S03.E09: A Progress Report #3

[Tara Ariano]

Marcus Lemonis checks in on the progress of three series' favorites. But big business isn’t always rosy, and struggle is the reality; a clothing company has fallen back on old bad habits, a car buying business run by two brothers receives news that could shut their doors forever, and a candy maker stretches to reach the sweet tooth of new markets.  Find out who fares well, and which is saying farewell.

[Gregg247]

Marcus has a lot more faith in that guy from Courage b than I do.  He comes across as an incompetent jerk who's intent on replicating all the mistakes that almost cost him his business in the first place.  He can cry about his dead daddy all day; that doesn't excuse his lies, his poor attitude, and going behind his partner's back with all the inventory.

 

I'm glad to see Sweet Pete's doing so well.  Marcus is working at growing the business so fast, it would leave my head spinning.  They've already out-grown that enormous 22,000 sq. ft. building!  Amazing.  I hope they can hire quality staff to keep up with the pace of growth without losing the quality of the product.  (I wonder if Dean kicked his TV tonight after learning what his former 50% of the business is NOW worth! haha).

[caligirl50]

Dean is/was a douche who should be kicking his own behind at how he handled Sweet Pete's and himself.  He was a greedy rat who didn't deserve to be a partner in this company.

[attica]

He can cry about his dead daddy all day;

 

Yeah, this really rotted my socks. 'Waaah, I'm all alone!'  No, bro-ham, you're not, You have your sister and mom, and have had them all along. And even if they're both not up to the mark (for which we've seen no evidence, but it's possible), who says you can't seek out help from non-relatives, or, you know, actual professionals? Why are you exiled in ManTears Town? Whatever burden you're feeling, it's entirely self-imposed. Buck up, buddy. 

 

Which is another way of saying that Marcus has waaaaaaaaay more patience for this kind of nonsense than I do.

 

I gotta say, though: the Chicago stock room looked super tiny. How do you manage restocking the floor out of such meager supplies? To my thinking, you should have enough stock to cover you for twice the length of time it normally takes for warehouse goods to reach you (because: weather and such), and that little shelf with half a dozen tops on it didn't look enough. Maybe they have more than it appeared on teevee; maybe they don't sell through as much/as fast as I imagine; maybe Marcus knows better than I do. (Perish the thought! ;) )

 

I could watch Pete's charmingly dazed expression at his success all goddamn day.

 

Not sad about the CarCash dudes having to move. That side street was always pretty poky.

[Primetimer]

The Profit ends Season 3 with a check-in on Car Cash, Courage.b (sigh), and Sweet Pete's.

Read the story

[KHenry14]

This ep. showed what Marcus can do for a company. No way Sweet Pete's gets in front of the Jaguars unless Marcus used his influence. And it's paying off in spades for them. The key for them is..."DON'T LOWER YOUR STANDARDS". 

 

Courage b needs to pay attention. The opportunity is there if they don't blow it. But boy, they just don't seem to understand the business model.

 

One wonders who was not paying attention to their lease at CashCar. With that said, Marcus' bailing them out with their new location is likely to pay off. 

[Amarsir]

I enjoyed the long followups with each business. It felt like a thorough update, not rushed at all.

 

That said, I didn't really follow everything going on with courage.b.  (Possibly my fault for multitasking.)  By which I mean: I understood the story as narrated for TV, but I don't understand why the sister seemed so clearly on his side if he's such a control freak.  As presented, the conversation went like this:

 

Marcus: "Why haven't you taught Visual Pak how to package?"

Nicolas: ...

Stephanie: ...

Marcus: ...

Nicolas: ...

Marcus: "I'm not going to play this game with you guys." [Gets up]

Stephanie: "I don't understand."

 

I just don't buy that it went down like that. One of the oldest reality show editing tricks is to insert silence.  (And you may know that many shows - including Shark Tank - specifically have people stand in the room saying nothing so they can record the room with no talking.) And for this "control freak" to have a direct question and not answer it while the asker leaves the room just doesn't sound plausible.   And again, his sister - who would be well justified in being annoyed by him - was on his side.

 

So I'm left highly suspicious that there's something else going on there. Certainly we can see that the inventory levels were problematic and not consistent with a central distribution hub. But I don't feel like we got the whole story.

[phoenix780]

Why does the Car Cash logo have that halo-like circle over it (same with Auto Match)?

 

I don't usually like recap shows, but I'm glad they revisit here.  I'm amazed at how much money he's spent, though he's tucked a lot of into real estate, and I enjoy watching the ongoing narratives.  I hope Sweet Pete's isn't about to grow too fast, they seem like nice people.

[Jesse]

Ugh, by the end I felt for the Courage.b brother, because I have done that exact same crying while pointing inside my body thing with my boss when she was asking why my performance wasn't up to par and the only answer was depression. So maybe that guy needs to get into some therapy. 

[sarthaz]

So I'm left highly suspicious that there's something else going on there. Certainly we can see that the inventory levels were problematic and not consistent with a central distribution hub. But I don't feel like we got the whole story.

I think it was all editing.  It looked like there were some very minor inventory issues, and Marcus was understandably upset that he wasn't told about the outerwear, but then they edited it (and Marcus behaved in such a way) to make it seem really dramatic!  That whole segment felt very manufactured to me (no pun intended).

 

I think they should find a way to have the Car Cash brother crying in every season.  Just feels like that's his calling in life.  That and wearing hats.  Where were his hats?

[Curious5]

"One wonders who was not paying attention to their lease at CashCar. With that said, Marcus' bailing them out with their new location is likely to pay off."

They were paying attention and were paying on time for 30 years. The landlord pulled a option from a contract when the father opened the company there 30 yrs ago. Could be a new owner or since the place had so many improvements he could get a lot more money for it.

[KHenry14]

"One wonders who was not paying attention to their lease at CashCar. With that said, Marcus' bailing them out with their new location is likely to pay off."

They were paying attention and were paying on time for 30 years. The landlord pulled a option from a contract when the father opened the company there 30 yrs ago. Could be a new owner or since the place had so many improvements he could get a lot more money for it.

 

I should have been a bit more clear about what I meant. I would have hoped that they might have negotiated better terms than they originally got 30yrs ago. 

[Lola16]

Why does the Car Cash logo have that halo-like circle over it (same with Auto Match)?

 

I don't usually like recap shows, but I'm glad they revisit here.  I'm amazed at how much money he's spent, though he's tucked a lot of into real estate, and I enjoy watching the ongoing narratives.  I hope Sweet Pete's isn't about to grow too fast, they seem like nice people.

The halo thing is from Good Sam, one of Marcus' own companies.

 

It's a lot of money spent on Sweet Pete but as you pointed out, most of it is in real estate which I am sure if 100% in Marcus' name.  If so, that's very similar to what their original investor Dane did, except Dane didn't invest any other money into the business.

[Lola16]

We don't know whether it's out of season, over-ordered, or what its particular deal is, so it's hard to care that it's there when we're not told why it's there or how it means that they flouted Lemonis's instructions.

What I heard was that all inventory ordered is supposed to go to a warehouse in Planview LI and from there it gets shipped to each location. Instead, they are shipping it to the NYC store and sending it out from there. Loss of inventory control plus extra shipping costs.

[nobodyyoucare]

The halo thing is from Good Sam, one of Marcus' own companies.

 

It's a lot of money spent on Sweet Pete but as you pointed out, most of it is in real estate which I am sure if 100% in Marcus' name.  If so, that's very similar to what their original investor Dane did, except Dane didn't invest any other money into the business.

Add in Dane was also charging hefty rent and eating all the profits. 

[nobodyyoucare]

 

I hope Sweet Pete's isn't about to grow too fast, they seem like nice people.

Plus they have 90 employees. So clearly Marcus has helped grow them by a huge a huge factor. They went from four employees to 90 in two years,  no profit to big profits and deals with corporations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. 

[nobodyyoucare]

 

"One wonders who was not paying attention to their lease at CashCar. With that said, Marcus' bailing them out with their new location is likely to pay off."

They were paying attention and were paying on time for 30 years. The landlord pulled a option from a contract when the father opened the company there 30 yrs ago. Could be a new owner or since the place had so many improvements he could get a lot more money for it.

 

I should have been a bit more clear about what I meant. I would have hoped that they might have negotiated better terms than they originally got 30yrs ago. 

 

Marcus was baffled at what the landlord was doing. Marcus said at most the landlord would just get a few more grand for the location but lose a tenant who had not only been taking care of the place but also paid on time in full for 30 years.