Every January, I face the same test: execute without reward, or wait for momentum to return.
First quarter is lean at iDropped. NEPA winters hit hard. Walk-in traffic drops. Revenue slows. The phone stops ringing with the same urgency it had in July and August.
But thirteen years into this business, I’ve learned something most people miss: Q1 isn’t a problem to survive. It’s sacred time.
The Paradox of Preparation
Q3 and Q4 deliver the rewards – revenue, validation, proof you were right. Customers flood in. The register rings. Your team moves fast. Everything you built gets tested at scale, and when it works, it feels like vindication.
Q1 gives you something better: space to build what makes those quarters possible.
Since 2012, I’ve kept a running list on my phone. It started as a survival mechanism when I was working alone – ideas I’d capture throughout the year when I was too busy executing to implement them. Marketing plays that might work. Process improvements I noticed we needed. Skills gaps on the team. System weaknesses that showed up under pressure.
When winter hit and the shop got quiet, I’d pull out that list and work through it methodically.
Now, thirteen years later, that list is how we operate. When it’s slow, we work the list. My techs refurbish parts we’ve accumulated. They learn new repair techniques. We explore new service initiatives. We clean up processes that got sloppy during busy season when we were prioritizing speed over precision. We recalibrate our systems. We tune up our operations. We educate ourselves for the next wave.
The work exists. You just need faith to do it without immediate reward.
What Q1 Actually Reveals
Everyone knows Q3 and Q4 is the Super Bowl in our industry. What they forget: Q1 is where championships are built.
No crowd noise. No validation. Just execution when nobody’s watching.
Here’s what nobody talks about, and what I’ve learned the hard way: MORE problems surface during Q1 than busy season.
Busy season hides dysfunction. Everyone’s reacting, moving, firefighting. You’re so busy putting out fires that you don’t notice the fundamental issues with how fires keep starting. Chaos looks like hustle. Poor systems look like “we’re just really busy right now.”
Q1 exposes everything.
It exposes who can self-direct and who needs crisis to function. Some people genuinely can’t sit with themselves and work without immediate external validation. The phone’s not ringing, so they get weird. They create problems – interpersonal drama, questioning decisions that were working fine, fixating on minor issues – because the absence of chaos makes them uncomfortable.
I’ve learned to watch for this. The employees who thrive in Q1 are the ones you build around. The ones who fall apart without external pressure are the ones you’re compensating for during busy season without realizing it.
What NOT to Do in Q1
I see it every year in Facebook groups. Business owners sitting around complaining about how slow it is. Commiserating about the weather. Bitching about customers not spending money. Posting memes about “surviving” winter.
That’s loser behavior.
You’re not surviving Q1. You’re either building in Q1 or wasting Q1.
Sitting around waiting for business to pick up is a choice. Complaining about conditions you can’t control is a choice. Spending your slow time scrolling Facebook groups looking for sympathy is a choice.
Here’s what those choices cost you:
Every hour you spend commiserating with other business owners who also aren’t doing the work is an hour you didn’t spend building capacity for Q4. Every day you wait for momentum to return instead of creating it is a day your competitor spent getting better.
The business owners who treat Q1 like a problem to endure are the same ones who wonder why Q4 never delivers the way they hoped. They’re waiting for external conditions to validate them instead of using internal discipline to build something worth validating.
I don’t have patience for it anymore. When I see shop owners in groups complaining about slow season, I know exactly what their Q4 numbers look like. Mediocre. Predictable. Unchanged from last year, or worse. They complain the industry is down.
Meanwhile, the ones working their lists in silence? Those are the ones who show up in Q4 with capabilities nobody saw coming. I can’t say the industry is down when I’m gaining market share.
Q1 separates the builders from the complainers.
When Q1 Isn’t Just January
Q1 isn’t just January through March on the calendar. It’s any season where your business is in startup or rebuild mode – slow revenue, no momentum, rising doubt.
I’ve experienced this in multiple contexts:
- Every winter since 2012
- Opening new locations
- Adding new service lines
- Rebuilding after employee turnover
- Integrating acquisitions
The pattern is always the same. The work is real. The strategy is sound. The fundamentals are in place. But there’s no immediate proof it’s working.
That’s when faith gets tested.
The hardest part isn’t the slow revenue. It’s having the conviction to execute fundamentals daily with no proof it’s working. No revenue validating your decisions. No momentum confirming you’re right. No external voices telling you you’re on the right track.
Just you, your list, and your conviction that if you do the work, the rewards will come.
The Mistakes I’ve Made Both Ways
I’ve quit too early on things that would have worked. I’ve stayed too long on things that were fundamentally broken.
The difference isn’t obvious in the moment. Startup struggle and actual failure look identical in Q1.
Here’s what I’ve learned to distinguish them:
System vs. Hope
When fundamentals are in place but there’s no momentum yet – that’s Q1. Hold faith.
- Right location or market positioning
- Sound operational model
- Clear value proposition
- Execution capability
- Just no traction yet
When you’re hoping fundamentals will magically fix themselves – that’s broken. Get out.
- Wrong location or market
- Broken operational model
- Unclear or uncompelling value proposition
- Lack of execution capability
- Competitor landscape
The second scenario doesn’t get better with time. The first one does, if you have the discipline to execute through the uncertainty.
I closed a location once where the fundamentals were actually sound. The market was right. The operational model worked. But I listened to the voices around me saying “this isn’t working” instead of trusting the data that showed we were on the normal startup curve. I quit in Q1 when I should have held faith through to Q4.
Looking back at the numbers, that location would be profitable now. Maybe significantly so.
I’ve also stayed too long in situations where the fundamentals were broken – hoping that effort and optimism would overcome structural problems. They don’t. When the foundation is wrong, Q4 never comes no matter how much faith you have.
Learning to tell the difference has been one of the most valuable skills I’ve developed.
The Data Tells the Story
Every winter tests this pattern. Revenue drops predictably. Expenses don’t. It would be easy to panic, cut costs, pull back on investments in training or equipment or marketing.
But I have thirteen years of data that says if I use Q1 wisely – build skills, fix what’s broken, prepare for what’s coming – Q4 always rewards that faith.
Year 1: Q1 was terrifying. I didn’t know if the business would survive winter. Year 5: Q1 was still uncomfortable but I’d seen the pattern enough to trust it. Year 10: Q1 became strategic time. I started actually looking forward to it. Year 13: Q1 is when we build competitive advantages our competitors don’t even see coming.
Through this process, our slow time gets less slow. My team in my oldest, most mature stor – is called upon to execute so much now during “slow season” that some of them long for the good old days of actual downtime.
That’s the real proof Q1 works: you build capacity until slow season isn’t slow anymore.
We added service lines during past Q1s that now generate revenue year-round. We developed expertise in repairs that other shops can’t do. We built systems that make us more efficient even when we’re busy. We trained team members who became valuable enough that losing them would hurt.
None of that showed immediate ROI. All of it compounded over time.
The Sacred Discipline
Q1 is sacred time. Use it to become what you need to be for Q3 and Q4.
Clean up operations. The shortcuts you took during busy season? Fix them now. The process that “works fine for now”? Refine it. The training someone needs but you haven’t had time for? Do it now.
Educate your team. Skills that take weeks to develop? You have weeks. Projects that require focus? You have focus. New techniques that need practice? You have time to practice.
Recalibrate systems. What broke under pressure last Q4? Strengthen it. What almost broke? Reinforce it. What worked but could work better? Improve it.
Tune up what got sloppy. Your marketing got generic? Make it sharp again. Your customer service got transactional? Make it remarkable again. Your quality got “good enough”? Make it excellent again.
Build the capacity you’ll need when the rush returns.
Because the rush always returns.
The question is whether you spent Q1 preparing for it or just waiting for it.
What This Means for You
If you’re in Q1 right now – calendar Q1 or startup Q1 or rebuild Q1 – here’s what I want you to know:
The slow revenue doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re in the preparation phase.
The doubt doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It means you’re doing something that requires faith.
The voices telling you to quit or pivot or panic aren’t seeing what you see. They don’t have your data. They don’t have your conviction. They can’t hold the faith for you.
But you can hold it for yourself.
Make your list. Work your list. Execute fundamentals. Build capacity. Trust the pattern.
And when Q3 and Q4 come – and it will come – you’ll be ready in ways your competitors aren’t.
What separates championship teams from one-hit wonders isn’t how they handle the big game. It’s what they do in the first quarter when nobody’s watching.
Breaking and Building 
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