Lemonis . Their beloved company will fall to pieces. Pantelis well get it together. Lemonis when . When are you gonna get it together . My name is marcus lemonis, and i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. Were not gonna wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. Were gonna wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. Its not always pretty. Everythings gonna change. Everything. But i do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. This. Lets go to work. Is the profit. In 2007, Zoe Tsoukatos teamed up with her two brothers to launch zoes chocolates. Zoe thank you for calling zoes chocolate. Lemonis . A Confectionery Company based in waynesboro, pennsylvania. Zoe text pam and ask her if she can cover your monday shift. Lemonis their mission to turn out exquisitely handcrafted chocolates inspired by their greek heritage. Eleni i really like the consistency. Lemonis you could say that chocolate is running through their veins. Their family has been in the chocolate business for over 100 years, including their father, george, a greek immigrant. They brought him onboard as their master chocolatier and quickly gained a small following. Pantelis i just wanted to follow up on that order that you wanted for those clients that are coming in next weekend. Lemonis but 10 years in, sales have dropped sharply and their losses are mounting. Zoe you know what . Yeah, refund his entire order. Pantelis thats ridiculous. Lemonis and zoes fear is that her family legacy may disappear. Zoe [bleep] how are you gonna get all these orders out . Lemonis still, my research tells me that there are amazing possibilities with zoes, and im always looking to grow my candy business. So this potential partnership could be very sweet. Dina welcome to zoes. Lemonis hi, there. How are you . Dina good. Nice to meet you. Lemonis what is your name . Dina dina, dina hunter. Lemonis dina, nice to meet you. Can i try a few things . Dina sure. Lemonis theres baklava, black daphne, hazelnut, sesametahini. Wow. Dina because zoes family is greek, a lot of their pieces feature a mediterranean flavor. Lemonis thats really good. Dina yeah. Lemonis i eat chocolate literally every single day. So i know what good chocolate tastes like, and this chocolate was spectacular. Unusual flavors, amazing texture ive never tasted any chocolate like it. Zoe hi. Lemonis how are you . Im marcus. Zoe nice to meet you. Im zoe. Lemonis nice to meet you. I was just eating your chocolate. Zoe oh, good. And you liked it . Lemonis this ones good. This is the baklava one . Zoe yeah. Lemonis what is this one . Zoe sesame. Its like a tahini. Lemonis that ones good. I dont know what this one was. What was that . Zoe pistachio. Lemonis okay. Ive had one, two, three, four, five already. How many flavors are in the case . Zoe probably 18. Lemonis and how many do you have in your library . Zoe i think there are 18. Lemonis oh, so everything you make is out. Zoe yeah. Lemonis it was surprising to me that the case had all this space in it. Zoe i understand. Lemonis ive been in other Chocolate Stores where theres 60, 70, 80 different options, but in this instance, the offering was so anemic that it felt unimpressive. Who came up with the packaging . Who designed it . Zoe i did with the boys. Lemonis you did. Zoe my brothers, yeah. Lemonis whose idea was this business . Zoe my brother pantelis and i were living together in d. C. Lemonis doing what . Zoe i worked for a state and local Government Consulting firm. Lemonis and what was your brother doing . Zoe he was doing marketing, and dad was working elsewhere manufacturing chocolate for another company. Lemonis here in pennsylvania he was doing it . Zoe yeah. And they wanted to move away from handmaking chocolate. Lemonis did they let him go . Zoe yeah. Lemonis they did. Zoe yeah. My brother and i decided to come back and kind of get him back on his feet. Lemonis you just one day said, we have to go help dad. Zoe kind of, yeah. And 10 years later, here we are. Lemonis so, how much of the business do you own . Zoe were at 35, 35, and then the other ones 30. Just the kids. Lemonis your mom and dad dont any of it . Zoe nope. Lemonis your dad works here . Zoe yep. Lemonis so your entire family lives off this business. Zoe yep. Lemonis can we meet them . Zoe sure can. Lemonis its much bigger back here. So is this the whole family . Zoe pantelis. Lemonis hey, im marcus. Nice to meet you. Eleni im the mom, eleni. Nice to meet you. Lemonis eleni, how are you . Very nice to meet you. How are you . George hello, marcus. Lemonis george, right . George yes. Lemonis nice to meet you. George nice to meet you. Petros how you doing . Petros. Lemonis petros, how are you . Petros nice to meet you, marcus. Lemonis now, youve been in the chocolate business for how many years . George almost 40 years. Lemonis and how long ago did you meet . Eleni 39 years ago. He was in greece. Lemonis oh, you were in greece. Who are these pictures of . Zoe thats my moms parents. Petros yeah, and a little push cart in baltimore. Zoe in baltimore, where they were handrolling chocolates, and my dad came over. He learned the trade. George i love to work for my kids. Lemonis its nice to have your children support you. George oh, yes. I think thats the most important, to love each other. Lemonis this place is it got a lot bigger. Petros yeah, right. Lemonis it goes back even petros it goes back farther, yeah. Lemonis holy. Petros this is the kitchen, where we manufacture everything. Lemonis oh, my gosh. I just want to see the process. Petros so were boiling the cream, and we have our raw chocolate, a little butter. Lemonis can i stir it . Oh, yeah. Petros so this is gonna cool. After it cools, well cut it into squares. Itll go through the enrober and get covered in chocolate. Lemonis in plain chocolate. Petros right. Lemonis why dont you do some basic things like chocolatecovered pretzels and chocolatecovered almonds . Zoe we have a lot of unique products. I mean, you can get the chocolatecovered pretzel anywhere. Lemonis people will pay more for a zoes pretzel because its zoes chocolate, and the chocolate is whats amazing. Shouldnt matter what it goes on. You need more. News flash pennsylvania is the heart of the pretzel business in the united states. You want to use the same resources and the expertise that you have to make products that are more relatable. Everybody loves chocolatecovered pretzels or chocolatecovered anything. Wheres the research and development happening . Thats where those ideas come from. And who leads that research and development . Zoe well, technically. Petros i mean, i think we zoe yeah. Lemonis i kind of knew that answer already. Thats why theres no products. Holy. Petros it keeps going back, yeah. Lemonis even further . Petros yeah, yeah. Lemonis this place is huge. Is this the shipping department for online . Petros for online, right. Everything that gets processed goes through here. Lemonis how much business do you do online in total . Zoe we do about 50,000 to 60,000 online. Lemonis how do you do marketing . Zoe Digital Marketing through facebook ads. Lemonis can you help me understand everybodys role . Pantelis yeah, so i help with the outside sales, finances, as well. Lemonis whos in charge of the business . Petros zoe. Pantelis more so zoe. Lemonis and then what is your role . Petros my role is the kitchen. Lemonis would you say that the entire fronttoback of the building, would you call it organized . Pantelis no. Lemonis what prevents you specifically from organizing things that you see that are unorganized . Do you have to ask zoe if youre allowed to . Pantelis no, its like a snowball, then theres Something Else that needs to be organized, then theres Something Else. Lemonis so its just like, eff it. Im not even gonna start. Pantelis yeah, its kind of like yeah. Lemonis i was trying to put my blinders on to not see all the disorganization and the mess everywhere. What i was focusing on is the infrastructure and the possibilities. It had the capacity to really pump out real volume. Whats the brand identity . Zoe the products good, we buy locally sourced ingredients. Lemonis we have a box. We have a pamphlet. I dont really know what the story is here. Zoe the insert is our flavors. Lemonis what is your real story . Why did you create the brand . Zoe i think the fact that were siblings. Lemonis like, youre siblings. Do i know that . Zoe i do think we have a good story. Lemonis i agree you have a good story. I just dont agree that youve told it yet. You guys put in blood, sweat, and tears to go help dad. Your dads a greek chocolatier. All thats the story behind it. Tell people. Zoe but, i mean, why would i choose one Chocolate Company over another . I mean, you buy it because i like the product that theyre making. Its not family stuff like that. Lemonis i just want to just spend a minute with you out front, zoe, just you and i. Look, its paramount for any good Retail Company to have a story behind it, why it got in business, why it does what it does. But when i look at zoes retail material, their branding, their brochures, theres no mention of any of that. And i can tell that zoes getting uncomfortable with it. But i dont care. Im gonna keep pushing her. Why are you so uncomfortable with telling people how this business came about . Whyd you roll your eyes . Zoe i mean, its just, like, i hate it saying it because its embarrassing for our dad. It has no bearing on what we do. You know, its over, its done, and, i mean, here we are. Lemonis what is obvious to me is how much youve poured into this. Zoe yeah. Lemonis and for me, it isnt just about money, its about what you gave up, moving back here, going through this on a daily basis. It really looks like youve sacrificed everything for this. Zoe but for having been here 10 years, i think its painful to see that we havent gotten to the potential that we know we can be it. You know, were not stable at the age that were at. Lemonis is it tight financially . Like, no cash . Zoe yeah. Lemonis and so how do you keep the doors open . Zoe well, in the summertime, we had to get a line of credit. Lemonis oh, you got a line of credit. Lot of debt on the business . Zoe yeah. I think about 170,000. Lemonis that much . Zoe yeah. For us, its kind of one of those things, like, okay, well, what else could we do at this point . You know, weve been doing this for 10 years. If this doesnt work. Lemonis you feel like its close to failing . Zoe i feel like the last couple years, its just been declining, and i cant figure out why. It just feels like were bleeding somewhere. Sometimes, we wont get paid, or sometimes, one of us will get paid and then well just split it three ways. Lemonis oy. Zoe or we havent paid my dad for a couple months. Lemonis lets dig in to the numbers a little bit. So the revenue was what in 2016 . Pantelis 675,000. Lemonis and in 2015, it was 757,000 . So why the drop . Thats a significant drop. Pantelis we had issues a lot. Like, some distributors kind of dropped us. Zoe whole foods. Lemonis whole foods . Zoe we lost our whole foods. Lemonis how did you lose all these accounts . What happened . Pantelis they didnt want to sell our product. Zoe cause we dont come up with more products. Pantelis yeah, whole foods was like, lets do a candy bar that has walnuts and pecans, because its, like, in, its a fad, but well be like, i dont think so. Lemonis why . Pantelis because we dont like it. We dont think its a good idea sometimes. Petros right. Were gourmet, but we also dont want to be mainstream and do what everyone else is doing. Thats how weve gotten to 18 awesome chocolate pieces. Lemonis in 10 years. Look, i understand why zoe and her brothers want to protect their brand, but theres a point where protecting the brand becomes almost counterproductive. Instead of letting the brand breathe and having people understand it and embrace it, theyre burying it in a hole. And theyre gonna bury the business with it. 82,000 loss in 15. What did you lose last year . Pantelis i think its like 120,000. Lemonis so, how are you guys funding these losses . Pantelis we have an loc. Lemonis a line of credit. Pantelis yeah. Lemonis its how much . Pantelis 90,000. Lemonis okay. What else . Pantelis so another 30,000. Lemonis another line of credit, so two lines of credit . Pantelis yeah. We have our car loan. Its a company car. Lemonis okay. How much is that . Pantelis 30,000. Lemonis how about credit cards . Pantelis 12,000. Lemonis okay. Thats 162,000 in debt. How much cash is in the bank right now, today . Pantelis 60,000. Lemonis 60,000. Pantelis yeah. Lemonis we need to figure out how to generate more revenue. Zoe just need more sales. Lemonis you need more sales. And you need to have a clear story. You need to have a clear brand identity. I dont want to have to Ask Companies who they are before i do business with them. I want them to tell me without me asking. Whats the story . What makes the flavors unique . What are the unique pro i dont know anything. Thats the problem, but the products are really freaking good. And the fact that you guys give and give and give to your parents, it tells me a lot about who you are as people. I want to make an offer. The company today has 60,000 in cash and 162,000 in debt, so my offer is 250,000 for 50 of the business. I want to be equal partners. The money will be used to pay down some of the debt and the rest will go in to organizing the facility, making some retrofits to the retail location, launching the Online Business, doing some product development, and potentially coming up with some new packaging. How does that sound . Pantelis we were gonna ask for 60 . Lemonis so my offer is 250,000 for 50 , and your offer is. Pantelis 40 . Lemonis why . Petros moreso because were a family business, and weve worked so hard, and i know our dad has put in a lot of time and has invested a lot of himself, and i think that would make him happiest. Lemonis okay. Pantelis what do you think . Lemonis 200,000 for 40 . But i have full financial and operational control full, 100 . Zoe question. Lemonis yeah. Zoe so you want to add, like, pretzels and chips and stuff like that. Whatever. Lemonis okay. Zoe how would we talk about it and go for the deciding factor . Lemonis i would decide by myself. 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You are not in charge anymore. And if this is something that youre nervous about, then you shouldnt do the deal. You have to trust that im not gonna put you in harms way. So, my counteroffer is 200,000 for 40 . But i have full financial and operational control. Zoe okay. Were ready. Were ready for it. Pantelis yeah, yeah. Lemonis we have a deal . Zoe we have a deal. Pantelis yeah, we have a deal. Thank you. Zoe thank you. Petros thank you very much. Lemonis i decided to invest 200,000 into the business. Let me be super clear i am 100 in charge. I really believe that the product is good, but not great yet. I believe the Product Offering is too narrow, so we are gonna develop new products, new flavors, new ideas. Were gonna work on our storefront. The Retail Experience for me falls flat. Im not wowed by anything that happens when i walk in the store. So i want to really work on that. Were gonna work on the Online Business and really understand how to manage capacity. This place has a ton of capacity, but we need more volume. And we want to look for new strategic partnerships. So were gonna come up with cool ways to expand the business that isnt just storefronts. The thing i am blown away by is learning what this business really means to the family and the history behind it. And im a little confused on why you guys hide that story because i really believe that people buy from people. It has to mean something that these three young people had the lack of selfishness to make a sacrifice to do things for the people that brought them into this world. That is the reason that i did the deal. George im gonna help my kids. They saved me. [ sniffles ] lemonis yeah. I get it. Zoe, i asked you when i met you, what makes this product different . And you couldnt really tell me. And im telling you as i stand in front of you and i look at you in your face, thats what makes it different. And we have to tell that story. Theres nothing wrong with it. So, were gonna get to work. My job is to help your family figure out how to take your gift and share it with more people. Okay . All right, great job. Pull up the website so i can see everything. How many today . Zoe one. Lemonis