lemonis: i'm marcus. chris: how's it going? chris. nice to meet you. lemonis: chris, how are you? eet you. dino: what's up, marcus? dino. lemonis: dino, nice to meet you. i saw on the window i'm supposed to call you for franchise opportunities. dino: yes. you need one? lemonis: i was just -- i mean, i don't know yet. how's everybody else? ray: hey, marcus. i'm ray. lemonis: nice to meet you. ray: nice to meet you. debbie #1: hi, i'm debbie. i'm dino's wife. lemonis: hi, debbie. how are you? debbie #2: i'm also debbie. i'm dino and debbie's daughter. lemonis: how are you? so, three family members. debbie #2: well, ray is actually my husband. ray: i am family. lemonis: and so all four of you work here? dino: always me, ray or debbie are here all the time. lemonis: okay, that's a good thing. so, dino... dino: yes, sir? lemonis: ...was this your idea? dino: yes. i worked in a pizza place called mango's, and there was a mcdonald's, and i'm watching cars go through the drive-through. i got the idea of drive-through pizza by the slice because nobody had done it. so i was going to revoluti

marcus. how are you? it's nice to see you. lemonis: how you doing, buddy? ian: marcus. how are you? s: what's happening? i been good. i'm heading over to aristotle's office to see what work he did while he was in greece. i want to see the new designs. i want to see new colors, and i want to see if he's getting really focused on the details. so what is all this? aristotle: so when moms are purchasing our product, they're always asking if you have anything for kids, so i took this opportunity to explore what that possibility could look like. lemonis: i love the fact that you took the initiative to come up with other ideas, and i like the fact that you were clever enough to come up with some colors because kids don't want to wear glasses that are just plain. aristotle: yep. lemonis: it's fun. they seem flexible. they seem durable. i know that aristotle and i had never talked about kids' glasses, but i have to give him credit for going outside of the box and thinking on his own without worrying about the risk of failure. that's showing a lot of personal development for him. are these new

marcus lemonis. it's such a pleasure to finally -- -lemonis: are you anthony?anthony: yes, sir, it is. -lemonis: nice to meet you. -anthony: pleasure to meet you. lemonis: you know what i love about highway 17? anthony: it's a lot of signs? lemonis: [ laughing ] all the signs. anthony: yeah, new signs, we do a lot of. we just did one, the car wash. i don't know if you saw it on the way here. big l.e.d. board, it was about 32 grand. we just finished it. lemonis: oh, whoa. anthony: customer's really stoked about it. lemonis: now, i don't know your business, and i'm excited to learn it. and so i know a little bit about it, 'cause i buy a couple million dollars a year worth of signs across all these businesses. anthony: i know a good sign company. -lemonis: i know you do. -anthony: [ laughs ] lemonis: but i got to get comfortable with what you're doing. so, what exactly does asl signs do? anthony: we are a one-stop shop manufacturing plant. so we do high volume, low labor. -lemonis: banners? -anthony: all day long. -lemonis: for-sale signs? -anthony: as many as you

mike: hey, marcus. lemonis: how does this store do? not hitting the numbers that we thought we would. lemonis: what did you forecast for this store? john: a million a year. we're doing -- lemonis: half of that. john: half of that. lemonis: how much is the rent here? john: about $10,000 a month. where it's about $6,500 in seal beach. lemonis: when's your lease run out? mike: next month. john: next month. lemonis: did you bring your financials? john: we did. lemonis: let's sit down and go over 'em. john: okay. so this is tankfarm seal beach. lemonis: seal beach, $530,000, and the store made $16,000. 56% margins. 56% for a store is slightly less than average. you got huntington, $539,000 in business. this store shows that it made 13 grand. very little return. anderson brothers. $1,742,000 of revenue. 40% margins. total expenses are $544,000. business made 155,000 bucks. between all the entities, $2.7 million in total revenue, $184,000 of profit, $530,000 of real, tangible assets, $511,000 of liabilities between payables and loans. so you'r

lemonis: dustin, i'm marcus. dustin: nice to meet you, man. lemonis: nice to meet you.tin: how's it going? lemonis: what do you do here? dustin: right now, just production. i was running the social media for a while, too. no one's officially been given a title. lemonis: so, every single person here reports to jen. dustin: yep. lemonis: there's nobody supervising things other than her. dustin: yeah. lemonis: and so the social media -- how come you're not doing that anymore? dustin: i'm actually getting ready to leave. lemonis: you're leaving the company? dustin: yeah. yeah. lemonis: how come? dustin: i am starting my own thing. it's a bong-water flavoring and glass protectant. lemonis: yeah, i don't know what that is. dustin: so, uh... lemonis: sorry. dustin: plus i bartend at night, and i mean, i can make more money bartending. what's crazy is even on the slowest of slow nights, i still make more money there than here. lemonis: so, if you could work here full-time, would you want to? dustin: oh, i'd love to. if i was paid, oh, man. jennifer: dustin, your uber's actually

tom: hey, marcus. lemoniser that you guys were working on. tom: yes. lemonis: with the waycross facility getting sorted out, i wanted to head back to tampa to see what tom and nancy were working on. i gave them the task of coming up with a new product, and them working together is important to me. tom: all right, let me pull up the file here. lemonis: and so, did you do the sketches on these? tom: yeah, i did the sketches on these. i did a -- nancy: hey, guys. lemonis: what? amber: i can't get past your khaki pants. [ laughs ] nancy: hey, do me a favor. walk through the shop there and grab the guys, okay? real quick -- i want to go ahead and pass this out and let everybody take a look at it, okay? and then we're gonna go into some [bleep] right now. you see, this is a customer-service order. there's an imaginary tammy that works for this company in one of our dealers that he will not allow me to meet! whose phone number is tammy's?! whose number is this on tammy's piece of paper? tom: why don't you call your d

i could have just walked away completely at that point, marcus. lemonisontrol, and you are leaving here today because nobody is paying your bills. thank you for coming. mike: i wish you the best. lemonis: yeah. good luck to you. ♪ mike is now gone for good, and so is paul, by the way. he hung around for awhile and tried to work on little things, but in the end, it didn't work out, and candidly, it's probably for the best. now, they're still technically investors and my partners, but that's in the name only, not the operations. ♪ travis: so this is where we're standing here. this is gone now. lemonis: in an effort to drive more traffic to farrell's, we are redoing the entire floor plan to allow customers that just want to enjoy ice cream without food to come. we're expanding the entire candy store to improve the retail area, and we're adding a candy-making space, and we're also extending the ice cream bar. ♪ if everything goes according to plan, we'll be open in the next two weeks. ♪ hey, guys. how are you? shauna: hey. shauna: good. how are you? lemonis:

lemonis: i'm marcus. charlotte: nice to meet you. lemonis: nice to meet you.rlotte: thanks for coming. skyler: skyler. nice to meet you. lemonis: nice to meet you. and are you the only owner? no. so, i own 90%. charlotte owns 7%, and skyler owns 3%. lemonis: and what are your roles here? charlotte: i'm the creative director. lemonis: so, all of the designs? charlotte: yeah. i oversee all of it and come up with all the ideas. skyler: so, i'm the c.o.o. i also, basically, take on a lot of the c.f.o. responsibilities. so...i've been doing a lot of the... lemonis: that's an interesting crossover. skyler: it is. it is. lemonis: as the finance person, you're the steward of the assets, which includes knowing what's there, how much it is, where it's moving, how to track it. how do you actually do a physical count? matthew: we did count, and it was a little messy 'cause we don't bar code. lemonis: but you need bar coding so you know what the hell you have. skyler: that'd be great. lemonis: can you guys pull the different products you have, so i can just understand... m

-lemonis: i'm marcus. -becky: i'm becky. lemonis: becky, nice to meet you. becky: very nice meeting you. john: marcus, privilege. john brown. lemonis: john, nice to meet you. john: nice to meet you, sir. becky: thank you for coming. lemonis: the smell when you walk in here is awesome. john: it is. that's what everybody says. lemonis: and so, is this whole warehouse -- is all the manufacturing? john: it is. everything is in this 3,500 square feet. lemonis: well, why don't we take a look around? john: please. please. this is our storefront. we have an extremely loyal customer base. people are coming in buying 7, 8, 9, 12 bags of coffee. there's a lot of locals that live maybe 20 miles from here. they don't want to drive the downtown, so we do ship. becky: we're in whole foods and earth fare and fresh market, as well, so they can just pick it up at the grocery store. -lemonis: oh, you are? -john: yes. lemonis: that's nice. who got that account? -becky: the previous owner. -john: previous owner. lemonis: and what will the entire business do? john: we did $840,000

lemonis: how are you? i'm marcus. mary: nice to meet you. lemonis: ...owns the other half. their key employee is louis, the general manager. louis, how are you? nice to meet you. i'm marcus. he understands the process better than anyone. louis: what you need to do is do it multiple times, 'cause you can see the difference, how this is smoother and this is still rough. lemonis: so why doesn't that machine do it all in one? louis: 'cause it's not, like, one of the best planers. lemonis: do they make one that would do it all in one shot? louis: yes. steve: some of the machinery here are 50 years old. lemonis: look, it's obvious to me now that the company isn't the only thing that's three generations old. and if this equipment doesn't work and it's not up to date with the right technology, well, you're wasting a lot of time. what does it cost to get a brand-new one that does it the right way? louis: a really good one, about, say, $3,000. lemonis: if it costs $3,000 to get a new one, how much time extra did he have to take to do it three times? multiply it times the number of fur

-cristina: hi, marcus. -lemonis: your name? cristina: cristina. lemonis: cristina, nice to meet you. -miranda: hi! -lemonis: hi, how are you? -i'm marcus. -miranda: hi, i'm miranda. lemonis: hey, miranda, how are you? -is this your place? -miranda: this is it. lemonis: how long have you been in the business? miranda: 10 years. we started in my house. i had chronically chapped lips my entire life. and so my daughter was born -- she's now 11 -- and while breastfeeding, started using lanolin -- for breastfeeding -- on my lips. lemonis: the nipple gets chapped. okay. miranda: and i'm like, "oh, i'll put it on my lips," and they were healed for the first time in 30 years. lemonis: now, what is lanolin? miranda: lanolin comes from sheep. it's like an oil, like, a protective coating on their fur. lemonis: i think it's especially cool when somebody starts a business that is meant to solve a problem. sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. miranda: this is where we started. that's the lano lip. this is my original formula, and it's got medical-grade

lemonis: how you doing guys? marcus. jack: jack hays. nice to meet you. is: jack, how are you? -jeremy: jeremy felt. jed: jed hays. nice to meet you. lemonis: how are you? father-son? -together: yes. -lemonis: very good. and so, what's the plan here? maybe you guys could give us a summary and we could walk it? jed: yes. those buildings there, that's t.j. maxx. they're gonna open in the next few months. lemonis: let's walk the space. it's a construction site. what are they asking a foot? -jed: $777. lemonis: that's pretty strong. how many square feet? jed: 3,000. lemonis: so, over $230,000 a year? divide that by 12, you're talking about 18 grand a month? a good rule of thumb is that a restaurant's rent shouldn't exceed more than 8% of its total revenue. with an $18,000 rent factor, the restaurant would have to do at least $225,000 a month in sales. standard's current restaurant does about $100,000 a month in sales. if we were to open up a new location like this one, we would have to more than double our business. how many people live within 1 mile, 5 mile,

lemonis: i'm marcus. angela: angela. s: as i walked around and talked to all the employees in the company, there was one thing that was clearly consistent -- everybody hated the look of this place. woman: it's just got to be... woman #2: sharper. woman: ...revamped. lemonis: what should the look be? woman: [ laughs ] not that! not to kill your ankles when you sit down, no. lemonis: and i also got a little more detail on carolyn's ex-business partner. when did you go into business with him? carolyn: 1998 i started with him. lemonis: how many salons does he have? carolyn: he has about 22 now. lemonis: really? carolyn: yeah. lemonis: and there was definitely confusion about roles and responsibilities. so, what do you do here? debbie: i'm actually the manager here, marcus. lemonis: you are? debbie: yes. lemonis: how is that different from susan's job? debbie: um... um...uh... lacey: hi, guys. is susan here? i need to talk to her. debbie: you need susan? let me get her for you. lacey: okay. susan: hi. so you left your salon by

lemonis: let her know marcus is here. woman: okay. lemonis: thank you. i didn't really understand when i walked into pacific, why i was seeing residential furniture. i thought this was a hospitality business. if this is a showroom, i don't think they're showing the right stuff. ana: hi, marcus! lemonis: are you ana? ana: yes. lemonis: how are you? ana: nice to meet you. lemonis: it's really nice to meet you. ana: yes. very nice to meet you. lemonis: how long have you guys been here? ana: we've been in this location about 13 years. lemonis: wow. ana: yes. lemonis: how are you, sir? i'm marcus. how are you, sir? nice to meet you. gilbert: me too. lemonis: how long have you guys been in business? gilbert: 40 years. lemonis: 40 years? and what is your business primarily? is it hospitality? ana: mostly hospitality. we do guest room furniture, public space furniture, as well as restaurant furniture. lemonis: and how much of your business is hospitality? ana: probably like 90%. lemonis: 90%. what's the other 10%? ana: a mix of like retail, as well as residentia

ben: hi, marcus. lemonis: how you doing? i'm marcus. -ben: nice to meet you. ice to meet you. and so, what's your role here? ben: i mainly help manage these guys in here, keep things moving. do a little bit of everything right now. lemonis: and where's your raw materials? ben: raw materials are in the warehouse. we run out to the warehouse, grab the raw materials, bring them in here, and we allow that to dry. and then they return to that room again. lemonis: that sounds kind of... ben: yeah, it's all over the place. that's what i want to change. lemonis: you know what i feel like when i'm in this building? like a mouse looking for his cheese. you start in one room, and you have to visit at least eight of those rooms to finish the product. this place is wildly inefficient. ben: there's not a flow. lemonis: why doesn't your dad want to get it fixed? do you ever talk to him about it? ben: he's kind of just like, you know, stuck in his old ways. it's just how we've been doing it for 20-plus years. lemonis: right. how frustrating is that? ben: it's pretty frustratin

lemonis: are you proud of her? michael: very proud. very proud. marcusng into our business and helping us go to the next level was the single best thing that's ever happened to us at pro-fit. lemonis: michael and tina are gonna make a lot more money with the pro-fit bars than they do with the pro-fit gym, and over the next year, we plan on selling about a million bars, generating $900,000 in revenue and $200,000 in profit. and we're gonna launch a number of new product extensions. tina: oh, my god! michael: good job, honey. you did great. tina: oh, i can't believe this! -michael: [ smooches ] -tina: ah! -michael: well done. -tina: amazing. are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi.? a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. lemonis: i believe in the three pillars in business -- people, process, and product -- and it's been my m

chris: hey, marcus. lemonis: so, the raw materials come in here. who schedules the workflow that happens? chris: i schedule every order that comes through. lemonis: so who's in charge of sales? -mike: me. -lemonis: who generates the actual sale order, the quote? mike: i do. lemonis: and who makes sure that it's priced properly? chris: i created the pricing tool, and mike said, "these prices are too high." mike: i'm trying to be competitive to -- to get sales in the door. lemonis: so you're inefficient, and you're priced below market, which means you have high costs and no margin. death spiral. the guy who's manufacturing the product and knows all the numbers isn't allowed to price the product? we're gonna let the salesman price it? not a good idea. are these organized in a way or would you say it's a little jacked-up right now? chris: it's not too bad. lemonis: it doesn't look super-organized to me. disorganized materials equals loss of time, which equals loss of labor, which means money is leaking out the door. i see boxes everywhere. i see piles o

lemonis: lilian, nice to meet you. lilian: yeah. peter? peter: hi, marcus. i'm peter. lemonis: peter, nice to meet you. i'm marcus. r: yes. lemonis: how are you? hannah: hi. hannah. lemonis: hannah, nice to meet you. taylor: i'm taylor. good to meet you. good to meet you. these are the dogs. this is domino and zeus. lemonis: are these greyhounds? taylor: no, they're actually whippets. max: who's for tea? i'm making some. oh, you're here! hi! taylor: this is max. lemonis: how are you? max: lovely to meet you. lemonis: i was meeting the company mascots. max: oh, yes, our fur babies. lemonis: they normally have this kind of disposition? max: yes, they're very calm. lemonis: do they take on their owner's disposition? max: probably not. [ laughs ] lemonis: okay. max: kathleen, she is working as our sort of interim cfo... lemonis: great. max: ...to help me with numbers. lemonis: this is nice. taylor: it doesn't look like much from the outside. lemonis: but it's pretty inside. taylor: yeah. lemonis: what is -- max: oh, this? this is my mood board and my inspiration board. and it's the kater family. it's kind of murchison-

lemonis: good. i'm marcus. maggie: maggie. nice to meet you. lemonis: maggie, nice to meet you.iara: kiara. yes. lemonis: kiara? lemonis: that's a cool name. kiara: thank you. cambria: cambria. lemonis: how are you? another cool name. everybody has got nice names. are guys all wearing the product? kiara: yes. maggie: we are. we are. kiara: we live in it, so... cambria: i wear it, like, every single day, like, to work out in. it's just -- it's perfect. lemonis: yeah. athleisure is really the new denim. maggie: well, you know, once you go leggings, you don't really go back in your jeans. lemonis: are you trying to hurt my jean business? maggie: no, no, no. i wear them on the weekends. on the weekends, on the weekends, on the weekends. lemonis: do not mess up my jean business. so what exactly do you guys do? maggie: so we make women's activewear -- bras, panties, leggings, stuff like that. we do all the manufacturing and everything in san diego, so it's all made in the usa. i use a contractor... lemonis: oh, you do? maggie: ...but i order all the materials to make it, and they cut

my name is marcus lemonis,

lemonis: makes stuff for whole foods and costco. kenny: marcusred with me your formula and your process, and i love it, and i've had the biscuits. the kids have had them. they think they're great. i've heard rave reviews about the watermelon cake, also. lemonis: i just wanted him to come down and spend some time with you. lynn: okay. that sounds good. lemonis: any time you mass produce a product, you have to make changes not only for the size of the batch, but the amount of shelf life the product will have. kenny: in the restaurant here, are they generally not uniform shape? -lynn: right. -kenny: which is okay. lemonis: well, here's a bag of them. and, see, they're all different. kenny: because, certainly, when we go to commercialization, one of the keys is that it's consistent size, shape, and weight every single time. so they fit in the packages, so the nutritional data matches. i'll walk you through what we did. instead of self-rising, we used all-purpose flour. we find commercially is that everybody's self-rising flour is different. all-purpo

-lemonis: i'm marcus. sasha: i'm sasha. nice to meet you. -lemonis: nice to meet you. -rich: hi, marcus. -i'm richard. how are you? -lemonis: nice to meet you. market square serves gyros, but beyond that, there are few similarities to the other locations. the color scheme and seating are different. even the layout's different. same brand, different experience. not a good idea. how's business? tell me a little bit about it. rich: well, as far as business is concerned, we do about a half a million a year. lemonis: half a million in sales? rich: well, to break even. lemonis: so, how often do you see mike and kathleen? sasha: the first of the month, like clockwork. rich: they're here to get their royalty check. lemonis: do they stay for a day and work on your business and help you? rich: no. we put $175,000 of our own money into it. we just gutted this entire building. lemonis: so, you put in all this equipment, the floors, the ceilings, the whole thing. sasha: everything. lemonis: $175,000's a lot of money to invest without getting support. sasha: yeah. lemonis: after visi

lemonis: i'm marcus. akiko: akiko. lemonis: akiko? that's a cool name. akiko: thank you.what do you do here? akiko: operations. lemonis: operations. and do you do the accounting, as well? akiko: just light accounting. chris: i got to the growth of the company because of her help, and she's been basically -- well, you have been. and she's also, like, afforded me to be able to have the travel time that i need to do with meetings and such. lemonis: how long have you worked together? akiko: 13 years. lemonis: 13? you're really helping run the business. akiko: thank you. chris: i know. lemonis: okay, why don't we sit down, go over the financials. ♪ 2015, total sales -- $900,000. 2016 -- $460,000. 2017 -- $431,000. and last year, the company lost $186,000. what do you think the biggest problem is with the business? so, the total expenses in 2017 are $344,000. your rent is $42,000 a year. $4,000 a year in cellphone. $4,000 a year in landline. $15,000 in marketing or consulting. marketing/pr -- $10,000. product development -- 30 grand. chris: yeah, that was a lot of all that betw