to invest in stocks. You just have to know the right tools.
AMY: And that's something that you teach in detail, and you're a phenomenal teacher, so we're going to get to that. You know I can't help but talk about the digital course because you’ve done amazing things with it. But let's say on the stocks.
So another question I had was, what's the difference between a short-term and long-term investor? And are there benefits to either of them? And who's ideal for this approach? I don't know a lot about the short term and long term, so tell me more.
TERI: Short-term investing is investing for income. So, for example, when I needed to quit my job and I just needed to pay my bills or travel or go on a trip, I was investing a short term, like, a couple of weeks to less than a year. That's short-term investing. Long term is investing for retirement. So you're going to invest in a stock and keep it for the long haul, until you retire.
Honestly, I think everyone can do both. It shouldn't be a competition between one or the other. You can put a part of your portfolio into long-term investing, where you just buy a stock and then hold it for a while. And then, when you have some extra play money, maybe you've paid off some things and you just have some money sitting there, you can also use some short-term-investing strategies to make money on a regular basis.
I have one girl, she's a massage ther—well, she likes getting massages, and she's just trying to invest to make a hundred dollars a month to get a massage. So there's small things like that that you can do.
AMY: Okay. Just someone who's listening right now, maybe they are in a nine-to-five job, and they want to start a side hustle based on their area of expertise. Let's say they want to do group coaching, and they are a family therapist. So they want to do group coaching with different families. So that's going to be their side hustle. But they also know that, “Look, I'm not going to make money right away. I want to invest some money back into this side hustle.” So would you say something like short-term investing could give you a little extra money as you're trying to build something on the side?
TERI: It can. This is how I would look at it. If you want to hire an assistant, usually it costs about eight to ten dollars an hour, right? Let's say you're paying them ten dollars an hour. In order for them to give you eight hours of work, that's eighty dollars. So you can invest to try to make eighty dollars to pay for your assistant. That would help that coach, right? Now she doesn't have to have eight hours of work.
So how I would do that. Let's say that you invested in a stock, and you had a hundred shares of Apple. Everyone loves Apple. And it went up a dollar in a day. Apple usually goes up around a dollar or more each day. Well, now you just made a hundred dollars on that stock that you could then use to pay for your assistant.
I know that’s a lot, but the answer is yes, you can invest to help pay for your job. Or you could do a long-term-investing strategy or a swing-trading strategy. Swing trading would be, I get into a stock, and then I let it sit for a couple of months, and at the end of the few months, I have a little extra money that you could use towards your business.
AMY: Okay. So I love this way of how you explain it in what you teach, because I've always been taught, you know, you invest and don't touch it for forever. And you're saying that you can make money in the short term, you can even take that money out. So you're telling people they can take that money out and use it.
TERI: Yes.
AMY: And that's wild and different for most people.
TERI: Yes. And I know someone's going to say, “But what about the taxes, Teri? If you take the money out, you have to pay taxes.” But no matter what you do, you have to pay taxes. If you're driving Uber, if you get a raise at your job, no matter what, if you get some extra money, you'll have to pay taxes.
And as an active investor, we pay the income tax that's at our tax rate. So if you're at the 15 percent income bracket, then that's the tax rate you'll pay on your active investing. Or if you're at the 30 percent bracket, that's the tax rate you'll pay. I think people are afraid that there's some special tax rate for active day and swing traders.
AMY: I think so, too. So that's really good to hear you say that.
Now, if someone's listening and they're like, “I'm kind of curious. Like, maybe I could do something with this short-term investing.” And how do they even know what companies to invest in?
TERI: Well, that takes more of a class, I will say.
AMY: I’m all for it, so yes.
TERI: [unclear 21:19] companies is a part of the challenge, right? But I would say go for companies that are the best in breed. I've often heard people say, “Well, go with what you know.” But that's not always the best strategy. Sometimes people will pick the wrong company.
I did that. I lost a ton of money in the beginning with Pandora stock. I listened to Pandora radio station, and I said, “Well, oh, it's going to be the best thing ever.” And it was not. It wasn't the right company.
So what I would encourage you, look at a sector—a sector would be like airlines or technology—and then pick the best company in that sector. If you're thinking about, for example with me, I was thinking about music at the time with Pandora, right? If you're thinking about music, think about what's the best music streaming? Is it Apple, YouTube, Pandora, Spotify? And then go with the best one in that sector.
Another thing I would say is choose things that move more than a dollar a day. If you're an active investor, you have to have companies that move. So when you go into—I like the CNBC app. If you download the CNBC app and put a watch list together of companies, it'll tell you how much did this stock move on a regular basis? Look for some that move more than a dollar, and then that will help you actually make money on stocks versus it just sitting and not really doing much.
AMY: So if you all are just loving Teri right now—first of all, she's got the best voice ever, and you just want to be her best friend. And number two, I've watched Teri teach over and over again, especially just even through social media. And these are the little nuggets that she will get into in her digital course and really break it all down.
And so I'm a big proponent. If you want to learn something new—obviously, I'm biased because I love digital courses—but this is the kind of stuff that you can go deep into when you get into a course with Teri. And this is how she found—like, she is literally the leader in her industry with what she teaches because she will get into all of these details so specifically.
So one of the things you do I love is that you teach people how to make a thousand dollars in a day through stocks. So I'm always looking for, like, out-of-the-box strategies to show my students that they can make a little extra cash while building their businesses, and also to have a little extra cushion or to reinvest or whatever they want to do. So what you teach is so much in alignment with that. So first of all, tell us a little bit about this strategy you teach.
TERI: Sure. So I'm an active investor, as I was saying before, but I teach you how to get in at the right moment and then get out at the right moment. And I know someone's going to say, “But, Teri, you can't time the market.” That is correct. But by looking at charts, you can have a higher probability of success, right?
So with the Thousand Dollars in a Day Club, you're investing into a stock, and you're trying to make sure that you get in at a high-probability time. So we do risk management, and we make sure that we have stops in place so that we can protect our losses. We make sure that we've calculated ahead of time to see, okay, when are we getting into this, and when are we getting out of it? And I have a whole seven-step strategy, right?
But the students that take the strategy and actually invest in a stock and then let it work all the way to their exit, and they realize over a thousand dollars in a day. And so it doesn’t have to be that they hold the stock in a day, but when they realize it, their results show they have realized profit of a thousand dollars. Then, they're able to be part of our Thousand Dollars in a Day Club.
AMY: That is so cool. And that builds community as well. Like, tell me about some of your students who have been able to do that.
TERI: Oh, my gosh. So I actually went to a conference recently and have been loved on by so many students. I have one student. She actually used her winnings to redo her kitchen.
AMY: Yes. I love that.
TERI: So to do the kitchen remodel was thirty-five thousand. So her husband told her, “You can either use the thirty-five thousand, or you can invest it, and then if you make money investing, you can use that for the kitchen.” She invested the money, did my Invest With Teri strategy, and then actually used her winnings to remodel the kitchen. And now she still has the money in the account to do it again for something else.
AMY: Okay. That's the way to do it. I love that.
TERI: Yes.
I have another one. He was a coach. He was a football coach. He was actually able to quit his job as a coach and retire because he learned how to trade stocks. Yes. He's actually made the Ten Thousand Dollar in a Day Club. So he's, like, we invest—actually, I saw him do this. We were at a conference together. He invested in Apple. We were doing options trading. He invested in Apple. And within that day, it hit ten thousand dollars. He took his profit, and…
AMY: Love it. Good for him. How fun that you got to see it in action with one of your students.
TERI: I did. We were in Puerto Rico, actually. He had moved down to Puerto Rico. Mm-hmm.
AMY: Okay, I love that.
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Okay, so while you're talking about, like, thousand dollars in a day or ten thousand dollars in a day, you've actually done a whole lot more than that. Talk about—I remember when I first met you, it was around this time where you had a really big day. Can you talk about that?
TERI: Yes. My biggest day has been 1.8 million dollars in a swing trade, but I was trading Amazon. I was trading Amazon, and I did an options trade. I saw on the chart—I told you we use candlestick charts—I saw on the chart this is a place where banks are buying. We try to go with the banks. So we were looking for places in the stock chart where banks are putting in big orders of, like, a million shares or a hundred thousand shares, right? And Amazon had fallen down to a place in the chart where I could tell, I think banks are going to start buying at this price. I got into the trade, and it went up a hundred dollars from there. And that hundred-dollar move made me 1.8 million dollars.
AMY: Oh, my goodness. That is incredible. Were you, like, “What is happening?” I thought, actually, it was a million. I didn’t know it was 1.8. Oh, my gosh.
TERI: It was 1.8. I put the print on my Instagram page. So if you go to teriijeoma on Instagram, I actually show the winnings. It was 1.8.
But you win and you lose. So when you look at the print of the results, you'll see that there's a couple other companies where I had lost money. I was in a Visa trade, where I had lost a little bit. I went into Robinhood when it first came out. That was a silly thing to do. It had lost a little money. I was in Apple. It had made a little. So all together that day, I made over a million, like 1.1 million realized profit. But that one trade in Amazon, 1.8 million dollars.
AMY: One of the things I love about you is that you are actively trading every single day while you also teach it. And you know that's very much what I do. I create and sell digital courses, and then I teach people how to do that. And so many of my students do similar things. So we've got to talk about your digital course.
So you didn't set out, you didn't leave your teaching career to create digital courses. You wanted to actually trade and travel, which happens to be the name of your business. And so you set out to do that. Then people started asking you, teach us what you're doing. So you did in-person classes where you were traveling. Is that right?
TERI: I did. The first one was in Thailand, and it was a small group. It was the other people that I was traveling with, but they were like, “Teri, please, please, please.” I was, like, “Fine, I'll do it.”
AMY: Oh, good.
TERI: I thought it'd be a one-time thing. Like, I literally put together some slides, and I think it was, like, Intro to the Stock Market.
AMY: Okay.
TERI: Put together some slides, and I thought, “You know what? I'm going to teach them. Teri, you don't want to be in education anymore. But hey, they're asking you.” I didn't want to do a lot of small coffee dates because a lot of them were like, “Teri, can we just do coffee? Like, can we sit down?” I said, “Nope, we're going to do this one class,” did that one in Thailand. And lo and behold, I loved it. I enjoyed—it was something I was passionate about. So I feel like it just started pouring out of me, all the things that I knew. And I wanted to make sure that they got it. And they loved it, too, because they asked the next month— we were in Vietnam—“Can we do it again?”
AMY: Oh, my gosh. So they're, like, “Give us more.”
TERI: Yes. And this time I was invested now. Now I'm like, “Okay, well, since I started teaching you, you guys got to be good. So I got to teach you even more.”
AMY: That’s because you love what you do. I love that you wanted to see them succeed instantly. That's so cool.
TERI: That's the most important thing. I was talking to someone recently, and I said, “You have to remember care over cash when you're thinking about online courses. Care over cash.” I cared about my students, and I still do. I care about their success. I care about them understanding it. I'm a teacher. That's what we do. We want to see the light bulb go off. Yes, the cash will come, but that's not the first intent. That’s not the first thing that comes to our mind. It’s caring about our students, caring about our customer, right?
AMY: Absolutely.
TERI: That’s what’s most important.
AMY: You cared deeply, and you also loved what you were doing. When did you get the idea, “Wait, I should put this into a digital course,”? because you'd never created a digital course before that, right? Like, this was going to be new for you.
TERI: I never did, yes. So the next year, so after Vietnam, I came back to Dallas, and one of my friends from Thailand called me and was like, “Teri, I really think that you need to put it online.” And I told him no. I told him no, like, three times. I said, “No. Now that I'm doing it, I really like the live experience. I like seeing their faces. Like, no, I'm not.”
So then he sent me this webinar, and he's like, “Just watch the webinar.” And in the webinar the lady was saying, “Okay, you don't have to have a course yet. Just tell them you have a course and see if someone buys it.”
AMY: Yes.
TERI: So I said, “Okay, fine.” So at the end of my last class in Dallas, I said, “You know what, guys? I have a…” No, this is how I said it. I didn’t say, “I have a course.” I said, “I'm thinking about teaching this more in-depth. If anyone wants to learn more from me, let me know. I'm selling it for,” and I think I had said, “It was two thousand, but I’ll 50 percent off, a thousand dollars.” And in my head, I'm, like, no one is going to pay me a thousand dollars to teach them. No one. And lo and behold, two people raised their hand. I was like, “Oh, man, they did it. Now I got to go build this course because they raised their hand.”
AMY: Ah, I love it. I love the pre sales, right? I teach my students, we call it the first ten, and get ten people to raise their hand and give you money before you create it, and you've just validated your course. And I think that is so, so valuable to do it that way, but, also, it puts you on the hook, and I think we need to be on the hook to get our courses created, because there's so many emotions that are behind, like, “Can I really do this? Will people really buy? Can I get results?” so much that comes up. So you’ve got to be on the hook to get it out there.
So you put together your course, and I have a few quick questions about that. First of all, fast forward. Today how much is your course?
TERI: The whole thing is an eight-week program. It’s five thousand dollars.
AMY: Five thousand.
TERI: But we allow people to come in at the halfway mark, like, twenty-five hundred.
AMY: Got it. So, like, you could get, like, half the course, essentially, for twenty-five hundred?
TERI: Yes, that’s right.
AMY: Okay. So, essentially, you've got twenty-five hundred or five thousand. And in addition to that, my question for you is, how long ago did you create this course?
TERI: 2018.
AMY: Okay. So since 2018 to today, have you had multiple iterations of the course? Have you redone it or changed it or anything like that?
TERI: Yes. In the beginning I really just had the first four weeks, and I launched a cohort. This was around, like, October of 2018, if we can think back. All my dates are always mixed up now.
AMY: Me, too. Me, too.
TERI: But I launched in 2018. It was just the first four weeks. I just wanted to make sure that they had the basics that I wish I had when I started investing. So, like, those, how to pick a good company, how to read charts, risk management, right?
So I did that cohort, but they wanted to keep learning. They kept saying, “Well, Teri, we're not done yet, are we? What else is there to learn?” So I added the next four weeks, to do a VIP portion because the students asked me to. So that wasn't even part of the plan. I wasn't even going to have a VIP. And so now it's eight weeks.
And that next year after, so 2019, I taught the class. Every week, I was on coaching calls, and I retaught the eight weeks over and over and over again.
AMY: Wow.
TERI: I would teach it, and then take a month off, and then teach it again. So I had cohort style. But, of course, as you're teaching it, you can see what they're getting, what they're not. So I would change up the course over and over every quarter to make sure that it was better and better and better.
AMY: Wow.
TERI: So it went through so many iterations, mm-hmm.
AMY: And that's the thing with digital courses. Anyone listening, if you haven't started because you are scared that you don't have it all together or maybe it's not the right mix or whatever, you do not know until you get it out there. The fact that you got out the first four weeks then learned what to add to it, you would have never known if you didn't just start with something. So I love that you did it that way.
And, also, am I understanding correctly that you would sell this digital course, but you were delivering the trainings live, and then they'd be recorded, and they can go back and watch them?
TERI: Yes. I have a vault of over, now it's over, like, sixty hours of just my coaching calls.
AMY: I bet.
TERI: And I was coaching over and over. The course was recorded, but then, I would come on each week and reteach.
AMY: Okay, got it. So you lay down the foundation of the content, but then, you're jumping on every single week for eight weeks, like, essentially, doing Q&A and reteaching concepts.
TERI: Yes.
AMY: Got it. Okay. Perfect. And do you still do it like that to this day?
TERI: No. Oh, no. I got so burnt out.
AMY: So what does it look like now?
TERI: So now, now that I did it over and over and over again, I realized what was best. And I got to a point where, “This is really good. They can really just watch the recordings.” I'm just resaying what's on the recording. So now we have everything recorded, but I do have coaches that are getting on a Wednesday office hours or a Saturday study group, and the coaches reiterate what I talked about and answer all the questions. So we have four live coaching calls a week, and then the course is recorded.
AMY: Okay. So you’ve really found more freedom in your business and life through your digital course. Is that safe to say?
TERI: It is. I think no matter what, when you're running a big company, like, CEO world is crazy.
AMY: Yes.
TERI: But yes, I don’t have to be in the nitty-gritty of the course anymore, which is nice.
AMY: Yeah. That’s really big.
Now, you just reached a milestone. Can you share what that is?
TERI: It feels weird saying, but—
AMY: I know. She really almost didn't want to share. And I was like, “Can you please just share?” And then we're going to break it down a little bit.
TERI: So I just passed fifty million dollars in sales for the Trade and Travel course.
AMY: Fifty million dollars in sales. That is such a huge milestone. So, first of all, congratulations, because you put your heart and soul into that course. But at the same time, you took this course; you've made it better over the years. You charge a premium price, which is very difficult for a lot of course creators. But another thing I love is you've leveraged yourself out of it with, at least part of it, with having these coaches, which makes it all the more better.
But one thing, when I was talking to you about this fifty-million-dollar milestone, you said this is why it's so important to know your why, that it’s so much more than the money. You would have never gotten to fifty million dollars if you weren't very connected to your why. So talk to me a little bit about that.
TERI: Yes. There's a there's a section in the Bible. It's First John, chapter five, I believe. And it talks about, to love God is to obey God's commands. But it also says to love God is to love God's people. And I think that's what's really kept me going. You all just heard, like, I can make a million dollars in a couple of days trading stocks by myself. I have made quite a bit in courses, right? So why keep going? I think it's because I truly care about other people. I want them to have the same success that I have, and I want to change the status quo.
There's a statistic out there—and honestly, I don't know where this statistic came from, but I think people keep talking about it—
AMY: Yeah.
TERI: —so we just keep saying it over and over—that, like, 95 percent of traders lose, right? My goal is I want to change the status quo. If we could just lower the amount of people that are not being successful trading, then that would change millions of lives.
In 2020, I spoke on Yahoo! Finance—I'm a contributor for them—and we saw that in 2020, twenty million people started investing in the stock market. And if you imagine that statistic of 95 percent of them not being successful, that's a lot of people losing money. And I want to change that. Like, even if I could just change it to 90 percent versus 95 or just give someone the tools to help them be a little bit more successful, then we could change lives.
And then on the flip side, not just about people not losing, but now you have a whole generation of people that are building wealth, and now what can they do with the wealth that they're building? There's so many systemic issues around education, health care, that are all because of limited amounts of money. If we could have more money in certain communities, then they could change their education; they could change their health care; they could have cleaner water.
So that’s my bigger why. I feel like by teaching more people how to do this better, then we can start changing the world, literally.
AMY: That is so beautiful. And there's a direct correlation, there's no mistake around the fact, that your why is so very clear to you, and you're able to generate revenue over and over again. I do believe that you are so very much connected, and it's just so beautiful to see you do what you do.
And you know, one thing I didn't touch upon—and we're going to wrap up here, but this is kind of the fun part of it—I always talk about lifestyle freedom, business freedom when you have digital courses, and you have been able to create the ultimate lifestyle freedom. Can you tell people a little bit about where you live and what that looks like?
TERI: Yes. So I live in Puerto Rico, and I honestly moved for the taxes. I won’t even lie.
AMY: Who wouldn’t, right? Like, I get it.
TERI: Because they have lower taxes for online courses and lower taxes for traders, right? So it is just the place to be. But, like, as I'm on this interview, I'm literally looking out of the water, and it's so calming. The sunshine is out. So there's just a peace about being able to be where you want to be, when you want to be, and talk to who you want to talk to, at any given time.
AMY: Absolutely. Like, you really are a perfect example of that.
Okay. So we're going to wrap up, but would you mind if we did a quick, quick rapid fire?
TERI: Sure. Let’s go.
AMY: Okay. That’s how we usually wrap up all our interviews, and I am so curious about some of your answers.
Okay. Here we go.
Number one is, who is someone that's inspiring you at the moment, and why?
TERI: My mom. She recently retired, so I was able to retire my mom, and she's refiguring out who she is and what she loves to do, and it's so amazing to watch. She is traveling to different places, her and my stepdad are having the time of their life, and that inspires me.
AMY: Ah, I love that. I love your mom. And when I got to speak on a panel at your event and got to watch the documentary, she is such a huge part of it, and she's very special. So I'm so glad she's living her best life.
TERI: Yes. Thank you.
AMY: Okay. What's one piece of advice that you've received over the years that just really hit home for you?
TERI: Lately, I've been trying to hone my skills as a trader. So I manage about—like, now that we’ve talked about numbers, I can talk about it, I guess—but I manage a twenty-five-million-dollar account. I’ve traded that portfolio. But I want to be better, right? We all have to continue to hone our skills.
So recently I had a conversation with a guy named Craig Johnson, who manages a 2.5-billion-dollar account.
AMY: Whoa.
TERI: And I got a chance to talk to him and ask him, like, “Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Like, how do you get to the next level? How do I scale?” And his biggest advice to me was, “Teri, you have to learn as a trader when not to trade and when to have patience.” And that would be what I would tell other people, too. Learning patience as a trader is the biggest piece of advice I could give anyone, and learning when not to trade. That's the blessing that we have as active investors. We don't have to trade. We have flexibility. So we can choose when to use our skill set. “Okay, now the time is favorable. Let's put some money to work.” “Now this time is not favorable. We're going to put some money on the side.” That's the bonus that we have. We have more control over our money. So that's the advice I would give: learn how to be patient, and learn when to and when not to actively invest.
AMY: Ooh, such great advice. I love that.
Okay. So can you share a go-to app or a tool that you love when it comes to investing?
TERI: I love CNBC.
AMY: I wouldn't even know that that was a tool for investing. Like, this is all new to me. So CNBC.
TERI: CNBC. It's the financial channel for the NBC network.
AMY: Okay. So then they have an app for…? Okay. Now I understand.
TERI: Yes.
AMY: Okay. Because I’m, like, I feel like that's a TV show. Now I get it. Okay.
TERI: Yes, they have an app. The things that are cool about the app: one, you can put a watch list together, and any company that you're interested in, you can add it to your watch list. Once it's in your watch list, though, the phone will give you notifications when anything important comes up about that company.
AMY: Okay.
TERI: That helps you have time freedom, right?, because if they have earnings, which is the company telling how they're doing, or if a news announcement comes up, the phone will literally pop up and tell you about it. I love that. It helps with freedom, and it helps with your knowledge as a trader.
AMY: Ooh, good tool. Good tool.
Okay, last question. What are you most looking forward to for the rest of the year?
TERI: I'm excited to travel. There are so many places that I have still not been to. I decided I'm going to do the Seven Wonders of the World. So I still want to go to Petra. I still want to see the Christ Redeemer in Brazil. I don't know if that's the right name, but I just, like—literally, on video, you guys don't see me, but I put my hands out like a cross.
AMY: I knew exactly what you're talking about.
TERI: But I want to see that. So travel, again, has been just the excitement for me.
AMY: It's such a beautiful thing.
Teri, I am one of your biggest fans. I love everything about you. This has been such a fun conversation. I love that we got to talk about investing and your courses and what your business and life look like. Thank you so much for sharing.
And tell everybody, where can they go if they want to learn about your course, if they just want to follow you? Like, where do they go?
TERI: The best place to go is tradeandtravel.com. We have a free webinar there on how we're teaching people to make a thousand dollars in a day. It's a great tool because then you can see if you like me as a teacher or what I'm even talking about. So tradeandtravel.com is the best place, and Trade and Travel on YouTube, too.
AMY: Just want to point out to everybody that Teri has made fifty million dollars with her digital courses, and she uses webinars. There is no coincidence there, either.
Teri, thank you so much for being here. We’ll put all of the links in the show notes. I just really appreciate you.
TERI: Thank you.
AMY: Bye, friend.
So there you have it. I hope you loved this conversation as much as I did. I could talk to Teri forever and ever about stocks and about her business and about travels. I mean, she's just such an interesting person to have a chat with. So I hope you loved this as much as I did.
Also, I just want you to remember that Teri did not start out saying, “I'm going to make fifty million dollars with my course,” or “I'm going to quit this job and get right into digital courses and make this work.” She just moved forward and said yes when opportunities presented themselves to her that she was excited about. When her friends asked, “Can you teach us what you know?” and she continued to say yes because she enjoyed it and was passionate about it, and then it continued to snowball into something incredibly amazing. So, just want you to remember that.
Again, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And I cannot wait to meet you here again very soon. Remember, every Tuesday I've got a Shorty episode. Every Wednesday is Wisdom Wednesday. And every Thursday tends to be my longer step-by-step or interview-type-style episodes. So I hope you tune in for all of them.
All right, my friend. I'll see you again soon. Take care.
