How Josh and Jill from ScrewTheNinetoFive Earn $500K a Year
This is an interview-style post with Jill Stanton from ScrewTheNinetoFive.
Hey Jill. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
I’m one half of ScrewTheNineToFive.com (my husband Josh is the other half) and we help transform unsatisfied employees into successful entrepreneurs by giving them the inspiration, skills and resources they need to grow their online business so they can work whenever they want from wherever they want!
What was your first online business and how did it work out?
Short answer? Not that well! LOL
In all seriousness though, my first attempt at an online business was actually an online TV show I created and co-produced with a partner called TwentySomething TV.
Basically, it was an online show for women in their 20’s that covered all things relationships, health and career.
The only drawback was I started it in 2006 when online TV shows weren’t really a thing…which meant we had trouble attracting sponsors or even monetizing it at all.
2.5 years after we started (and over 2 million views), we aired our last episode and went our separate ways which eventually led me to start my first profitable online business which was a social media management service in the hospitality industry.
Finally, after almost 2 years of running that, I fired my clients and started my first business with Josh — a skincare affiliate site.
I know. So random! But it brought us to where we are now and for that I’m forever grateful for the sometimes messy and always evolving journey.
Read also: How to Make $50000 a Year from Your Blog
What does one need to quit their job and relocate to a place like Thailand?
The guts to do it!
That’s pretty much it.
I mean, there are more logistics that go into the process (which I’ll quickly break down), but it ultimately comes down to this: Do you WANT to figure out a way to quit your job and make it happen?
If you’re nodding your head “yes” at the screen then you’ll take the actions to make it happen.
So, what are the tangible things you need?
Two things:
An Audience
Here’s a simple truth: If you want to build a business online, you need to build an audience of people who are aligned and resonate with what you have to say and sell.
And honestly, when you have an audience (or attention to your brand in general) everything becomes easier!
Which brings me to the second thing…
An Offer
If you want to be able to quit your job, build a business online and work from anywhere you want, then you need something to sell.
This can be anything from a done-for-you service, coaching, consulting, a course, a membership site, a physical product to sell, or hell, promoting someone else’s product(s) like we do on ScrewTheNineToFive!
The point is there is no shortage of opportunities to make money online.
It simply comes down to your desire to take action and make it happen.
Read also: Want to Live The Travel Life: Here’s Where to Start
How was ScrewTheNinetoFive born?
This is kind of a funny story because we never started ScrewTheNineToFive with the intention of turning it into a business.
You see, at the time Josh and I were running an affiliate marketing business with sites in all different niches (from skincare to beauty to weight loss to personal hygiene to supplements).
And at the time we were getting a ton of questions from friends and family on how we were able to travel so much if we didn’t have “a real job”.
(Sound familiar?)
So we wanted a way to share our travels with them (as we were about to move to Thailand) and explain what we were doing and how we were doing it.
From there, word started to spread and we had people reaching out and asking us if we offered coaching services.
And from there it all started to snowball!
Fast-forward to today and we’re going into our sixth year with ScrewTheNineToFive and are even more hell-bent on helping transform unsatisfied employees into happy, fulfilled and successful entrepreneurs!
Read also: How This Girl Quit Her Job and Started Earning $15K/Month from Her Blog
What turned it from a site sharing your journey into an online community inspiring and educating people?
Truthfully, we weren’t really enjoying the time or energy commitment of coaching and so we started looking for ways to create more leverage and help more people.
That then evolved from ScrewTheNineToFive into an online course which then turned into our monthly membership community, Screw U.
And here is where the story takes a bit of an interesting turn…
About 3 months before doing this interview we sat in front of our members at our members-only live event in Vancouver, Canada (Screw U Live) and told them that after 4 years of having the community we were closing the doors to it as of December 31st.
It’s been such a fulfilling journey having this