You need brand consistency. His production process is filled with inefficiencies. Eva the issue comes down to the company not having consequences. Thats why none of this works. Lemonis and his relationship with his son, already strained, is only getting worse. Thom theres no right or wrong. Alex no right or wrong, but you will not let anybody else be right. Lemonis if i cant help him to step up as the boss and learn to face his problems headon. Eva were not thriving and working together enough. Lemonis . This business wont only slip, it will fail. This relationship is either going to get better, or you need to go. My name is marcus lemonis, and i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. Were not going to wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. Were going to wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. Its not always pretty. Everything is going to change everything. But i do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. This. Lets go to work. Is the profit. [ bell clanging ] today, im visiting handi products. Now, its fun to invest in fashion and food, but while ramps may not get everybodys heart racing, there is a need for safety and accessibility in america. Take the r. V. Business that im heavily invested in. I know my customers struggle to get up and down those units all the time. And sometimes, the most mundane products, they can be the most lucrative. Christine welcome. Lemonis how are you . Christine good. How are you . Lemonis marcus. Christine hi, marcus. Christine. Lemonis nice to meet you. Christine this is thom. Thom hello. Lemonis hi, thom. Im marcus. Thom marcus, nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. How long have you been in business . Thom i bought it in 1995. In fact, when i bought it, it was three people, and theres almost 50 people here now. My son is our sales manager. Lemonis how long has your son been in the business . Thom six years now. Lemonis hows that working . Thom well, the one of the things that we did was, when we started this, we said he doesnt report to me because theres always Family Dynamics that come into play. Lemonis you guys talk about business . Thom no. He doesnt report to me. We have a better balanced communication. Lemonis uhhuh. Can i get a tour. Thom absolutely lemonis . See inside . Thom why dont we start off over here on the welding side . Lemonis what gets manufactured in this building . Thom all of the ramps, right from zero to finished product. This is what we call a portable access ramp. Lemonis how do people find your business . Thom the web. Probably 80 of our customers come to us through the web. These are our commercial van ramps. Lemonis wow. Thom this will handle 1,500 pounds and allow people to take a twowheeler or load. Lemonis wow. Thom . The van just like that. Lemonis thats pretty awesome. How much could this business grow in top line without having to add any more labor or any more space . Thom were running one shift, so we could go to a two or threeshift model. Were at eight million now, probably do five times the amount of volume were doing now. Lemonis you could do 40 million in business. Thom yes. We should be a 100million company, yet were not. Lemonis honestly, thom is right. This business has plenty of room to run, but what has to happen is he has to tap into new markets and identify them, and once he does, this business will have no problem filling that capacity. Thom couldnt get all of our processes right. Our processes have some room for improvement, but for the most part, i think i try to step back and let people do their own thing. Lemonis are these some of the products . Thom this is the retail. Its an aluminum nonslip tread that can actually make the edge of the stair, which is always where people slip, sort of a nonslip and then prevent people from slipping. Its for exteriors, the exterior or basement. Lemonis so, like, off my deck or off my front door. Thom exactly. These are bath and shower treads. This is your grip tape. Lemonis but it seems like the name of the company is stop the slip, and then here its handi treads, not stop the slip. Thom good point. Lemonis so, what is the name of the brand . Thom well, it depends on the individual products. A third of our business is accessibility, a third of it is in slipandfall prevention, and then a third of it is in material handling. Lemonis why doesnt the branding on the package match the branding here . Thom you know, thats a good question. I guess i hadnt thought about that. Lemonis theres not a cohesive look across all of the different skus, and theres two different names handi products on one, stop the slip on another. I want to see packaging that clearly outlines what the brand is, what its features and benefits are. Their packaging does none of that. This stop the slip line, has it had a lot of growth in the last couple of years . Thom uh, no, it doesnt generate much revenue because the issue, when we started getting into this slipandfallprevention category, our biggest problem is having it distributed. Nobody is serving the slipandfallprevention market, so each of these things end up in a different place in the store. Lemonis thom has said that his slipandfall business has struggled because retailers dont have a dedicated slipandfall section in their stores. For example, the metal treads may be sold in one department, and something for the bathtub may be sold in the plumbing department. One idea would be to convince the retailer to have a safety category, dedicated space, dedicated products, dedicated revenue. Im surprised that you havent sold this into the r. V. Market. Thom i havent thought about the r. V. Market. Lemonis every r. V. Has steps. Thom ah. This one is pet step. Lemonis is this pretty strong . Thom its 500 pounds. Lemonis what does this retail for . Thom 1. 69. Lemonis whats it cost . Thom 44. Lemonis wow. Vans, trucks, and suvs, theres almost 10 million r. V. Ers in america. 75 of r. V. Ers have pets. Thom wow. Lemonis have you been in here a long time . Thom six months. Lemonis and where were you before . Thom we were at libertyville. Lemonis why did you have to get this building . Because you couldnt thom we needed to grow. Lemonis pretty cool. How are you . Im marcus. Eva nice to meet you. Lemonis are you eva . Eva yes, i am. Lemonis nice to there, nice. Brandnew building, and all he gives you is a paper tag. Thom our fancy name tags. Yes, thats it. Lemonis how long have you been here . Eva for just over four years. Lemonis and what do you do here . Eva i do a little of everything. [ chuckles ] lemonis whos the shop foreman . Who heads up manufacturing . Thom that would be eva. Lemonis does the sales team report to you . Eva no. No. Thom it reports to alex, my son, and bill dittman. Lemonis so, eva, youre here. Wheres bill . Thom bill dittman is in libertyville. Lemonis do you keep everybody separated on purpose . Thom no, id love to bring them all here, but bill lives in libertyville, and its convenient for him. Eva it doesnt make sense to have 2 plants 30 minutes apart. Lemonis its not that far. Look, i find it a little odd that this company has two separate offices that are 25 minutes apart because one employee doesnt want to make the drive. This is bonkers. I want to meet alex. Thom yeah, straight ahead. Alex how are you doing . Lemonis im marcus. Alex alex, nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. Well, your dad has given me a great tour. You love it here . Alex yeah. Lemonis what do you do . Alex my title is sales manager, but i kind of dabble in a little bit of everything, from sales to collections. Lemonis how is it working with your dad, truth . Why dont you give us a minute . Thom yeah, ill go. Lemonis yeah, actually, get out of here thom ive done the direction. Ive done the hard part. Lemonis stop moderating everything. How is it working with your dad . Alex he has a strong personality. I suggest Different Things to try to improve our process downstairs in the production and to try to improve marketing. He would listen to my ideas, but i dont he would never act on them, so i just got the feeling that it wasnt something he was, like, really taking to heart. And then when i went from Customer Service manager to sales manager, nothing was really offered to me, so i had to push a little bit more for that. Lemonis whod you have to push . Alex thom. Lemonis your dad. Alex my dad. Sorry. I call him thom. I have other people say thom to me. I dont want them to think that because im his son that im getting, like, special treatment. Lemonis what do you mean by that . Like, by calling him dad . Alex yes. Lemonis oh. What did you do before you came here . Alex i was a supervisor at ups in rockford. Lemonis but you grew up here. Alex till i was about 10, 11 years old. Then my mom moved to rockford, and we went and lived with her. Lemonis your parents got divorced . Alex yeah, when i was young. Lemonis when you moved to rockford, did you make a choice to go with your mom . Alex no. No. There was a whole legal custodybattle thing. Lemonis mmhmm. Do you think it created any wedge between you and your dad . Alex yeah, im sure. I think thats a big reason why i work very hard to try to impress him, basically, i guess is the word. I try to make him see that i kind of do know a little bit about what im doing. Lemonis i talked to your son. Thom id love to have been a fly on that wall. Lemonis Family Business is tough, and i have experience with it because i worked with my father, and it was not an environment that i enjoyed. Thom as you mentioned, Family Dynamics are always difficult, which is exactly why i put bill dittman between us. Lemonis and you dont like conflict at all. Thom thats true. Lemonis . Which is why theres people still working in libertyville. Thom thats true. Lemonis so, im heading to the facility in libertyville. I want to get to the bottom of this idea that one person doesnt want to drive to the main office. Thom this building was perfect for us because when i first bought the business, we were in a 6,000squarefoot operation, and here we moved into this one, and we had 28,000 square feet to grow into. Lemonis thom, im just making observations. Tell me. Theres really nothing here. This all can fit into half a room. Thom yes. We could tighten it up. We could tighten it up. Bill marcus, bill dittman. Lemonis oh, hey, bill. How are you . What are you in charge of . Bill ive started to build the retail side of the business. Lemonis wheres the bulk of the revenue at retail coming from, online . Bill believe it or not, yes, and our biggest challenge is none of the retail groups have even a safety category. Lemonis because the way youve presented them to the retailer isnt about a category. Its broken up. What is the difference between stop the slip and people treads . Bill theres the same product from an adhesive perspective in putting it down in the floor or in the bath or in a, you know lemonis so, theres really not a difference. Bill correct. And im going to you know, i brag about how the group has come together. Lemonis even the people in kenosha . Bill whats that . Lemonis even the people in kenosha . Thom theres been a conversation about why do we have people here. When are other people from libertyville coming up here . Lemonis yeah. Bill the way i look at it, i live a mile away. I get a lot more time in the office here. Lemonis or. Bill or be driving 30 or 40 minutes, right . Lemonis yeah. It took me 26 minutes. Bill really . Okay. Lemonis yep. Im definitely seeing some things that dont add up, so what id rather do is sit down and study the numbers because we all know the numbers dont lie. Whats happening . Thom how are you doing . Lemonis how are you . Whats happening . Alex hows it going . Lemonis i think the business that you guys are in is pretty fantastic, but do you guys feel like theres a lot of warmth between the two of you . Alex no. Thom no, probably not. Were not touchyfeely. Lemonis you could get a job doing a lot of things. Why do you want to work for your dad . Alex legacy. Lemonis what does that mean . Alex it means a lot to him. It means a lot to me. Id want to keep going with what he created. I dont want to let him down. Lemonis when a father and son work together, its difficult for the father because he wants to be tough and not set a bad example, and its difficult for the son, from my experience, because he doesnt want to seem disrespectful, and it creates this very weird dynamic. Thom youre hitting the nail on the head. There are some things that i want him to do, but i just sort of expect him to do because i dont want anybody to think that youre getting this because youre entitled, and there are some things that i dont want to say because i dont want to offend him, and sometimes i avoid conflict by not challenging people. Lemonis why . Thom umm. Well, i dont get into this very often, but i grew up in household where my mother was an alcoholic. Lemonis mmhmm. Thom and my father was a verbally abusive person. Once i realized that they did the best they could with what they had, you sort of accept that for what it is. Lemonis when people are abused, which is high conflict, they want as little conflict as possible because its reminiscent of what that felt like, but you have a big staff, and so communication is really important. Thom yeah. Lemonis so, did you bring the financials . Thom i did. Lemonis can i see them . 2016 5. 6 million of sales. 2017 7. 5 million. And 2018 8 million. I think theres a much bigger market, huge. Thom well, a big part of our challenge in growing is that we have been cash, you know, restricted. Lemonis how much cash on the Balance Sheet . Alex 42,000. Lemonis but how have you been so cashrestricted when you have good earnings . Do you take a lot of cash out . Thom ive taken nothing out. Lemonis so, then wheres all the retained earnings . Thom buildings. Lemonis okay. I get it. So, the total rents are about 264,000. Libertyville is killing you. If you wanted to double the business, you actually could not. Alex right. Lemonis . Because you dont have the cash to buy the raw materials, to take the chance, to market, go to new trade shows. It doesnt have the cash. But i like the fact that you guys are making what i would consider a socially responsible product, and i like the fact that youre creating safety for people. Its a safetyandaccessibility business. Alex yes. Lemonis so, id like to do a deal. Im willing to put up 1 million bucks. For 1 million bucks, i want 20 . Thom i would say 2 million would help us create a good growth plan. Alex right. Alex i bust my ass more than anybody else, i feel. I want to be recognized. Lemonis this relationship is either going to get better, or you need to go. Lemonis for 1 million bucks, i want 20 . Beautiful. But when i started cobra kai, the lack of control over my business made me a little intense. But now i practice a different philosophy. Quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. And now im back on top. With koala kai. Hey more mercy. Save over 30 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. The easy way to a happier business. I feel like were forglet me check. Ing. Xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored Home Security built around you. No, i think were good. Good. So when youre away, you dont have to worry. The tent. We forgot. The tent. Except about that. Xfinity home. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Hey look, i found the tent get xfinity home with no Term Contract required. Click or call today. Thom i would say 2 million would help us create a good growth plan. Alex right. Lemonis that was kind of slick, wasnt it, how he did that . Ill try Something Different with you. Thom okay. Lemonis so, ill agree to your 2 million. Its a million for 15 , but i reserve the right, over the next 48 months from today, to put another million in. So, its 1 for 20 or 2 for 30 one now and one over the next four years if i want to. You could say no. Alex to grow that market, to get it to where you want it to be, you need somebody that knows what theyre doing on the retail side of things. Thom you know what . Door two. Lemonis door two . So, its 2 million. Thom just motivates you to do a lot more to make things better. Itll be the best investment youve made. Lemonis okay. Thom thank you, sir. Lemonis that was good. That was fun. Thom that was good. I enjoyed it. Lemonis your dad is good. Alex yes. Lemonis you better learn something from him. Thom thank you. Lemonis all right, guys. Hows everybody doing . Man 1 good. Man 2 good. Lemonis thom and i made a deal for me to invest up to 2 million into the business. Bill whats the first thing you think we should do . Lemonis thats a really good question. You dont want my answer. I think the first step is you have to get out of libertyville immediately, and everybody should be together. Bill we get a lot done here. Lemonis do you get a lot done . Bill yeah. Lemonis but you have a sales problem. We need to find out how the company is going to be marketed. Theres not good branding. We need to create some level of consistency. All of their stop the slip products are branded differently differentlooking packages, different names, and in order to have success with retailers, theyre going to have to put it all under one cohesive brand, Safety Products called stop the slip. And then i feel like i myself, in five minutes, could sell all these pet ramps to r. V. Ers. And finally, what can thom do better . Alex communication. We need to get better communication. Eva were not thriving and working together enough. Thom treats alex like his son and not an employee. He doesnt listen to him. Lemonis our job as leaders is to understand how were all going to communicate together, so if somebody has a complaint or an idea, how they can share it. Thom yeah. Lemonis lets get to work. Come on. I brought handi products to the florida r. V. Supershow. Thom wow lemonis there are hundreds of thousands of customers and almost 1,000 vendors, and the primary goal is to clearly outline where opportunity exists that they cant see. At this particular show, youre going to see probably 100,000 different customers. This is a smattering of the 10 Million People in america that own r. V. S. Were going to show people the pet ramp, and then were going to test out some of the antislip products. Thom perfect. Lemonis all right. Thom does isabella have a problem with the stairs in the r. V. . Woman 1 yes, she does. Lemonis lets see with and without. Thom okay. Good girl. Woman 1 come on up we go. Come on, bella. Lemonis shes like, no. No. Lets try it with the ramp. Woman 1 all right. Here we go, right up the ramp. There you go. Come on. Lemonis were learning a few things while were here, and ultimately, what i want thom to Pay Attention to is how he can modify his product and his perspective to have one single product serve multiple industries. Woman 2 i felt that it was pretty steep. Lemonis for example, the ramp that he currently makes will work really well in the back of a car or a sport utility, but i need it to work in an r. V. Or a boat or a cargo trailer so that it works for everybody. He may not be a customer. Woman 2 right.