What I Built For The Season You're Actually In | EP 625

Founders are spending five figures on programs they never finish, and it's not a discipline problem. I'm walking through what I built instead, starting with the Vision Map and leading into a reimagined Expansion Season. Full show notes, transcript, and chapters at sheilabotelho.com/625

✍️ Sheila's Notes - The reflections I write only here. For your Expansion Season.

🧭 Your Vision Map - Name what you are building before you build it.

💎 Work With Me - Choose the most aligned pathway for your business.

🎧 Subscribe & Rate this podcast

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

The Problem With Big Programs

Sheila 0:01

Something's been building for me for about a year now. People in my world were spending $10,000, sometimes $20,000 on programs full of pre-recorded content and one-to-one sessions. And most of them never finished the material and never took the action. And it wasn't because they weren't capable of this. It was because the program wasn't built for the season that they were actually in. Today I'm walking you through what I built instead and why I think this is the kind of support founders are asking for right now. Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sheila Botelho, and I believe true success is built from the inside out. I've been noticing this shift for about two years now, but it became impossible to ignore this time last year. People doing my work started telling me how overwhelmed they felt, trying to keep pace with everything changing in their business. So they turned to automations and other tools that promised immediate answers. And instead of getting clarity, a lot of them ended up spiraling through rabbit hole after rabbit hole because what they were finding wasn't actually guidance built for them. It was old playbooks or someone else's current sales strategy dressed up as advice. They didn't know what to do with it. So they'd stay stuck or they'd keep changing their method and their structure over and over. And that cost them so much time. It confused their clients and it cost them business as well. And this is where it got really specific for me. I was watching founders spend $10,000, $20,000 on programs built with pre-recorded content plus live one-to-one and group sessions. And I was noticing 70 to 80% of the people who bought in never finished the content. They'd show up to their sessions with basic questions that were already answered inside the material because what they actually wanted was something built around them, not a generic curriculum. And even the ones who did finish the content struggled to take action on it because their businesses already had so much going on. You may find yourself in this place as well where you're feeling time-starved. You know, they were tired, they were caught comparing themselves to everyone else's version of progress. And of course, things have been changing so quickly over the last few years that every time they saw something new come online, they'd chase it instead of staying the course with what they've developed. And hear this: I believe success can move fast. I've seen it happen fast for people. It's happened fast at times for me. And it truly asks for a foundation first. It asks you to give yourself a little room to breathe and find your own consistency before you scale anything larger.

Clarity First With The Vision Map

Sheila 3:11

So I built something that starts with the vision map that came about this time last year. And if you've been listening a while, you know that the vision map is where you get clear on your next step before you build anything. It takes you from concept into action in a way that honors how you actually work. And it's something that is not extremely time-consuming. It's high value, low input, completely self-guided. But what it does is it walks you through the very things that I have walked through hundreds of clients with in order to ensure that your direction is really clear of where you want to go, of the legacy you're trying to build, what your exit strategy is if you have one, all of these things. And it's something that you can walk through within a few days and by the end of a week, have very, very focused clarity on where you're headed, because that is the thing that we need to do first. We need to get really clear, at least as clear as we can on the direction we're going. We're not going to know every single step we need to take immediately, right at the at the beginning. Like this is something that once you take action on those things, that's when you get even more clarity, but at least knowing what your direction is, knowing what your end game is, is incredibly important. Otherwise, you can spend so much time spinning your wheels. So people have found it very valuable. And again, I recorded it, I put it all together in video format. You can listen in audio as well with some exercises to go through, with some questions to go through, because I was finding I was doing this with every single client over and over. And I thought, well, you know what? May as well let this thing that I create, the vision map, let it do that work so that when we are actually working together, we can dive right in to the action.

Expansion Season Moves Into The App

Sheila 5:15

Now, expansion season was an experience that had live content modules that were valuable for those expanding their business to the next level with real-time feedback once a week via a voice messaging app. And it was developed from the last decade of my work in the business strategy and development space. I had piloted this offering to gauge what the founders inside of it found to be the most effective. And that's when I collected so much data and came to the realization that there was a better, more streamlined way to deliver this support so that they would thrive. As I mentioned, everyone is so busy. Everyone is trying to keep their heads above water with all of the changes in the way we do business and in the technology that we're needing to learn and understand. Even though some of it is freeing up some time, the process of getting there is something that can be all-encompassing. Expansion season now lives entirely inside of my app, the Seasons Success App. It's audio first with some video, and the content gets built responsively based on what those involved are actually navigating in real time. And that was something that people were saying over and over to me. So instead of content sitting prerecorded on a shelf waiting for you to find the hour to watch it, you're able to message me. And I respond during weekday hours. This is real time. This is when you need it the most. Because I kept seeing clients move through the process, but then be waiting for our weekly group call or our weekly one-on-one. And then they would lose momentum on the thing that they were building because they didn't feel confident in the thing that they were expanding into. And this way, having this real-time contact during weekday hours, they're able to make faster moves, more agile moves, and also not be stuck in their head. There's something about having someone to mirror back to you and remind you why you're doing what you're doing while you are building it out. While you are managing an already thriving business, a growing team who needs your guidance, they're looking to you for the answers. They're looking to you for the direction. And it can feel very lonely when you are leading a business and you are needing to step up and step out continually and trust your gut to move forward. And sometimes what happens is we can freeze. We can freeze based on not knowing if the next step is the most aligned step. Often we don't know until we take that step, but it's very helpful to have somebody who understands your business model, who understands what you're trying to achieve, who knows what you have created in, for instance, the vision map that you've gone through, who knows what your legacy vision is to remind you of that, but also to guide you back to exactly the work that you're meant to be doing for that purpose. It's so easy to get taken off focus when we hear or when we see other people doing different things. There's so many wonderful things we can be doing to grow and expand our businesses. And all of them are wonderful in many cases. However, we need to stay the course with the thing that we have chosen to do so that it can get legs. So I build expansion season this way on purpose.

Growth Without Hustle Or Burnout

Sheila 9:08

So many of the founders I work with have built genuinely beautiful businesses, and the differences they built them the old way, hustle and grind. And it worked. It got them the results they wanted, but it came at a cost. In many cases, it was their health or it was their well-being, or it was their relationships. I didn't want to hand anyone another version of that. I'm a strategist, and that word really matters to me because I'm not offering you a formula just handing it to you and stepping back from it. What people tell me over and over is that working with me, they return to the essence of what they actually wanted to build in the first place. They return to who they wanted to be while they were building it. And I love hearing that. It makes my heart sing because that is self-care for business. That is the essence of it. They strip away what was never aligned to them to begin with. And I help people do the thing that has been sitting on their heart for years, the thing they haven't trusted themselves with yet. And I remind them why it's theirs to do. And of course, because they've shared what their vision is and the reason why they want to do it, I'm able to remind them. We simplify things together so that overwhelm isn't the entry point anymore. It makes me really happy to see when people can actually make forward progress on something in their already very, very busy lives and do this while their business is continuing to run in the day-to-day. Everything that we do is then able to be added on in a very manageable way.

Invitation And What To Do Next

Sheila 11:07

Here's what I want you to take with you today. Expansion season isn't about adding one more thing to your plate. It's the place where the version of your business that is coming next gets to be born from alignment, from well-being, and from the pace that's actually true for you. That's a whole reason why I built it this way. Not another program that you have to finish before you're allowed to feel like you're doing it right, but a space that meets you exactly where your season has you this month, this quarter, this year, and grows alongside you as your business actually asks for something new. So if you've been carrying the thing that's been on your heart for years and you haven't trusted yourself with it yet, this is your invitation to come back to it, not from a place of catching up, but from a place of alignment. Of course, if you're wanting something more high-touch, more direct, I am opening Breakthrough Day and Season Circle again this October. And I will talk more about that soon. So if you're already in a conversation with me, you know what I mean. But wherever you are today, the vision map is still the place to start, and expansion season is where it leads from there. You get to choose the way that works best for you. Thank you so much for being here for this next season, and I will see you on the next episode.