91. Bundles, Bonuses, and Benevolence: Holiday Ops Playbook

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ops Experts Club Podcast

Episode 91: Bundles, Bonuses, and Benevolence: Holiday Ops Playbook
Date: December 4, 2025
Hosts: Aaron, Taryn, and Savannah (The Collab Team)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Ops Experts Club Podcast dives into the operations playbook for end-of-year holiday planning in seven- and eight-figure private businesses. Aaron and Taryn (with Savannah chiming in) discuss practical and creative strategies for holiday bundling, team appreciation, tax planning, and fostering a benevolent company culture. Their conversation blends detailed operational advice with lighthearted banter and real-life examples from supporting high-profile entrepreneurs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Favorite Holidays: Icebreakers & Team Dynamics

• The discussion opens with ribbing between co-hosts about nicknames and favorite holidays, setting a casual, humorous tone.
  • Taryn prefers the Fourth of July:
    “You know, Fourth of July is pretty fun because nobody judges how many hot dogs I eat that day.” (02:23, C)
  • Aaron likes Thanksgiving:
    “There’s no pressure with gifts. I just get to show up, have some good food, like taking some time with family and that’s it.” (03:01, B)
• Takeaway: Recognizing what your team values about holidays can help when planning appreciation initiatives.

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2. Virtual Holiday Parties for Distributed Teams

[04:00 - 05:15]

• Many teams are now remote or spread across time zones.
• Taryn’s example:
  An owner sent DoorDash gift cards to the whole team; everyone Doordashed a meal for a virtual party. They shared food, played games, wore festive sweaters, and didn’t talk about work.
  • “They just had fun and had some holiday games and cheers and... getting together and funny sweaters and eating a meal paid for by the company.” (04:29, C)
• Actionable Tip: Send gift cards for a shared experience, prioritize non-work connection, and let people expense their own preferences.

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3. Year-End Money Moves: Bundles, Write-offs & Tax Planning

[05:16 - 08:05]

• Aaron stresses leveraging Q4 for both revenue and responsible tax planning.
  • “Quarter four is the time to make some investments ... are there ways you could be benevolent with your team, you know, that would make income drop a little bit... I just want to pay as little taxes as I have to pay.” (05:16, B)
• Advice:
  • Identify any equipment, resources, or services to invest in before year-end to reduce taxable income.
  • Consider gifting or bonus programs as a dual-purpose: team appreciation and reducing tax liabilities.
• For Product/Service Companies:
  Run Q4 bundles or special offers (even if primarily service-based).
  • “Maybe ways that you can bring up some revenue in non-traditional ways for your business.” (07:30, D)
  • Last year, their mostly service-based team bundled some ancillary products for Black Friday/Cyber Monday and had surprising success.

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4. Creative Gifting & Organic Growth

[07:36 - 09:17]

• Platform Innovation Example:
  Kajabi now lets users gift a course/product. This opens up new organic revenue streams—empower your buyers to gift subscriptions or courses to friends/family at a reduced rate.
  • “I wonder if we could empower buyers... to give a gift to someone for a reduced payment... it’s like a very subtle organic launch.” (08:14, D)
• Playbook Tip: Send coupons to existing customers to share as gifts, incentivizing new referrals and sales.
• Quote: “That’d be really cool to do with… email your buyers a coupon to give to their friends and family.” (09:09, C)

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5. Matching & Team Benevolence

[09:18 - 10:39]

• Encourage generosity internally by matching employee donations for causes or team members in tough situations.
  • “Maybe taking a poll with your people of what would you... like us to give to this at the end of the year... whatever they’re willing to donate towards it, we’re willing to match it.” (09:56, D)
• Actionable Idea:
  Poll employees for a shortlist of charities/causes, then match contributions as a company to increase impact and morale.

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6. The Gift of Time

[10:45 - 14:53]

• “The gift of time is really appreciated by people. Give people some time off during the holidays... That time together with the people they love is what’s really gonna make a difference.” (10:47, C)
• Concrete suggestion: Extra paid time off between Christmas Eve and January 2nd.
  • “I saw it once... gave people Christmas Eve through January 2nd off... gave them that whole week.” (11:50, C)
• Takeaway: More valuable than money to many; consider flexible schedules and bonus time as a high-impact Q4 benefit.

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7. Appreciation on a Budget

[16:04]

• Not every gesture needs to be expensive. Thoughtful gifts (like a bottle of wine and a handwritten note) leave a big impression.
  • “Most people just want to be appreciated, too. It’s not necessarily like you have to spend $500 on them, but you just send them a bottle of wine and a note…” (16:04, C)
• Actionable Tip: Personal gestures and acknowledgement count for more than flashy or generic gifts.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Taryn on food and fun:
  “Fourth of July is pretty fun because nobody judges how many hot dogs I eat that day.” (02:23, C)
• Aaron on team celebrations:
  “They just had fun and had some holiday games and cheers ... getting together and funny sweaters and eating a meal paid for by the company.” (04:29, C)
• On taxes and generosity:
  “I’m not opposed to taxes. I just want to pay as little taxes as I have to pay. And I’d rather put money into the business if I can for the sake of taxable income.” (05:16, B)
• On gifting and organic launches:
  “If you’ve experienced some kind of life that’s come to you from this course... we'd love to allow you to gift this to a friend for this reduced amount ... it’s a very subtle organic launch.” (08:14, D)
• On time off:
  “The gift of time is really appreciated by people... that time together with the people they love is what’s really gonna make a difference.” (10:47, C)
• On appreciation:
  “It’s not necessarily like you have to spend $500 on them, but you just send them bottle of wine and a note, you know, say hope you and your wife have a great holiday. Enjoy this with a nice dinner like that goes a long way.” (16:04, C)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:49 - 03:27: Holiday preferences & importance of understanding team values
• 04:00 - 05:15: Virtual holiday party example & making remote teams feel included
• 05:16 - 08:05: End-of-year purchases, tax tips, and holiday bundles
• 07:36 - 09:17: Gifting digital products, referral offers, and organic launch ideas
• 09:18 - 10:39: Company donation matching and benevolence programs
• 10:45 - 14:53: The value of giving the gift of time (paid time off)
• 16:04: Low-cost, high-impact appreciation gifts

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Concluding Notes

Impactful Themes:

• The holidays provide not only a chance to drive revenue (bundles, offers) but—more importantly—an opportunity to deepen team connection, express genuine appreciation, and operate with a spirit of generosity.
• Smart operational leaders prep for year-end both from a compliance and culture standpoint.

Final Host Banter:
The episode wraps with the hosts joking about personal holiday traditions and appreciating the lighter side of running operations in entrepreneurial companies.

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This episode is packed with actionable ideas and real-world anecdotes for business owners looking to close the year with impact—on their bottom line and their people.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Ops Experts Club. If you're at all interested in anything we talk about here in this episode, go ahead and check out the description down below and click any of the links there.

[B]

Or if you just want to know.

[A]

More about us, click the links below. Now, on to the episode.

[B]

Ops Experts Club. That's it. Yes. Taran Turner. Taryn, the visual effects you have going on right now are legit. I wish everybody was in you the way that I see you, Taran.

[C]

I'm half in, half out.

[B]

I mean, that should be. That's just. I mean, that's just a statement. That's just true. I just wish everybody could see Taran Turner the way I see Taran Turner. Because I think Taran Turner, amazing.

Taran. You've got. You've got some great nicknames. Like through the years, what Pedro Deo called you T Money. T Money was Pedro Deos. Yeah.

[C]

My rap name.

[B]

Yeah. T4 Business Care.

[D]

What is it?

[B]

Is that. Is that your. Is that your llc?

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Or because there are four T's in your family, Right? You're the fourth T, boys.

[C]

Yes. Yep.

Four T's.

[B]

Sometimes people call you T Swizzle.

[D]

No.

[B]

Is that Taylor?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. T Swizz.

[D]

T Swizze.

[B]

Tearing it up. Yes, That's a. I always forget about tearing it up. It's a good one. Anyway, Ops Experts, great to have you join us. Me and tearing it up. T swizzle. T4T money here hanging out today with you. And we're going to do something called Tis the season today on Ops Experts Club. Talk about fourth quarter. Talk about things you should be thinking about as we come into holiday before holiday hits you square between the eyes. Taryn, we don't want. We don't want people to get hit with holidays between the eyes. We want them to be thinking about it before they get there.

[C]

Yeah. Because it's here. It's there. There is here, Dude.

[B]

Like Roy Kent. Taryn, here's the thing is, you may not be a Ted Lasso fan, but he's there. He's there. He's every effing where Roy Kent was one of the best episodes. Roy Kent in our TED la.

First off, personal question. Favorite holiday. Like, what's. What's your favorite holiday?

[D]

Turn, Turn.

[B]

What do you enjoy and why?

[D]

Ooh.

[C]

You know, Fourth of July is pretty fun because nobody judges how many hot dogs I eat that day. Any other day of the year, it's like, well, how many hot dogs did you eat?

[D]

But that day, it's almost like more American.

[B]

The more hot dogs that you eat, you know?

[C]

Yeah. What's yours?

[B]

Plus, I will say, like 4th of July rodeos are pretty cool. Like, I love to go to Montana for fourth of July and be able to take in a rodeo. I think that that makes me feel so freaking, like born in the usa.

I would say, honestly, favorite holiday for me, Thanksgiving.

Because you're just. You just come together to eat, you know, I'm saying there's no pressure with gifts. I just get to show up, have some good food, like taking some time with family and that's it. That's the whole holiday. I love it. I think it's pretty much. I don't. I carry so much stress around gift giving, man. I'm like, man, is this going to suck? Am I a sucky gift giver? So anyway.

So as we come into holiday, for business owners, those of you listening that have businesses that are running teams, we thought we should go over just a good tis the season checklist on things that you should be thinking about. So maybe some cost savings. I think some things you might be thinking about, about ways that you can pay less on taxes, maybe ways that.

[D]

You can treat your team. We're going to try and hit it all today on ops experts club.

[B]

So, Taryn, what do you feel like is the first piece of advice you would give somebody to consider as we.

[D]

Come into holiday season?

[C]

You know, one thing I saw that was done pretty cool is a virtual holiday party. You know, I know we mentioned kind of hard to have holiday parties with some of our clients. They have a lot of people all over us in a meeting today. We had somebody in every time zone with our client, especially since we just hit the daylight savings and since Arizona's in their own weird little bubble now.

[B]

Right.

[C]

We had four different time zones represented in one call. So that was kind of fun.

Yeah, I think I saw it done pretty well. The owner got everybody a doordash gift card and told them to doordash their own meal for this virtual. And then they just got on a zoom together. They all ordered their favorite food on the company, you know, and then. And then they just had fun and had some holiday games and cheers and, you know, nothing about work, just getting together and funny sweaters and eating a meal paid for by the company.

[B]

Taryn, did you wear one of your sweaters?

[C]

Always.

[D]

Which sweater did you wear?

[C]

I don't have any Christmas sweaters. I have winter sweaters.

[B]

You do, but they are festive and I love them. They're great. So which one did you wear, did you wear your turtleneck one? The turtleneck one? Probably.

[D]

That's a good one.

[B]

That's a good one. That was a good one. Well done. That's a great, that's a great idea. I think I always think about like money when it comes to like end of the year stuff, like how are we going to make the last bit of like push and how can we save some money, you know? And so I think that the ways that I think about it is what are things that you should put on your books, right. To. To drop your taxable income. Right. I think that's always like, is now here in the fourth quarter, I think people always panic and they think about, they, they think about as they're turning in their tax stuff, their tax guy, and the guy's like, yeah, that had to be in like last year. So you do it last year and people just forget. Quarter four is the time to make some investments or are there any large purch that you need to purchase for the business? Are there ways that you could be benevolent with your team, you know, that would make income drop a little bit. But instead of giving money to Uncle Sam, we're going to in fact give it to like, give some atta boys and some atta girls to the team, you know, and do some gratitude. I think it's a great time of the year to be thinking about how can I best invest my money. And I'm not opposed to taxes. I just want to pay as little taxes as I have to pay. And I'd rather put money into the business if I can for the sake of taxable income. So I think that I'm thinking about ways you can be generous. I also think on the flip side of that that people are in the mood for buying. I mean, so they're looking for sales. Already thinking about Black Friday. I mean, they're thinking about Cyber Monday, they're thinking about Pink Friday. You know, like small businesses like that are trying to sell. So what's a way that you could take advantage of? Maybe you don't have a physical product. You're like, Aaron, I don't even know how to compete with some of that stuff. Well, they're already in a mood. People are already looking for deals. So think about maybe pulling together a bundle. Is there something that you could bundle that you could make it a super savory offer that you could make? And I know last year we did a bundle and I bundled a couple of our products together. We're not a big product driven company. We're largely a service driven company. You know, we do a lot of obviously operations consulting and us putting our team into other people's team to help with operational lift. But we, you know, I have a couple of ancillary products that we put together and I felt like we did pretty decent when it comes to bundles last year for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Some of the deals that people expect. So maybe ways that you can drop down taxable income, maybe ways that you.

[D]

Can bring up some revenue in non traditional ways for your business.

[C]

Yeah, and there's some features. I know Kajabi turned on a feature last year where you can enable purchasing a Kajabi product. So a course as a gift to somebody. So you can enter somebody's email in there and gift, you know, whatever it is you're, you're selling. If you use that platform and other platforms. I'm not sure there's other ways you can do it though. But that's always a fun one to do. We've seen, we've seen people gift, you know, a year subscription to a, to a community product before.

[D]

It would be interesting if.

[B]

I wonder how many clients think that maybe this is a good idea for anybody that's on Kajabi and maybe even.

[D]

Our clients that are on Kajabi. Taren for us to take to people is. I wonder if there was a way that we could empower buyers already purchasers of our product to give a gift.

[B]

To someone for a reduced payment. I mean like, hey, we'd love to gift this. If you've experienced some kind of life that's come to you from this course that you're in, this community that you're part of, we would love to allow you to gift this to a friend for this reduced amount. You know, I mean, maybe it's like half off or you give them this and then it's like the cool thing about that is that you're both traveling in the same community, you're both learning the same things together and maybe they couldn't afford it or maybe you'd like to give it to somebody as a gift and then you could give a benevolent opportunity. And really what it is too is an opportunity to knock down some more dollars in a way that you might not have another launch going on. That's like a, a very subtle organic launch that you can give in a benevolent light, but at the same time it's going to bring revenue in. Smart.

[C]

That'd be really cool, that'd be really cool to do with a. Easily email your buyers a Coupon to give to their friends and family.

[B]

Smart.

[D]

Well done, Kajabi. Way to be thinking about it. I think that I like that kind of stuff. That's cool.

What else? Taryn Turner.

[B]

You know what?

[D]

I really like when people do that kind of matching too. When it comes to even internal team. If you're looking for ways that you can be generous towards things, I think there are always teammates, you know, like team members going through things, team members.

[B]

In the middle of things that you're like, hey, we would love to sponsor, like the ability to be able to help this particular situation, this particular person on the team. Or maybe it's like we're going to give towards this benevolent opportunity collectively as.

[D]

A company and anything that's given here by our team will match. You know what I mean? And like do some matching stuff. That's some cool end of the year things where you're able to put your dollars at places where once again gives you some, like, lessens your tax burden, but also allows you to be benevolent. And maybe taking a poll with your people of what would you, what would you guys like us to give to this at the end of the year that we could really make a difference. And like, based upon how the poll comes back and maybe if you're worried about what your people may choose, maybe you give them five things they can choose from, you know, and then whatever comes back of those five things that we all get on the same page with, if whatever they're willing to donate towards it, we're willing to match it as a company and you can see some cool things end of the year cheer.

[C]

Yeah, that would be really cool. Great way to lift up everybody together.

I think.

Another great gift, it's the gift of time. You can give people money, but I think the gift of time is really appreciated by people. Give people some time off during the holidays. Paid can be even more appreciated too. But people just, you know, that time is what we're limited with money. You earn it, you spend it doesn't matter. But the time together with the people they love is what's really gonna make a difference.

[D]

Yeah. So are you talking like time off or are you talking like rewarding people? Like maybe somebody in the company with like extra days or what. What. What does that look like?

[C]

Time off.

[B]

Yeah. So just telling them, like, so what, what do you think is a good program for giving people time off? Obviously the, the main holidays, us legal holidays, most people are going to give off, right? Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know, Christmas Eve, some, you know, like New Year's Eve. But are you.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I've seen. I saw it once. They gave people New Year's or Christmas Eve through.

January 2nd off. Like they returned January 2nd, gave them that whole week.

Yeah, I like. I like seeing that. That was pretty cool.

It.

Yeah. Most people just want to be appreciated, too. It's not necessarily like you have to spend $500 on them, but you just send them bottle of wine and a note, you know, say, hope you and your wife have a great holiday. Enjoy this with a nice dinner like that goes a long way.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Huh?

Yeah, man. Can't wait to come over, sit on your lap, and tell you what I want for Christmas.

Yes, sir. See you later.