Transcripts For CNBC The Profit 20240713

Lemonis my job is to help this owner appreciate his staff. This isnt gonna go anywhere good. Hayden its not. Lemonis . And rethink his process. If we dont fix this, this business is gonna go nowhere. Im Marcus Lemonis, and i risk my own money to help businesses. I love investing in american businesses. Woman these people are here because they care. Lemonis its not always easy, but i do it to create jobs and i do it to make money. Do we have a deal . Lets rock and roll. This is the profit. So, i received an application from a company in georgia that has a cooler business. Its called polar bear coolers. The overall cooler business has exploded, and particularly the highend cooler business cause people want to invest in something and hold it forever. And the softsided cooler business is a fastgrowing category. Now i love tailgating and i love the outdoors, and so it fits nicely into my portfolio. [ rock music plays ] hayden hello. Lemonis whats that music . Hayden you didnt know what you walked into, did you . Lemonis how you doing . Im marcus. Hayden im hayden. Nice to meet you. Lemonis hayden, how are you . Geoff marcus, geoff gold. Lemonis nice to meet you. Brett im brett. Lemonis how are you . Lemonis whats. Brett thats strud upstairs, playing. Lemonis in the middle of the workday . Okay. All right, let me ill make my way up. Hayden first door on your right. Lemonis sounds like theres somebody playing as if theyre in their garage practicing for a gig tonight, while other people are trying to get their job done. Not exactly a great environment. [ music continues ] hi. How you doing . [ music stops ] how are you . Strud hey, Marcus Lemonis im marcus. Strud im so pleased to meet you. Lemonis what is your name . Strud strud. Lemonis okay. Stephanie stephanie. Lemonis stephanie, nice to meet you. Stephanie this is bobear. Lemonis bobear . Stephanie yes. Lemonis is this the business, or is this a music studio . Strud this is the music studio where we record some music for the business and social media. Lemonis are you the owner . Strud yes. Lemonis okay. And what is your role here . Stephanie i just own him. Lemonis are you his wife or just. Stephanie he calls me his lovelifepartner. Strud lovelifepartner. Stephanie so its a mouthful. Lemonis do you want to get married . Strud im allin. Lemonis oh. Maybe you should formalize that. So, whats the polar bear jingle . Is there a jingle . Strud no. Theres no particular jingle. Lemonis well, just play me something. [ rock music plays ] strud Marcus Lemonis, weve seen your show and it sure is fine lemonis okay. Strud why dont you come on down to georgia meet polar bear, well have a good time lemonis look, i love the fact that strud likes to have fun. If he was upstairs writing jingles or commercials or doing videos things that actually drove the business forward i wouldnt care. And im wondering if thats the reason that im actually here cause he cant focus. Strud were the pioneers of the soft performance cooler, okay . 20 years, ive been doing that. Right now we are super stressed. I mean, theres been a lot of hard times. Lemonis what are you stressed about . Strud last year was 2. 5 million, but within 2017, we were 3. 5 million. Lemonis whoa strud so weve gone down 1 million in two years, marcus. Thats the problem. Lemonis the fact that he lost over 30 in revenue from 17 to 18 is a really big deal. Where is the product . Why dont we go look at the product . Strud lets go do that. Lemonis so, is this the full assortment . Strud yeah. This is the h2o, the waterproof line. So, the difference in these two models, marcus, is this is closedcell foam, like the foam in your life vest. Its squishy. Its waterproof. Lemonis okay. Strud and this is opencell foam, like the foam in your couch. It sucks water up like a sponge. Lemonis in order for a company to be successful, it needs to be able to tell its story quickly and cleanly. Instead, hes starting to go into all these technical terms, like closedcell foam or opencell foam. All i essentially want to know is, how long do things stay cold, how much does it cost, and does it do what i need it to do . Strud okay. So, you have a rubber base bottom here. And then its piping all over. You have a daisy chain here. Yeah, this tarpaulin material is really nice. Lemonis iii dont know what any of that means, and i dont think the customer does, either. Ill be honest with you. The construction of it and the details the quality looks good. So, what size is this . Strud this is the 48pack. Lemonis cost and retail . Strud this one is around 75 to make. Lemonis and retail . Strud 220. Thats the biggest size we have. A 24pack right here. Lemonis okay. Strud 12pack here. 6pack right here. This is our least seller. Lemonis this looks like im going to lunch, like a little kid. So why do you still have this, then, if this is the least seller . Strud we sell enough of them. Lemonis how many . Strud 5,000 a year. Lemonis and how many of the other one . Strud roughly 35,000, 40,000. Lemonis okay. As i look at all the coolers, it was a bit overwhelming. And im wondering if the 80 20 rule doesnt apply here, which is that 80 of the revenue comes from 20 of the skus. Lets go to the warehouse. Wow. So, what are these . Strud 6packs. Lemonis how do you know . Strud because i can look at this and tell theres too many 6packs here. Lemonis when i walk around this warehouse, it looks. Chaotic, it looks disorganized. Theres no rhyme or reason to where things are. What is all this . Strud this is the return bin. Lemonis it doesnt look right. What i thought i would see, to be honest, is i thought it would see some sort of racking. Strud i mean, i can walk in here and get a visual of where everything is. Lemonis so how many 48 blacks are out here right now . Strud um. Well, lets go look at them. Lemonis no, no. You said you could do it from here. Strud well, i need to look at them. I need to look. Youll see where they are. Lemonis in order to improve the profitability of the business, understanding your inventory, managing it properly, knowing what you have at the right time at the right price is quintessential to maximizing your margin. Whats here . Geoff 7,000 coolers. Lemonis and how do you know if you have the right amount of a particular sku . Geoff cause i track the inventory, and then we do physical counts periodically. Lemonis and how much in total dollars is in inventory here . Geoff right now, i dont know off the top of my head. Its on my sheet. Lemonis what are the top skus you sell . Geoff the 12pack black. Lemonis how many do you have in stock right now . Strud honestly, i do not know how many black 12packs we have in stock right now. Lemonis how many do you have . Geoff zero. Lemonis you dont think thats a thing you should know . Geoff we dont have the funding to stock what we need at this moment. Strud whatd you do . You didnt piss him off, did you . Yeah, tell him about that. Why do we have so many 6packs . Geoff these will be gone in about a month. Strud thats too long. I agree with you. Lemonis well, dont agree with me, and dont pick on him. Heres the funding. Here you go. Heres some money. Essentially, theyve piled up a bunch of cash in their warehouse in different areas and dont know what they have. And anytime a company does this, it essentially puts themselves out of business, and they dont even realize it. This inventory thats sitting around needs to be, first, organized, and second, if theres too much of something, it needs to be liquidated. If theres too little of something, it needs to be ordered. You think your [bleep] looks together . Strud for my knowledge, i know whats here. Lemonis okay. So, i want to hear from your sister. Brett you were doing just fine, just fine. Everything was going great. You were making lots of money. But then somebody quit manning the store and quit coming up with fresh ideas. You didnt do any marketing. You didnt do any advertising. You didnt do any social media. The times changed, and polar bear didnt change with the times. Strud i honestly didnt know where else to go, so i diversified. I bought some land in buena vista, colorado, and we got a boxcar and we put it in the town. And we turned that into an airbnb rental. The only thing else you have to do is sell it. One, two, three done. I see that vision very well. So it should have already been bringing back money, but it cost too much. Lemonis how much money did you put in the land . Strud 220,000. Lemonis and how much did you pay for the boxcar . Strud 75 grand. Lemonis so now thats almost 300 grand . Strud yes. Lemonis unfortunately, strud thought it was a good idea to strip the company of all of its working capital and not be prepared for a downturn. I feel like i need to understand more about what really happened here not just with struds lack of focus, but whats the real story about how the people that work here that are part of this business really feel . So, how long have you worked there . Hayden itll be five years in september. Lemonis oh, wow. And whats your biggest criticism of how the companys run . Hayden theres zero process for strud, as far as this is how we do things. And me and strud recently had a blowup. It was kind of a long time coming. And multiple salary cuts. My salary was cut 55 overnight. Lemonis excuse me . Hayden yeah. In the past two years, too, ive been in a tailspin from this because, like, i bought a house. Lemonis howd you pay your mortgage . Hayden i had to file bankruptcy. It was a whole thing. Lemonis does he know that . Hayden yeah. House gone. I live in my dads basement right now. Lemonis i understand that businesses go through tough times and pay rates have to be adjusted, but its the way and the context that you communicate to that team member why its happening and how its gonna happen. I dont know how im gonna get strud to see that unless i just put it right in front of his face. Strud, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the way you treat people . Strud 7. Geoff in the beginnibeginning, it was much nicer. Things got a little more intense as we were growing. 2009, we had a meeting, and he proceeds to go on the board and drew a line, like, this is what everybody makes. This is how much geoff makes. This is how much, you know. Lemonis in front of everybody . Geoff in front of everybody. And that meeting is where you said, no. Im up here. Youre down here. Lemonis i cant think back to a time where this quickly, im hearing about how distraught people are. There is a definite problem between the owner of this business and everybody else that works here. Were you hurt by it . Geoff absolutely. And he cut my pay cause he thought i was making too much money. Lemonis how much did he cut your pay by . Geoff 10 grand. Lemonis and how many years did that last . Geoff well, we got to a different arrangement about six months later. But the damage was already done in my life, so. Strud hold on. How was damage done to your life . Geoff personal stuff. Strud okay. Personal stuff. Geoff when your house is worth nothing and your pay is cut by 10 grand, it changes your life. Lemonis i dont know how you actually fix this business without totally revamping the way strud thinks. And im not sure its possible. Coming up. From 16 to 17 to 18, its drop, drop, drop, drop. Strud okay, so lemonis why . Its really im telling you, this is gonna determine whether i move forward. If youre looking to take your business to the next level, log on to theprofitcasting. Com. Geoff when your house is worth nothing black friday week at sprint is speaking of magic,ime. I turned my iphone 6s into the new iphone 11. Its true, trade in an iphone 6s or newer in any condition and youll get the powerful new iphone 11 for just 0 a month when you switch to sprint. Yeah, an iphone 6s for an iphone 11. Or trade in your beloved iphone 7, trusty iphone 8, amazing iphone x. Take them all to 11. See, i told you, magic. [airport pa]all flights have been delayed. Tmobile makes the holidays easier. Like this. Because right now when you buy one of the latest samsung phones you get one free. On that. So you can post this. Score this. Be there like this. And share all of this. With that. So do this, on that, with us. Now, buy a Samsung Galaxy s10 or note 10 and get one free. And your pay is cut by 10 grand, it changes your life. Strud i wish we had talked about it more. Lemonis when you own a business, you have to read peoples minds, and you have to think about their feelings more than your own. With geoff, i appreciated his level of humility and openness so early on after just meeting me. I feel like i know enough about their product and their process kind of their people. And i want to start to dig into the financials to really understand how the inner workings are made up. Lets go to last year. 2018, Company Generated 2. 6 million in revenue. The company lost 35,000. Strud well, hold on. Lost 35,000 . Lemonis did you know that . No, no, dont point at him. Geoff thats because of the train car stuff is in there. Owners discretionary spend. Lemonis i cant believe hes surprised that this move that he made to pull all the working capital out of the business really hurt the company. But with strud, i think its pretty consistent with his lack of focus and his lack of selfawareness. 2017, the company did 3. 2 million in revenue and made 16,000. Strud wait. We made only 16,000 . Geoff because of lots of owners discretionary spending. Lemonis 2016. 3. 5 million in revenue. Made 88 grand. So from 16 to 17 to 18, its drop, drop, drop, drop. Strud okay, so lemonis why . And you cant blame anybody. Strud okay. Um. Lemonis its really im telling you, this is gonna determine whether i move forward. If you answer wrong, im leaving. Strud its 100 bad decisions made on my part, marcus. Lemonis thats it. Thats the answer. The fact that strud was able to answer the question correctly showed me that he is aware of his own liability, which gives me a little bit of hope. When you took a disproportionate amount of money out of the business, you took the companys ability to make the rightsize buy at the right price, and so you actually crushed the margin because you made them order in smaller batches. You take the working capital out of a business and they cant buy the right inventory, invest in product innovation, invest in marketing, then theres a reason that the business is down. You took the blood out of the body. Can we look at the Balance Sheet real quick . Lets just look at the current one. 422,000 in assets. On the liability side, 124,000 in payables. So the business is relatively clean in terms of its Balance Sheet, right . Is that a fair statement . Strud mmhmm. Lemonis so, normally, when im doing a traditional equity investment, i would write a check. My worry is how he would actually manage the money. I almost need to keep him. On a tight leash. This business only needs, financially, the ability to ramp up its inventory as sales ramp up. Heres what im willing to do. I dont have an interest in owning the business. Its your thing. You founded it. Am willing to set up a line of credit for the business. If the goal is to get back to 3 million. Strud yes. Lemonis youll need a 540,000 line of credit. You earn into the line of credit as the sales grow. Im gonna provide them with a revolving line of credit that allows them to borrow money from the line, build inventory up, and as the inventory sells back down, take the profits from that and pay down the line. Over and over again, theyll continue to pull on the line and pay it back, pull on the line and pay it back. And retained earnings over time will replace the need for the revolver. Ill have the Interest Rate be 5 . Strud thats good. Lemonis but i want 25 equity for doing it. Strud so, i need a good plan for how its going to happen. Lemonis what the Company Really needs i think it needs an attention to inventory, a Clear Digital strategy directtoconsumer. I think it needs the people that are in the Business Today to see a financial path for them to make more money as the company grows. Strud yeah. Marcus, i am so appreciative that youve come here, and i would be honored to be a partner with you. Lemonis okay. Lets rock and roll. Hayden yeah strud all right, buddy. Lemonis polar bear had a giant drop in sales, and their business is largely directtoconsumer, which means its through the website. And the fact that strud hasnt addressed this before is not only concerning, but im not gonna wait any longer. Strud hey. Whats your name . Keran keran. Strud im strud. Lemonis and so i set up a meeting with a solid Marketing Company in atlanta because i want to get objective thirdparty feedback on what they think about the website. And im curious to see how strud reacts to it. Cargill so, as you can see, there is no way to purchase anything from this page. Youre telling them about this bulletproof liner, but youre not really telling them why they should buy this. Lemonis whats that angry dog doing . Strud hold on. Thats not an angry dog. Thats bretts dog. He said he cant bite through the liner. Cargill what is the benefit . Does it keep the drinks colder longer . What does it do . Strud it doesnt leak. Cargill okay. Strud it says leak proof. Lemonis where does it say that . Strud the stamp thats on there leak proof. Polar bear leak proof. Keran that stamp that says leak proof. Cargill [ laughing ] you cant read that strud i mean, if you read through it, itll tell you more. Cargill no one reads through here. Lemonis who put this website together . Hayden no one reads it. Keran youre doing the customer a disservice by not leading them to a sale that could help them. Strud but my point that im trying to make is, we have a tough liner. Lemonis the website that strud has for his business is almost representative of him no focus, no selfawareness of what the consumers or anybody else that has any expertise is saying. And hes justifying it because hes, like, justifying his behavior. Who is the profile customer . Strud okay. Lemonis not i think and i hope and i want. What is it exactly . Strud for which product . Because we have nylons and then we have the ecline and then we have mossy oak coolers. Obviously, the mossy oak coolers would be targeted and marketed towards hunting people. Groomsmen were one of the demographics we were after. Lemonis wait, wait. What . Strud for groomsmen, yeah. Keran does the data tell you that thats who your customer is . Strud this is the data that just gathered just we dont have, um. Lemonis did strud just say that groomsmen is the right target for this business . Lets start to identify, who are the most likely people to buy these products . Im looking for things like outdoor enthusiasts, tailgaters, soccer moms people that actually need the product. Brett i tend to think that there should be something for a female in here. Lemonis like, how could this work for your family . What about taking this with the kids . Keran okay. Cool. Geoff a lot of people are uploading collegiate logos. I think theres a market there for the cold collegiate world. Lemonis and so understanding, what are the top colors and what are the top teams . And so theres a lot of research that can be done with color combinations. So, you have my permission to start over and make a new site. Keran okay. Lemonis when lyfe rebuilds the site, hayden, i want you to take the lyfe marketing relationship. I felt like the meeting was great. Lyfe marketings gonna work with hayden on building something that speaks to the features and the benefits, and then its ready to go in a couple of weeks. Thank you. Cargill thank you. Brett nice to meet you. Keran yeah. Geoff how are you . Lemonis whats happening . Geoff just living it. Lemonis whats up, my man . Strud hey lemonis so, what is all this . Strud this is direct sales to consumer online, okay . Lemonis look, weve commissioned to start a new website, but the one thing that we need more than anything is the Historical Data from the old website who bought what and when and why so we understand exactly how and when it dropped off. In 2016, the Online Business was 60 of your business. 18 amazon, 42 website. Then it went to 38 website, down 4 . And the amazon went down 3 . Hayden you know what happened that year . Thats the year that i no longer started handling the website. Strud if that was the case, you should have come to me, go, hold on, man. Were losing our asses here because you guys dont have me at the helm. Hayden weve had that conversion. Strud i dont think we have enough. You should have been fighting for that with me. Hayden i did. Lemonis as far as im concerned, strud either stops the blame game or im out of here. Strud if i saw hayden turn sales around ever once. Hayden ever once . Strud no, i mean yeah, no. We dont know. Hayden why do you pay me . Lemonis coming up. Strud we need to know the details to have this conversation. Hayden cut my pay 40 overnight. Strud then you blew up. Hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on now we have an issue. For a limited time, get a outb4course meal your holidays even better starting at 15. 99. Treat yourself to the perfect gift today, because the aussie 4course wont last long and now, get a 10 gift with every 50 in gift cards. Great riches will find you when Liberty Mutual customizes your Car Insurance, so you only pay for what you need. Wow. Thanks, zoltar. How can i ever repay you . Maybe you could free zoltar . Thanks, lady. Taxi only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Here, it all starts withello hi . How can i help . A data plan for everyone. Everyone . Everyone. Lets send to everyone wifi up there . Uhh. Sure, why not . Howd he get out . a camera might figure it out. That was easy glad i could help. At xfinity, were here to make life simple. Easy. Awesome. So come ask, shop, discover at your local xfinity store today. Hayden why do you pay me . Strud huh . Hayden why are you paying me if i never made you money . Strud well, because ive had a lot of belief that you would. But you also have to show me how thats happening. You need to put it on paper for me and go, heres what i did. Hayden we did that. Thats why my pay went up. Strud either i made a huge mistake or you made a huge mistake by not making that clear to me. Lemonis in communicating with a very creative eccentrictype person, you have to curate your message in a way that they could understand it. If you dont feel like youre getting it across one way, you got to try a different way. It does take two sides of the table to make sure that theres clear communication. I blame it on both parties. Hes never going to adjust his digesting information for you. Youre gonna have to adjust your communicating to fit him. Strud thank you. Lemonis dont be all cocky about it. Strud im not. Lemonis my bigger concern in this moment is that i dont like the fact that hes blaming all the issues on other people. What strud doesnt understand about appreciating his employees is listening to them. Lets get everybody together. Come on over, guys. Ultimately, we want to organize our assets. We want to know what our top sellers are. We want to get rid of all the skus that you have way too much of and get our cash out of them. Polar bear is in real need of working capital, and the only way to really do that is to take this dead inventory all of it and turn it into cash. What i would like you to do is work with me on coming up with a plan for the warehouse. Hayden i like it. Lemonis all right. Geoff, if you could start thinking about daily reporting so that everybody thats here knows what we have coming in, what we have going out, what we have in stock, so we can have some sort of dashboard to understand where our capital is. Id like to have an inventory grid on that wall. Geoff i could put it up, yeah. Lemonis all right. Lets go get it done. Where were gonna start with is, were gonna create a giant pile in the middle of everything that we dont want to carry anymore. Hayden okay. Strud oh, man. Lemonis lets just get to work. Strud that backpack is you, my friend. Lemonis here we go. Strud we got marcus. What do we need with a pallet jack . Lemonis all right. So this has to go. The goal is for this business to reboot itself by going back to the Core Products the best sizes and the best colors. And anything that looks like its been sitting awhile or its the wrong size or the wrong color, i want them to shed themselves of that, get that cash, and reinvest in the core product. Hayden what youre looking at right here is 6pack navy blue. Lemonis how many do we have . How many have we sold . Hayden right now, we have 289. This time period last year, we sold 95. Lemonis the amount of inventory that a company should have should be based on historical sales factored in with how long it takes to replenish that inventory. So if i can get product in 30 days, then i only need a 30day supply. If it takes me four months to get the product from china, then i need a 120day supply. Who can take the lead on finding a company that can come in and put a racking system in . Theyre not expensive. Hayden i can do them. Lemonis okay. Thats on you. Youre gonna get your job board up and get the daily dashboard done. You guys got seven days just to try to get more than cost for everything. All right . Lets go. Hayden two levels, and then you can also stack on top. Lemonis while hayden works on the two tasks that i gave him, which is setting up the shelves for the warehouse and working on the new website with the Marketing Company, strud and the rest of the team have been tasked with selling off the excess inventory. Strud all right, so, im gonna chip away at that stuff. Ill go sell that. Let me do that. Lemonis and with the cash they generate from selling that inventory, theyll have the working capital to order the right inventory for the next 90 days. [ guitar music plays ] strud there you go. Brett uhoh. [ laughs ] strud ohlalalalala lemonis okay, i need some cooler stuff. Today, were on ocean drive in south beach. So, i want to take the products and get some feedback from people. Strud great idea. Lemonis want to do that . I wanted to bring the Polar Bear Team somewhere different out of atlanta because i think one of the reasons that sales are down is that strud struggles with the ability to tell his story, why people should even have the product. The best way to perfect that skill is to do it oneonone facetoface with somebody. Strud this is closedcell foam. Thats opencell foam. This is the foam like in your life vest. This is like the foam in your couch. Lemonis hes drawing a parallel between foam in a couch or in a bed or i strud the difference in this and this is this is a closedcell foam, this is opencell foam. Lemonis keep it simple. Heres the cooler. Whats it gonna do for me . So, a couple things. Strud yeah. Lemonis we want to think about this road to the sale with reasons that people will say yes. Dont you love coolers . Strud yes. Lemonis and when you go to the beach, isnt it totally frustrating when, like, two hours in, your drinks are warm . Strud yes. I got to learn this. Lemonis yes, yes, yes. Strud all right, hang on. Let me just get my mind with you here. Lemonis yes. Just get me to yes. Strud isnt it great to have cold drinks on the beach . Lemonis yes. Strud wouldnt you like to have a way to keep your drinks cold on the beach every time you go . Lemonis yes. Strud i want to show you this cooler. Lemonis okay, great. Strud okay. So, its got closedcell foam. Lemonis i dont know what that means. So, what i would consider doing is dropping words that people dont know. Strud closedcell foam. Lemonis people dont know what that is, and then you have to explain it, and then theyre not saying yes or anything. People know insulation. Strud yeah. Lemonis what is the most popular thing here . Hayden that 12pack silver sells more skus that anything else. Lemonis so would you say that this is an insulation sensation . Hayden ooh strud yes. Yes, i would. I like that lemonis if you keep saying that, insulation sensation, youll never say the word foam again. Strud youre so right. Lemonis say foam sensation. Strud i cant do it. Lemonis just try it. Strud [ speaks gibberish ] you just cant even do it. Its got to be insulation. Lemonis so, lets go test the insulation sensation. Strud i love it lemonis okay. Strud ohh the waters calling, marcus. Brett you lost him. You had him. You lost him. Lemonis what i actually want to do now is see how the product does in or on the water. So, guys, whats a feature of this cooler that we just hayden floats fully loaded. Lemonis floats fully loaded. So insulation. Strud flotation device. Lemonis what are the other things that people are gonna want to see to check the box . Strud keeps cold for very long periods of time. Lemonis duration. Strud duration god dang it thats good. Lemonis how about we just change our whole Marketing Campaign to just three basic things that a customer actually cares about when buying a cooler . Insulations important. Flotations important. Durations important. So, heres what i want you guys to do short videos. But i want to see the product in action. I want to see the insulation. I want to see the flotation. I want to see the duration. Be yourself. Strud okay. Hayden filming right now. Strud come on bring it 48hour duration insulation. Polar bear coolers keep it cool. [bleep] do it again. Hayden that was perfect, actually. Strud no, its not right. I could pay the same amount for someone to do it for the first time right. Lemonis suddenly, things take a bizarre turn. Strud when the pay gets cut for business reasons, we can talk about that, but if you bring that on me, im going to respond to that. Lemonis this little discussion around a social media post starts dredging up all the things from the past. Now the trains off the tracks bigtime. Hayden cut my pay 40 overnight. Strud hold on. We need to know the details to have this conversion. Hayden i know the details. Strud you chose to not continue to work with me every day to grow it. Hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on we had a serious conflict on things that i needed you to work with me on to grow the company. Lemonis i have to tell you, im now starting to get hot, because ive stressed to strud the importance of learning how to appreciate his people, how to speak to them with respect, and how to listen to them. If he doesnt change, this business wont grow. Strud now we have an issue. Lemonis coming up. Should we all just go home . Strud no. Lemonis why not . Youre doing it all. Strud im doing it all now. Lemonis but, see, thats the problem. You have full control of it. And so everybody that works here feels underappreciated. vo thewith every attempt, strto free itself,piders web. It only becomes more entangled. Unaware that an exhilarating escape is just within reach. Defy the laws of human nature. At the season of audi sales event. Walkabout wednesdays are back get a sirloin or chicken on the barbie, fries, and a draft beer or cocacola all for just 10. 99. Hurry in wednesdays are for outback. Outback steakhouse. Aussie rules. At Bass Pro Shops and cabelas im wishin for deals so good theyd make santa jealous. I want the kids faces to light up when the big gift comes out. Can i just say, i want it all . male announcer hurry in for the seasons lowest prices on great gear throughout the store. Like fleece for the whole family for only 10. 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And just when you think it couldnt get any better, they bring you out another taco. Cuz they made an extra one. Extra taco geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Struto work with me ons conflict on thto grow the company. Ed you now we have an issue of something we have to figure out still. Okay . Then you blew up. Hayden do you want to understand why i made that decision . Strud not yet. Lemonis just cause i feel like this isnt gonna go anywhere good. Hayden its not. Lemonis . Maybe you and i can go talk. Strud let me grab a shirt, if you dont mind. Lemonis i dont know who started it with who or how it all exploded, but all of a sudden, were dredging up all these things from the past in the middle of south beach. What gets you so amped up . Strud theres so much that has to be done in such little time. I dont really have time to explain every part. Lemonis once and for all, lets close that loop. How about if you dont ever bring up the past again and you say to him, you know what . Do you think it would be a good idea if we figured out how to kick ass Going Forward . Strud absolutely hes gonna say yes. I can ask him. Lemonis go ask him. Strud come here, hayden. Hayden whats up, buddy . Strud get in here, man hayden let me on in. Strud [ laughs ] hey. Do you think it would be a good idea if you and i just bury the hatchet and move forward and make this company rock . Hayden absolutely. You know it. Strud lets do it, man. Hayden im on it. Lemonis im cautiously optimistic that this conversation has a small chance of them actually burying the hatchet. Ill reserve some judgement for later. Appreciation thats the word that you need to learn more than anything. Strud okay. [ laughs ] lemonis okay . Strud thanks, buddy. Lemonis ill see you later. Strud all right. Thanks, marcus. Lemonis the warehouse looks exactly the same. To say that im pissed would be an understatement. Now it feels like youre just waiting for me to do the work, and ive been down that road too many times. It kind of all looks that same. Strud are you frustrated . Lemonis im more disappointed. Strud are you . That the shelves wouldnt already been in here . Lemonis no. It just doesnt feel any different in here. The job boards not up. Strud no, it is. Its around the corner. Geoff thought it would be better because thats where its all read from, over there. Lemonis yeah. Im starting to get annoyed by the fact that hes not listening to me. And we can have this debate all day long and all night long, and no matter how many excuses you give me, youre not gonna change my mind. What has everybody here been doing . Just hanging out . Strud no. Geoff handles the things he handles. Hayden handles the things he lemonis describe those for me. Strud hayden answers the phones and does customer service, oversees amazon and the facebook and social media. Lemonis so the advertising . Strud no. Social media. Hayden every bit of advertising has to be generathere. Lemonis im frustrated right now because i specifically asked hayden to work on this. If you dont allow your team members to do their job, theyre gonna resign themselves to the fact that theyre just there. Theyre gonna let you do it. And guess whats gonna get done. Nothing. Should we all just go home . Strud no. We dont want everyone to go home. Lemonis why not . Youre doing it all. Strud im doing it all now. Lemonis but, see, thats the problem. You have full control of it. And so everybody that works here feels underappreciated. And it isnt just about their pay. My journey with strud has been confusing, to say the least. Hey, strud, maybe you and stephanie and i can chat . Strud yeah. Lemonis i thought it would be a good idea to sit with his girlfriend lovelifepartner, stephanie, to see if could get a little bit of insight into how strud is wired. That was a lot, so im gonna act like it didnt happen. Strud no, no. I want to fix things, marcus. I dont know what it is when im doing it. And, like, i dont know if someone would say, there. You just did it. Lemonis ill do it right now. Strud okay. Lemonis you dont appreciate people. Strud i do appreciate people bigtime. I do. Lemonis ill say it differently. People dont think you appreciate them. Strud there you go. But i do. Stephanie thats the one thing he needs to change about himself his tone and the way he comes across to people. Strud has neanderthal dna. Its always just whatever strud needs to happen is the goal. And its almost like hell either push you out of the way or push you to get what he needs out of you to get to the next point. Thats how it feels all the time. Strud you can say im not considerate, but i wouldnt give up on anyone nobody, okay . Thats appreciation because i appreciate the people in my life. Lemonis they may not see it that way. Strud they dont, but some of the angles that youre going on im telling you, theyre just not right on. Stephanie were here trying to help you. Lemonis if we dont fix this, this business is gonna go nowhere. Strud wow. Lemonis for exclusives, extras, and business advice, visit theprofit. Cnbc. Com. Oh, come on. Flo dont worry. Youre covered. dramatic music and youre saving money, because you bundled home and auto. Sarah, get in the house. Were all here for you. All all day, all night. dramatic music great job speaking calmly and clearly everyone. Thats how you put a customer at ease. Hey, did anyone else hear weird voices while they were in the corn . No. No. Me either. Whispering voice jamie. What . When i think of what my imagination looks like. I mean, wow. [laughs] the surface is a tool that helps me realize beautiful ideas. Walkabout wednesdays are back get a sirloin or chicken on the barbie, fries, and a draft beer or cocacola all for just 10. 99. Hurry in wednesdays are for outback. Outback steakhouse. Aussie rules. May your holidays glow bright for outback. And all your dreams take flight. Lease the c 300 sedan for just 399 a month at the mercedesbenz winter event. Hurry in today. Fine, no one leaves the tablefine, well sleep here. Its the easiest because its the cheesiest. Kraft. For the win win. Lemonis if we dont fix this, this business is gonna go nowhere. Strud wow. Mm. I mean, its just doordie. Thats how i feel every day. And i dont know how to fix that. Stephanie you can be really pushy about things, and nobody wants to be pushed around when theyre trying to help somebody. Strud let me say something. I do appreciate you. You are on my side no matter what, and every time i step on that ice in a vulnerable state, youre there. Lemonis well, i would encourage you to look at every single person, whether its me or them or whoever, with that level of sincerity and earnestness that you have with your soontobe bride. Strud yeah. Lemonis you like that how i got that in there . Strud im in training. Stephanie its got a ring to it. Strud its got a what to it . Stephanie no pun intended. Lemonis its got a ring. Strud [bleep] you guys dangerous. Lemonis i think Going Forward, if the rest of the team knew sincerely that you appreciate them, it builds tolerance. Appreciation goes up. Tolerance goes up. Noise stops. His selfawareness meter is broken. Strud just needs to start to realize how much he needs everybody. Strud let me say something. Hayden, youre important to me. I mean, in the beginning, we had so much fun, man. I just hit it off with you, and i was like, man, there was something there, you know . It felt like you were my brother, you know . Brett she understands me in ways that no one else ever will. Its just nice to have. [ voice breaking ] in my life. Brett [ chuckles ] strud geoff has been there, man. Its important to me that youve stuck through. Im so proud of you and us. Geoff mmhmm. Thank you. Lemonis tada you know what, bud . Its these kind of discussions that reinforce for people why they stick with you appreciation. Strud [ sighing ] yeah. Youre the profit, but you know what . You may be the savior, marcus. Brett [ chuckles ] strud youre a special guy, man. Lemonis wheres the racking . Hayden racking is being installed on wednesday. Were doing 4feetdeep racks, but in the middle, you double them up so we can put our biggest skus so we can access from both sides and push through. Lemonis its only 11 grand. Hayden isnt that amazing . Lemonis okay, great. Brett yay strud yay brett progress lemonis now that strud is finally appreciating his staff, things are falling in place. Strud weve sold all the coolers, marcus. Lemonis come on. Strud yeah, no. Were not [bleep] around, my friend. We sold them all in nine days. Lemonis all of them . Strud all of them. Hayden and geoff killed it. Lemonis i am totally blown away by what they were able to accomplish. They ended up getting rid of 1,500 of them all the coolers that were on the truck and generated 67,000 of cash that was locked up in inventory that couldnt be redeployed into the right inventory. The warehouse rackings being put in. [ indistinct talking ] the inventory is finally being organized. And with the laserfocus on improving the website and expanding the social media footprint, well, thats gonna bring a whole new set of customers. Hayden were gonna have big Shopping Options right here. So this is the deluxe 3day insulation sensation. Strud thats a great graphic. I like the image, i like the size, i like the flow. I think its killer. Excellent. Good job, man. Geoff okay. Ready . Lemonis a few weeks ago, strud and i were down in miami and i tried to just give him a chance to see how his sales ability would be. He didnt do well in miami, so im gonna give him one more shot to prove that he understands how to work with his teammates and how to properly promote the product and the company. Strud so, lets open her up, lets get some coolers out. Get in here now come on Team Polar Bear. One, two, three. Go, Team Polar Bear hey, hey, hey, man you guys got the tailgate going. Got some food, got some cooking. Man thats right. Strud do you ever want to keep your drinks cold all day long . Man 2 yes strud do you ever want to be handsfree with your cooler on your back . [ cheering ] lemonis whats up, guys . How are you . Strud will you guys check us out . Polar bear coolers . Man yeah, absolutely. Strud all right, keep it cool. [ laughter ] lemonis hows it going . Strud how you doing, buddy . Lemonis you having fun . Strud im having a great time. Lemonis how you doing, dear . Stephanie hi, marcus. Lemonis good to see you. Stephanie great to see you. Lemonis how about with the team . Hows that working . Everybodys loving you today . Strud everybodys loving it. Lemonis nobodys frustrated . Strud no such thing at a football game, man. Doesnt happen. [ people cheering ] lemonis you think these people want to hear you sing . Strud are you ready for a cool relation with the brand thats rockin the nation . Guaranteed to make you smile gonna help you keep it cool for a while [ cheering ] do you want to keep things cold . Geoff whod like to test out a cooler . Stephanie this is a badass cooler. Lemonis they were working as a team. Everybody was pitching in. Everybody was out there hustling, talking to customers. And strud wasnt doing anything other than what i wanted him to be doing, which is letting his big, bright personality shine. Strud insulation sensation. Howd you like to be handsfree . Yeah get in there. One, two, three cha man the insulation sensation man 2 its an insulation sensation [ cheering ] stephanie all right. Thanks, yall. Keep it cool strud hut lemonis so, when all the stuff went up on the shelves, what did you notice you were out of . Strud were gonna need a lot of orange and blue coolers. [ laughter ] lemonis now that ive seen them with customers and their pitch a lot more refined, i want to understand how much inventory they have, what day supply that they have, what they want to order, and how much its gonna be. And if i like what i hear, then im going to give them the necessary additional working capital to buy new inventory to grow their business even more. Stephanie [ chanting ] lets go, polar bear put your beer inside of there [ cheering ] lemonis coming up. Strud im feeling lucky, man. You know what happens when i feel lucky . Lemonis i dont want to ask. Strud crazy things happen, marcus. [ [kristina] when i seees, i cadversity i find a way. [john] when i hear never, i say now. [narrator] Southern New Hampshire university is education made to fit your goals. With over 200 degree programs, flexible class schedules and some of the lowest online tuition rates in the nation. [sierra] so when i face barriers i can break through. [narrator] break through at snhu. Edu. kickstart my heart by motley crue truck honks wheels screeching clapping sound of can hitting bag and bowl clapping always there in crunch time. For a limited time, get a outb4course meal your holidays even better starting at 15. 99. Treat yourself to the perfect gift today, because the aussie 4course wont last long and now, get a 10 gift with every 50 in gift cards. I need all the breaks, that i can get. At liberty butchumal cut. Liberty biberty cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Strud have a seat. You really stepped it up, man. Hayden thank you. Strud okay. Youre a great person to lean on, someone who can get things done. And im having fun again. Hayden i am, too. Strud you know, like we were in the beginning. All right, bud. Hayden thank you for changing. Totally different person since this whole thing happened. Happy to work for you. Strud thanks, bud. Oh, oh, listen. Youre gonna need some more money. Okay . Im gonna hook you up with some more money, okay . Hayden thank you so much. Strud 50,000 for now. Hayden thank you. Strud thank you. Hayden i love ya. Strud all right. Love you, bud. Hayden give me a hug. Strud [ laughs ] all right. Hayden love ya. Lemonis im 100 confident that with the new infrastructure and the new disciplines that they have, with him recognizing hayden with a larger salary, his respecting geoff and brett, theyll have no problem climbing their way back to 3. 5 million. How much total inventory do we have right now . Geoff about 5,000 coolers. Strud lowest weve ever had. Lemonis cleanest youve ever been. Strud cleaneweve ever been. Yes. Lemonis how much dollar inventory do you have right now . Geoff about 140,000. Lemonis and where should it be, in your mind . Geoff i think it should be about twice that almost 300,000. Lemonis okay. So, then, what would you need . Geoff 75,000. Lemonis do you buy off on that . Strud yeah, i do. Lemonis do you trust him . Strud i do. Absolutely. Yep. Lemonis okay. [ camera clicks ] [ paper rips ] strud [ chuckles ] thank you, marcus. Lemonis now i want to just tell you this. Normally, i give this check much earlier, but i wasnt initially confident that you would get out of your own way. And the thing that was scaring me the most was your. Previous lack of appreciation for people. Strud yeah. Lemonis and i think that youve demonstrated to all of them you care about them, you care about the business, and that you understand that having everything be right makes the business move much better. Strud yeah. Thanks again, bud. Lemonis there you go, brother. Strud appreciate your help. Thank you. Lemonis we can refine the products and we can fix the process, but what ultimately determines the success of a business Going Forward is if the people have a different perspective than the day i met them. The most important change that was made here was not by me. It was by strud. Strud im feeling lucky, man. You know what happens when i feel lucky . Lemonis i dont want to ask. Strud crazy things happen, marcus. Lemonis okay. Stephanie oh, my god. Strud steph, i love you. Youre the most important person in my life. Youre the greatest mother theres ever been. Will you marry me . Stephanie i would love to marry you. I love you so much. Hayden [ laughing ] yeah [ laughter, applause ] lemonis congrats. Brett come on lemonis im trusting you here, bud. The check that i just gave you, thats for inventory, not for your engagement ring. Strud [ chuckles ] stephanie i love you. Strud i love you, too. [ cheers and applause ] lemonis i meet a spicy former lawyer. Ana i got called to do real housewives of miami. Dont hold that against me. Lemonis . With dreams of a marinade empire. Ana its not only a marinade. Its a flavorenhancer so you can use it on everything. Lemonis despite having a product people love. Woman mmm, its fingerlicking good. Lemonis it actually is pretty good. Her business has been struggling to grow. Ana [ voice breaking ] its hard for me that this isnt further along given that ive given up so much for it. Lemonis to grow this company, shes going to need to change her branding. John you have an illustration that is almost exactly like skinnygirl. Lemonis . Learn how to take some criticism. Kathleen what did you write . Aaron skanky. Her, she takes over the whole image. Ana do you really, like what else do you want me to put on the label, you know