How Quinn Made $32K in the First 4 Months of Her Business (without a Strategy, Funnel or Email List)

This is an interview with Quinn Downie of QuinnDownie.com

Hey, Quinn. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

I am an intuitive life & business coach who specializes in helping people to connect with their intuition using basic psychology and spirituality as my modalities.

I help anyone who wants to learn more about their intuition, especially how they can apply their intuition in the way that they live their lives. This is important because it helps people to trust themselves and their own decisions without consulting the outside world for validation. 

I also help entrepreneurs to apply their intuition to their sales and marketing strategies so that they are attracting more clients with more ease and playfulness.

What was your life like before becoming a coach?

Before becoming a coach, I was in school for psychology. I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with thesis before moving onto my Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology.

I chose to study psychology as a result of my own mental health experiences, including my diagnosis of major depressive disorder when I was 18.

I wanted to learn more about my brain (and mind), especially so that I could understand how I became mentally ill in the first place.

So, even before I became a coach, psychology and personal development were a big part of my life anyway. I was even an activist on campus for mental health awareness as well as a volunteer peer counsellor for my fellow university students.

What inspired you to become your own boss?

As I was finishing the internship training for my Master’s degree, I realized that traditional therapy was too dry and too limiting for the type of work that I felt called to bring into the world.

What I mean by this is that my intuitive gifts felt like they needed to be a part of how I helped others. So, I dropped out of my internship (all classes completed though) and started my business.

I knew coaching would give me the opportunity to support others with my psychology knowledge while also allowing me the freedom to express the more spiritual/intuitive side to what I do.

What was the turning point to growing as a business owner?

Actually, I found that investing in business coaches led to more confusion for me. This is when I turned to my own intuitive manifestation model for attracting clients to my business.

I didn’t know if my method would work, but I tested it out. After about a month of practicing this method, I hit the jackpot with it!

This is when I finished the fourth month of my business with a total of $32K in booked sales (mostly cash).

After uncovering my own signature method, I hired business coaches with more intention, being pickier about whom I chose.

My most recent business support was a year-long mastermind that really helped me to expand the way that I attract clients to my business.

What limiting beliefs did you have to overcome to make this work?

I had to overcome many limiting beliefs, and it is still a part of my business work today.

Changing these limiting beliefs helped me to hit my first big income milestone:

• It is hard to make money, and you need to have a job in order to make money because entrepreneurs are usually broke/struggling.
• I am one of many coaches, so it is difficult for me to stand out.
• It is too good to be true that your intuition, alone, is enough to bring in clients to your business.

Read also: How Desirée Went From Losing Her Passion for Life to Becoming a Successful Mindset Coach

What were the first steps you took to get the business off the ground?

My first step was hiring my private business coach. Like I said, this really led to more confusion for me.

However, that confusion is what pushed me to consult my personal intuitive awareness as to how I was going to get my work off the ground.

From there, I started a Facebook group (as guided by my intuition) where I started live streaming based on what inspired me the most.

These live streams became LOVED by my community, even bringing in daily listeners. These live streams were usually about how your intuition, emotions, and mindset are related to your sales in your business.

From there, I was able to attract members of my audience who wanted the more in-depth experience of my coaching because they also wanted to see how applying intuition to their businesses could increase their sales (in a way that feels good).

This is how I established myself as a business coach; although, I have always known that my work is about more than JUST business.

This is why I offer a combination of business coaching programs and life coaching programs.

What does an intuition-led business mean exactly?

An intuition-led business means that you consult your inner guidance for the action steps that you take in your business.

This could include:

• content creation
• live streaming
• strategizing
• how you structure your sales calls
• who you choose to connect with
• and WHEN you decide to take these actions (because timing is everything). 

The other side to this is manifestation.

To me, manifestation is simply the application of intuition to your reality so that you can co-create the reality you see in front of you.

Running an intuition-led business also means setting clear intentions for what you want to call in and setting your belief behind what you are calling in.

The intentions need to be fully committed and anchored, which is something that my business coaching supports people to do for themselves.

From there, it is also important to be aware of your emotional energy. I have found that, when I am resistant to my emotions, I am also being energetically resistant to my business goals too.

Your emotions don’t always feel good, and they don’t need to. However, letting emotions move and be felt can help make this process easier and faster.

An intuition-led business is created by a series of inspired ideas and creative power moves (rather than following a prescription from someone else).

Read also: 7 Tools & Practices to Manifest Your Epic Goals

How important is it to surrender and trust the process?

Surrender is critical to this process because attachment to the outcome creates resistance in our energy.

If you are attached to the outcome, you are embodying the type of belief that says “I will probably miss my goal, so I need to stay attached to it.” This tends to lead to more goal-missing because that is where your mental energy is being focused. 

Surrender and trusting the process is necessary in order to let your business “breathe.”

What I mean by this is that our businesses are made of energy too. That energy will want to receive and it will want to give. In order to receive, there needs to be some space given to the natural process so that it can work.

The other reason why trusting the process is important is so that you don’t quit on your goal after, let’s just say, 3 weeks of working toward it.

There is always a time interval where you are waiting to receive something, and yet, you know you have DONE all you can DO.

This is the most crucial time to hold your trust in your process because it is the time when giving up is easy to do. In my experience, holding my trust just a little longer has always been rewarded (provided that I am also taking inspired action steps).

The thing that people tend to get wrong about surrender is that it means taking NO action. It means you can sit on your couch and watch Netflix, feed your cat, read a book, and there will be a client inquiry waiting for you.

There is truth in this, and I have had it happen to me. That being said, the process yields more results more quickly when inspired actions are being taken and trusted. 

Surrender really just means TAKING ACTION when you feel the desire to and NOT ACTING when you feel the need to recharge.

The biggest mistake I see is assuming that surrender always means NO ACTION. Surrender is actually a sweet-spot between action and inaction where you aren’t OVER doing or UNDER doing anything.

You are not so attached to your outcome that you are obsessive about it, but you also aren’t so detached that you forgot about your business entirely either. 

How did you let go of the how when building your business?

This has been a tough one! But I am finding that, when we have our brains set on a goal, our brain will reveal the HOW for us.

Sometimes, we underestimate our ability to think creatively or we underestimate our creative ideas and how far they can take us.

However, when you have a clear goal set, you are priming your brain to come up with creative solutions. That is why trusting your own inspired ideas is so powerful.

I released the “how” by narrowing my focus to taking potent, inspired action steps ONE AT A TIME. 

How did that $15K day look and feel like?

Whew! This was an emotionally overwhelming day.

I set the goal, and I gave myself a week to hit it. I failed the first 2 attempts, but on the third attempt, clients started signing up for my 1:1 business coaching.

One client was a warm inbox pitch, one client was an inquiry in MY inbox, and the third client was another inquiry.

There were more clients that followed, but the $15K day was a result of those 3 new clients (who all signed with me in the same day).

It felt exhilarating, but it also came with a strong sense of responsibility. I felt that I did not have the support from my business coach that I needed either, which made it difficult to process the sudden success.

I felt like I was on top of the world, but I also wondered if I would be able to do something like this again. It was a mixture of elated feelings and scared feelings to be honest.

However, that being said, these clients went on to create BIG THINGS in their businesses, including one client earning more income in 3 months than the previous 3 YEARS of her business. And another client who was out-earning ME by the time we were done. The third client is now starting her own wellness centre and filling her yoga classes with students.

Read also: How to Create Your Next Quantum Leap in Business

How do you manifest the right clients and build a magnetic brand as a coach?

The client manifestation isn’t something you try once and then DONE. It is a process, but to sum it up quickly, the manifestation happens when you relate to your goal on a deep level, even feeling like the goal is reached NOW.

This activates an energetic connection with the “how” details, which will be revealed to you one step at a time.

TAKE THESE IDEAS SERIOUSLY (I cannot stress this enough). Your ideas that come from alignment are worth more than diamonds and gold to your business (because they bring IN the diamonds and gold haha).

As for creating a magnetic brand, this comes down to another work-in-progress thing. It’s not a one-and-done process.

Personally, I have created my brand by getting clear on my VALUES (so what I believe in and what is important to me, especially on a moral level).

These values alone help with self-expression and content-creation. The other element to this that has helped my brand is understanding what my most potent transformation is.

What is the glue that brings all my programs together? For me, that glue is intuition. For you, it could be something else. Having that “quick snapshot” focus around what you are creating can help with keeping everything cohesive.

Ask yourself: What is ONE transformation that, no matter which program or service your client is buying, is at the heart of your work?

How do your coaching sessions look like and what do you love about them the most?

My sessions are usually 60-minutes long on Zoom. Whether I am coaching entrepreneurs or coaching other people who want to connect with their intuition, I bring a combination of intuition + psychology to my sessions.

I start by feeling the energy of the client, which allows me to feel what areas of life need to be processed in the session. From there, I allow channeled messages to come through that always have a sort of medicinal/healing effect on my clients’ self-esteem.

I also use my psychology education to inform me on how we explore thoughts, feelings, and emotional processing.

I also share fun psychology facts with my clients so that they can have more insight into how their mind works. Knowing how your mind works is such a boost to manifestation.

If it’s business coaching, the above process still applies, but there is also structured content that we go into around client attraction and manifestation.

I also use my intuitive gifts to feel into the energy of my client’s business, looking for energy leaks or insecurities that might be working against my client. Together, we come up with creative, intuitively-inspired solutions to these leaks.

My favourite thing about these sessions is how elated and “high” I feel during them. I love how the conversations are so fluid and so thoughtful.

Most of all, I LOVE when my clients hit that “sweet spot” realization that I have been guiding them to make about themselves. Feeling that energy shift and witnessing the emotional release is miraculous for me to watch.

I also love knowing that, because I have my client’s back, he or she will never feel lost like I did when I first started hiring coaches. I know that they have generous, loving, nurturing support as they adjust to this new intuitive awareness that we have cultivated together. 

What are some practices that help you align with your true self and operate from a place of abundance?

Deep breathing and meditation are ESSENTIAL to me.

The breath helps me to connect with my emotional energy and allow it to move through my body better (which is supportive to manifestation because it helps to remove resistance in the body).

Meditation helps me to clear my busy mind, and it also helps me to OBSERVE my busy mind too.

Sometimes, I use meditation to “tune myself” by feeling my own energy and watching my own thoughts (without trying to change them). This way, I am familiar with the sensations and thoughts in my body that belong to me.

This makes me more resilient against other people’s opinions and allows me to connect with my own inner whisper, even when my environment gets loud and distracting.

Yoga helps me too because it combines the best of breathwork and meditation with body movement.

Read also: How to Live Your Life in Fierce Alignment: Interview with Spiritual Mindset Coach Kehla

What’s next for you and your business?

At this stage in my business, I am opening my work to a wider, less-niched audience.

Before this year, my work was mainly created to coach other coaches. This was fun while it lasted, but I always felt like something was off. Now, I am opening my life coaching services up to ALL people who are intrigued by their intuition and who want to learn more about it. Especially how they can USE IT for developing self-confidence, emotional healing, and business success.

Even my work with entrepreneurs is being opened to ALL entrepreneurs (not JUST coaches or healers). This is a significant leap for me to make, because it has been a long time coming. 

Right now, I am only offering hourly sessions and a membership while I build this new, more open chapter in my business. The next step will be re-introducing 1:1 business coaching packages that help entrepreneurs to understand exactly how their intuition can grow their business and their vision.

As this grows, the next step will be retreats and maybe even a published book. I also have the intention to work my way toward stage speaking.