Episode Summary: How Ops Leaders Should Approach Q4: Smart Revenue Moves, Cost Cuts, and Holiday Strategy

The Ops Experts Club Podcast | Episode 90 | November 27, 2025
Featuring: The Collab Team (Aaron, Terryn, Savannah)

Overview:

In this packed episode, The Collab Team dives deep into how operations leaders should navigate the unique challenges and opportunities of Q4. The discussion centers on whether to invest in ads during the holiday rush, how to creatively generate revenue, the wisdom behind cost-cutting through ops clean-up, and ways to leverage the season with gratitude and strategic partnerships. The conversation is candid, practical, and peppered with real-life examples and expert advice from their work with high-profile entrepreneurs.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Q4 Dilemma: To Advertise or Not to Advertise?

• Paid Ads During the Holidays:
  • The team questions the efficacy of paid ads in Q4, noting increased competition and skyrocketing costs.
    • “Is my avatar always thinking about what I want them to be thinking about when they're surfing their social media feed?... there’s a far higher price to get drilled down far enough to my avatar.” — Aaron (02:17)
  • With bigger players spending heavily, smaller teams may be outbid and overlooked, especially if their audience is niche or B2B.
• Ad Price Trends:
  • Ad prices peak leading up to Christmas, with a brief lull before spiking again; post-holiday, ad costs drop significantly.
    • “It’s gonna be the most expensive period... up until first week of December with a small break and then it goes up again for Christmas. But then right after that you can get some of the cheapest ads.” — Terryn (03:46)
• Strategic Pause vs. Pushing Hard:
  • Some businesses, especially authors or those with strong publisher support, sit Q4 out to focus on family and internal process improvement, reactivating in January when ads are cheap.
  • For those still pushing to hit annual goals, creativity is key.

2. Alternative Revenue Moves in Q4 (Beyond Ads)

a) Referral Programs & Joint Ventures

• Referral Incentives:
  • Activate your existing customers with simple, direct incentives.
    • “How can you incentivize them to bring you more customers?” — Terryn (05:56)
  • Joint venture partnerships, especially with leaders who won’t be actively marketing to their own lists in Q4, can yield profitable win-wins.
    • “I said, ‘Hey, Ray, why don’t you do a joint venture with me...’” — Aaron, on leveraging Ray Edwards’s quieter Q4 for a successful JV (06:38)

b) Gratitude as a Business Growth Tactic

• Inspired by John Ruhlin’s 'Giftology,' genuine gratitude expressed early and personally can make a business stand out.
  • “What is going to win you most clients is if you can get in front of them and just express some gratitude.” — Aaron (08:51)
  • Handwritten notes, authentic check-ins, or video memos (with no sales angle) are memorable and can reawaken dormant relationships.
    • “You don't need to put monetary value on that. Just thinking about you and your family during the holidays and that's it. That could be enough.” — Terryn (09:44)

c) Discounts & Product Bundles for Existing Customers

• Offering special deals to your list, not just cold audiences, leverages the seasonal appetite for deals.
  • “I'm not gonna go pay for ads, but maybe I'll do internal campaigns. And it's just organic.” — Aaron (11:59)
  • Creative bundling of services or products can outperform typical sales.

d) Value-Added Content & Annual Planning

• Use newsletters and organic communication channels to provide free tools or planning frameworks for the coming year.
  • “Here’s some free tools for annual planning … it’s me just raising an awareness. Point of before you tie out the year, encourage you really to have a plan coming into the next year.” — Aaron (13:19)
• Getting ahead in planning positions clients and your business for a smoother, more strategic Q1.

e) Events & Community Engagement

• Virtual or in-person events, either your own or by partnering with others' audiences, are great ways to stay top of mind.
  • “Maybe just thinking of creative ways that you can throw events, something that you can maybe pony up to somebody else's event…” — Aaron (14:06)
  • Examples include webinars, live shows, or guesting/sponsoring existing events.

3. If Not Sales—Smart Q4 Cost Cuts and Internal Projects

• Audit & Streamline Technology
  • Review operational subscriptions and vendors for redundancy, underuse, or better alternatives.
    • “The two ways you can make money, right, is either winning new clients or banging down your expenses, right?... So either I'm going to win more business... But there is opportunity where you can also drop your costs.” — Aaron (15:44)
  • Assign ownership and accountability for each ongoing expense.
• Completing Internal Projects
  • Implement new tools, migrate systems, or update internal processes during quieter periods.
    • “Great time to change CRMs, implement new landing page software, get a website moved over. Yeah, any, anything like that's great. Rocks for this quarter.” — Terryn (17:12)
• Operations Team Engagement
  • Use staff bandwidth for internal clean-up and prepare for January’s demands—‘polish the guns before coming out firing.’

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I don't feel like I've gotten our business to a place where I can take off the holidays ... I still need to be leaning in.” — Aaron (04:14)
• “What is going to win you most clients is if you can get in front of them and just express some gratitude.” — Aaron (08:51)
• “Don’t just follow the tribe... To really ask yourself, is that the best thing to drive revenue for me in this final quarter, could there be some other creative ways I could do that?” — Aaron (18:11)
• “Remember that just because you lose energy around those things doesn't mean your people lose energy around those things... Most ops driven people love like cleaning house, love getting things lean...” — Aaron (17:46)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ad Strategy in Q4 & Whether to Compete with Big Spenders: 01:36 – 04:14
• Referral Programs & Joint Ventures: 05:55 – 07:59
• Leaning Into Gratitude (Inspired by Giftology): 08:12 – 09:58
• Seasonal Discounts, Product Bundles & Organic Campaigns: 11:45 – 13:44
• Live Events, Webinars and Community Engagement: 13:48 – 15:30
• Cost Reduction Tactics & Internal Projects: 15:40 – 17:37
• Recap and Strategic Mindset for Q4: 17:37 – End

Conclusion

The Collab Team’s actionable Q4 guidance goes well beyond “run ads and hope for the best.” Instead, they challenge operations leaders to creatively leverage existing assets, nurture relationships with gratitude, maximize value from existing customers, and use slower periods for foundational clean-up and optimization. Their advice blends tactical resourcefulness with big-picture thinking, tailored specifically for high-performing ops teams guiding fast-growth businesses.