For those that are not aware, there is a new show this year on CNBC Prime called “The Profit.” It stars Marcus Lemonis as a turnaround, profiteering guru that invests in, takes short-term control (often a week or two at the most) to impart changes that should eventually lead to big increases in sales and, of course, profits. I personally think it’s a pretty entertaining show, but not without its drawbacks. Read on for my own pro and con analysis and feel free to contribute with your own thoughts below, whether you agree with me or not.
First up, who is this guy anyways?
Marcus (according to his bio on the site here, and his wikipedia page here), has what looks like a pretty strong career, at least on paper. I haven’t done a ton of research into the roles he played at the companies mentioned, though he has featured his camping stores on the show a handful of times so far. This guy is a self-made multi-millionaire or billionaire depending on which resource you’re consulting so he must be doing something right. He has appeared on Celebrity Apprentice and The Secret Millionaire.
On The Profit’s website, he has a promo video where he mentions he’s a self-proclaimed deal junkie. He says that he will have invested somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.6MM during the taping of their first season. He is “an angel investor who is also an operator.” If the owners aren't willing to get into the details and day-to-day operations of everything, then he’s going to fire you. I would be very curious to see the types of returns this guy makes throughout the seasons similar to the posting I saw on Shark Tank investments. So far the clients have all been some kind of consumer-facing company, which is his strong suit.
Some other Googling also revealed that he’s turned around between 50 and 100 companies in the past decade.
Product, Process and People
These are Marcus’ magical 3 P’s of analyzing and fixing a business. Some might say this is business 101 but I think there is a lot to learn from in this mentality. Those of you in consulting should certainly relate. Many times, investment bankers and PE guys are also in the turnaround game. Can any of you related to the situations he’s gotten involved in during the season? They certainly aren't the flashy business and products you might hope for but the inherent business issues and dilemmas they face are certainly transferable across many industries and types of companies.
This is pretty straight-forward and Marcus often touches on the fundamentals here during the episode when both problems and highlights are identified. If you don’t have a good product, something needs to change. If you don’t have the right people in the right positions, this might be his biggest pet peeve and often either coaches, re positions within the company, or replaces people. Lastly, if your processes are crap, he will upgrade equipment for more efficiency, redesign the order to cash step by step, or modify the personnel at each step of the process. Lastly, he is a big proponent of “first in, last out” mentality when it comes to business owners and entrepreneurs. This touches on the recent post on WSO about working harder v. smarter, but a lot can be said about putting in the time, particularly early in a new business or line of business that can pay dividends down the road.
Gaudy Product Placement
The show is sponsored by Jaguar and while this is usually not something I would care about, they use every excuse to showcase their new F-Type. While it looks like a great car, it does seem a bit overboard at times. Can’t really ignore it if I’m trying to be honest about the review.
In Summary
I think this show is really interesting and hits on a lot of relevant points to potentially reach a broad audience. I think anyone can learn something from the show, and, at minimum, get some entertainment value out of the blow up fight scenes. What do you guys think? If you were a network producer, are you ordering up season two? Word is they've had some poor ratings recently so I'm not sure how long it will last.
I absolutely love this show! Can be very informational at times and a very enjoyable show to watch,
So it's basically ghetto PE?
Haha, that sounds about right. I don't think a lot of people would mind being the owner's of a business after Marcus helps it out.
My friends were talking about this, and they thought that he generously just donated money and helped these business out of the kindness of his heart lol. I didn't even bother correcting them.
Thanks for the reviews; will have to check it out.
OT: There was a show in 1996 called Profit (starring Adrian Pasdar) that I've been watching. Fantastic show, highly recommended.
Yeah he basically just buys out ideas and makes them better, the rich getting richer. The advertising is annoying though, with like the cinematic reel of the driving and shit.
It would be interesting to see the full process here, from business owner(s) submitting an application to have him help, to his selection process, execution of ideas and future follow ups to see how they perform. You have to imagine he puts more than a week's worth of work into any one idea like they show it on tv. I figure, once he knows the candidate, you can spend time analyzing and brainstorming ideas to improve them. Makes for good tv I guess though.
I'd love to have some more current follow up to see how the businesses are doing; especially the floral shop that backed out after he spent all the money. I think he said he was going to put a Mechanics Lien on the building.
Anyways, good show. Hes def talented. I just think a lot of it is over dramatized for TV.
Agreed on the follow ups. Understanding it can take a while for some of the changes he implements to be put in place, it would be cool to see those that made it and whether or not they stuck with his ideas.It's like bar rescue for small businesses.
I love this show so far. He sounds like a pretty smart, astute businessman.
The best was the popcorn company's balance sheet... total clownery
What I don't get is that if he is such a solid operator and actually likes dealing with small business minutia, why he doesn't just roll out a franchise or expand a concept he owns fully geographically. I mean, if you have cash and the operating credentials, a Panera bread territory is a pretty solid way to make cash.
Unless he is in it for the facetime/fame, possible given his stint on Celebrity Apprentice. He is probably adding more value than most other shows (building primarily service businesses is an efficient way to create jobs vs. flipping houses), so I'm fine with that. And for Jaguar, not a bad way to compete with BMW/Benz for "I Made it Cachet". Crazy how many guys there are in their mid-30s with multi-million net worths because they inherited or built service businesses (gas stations, motels, quick serve or fast casual restaurants etc.)
From the episodes I have seen, he wants to scale and/or franchise every business he deals with. His goal is to fix it, grow it, and reap in the cash.
Because existing huge franchises like Panera Bread don't need Lemonis. They are already so huge that they can survive without Lemonis. Also, if there's anything wrong with these huge franchises, it's no easy fix even with Lemonis within a short period of time. Lemonis has chosen the right market to get into because the entry barriers of those businesses are much much lower than Panera Bread.
Just watched the whole first season last night. This is the greatest show ever made!!! I learned an amazing amount watching these 6 episodes. Apparently Season 2 has released its first 2 episodes. The American people are pretty intellectually lazy so I wouldn't be surprised to see this show being very short-lived; however, since it's on CNBC during primetime it's not exactly like CNBC has a great high-rated replacement waiting in the wings.
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