Editor's note: This weekend, we're sharing a recent "behind the scenes" conversation with a longtime Stansberry Alliance member.

But unlike most Alliance members, the subject of this interview has since become an important Stansberry Research employee.

Longtime readers should recognize Brett Aitken's name. He got his start as one of Porter's first analysts on the Stansberry's Investment Advisory team and has since risen through the ranks to the role of managing director.

In this exclusive two-part series, Brett opens up about how he first found Stansberry Research... which of our publications he personally considers a "must read"... and some of the perks of being an Alliance member...

A 'Behind the Scenes' Look at Stansberry Research, Part I

An interview with Brett Aitken, managing director, Stansberry Research

Sam Latter: Brett, before you worked here, you were a subscriber. How did you first discover Stansberry Research?

Brett Aitken: That's a great question. When I first started working here, Porter asked me the same question.

I signed up for True Wealth first, way back in 2005. I signed up for Stansberry's Investment Advisory just after that. A couple of years later, I signed up for Retirement Millionaire, our commodities publication (which is now called Commodity Supercycles), and DailyWealth Premium. Then, I signed up for one of our options trading services. By the time our sales team convinced me to sign up for an Alliance membership in 2009, I was receiving five or six different publications.

Sam: Do you remember when and why you decided to make the leap to become an Alliance member?

Brett: I was trading in my own brokerage account at the time. I was using different strategies – including selling options for income. While I was finding – and making – my own trades, one of my mentors from Australia taught me more than 25 years ago that no one has a mortgage on all the good ideas.

I have always remembered that... So I was always interested in different insights and strategies to investing. Back then, I didn't know of many firms publishing the different types of trading strategies that interested me.

In 2009, I signed up for Porter's Put Strategy Report newsletter. So I had two trading services, plus all the flagship newsletters, and one of our sales reps called me up and said, "Hey, we noticed you just signed up for another trading service. You've spent a few thousand dollars with us already. We'd be happy to put the money you've spent toward an Alliance membership."

Back then, the Alliance cost around $7,500. It was a no-brainer for me at the time. I was already paying for several newsletters and I was about to get all of these other products. At the time, the product offerings were probably one-third of what they are today. But it was still a great deal.

Sam: And then how did you go from being an Alliance member to eventually working for Stansberry Research?

Brett: I was enjoying reading all the publications. And I noticed that Porter, Doc, and Steve were not just making recommendations... they were educating their readers along the way. They were showing readers new strategies and ideas, helping them think about different styles of investing, discussing portfolio allocations, teaching about exit strategies, and more.

I'm not sure who said this first, but as the saying goes, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day... But teach a man to fish, and you will feed him for life."

Well, that is what I saw Porter, Doc, and Steve doing with their publications. That really resonated with me because, while in a different business to ours, I did something similar with my business partners in Australia many years ago. And I kept that philosophy in my business in Europe. (I was living in Barcelona, Spain, at the time.) So I always thought, I would love to work with these guys one day. And I figured that sooner or later, our paths would cross.

And sure enough, an opportunity presented itself in late 2011... I saw an ad in the Digest looking for an analyst, so I reached out to our former editor in chief Brian Hunt (who now runs one of our affiliates). He replied quickly, and we got on the phone and talked for a couple of hours. He said I should meet Porter, so he put me in touch with him. They arranged for me to visit Miami, Florida, in January 2012. And I started working for Porter a month later.

Sam: So now that you're on the other side of the glass, so to speak, what are your favorite things we publish? What do you make sure to read every month?

Brett: As you know, it's my job to read everything we publish. And that's a lot...

I'm delighted to be able to say how proud I am of everything we publish. Overseeing such a talented and dedicated editorial team makes my job a lot easier.

As you know, we can't guarantee our recommendations will work out every time. But I assure you everyone on this team strives for excellence – on everything we publish – every single day.

But to more directly answer your question...

In terms of the quality and depth of the research, I think one of the best things we publish is Stansberry's Credit Opportunities. The "deep dive" stuff we do there is unbelievable. Leading these efforts is editor Mike DiBiase – a former CPA for one of the "Big Four" accounting firms and vice president of finance at a public company – together with Bill McGilton. Bill worked as a corporate lawyer for 16 years prior to joining us. His background includes working on contracts, securities, foreign exchanges, and patent infringements.

These are two very smart and talented professionals. And they produce a superb product. The quality of the research is outstanding – as good as you will find anywhere in the world.

The track record is amazing... Since launching the service in November 2015, we have closed 17 distressed-debt positions. Fifteen were winners... That's an 88% win rate. The average gain was 21%, with an average holding period of 285 days. That amounts to a 27% annualized gain.

I'd challenge anyone to show me those types of average gains in stocks. Most people want to buy the next "hot tip" and get rich by next week. But that's not investing... It's gambling. And you know how that works out for most people.

Once people start buying discounted bonds – and see the incredible returns they can generate safely – it changes their perspective on investing. But you have to be interested in that kind of research, because it's denser than most of our other material.

And sometimes it may take a little more work than buying stocks with one click of the mouse... For example, depending on your broker – and not always, but sometimes – you have to pick up the phone and speak to your broker.

I know... shocking, isn't it? I'm just kidding, but technology has made buying most securities incredibly easy. And believe me, I am a huge fan of technology.

But with some brokers, you may have to pick up the phone to buy bonds. And you may have to talk to more than one. But believe me, the little extra work in buying bonds at a discount is well worth it. In this publication, we do all the hard work in finding you the right bonds to buy – and at what price. Plus, you get an education on this strategy along the way. I encourage everyone I know to try it.

Also, I may be a bit biased, but I still think Stansberry's Investment Advisory is fantastic. Even though it only costs $199 a year, it's one of the "must read" things we publish. Porter's team covers big, macro trends and they do incredibly thorough research.

Sam: Plus, Stansberry's Investment Advisory has the most analysts working on a single newsletter of anything we publish.

Brett: Yeah. We have eight or so analysts who work on it, but it's mostly five or six guys who contribute every single month. Those guys all have their own publications, too.

Mike DiBiase has Stansberry's Credit Opportunities and Bryan Beach has Stansberry Venture Value, for example. Bill McGilton heads up Stansberry's Big Trade, Alan Gula is the editor for Stansberry Alpha, and Austin Root is our portfolio manager for Stansberry Portfolio Solutions. Dave Lashmet also contributes to Stansberry's Investment Advisory, and he leads the research efforts on Stansberry Venture Technology. He seems to pull a rabbit out of his hat every few months, and his track record shows that he routinely finds triple-digit winners.

So I like those two newsletters a lot... But I also like the macro stuff that Steve Sjuggerud and his team do, and I like following the big trends. True Wealth Systems is something I read to see what his indicators and computers are telling him. For example, I can see what's happening in emerging markets, individual commodities, industry sectors, currencies, or which country I should be looking to invest in. You're getting Steve's insights combined with an incredibly powerful machine to identify where you should be investing.

Of course, I love the work that Doc Eifrig's team puts out, too. His new Advanced Options service is a really interesting idea, and I think that will be a top product of ours. Doc and his team ran live testing internally for a year. And their track record is impressive. I'm not aware of any other publication in the world that is doing what Doc and his team are doing here. I make sure to read Retirement Trader, too, because again, I was selling options for income like Doc does in this publication when I first came across Stansberry Research.

Sam: Between Porter's team, Steve's team, and Doc's team, we offer a great variety of products, and they all have impressive track records.

Brett: Yep. Steve has been on a roll for the past several years, particularly since he started writing about the Bernanke Asset Bubble. But over the long term – we're talking over the course of a decade or more – Porter, Steve, and Doc's track records are all within a percentage point or two of each other on an annualized basis.

They all have great track records in terms of their "front end," flagship publications – meaning Stansberry's Investment Advisory, True Wealth, and Retirement Millionaire, respectively. They all traditionally outperform the S&P 500. And their "back end" newsletters use trading or investment strategies focused around their main pillars. Porter loves the concept of capital efficiency, so when we make trades in Stansberry Alpha, it's often on capital-efficient companies that he would want to own anyway. The same goes for Steve and Doc's teams.

Sam: What's something you think that somebody who's been reading our work but isn't an Alliance member might not realize about the benefits that come with an Alliance membership?

Brett: The big challenge for a lot of our readers is just getting through all of the content we publish.

We have more than 20 paid publications. You're not going to buy every single stock or make every trade we recommend in all of our newsletters. But you'll eventually find your favorite themes and analysts. Of course, I can't trade any of the stocks we recommend, but I find something interesting in everyone's newsletters.

The other thing I think is really great is Stansberry Portfolio Solutions. I'm not sure if non-Alliance members really understand what we're doing there, but we're taking all of the pressure and guesswork out of investing. Every January, for example, you can just say, "This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy everything they recommended in The Total Portfolio."

That is our hedged portfolio. But some readers may prefer to allocate more to income. So they can put more into The Income Portfolio. And of course, we have The Capital Portfolio, which generally has fewer stocks and is a little more aggressive than the other two. In other words, there is something for everyone. And we spell it out for you right down to the amount of shares you should purchase based on the size of your portfolio.

Then they can sit back and relax and enjoy the research instead of trying to figure out what ideas to follow in each of our individual newsletters.

Traditional newsletters don't manage a properly allocated portfolio. Each of our newsletters has a model portfolio, but it's really a list of recommendations. But Stansberry Portfolio Solutions solves that problem for everyone, and it doesn't require paying "2 and 20" – or a 2% fee and 20% of all profits, which most fund managers charge – every year. An Alliance membership is nothing like that in terms of cost. Plus, you control your own destiny.

Sam: We also haven't mentioned the annual Alliance meeting.

Brett: You're right. That's a huge bonus, and most people probably don't realize it.

Every year, we meet with hundreds of subscribers in Las Vegas. I've been surprised how appreciative the Alliance members who attend it every year are. They love our work and the chance to see and hear Porter, Steve, Doc, or any of our other senior analysts. You know, they're not getting any individual investment advice, but they get the chance to hear from our gurus in person.

Sam: They also get to listen to the editor's panel and hear everybody's favorite pick for the year, which we've seen has proven to be pretty valuable over the years.

Brett: You're right. We don't even publish those recommendations anywhere. And those ideas are often for play money. It's not for your whole portfolio.

But for instance, Porter recommended Overstock.com (OSTK) last year. You might know the company from its online-retail business. But we were interested in its blockchain-technology business, which is still ramping up. The stock soared along with the boom in cryptocurrencies – almost tripling over the following three months. Not long after the conference, we recommended it to Stansberry's Investment Advisory subscribers, who enjoyed a lot of that run up. Of course, the crypto bubble burst earlier this year and Overstock fell with it – triggering our stop. But readers who followed our advice made 22% in a little more than five months. That amounts to almost 49% annualized gains. And Alliance members heard about it from Porter before anyone else.

And in 2016, one of Dan Ferris' stocks went up around 30%, Steve's stock was up 25%, and Doc's idea was up 30%.

Editor's note: Later this week – and for just 24 hours – we're offering an "open enrollment" to the Stansberry Alliance. Instead of paying for our research year after year, you'll get just about everything we publish today, PLUS everything new we publish in the future... for life. And you'll never have to pay a regular subscription fee again. Porter, Steve, and Doc will share all the specifics in a special broadcast on Wednesday, December 19. Get the details here.