Itll be lights out at vision quest. 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. Based in long island, new york, vision quest is a fullservice lighting manufacturer, handling everything from concept development, design, engineering, and fabrication. Larry make sure it goes in like that. Nice and professional. Lemonis for years, owner Larry Lieberman experienced serious growth, churning out custom fixtures for such bigname clients like abercrombie fitch, chanel, and universal studios. Larry take it to disney. Lemonis but a recent drop in revenue has drawn larry into a vicious circle. Jason highlow is officially dead. Larry oh, no. Lemonis anxious to control costs, hes cut much of his staff, hampering operations and putting even more pressure on the business. Larry weve been waiting a couple of weeks for this. Lemonis im excited about this opportunity, because lets face it Everybody Needs a light. And despite its troubles, vision quest has a reputation for innovative designs. Larry this is stainlesssteel wire with fiber optic thats strapped to it. Lemonis im confident i can help larry find the light at the end of the tunnel and emerge stronger than ever. Hello. Maria hi. How are you . Lemonis good morning. Im marcus. Maria im maria. Nice to meet you. Lemonis how are you . Maria im very well. Lemonis the owner is larry . Maria the owner is larry. Lemonis is larry here . Maria yes, hes here. Ill get him for you. Lemonis thank you. Let him know that marcus is here. I really didnt know what to expect when i went to vision quest, and when i walked in, there were some really interesting pieces. Larry hey oh, my god lemonis how you doing . Larry bring it in, man lemonis how you doing . Larry oh, my god youre here lemonis are you larry oh, my god look at you lemonis are you larry . Larry i am. Lemonis cause if you werent larry, id be worried. Larry [ laughs ] so nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you, too. Thats a pretty cool light. Larry yeah, thank you. Lemonis the strainer. Larry it was for a National Account. Everything you see here is all for nationalaccount work. Lemonis so no retail products. Larry no. Lemonis so, i dont just think about vision quest for just this. Larry no, no. Lemonis design . Larry thats the least of it. Yes. Right. Lemonis they say to you, we have this space, and were looking for x, y, and z from a design standpoint. Larry exactly. Lemonis can you make it . Larry yes. A lot of our ideas are coming from their inspirations. Lemonis and you started it . Larry yes. Lemonis by yourself . Larry by myself. Lemonis when . Larry 96 19 years. Lemonis wow. Larry yeah, 19 years. Lemonis why did you start it . Larry i was a theatricallighting guy. I like light. Lemonis so, any place you go in, youre looking right away at the lights. Larry i just thought everyone did it, but ive come recently to understand i got a little unhealthy thing with lighting. Lemonis get to light therapy. Larry i need light therapy. Lemonis whats that there . Larry so, this is something im actually really fond of. The designer said, i want something with spikes, little lamps on the end. Lemonis what does Something Like this sell for . Larry this was about 5,600. Lemonis and what would Something Like this cost to make . Larry 4 grand. Lemonis theyre not great margins. Larry not this particular one, no. Lemonis why . Larry um. Lemonis cause its a custom piece, and so, typically, i would expect it to come with better margins. Larry yes. Lemonis did you miscalculate it . Larry uh, yes. Lemonis im already seeing my first red flag. If larry is miscalculating the cost of jobs, well, its no wonder theyre in trouble. Larry this is jason. Jason hi. Lemonis jason, im marcus. Jason nice to meet you. Lemonis how are you . Jason good. Lemonis what do you do here . Jason purchasing, shipping and receiving, inventory, deal with the subcontractors. Lemonis would i call you the general manager . Jason uh, no. My title, i think, is purchasing manager. Lemonis why are you doing all those things if youre just the purchasing manager . Jason other people left, and it just fell in my lap. Lemonis is there a general manager . Jason not anymore, no. Lemonis what happened to the general manager . Larry we could not compensate him for what he really needed to be compensated. Lemonis whos in charge of the books . Larry right now, i guess i am in charge of the books. Our bookkeeper quit. That has been a turnover position, because theyre the first to see how much trouble were in. So i had a really great bookkeeper, but she took a better job lemonis got scared. Larry yeah. Lemonis meeting jason, you can tell that this is a classic case of a company thats downsized. Like many Small Businesses in this country, theyve had to make a lot of very difficult decisions. But those decisions are so that you can survive. I give larry credit for that. [ machinery whirring ] larry this is our raw fabrication area. Lemonis theres so much crap in this building i literally feel like i was dropped in a dump yard. Are you a collector of things . Are you a pack rat . Larry um. Lemonis cause i see stuff everywhere. Larry i am a manufacturing hoarder. Lemonis what is all this . Larry these are, like, samples. Like, this is a sample that shows the guys how you know, what the part is. It is. It is. It is. Its a sample. Lemonis okay. Larry i need that. Lemonis so, whats up here the inventory . Larry yeah. So, this is the beginning of all my memories. These are customer inventory, customer inventory. Resellable. These are a lot of samples. Lemonis when you say sample, is that code for junk . Larry at one point, i was told, you have 1 million in inventory, the bank will lend you money. That money is gone, but now its in inventory. Lemonis i think what larry has attempted to do here is try to artificially inflate the asset value of his business by collecting all these parts and pieces that, in his mind, may add up to 100,000 or 200,000, but in reality, its just junk sitting on the shelf. I want to sort of have some time away from larry and talk to the employees about how the warehouse actually functions. Very cool. So, whats happening here testing . Jay yes. Lemonis can i see it go on . So, thats the final product right there . Jay yeah. Lemonis well, what kind of business would i see this kind of light in . Jay a warehouse store. Lemonis like a costco type of. . Jason yeah, yeah. Lemonis so, you guys are not only manufacturers, but youre assemblers, as well. Jason yeah. Jay yeah. Larry all right, you take it like this. And you go like that. Lemonis jay, whos the shop foreman out here . Jay i would say right now, its both of us. Lemonis thats really not what you guys should be doing, right . Jason no, the problem is, were both dispatching, and then we dont get done what we got to get done. Jay right now, i spend more time explaining stuff, you know, to people, how to do. Lemonis why doesnt larry kind of give out the jobs . Jay the thing is, you know, larrys split between you know, with everything going on, theyre short up front also. Lemonis well, hes out here working now. Jason he has a habit to micromanage to an extent. Larry you know what youre doing here . Put these in first. Nobody showed you how to do this, huh . Lemonis its clear to me that theres no leadership here on the manufacturing floor. And larry tries to cover it up by sort of spreading himself thin and doing a bunch of different jobs. But thats not gonna cut it in the end. How are you . Janelle hi. Its nice to meet you. Lemonis im marcus. Who are you . Janelle im janelle. Lemonis janelle, what do you do here . Janelle im in charge of sales and quoting and drawing a lot of the initial design concepts. Lemonis do you have salespeople that work for you here . Janelle no. So, im an army of one at the moment cause of money. Lemonis money. Janelle yeah. Lemonis larry got rid of his general manager, and his current saleslady is actually doubling as a designer. Now, i understand that businesses have to cut costs, but when you cut this deep, you run the risk of breaking bones. So, is there a Sales Problem here or is there a cashflow, waitingforthejobstocome problem . Janelle its both that stuff. Lemonis what put this business in financial crisis . Janelle four years ago, we were doing the main line for the National Account hollister. They changed their purchasing model. We were doing like 3 million, and right now, were probably, you know, about 1 million, 900,000 in hollister stuff. Lemonis with them . Janelle yeah. Lemonis so you lost 2 million worth of business. Janelle yeah. Lemonis why dont we take a walk . Nice meeting you. Janelle nice meeting you. Lemonis thank you. Is this your office . Larry it is. Lemonis okay. Well go in here. Larry this is really messy. Lemonis i know. Larry uhhuh. Lemonis why did you call me, by the way . Larry february 20th, i did not get money in that week. I had to go home and tell my wife we needed to lend company money. Ive already went to my parents. They already lent me 100,000. I couldnt go back. I couldnt go back. We had some money. We had some savings. It was our nest egg. Thats for college. Lemonis college for. . Larry my daughter. Shes going shes in her senior year, and shes going to college next year. Lemonis you guys were gonna have to take money out of your personal account to keep the company open . Larry 65,000. Lemonis your Kids College Fund has become the bank. Larry yeah. Youre here cause of my family. We need to straighten this out. I think im going out of business. I dont know what that looks like. I just lent the company a lot of money. Should i not lend the money to the company . Am i supposed to go bankrupt . I dont know what to do. And i have people around me that believe in me. They believe in me more than, i think. Than maybe they should. Because im not doing such a great job. Lemonis its clear to me that larry has the best of intentions. But its more clear to me that hes made some very big mistakes. Hes been cutting staff way too deep and borrowing from his Daughters College fund. This is actually setting himself up to fail even more, not succeed. Larry i have a surprise for you. Anne hi. [ chuckles ] lemonis oh, my gosh. Hi. Anne how are you . Lemonis how are you . Anne my left hand. Nice to meet you. Im anne. Lemonis anne, how are you . Im marcus. Anne larrys wife. Nice to meet you. Max im max. Anne this is max, my son. Lemonis max, how are you . Rhea hi, im rhea. Lemonis how are you, rhea . Nice to meet you. Larry isnt it cool . Hes so shiny. [ laughter ] lemonis you are a lot nerdier than i thought. [ laughter ] your kids right now are thinking, please, dad. Well, i thought maybe i could just talk to your mom and dad for a minute. Is that okay . Max yes. Rhea yep. Lemonis we had a good conversation this morning about kind of everything, the state of the union here, and i wanted to get your perspective on it. Anne i dont always know whats going on with the business. Hell withhold information from me. Then something will happen, and ill be like, how did this happen . we thought everything was relatively okay. Lemonis what did february feel like from your perspective . Anne i just sort of felt the ground had sort of been pulled out from underneath me, and i was a little panicked. Larry broken promise. Lemonis whats the broken promise . Anne well, i didnt feel like it was a broken promise, but. Larry my promise was to anne that ill provide. Anne well. Larry . And that i would take care of college, and i feel like i broke that promise. Lemonis how come you havent locked that money down just to keep it away from him . Larry [ chuckles ] lemonis im actually serious. Anne well, i didnt know that i had to. Larry well, hold on. I didnt anne well, ii larry i didnt go out and just give the money. We talked. Anne oh, oh, oh, oh. Larry i didnt just take it. Anne oh, dont. Larry uhoh. [ chuckles ] lemonis is that not true . Anne thats not true. Larry actually, thats not true. Lemonis what is the truth . Anne he took it. And then i think he thought it was offensive, because i think he thought i wouldnt notice and that he would just put it back. I didnt know how bad things were until that happened. And then we were out for dinner, and he told me that he wasnt gonna be able to make payroll. Lemonis how much is the bank debt . Larry 5,000 plus 75,000, so 575,000. Lemonis and whats the collateral for that . Larry inventory, the house. Lemonis your house is pledged . Did you know that . Larry you knew that. Lemonis anne, did you know that . Larry what youre looking at is my attempt to try to diversify the company. Lemonis you put your family at risk so that, what . You can have a warehouse full of crap . Ch is the bank debt . Larry 575,000. Lemonis and whats the collateral for that . Larry inventory. The house. Lemonis anne, did you know that . Anne i dont think i knew that. Lemonis i think going forward, regardless of whether were able to make a deal or not, i think you have to know the facts. Would you like to be a part of the financial discussion . Anne okay. Lemonis look, i always believe that transparency in business is paramount. But what larry is running the risk of is not being transparent to his partner, both in business and in life. Not having full disclosure and having surprises for her is gonna create a level of distrust and discomfort, and its just not okay. Larry this is the Balance Sheet as of today. Last year, we lost 300,000, and 80,000 before that. Lemonis had you shared this, larry, before i do kind of walk anne through this . Larry no. No. I struggle with it, too. Lemonis the way to think about a Balance Sheet is the health of the company. So, 1,503,000 of liabilities, 1,950,000 of assets. The total assets of the company are 1,950,000, but the drivers of that are merchandise inventory of 1,237,000. I would say this is, at a minimum, worth half of that amount. Larry has total assets of 1,950,000. His liabilities are 1,503,000, leaving him with total Shareholder Equity of 447,000. The assets are being driven by 1,237,000 worth of inventory. But the problem is, i dont actually think the inventorys worth that. I think its worth about half of that 618,500. When you factor in the new asset value against the liabilities, then the real Shareholder Equity is 171,500. So that makes the company worth. Zippo. Larry this doesnt show it, but august and july were good months for us. Lemonis do you know what your total revenue breakeven analysis is . What you have to do in sales in a month to make money . Larry around 244,000. Lemonis so, in the month of march, you did 257,000, and you lost 60 grand. April, you did 141,000, and you lost 16,000. Larry mmhmm. Lemonis then you go into may. You did 231,000 and you made 65,000. And so the analytics are so bad. Larry theyre so hard. Youre right. Lemonis right, and so the only point im trying to make, and just put a button in it, is you dont know if july and august were good yet. Larry our overhead has gone down. Lemonis you cannot cut your way to a profit. Larry well. Anne mmhmm. Lemonis you cant just be cutting everything and cutting everything, cause you know what ends up happening . You cut yourself out of business. Larry im not gonna pretend i have a good handle on this. I dont. Lemonis so, heres whats interesting. Im very intrigued by the quality of the product that i saw outside. Im very intrigued by the fact that you manufacture it and that youre not just an assembler. And so the good news is that youre in a business that people need the product that youre selling. I mean, thats something to be excited about. Larry yeah. Anne yeah. Careful larry oh, sorry. [ laughter ] lemonis i know you believe in what you do. I know you have passion. Its not just lighting that you do you do art. But there are big voids in very big positions in this business. You cut too deep. Larry right. Lemonis i think you broke it, actually. In any manufacturing business, there is front of house, back of house. And the back of the house needs a leader. They have no conductor out here. Larry no. I know that weve had this void out here. Weve tried to fill it. Its a huge issue. Lemonis im willing to take a chance on this business. Larry okay. Lemonis my offer is 375,000. But i want 50 of the business. Larry even 50 . Lemonis yep. I want to be equal partners with you. Im putting up 375,000 to hire new people, pay down debt, and still have some money left over for working capital. But my gut tells me thats just the beginning, and thats why im asking for 50 of the business. Its a big risk for me. Larry okay, man. Lemonis okay . Larry lets do it. Lets do it. My grandfathers 101. Were gonna be partners for a long time. Lemonis you and i . Larry yeah. Lemonis i think im gonna outlive you, though. Unless somebody kills me first. Larry well, you know. Lemonis which, the odds are pretty good. Larry [ laughs ] lemonis we got a deal . Larry all right, my friend. Thank you very much. Lemonis game on, man. Larry all right. Well, so, were ready to get to work . [ machinery whirring ] lemonis jason, lets cut the machines off for a minute, okay . Good morning. Hows everybody doing . All good. Lemonis so, larry and i made a deal for me to invest 375,000 for 50 of the business so that we can pay our bills on time, have money in the account, and start the process of fixing the business. If we need to hire new people, were gonna bring them in. Do you guys feel like you dont have leadership in the shop . Man very much so. Man 2 were ready to follow, but theres no leader. Lemonis i think the other thing that we have to do is invest in you guys. Whether its equipment, whether its making sure you have the right tools and everything works. You guys dont seem very enthusiastic or excited. Jason weve heard were gonna get what we need before. Weve had meetings like this. Larry they all have been through this with me. Lemonis are they frustrated with you, do you think . Larry absolutely. Annes not the only family ive let down. I mean, there are people here torreys 18 years with me. You know, 5, 8. Weve been through hell. This is the guy whos gonna help us make this happen. Lemonis all right . Lets go to work. Larry all right, guys lemonis thanks, guys. Whats all that up there . Jason garbage. Lemonis i wanted to walk through the warehouse with larry and the other employees, because i wanted them to sort of validate what i was saying but, more importantly, prevent him from making the same mistakes in the future. Larry this is the sample room. Jason its more like a dumping ground. Larry youre not cleaning this room. Woman uh, yes, we are. Lemonis you shouldve called hoarders before you called me. Larry what youre looking at is my attempt to try to diversify the company. Lemonis larry. Heres what i see here. These boxes are the reason that your business almost stopped and died. You put your family at risk so that, what . You can have a warehouse full of crap . Larry we were speculative. Lemonis this cant happen ever again. It cant. There could be a half a Million Dollars in garbage here. A half a Million Dollars. Prevented you from getting new equipment, required you to lay people off, required you to go into the tuition account, required you to borrow money from your dad, required you to put stuff on your credit card. Required you to call me. Larry its 19 years. Its 19 years of mistakes. Not being able to turn it around. Lemonis okay. Lets walk. Larry this is really hard. Jason garbage. Garbage. Lemonis ive asked the staff to go through all of the inventory and separate out whats worth something and toss out whats not. Jason larry, what are you doing down here . Larry i, uh. Jason can you go back to the office . Lemonis this company cannot move forward unless it has the space. And honestly, neither can larry. Larry listen, im a creative guy, and ive got a lot of memories in there [ voice breaking ] that i need i need access to. Wow. Lemonis look, its clear to me, as i watched larry sort of melt down through this process, that this is hard for him. Hes got his heart and soul in this business. But in order for this business to move forward, hes got to trust the process. This isnt just for the business. Larry needs this, too. Larry its 19 years, and you cant just throw it all out. You know where the plastic is . Jay you said you were gonna take care of it. Larry its supposed to go out monday. I have a slight issue with the hospital light. Were missing a critical component. Lemonis i know we have more work to do at the warehouse and some key staff positions to fill, but we also have bills to pay and need to keep the money flowing. So im taking larry and janelle to gotham lighting, one of the largest lighting distributors in all of new york city. We need to drum up some business. Lemonis how you guys doing . Brian good. Lemonis so, guys, the reason i wanted to connect you two, as i was telling them, that gothams one of the biggest lighting distributors in new york. And i made an investment in vision quest. You guys are doing a ton of business in new york. We believe we can fulfill the manufacturing side. Brian how big is your company dollarwise . Larry weve been as big as 5 million, and were currently around 3 million. Brian i got to be honest with you that seems a little light to me for new york. I mean, new york is a halfabilliondollar market. What kind of work do you guys do . Janelle we have a full design staff. Most of our backgrounds are in engineering and design, so if you need something custom, we have a very wide range of manufacturing capabilities. Frank cause thats very important. Brian were doing an emergency room. They do not have the space for a pendant. They want it surfacemounted. The issue that we have is that the maintenance of the fixture. Larry is this 48 inches . Brian 48 inches. But it needs to be maintainable. All the solutions that ive given the hospital, they dont like. Id like to see what you have to offer me. Brian how quick are you turning stuff around . Janelle when we did the revel casino, they needed, you know, 15 different custom items. We did that in four weeks. Brian thats music to my ears. Janelle yeah. Brian just in new york alone, i feel like we could probably double your business. Lemonis we better get our. Together. Larry yeah. Lemonis im eager to get started in building this hospital prototype light for gotham. Not only am i excited about the business, but im really eager to understand the process for vision quest even better. What is this . How does it work . Drew its a water jet. Lemonis it cuts stuff . Drew yeah. Larry these are actually really old. Its not efficient. Lemonis holy crap. Larry so, this is a manual ringrolling machine. Each time he does a pass, he lowers this. And he has to keep doing that manually. Lemonis so now you got to go back again . Drew yep. Lemonis just got to keep going back and forth. Drew yep. Lemonis oh, my god. I knew that larrys shop floor was inefficient, but i didnt think the machinery that we were gonna be working with was from, like, 1965. Look, well have to make it work for the gotham job, but after that, we need to actually get equipment from this century. Im taking larry to fabtech, north americas largest trade show for metal forming and fabrication. Look at this. Larry unbelievable. Lemonis his warehouse is badly in need of an equipment upgrade, and this is the place to take him. What is this thing . Larry were looking at a co2 laser. Lemonis and whats Something Like this cost . Larry 355. Lemonis 355 . Larry move a decimal. [ laughs ] so, youre getting a speed, youre getting a beautiful edge that keeps us from spending money trying to treat this edge later. Lemonis and what materials can you cut . Larry steel, aluminum. Lemonis plastic . Larry yeah. So, all those discs that we do now on our jet, well be able to do on here. Lemonis how are you guys . Man good morning. Mr. Lemonis, its nice to meet you. Lemonis im marcus. Nice to meet you. Trying to get a handle on this product. Man yeah. Its an amazing machine. Lemonis if this took an hour on the water jet, how much time does it take on this machine . Man to cut that part is probably three times faster than the water jet. Lemonis okay. Larry with our water jet, first we have a run rate of 60 an hour at our place. This is 8. Lemonis when you say 8 versus 60. . Man electricity, gas consumption all the consumables that allow this machine to cut that material. Lemonis so, if it took an hour on the water jet, what do we pay our labor per hour on average . Larry 22. Lemonis okay. So i could divide that by three and save 1 3 of that around 7 in labor costs. Man exactly. Larry yeah. Lemonis so i have 15 of savings per hour on labor and 52 of savings per hour on the operation of the machine. So thats 67 per hour. Larry right. Lemonis and if you operated it on average eight hours a day, thats a 536aday savings. And if you run your business 350 days a year, thats 187,600 in savings a year. 187,000 divided by 350,000 is a 53 return on capital. And so a 350,000 investment yields you a 187,000 return on that capital. Larry so we should get two. [ laughter ] lemonis we should get two. Man i think weve got a deal. Lemonis okay. Man thank you very much. Lemonis thank you very much. Man 2 thank you for your business, marcus. Lemonis thank you very much. Man thank you very much. Lemonis historically, you struggled with kind of understanding your numbers. Larry but youre really good at this, so you can do it. Lemonis well, i want you to do it. Because im not gonna go to every sort of event with you, and i want you to apply this lesson to every single analysis that you do. I dont want to negotiate with them. Youre my partner. Were 50 50. Larry right. Thats right. Lemonis so i need to see you do it. Man this is our delta machine. Its our openend ring roller. Lemonis how much is the machine . Larry 79,000. Lemonis and we have a machine like this back at the shop . Its the one you and i were fussing with . Larry yes. Lemonis why make this investment . Larry well, what this does is automates the process. Man so, were ready to run. We pull the program up and we just hit go. Lemonis its fast. Its going one time. When we did it at the shop, it took us like 100 times. Larry yeah, we couldnt do that in that amount of time. Lemonis i want you to do that analysis for me. Larry all right. Am i including the labor, the rate . Lemonis i want you to do the same analysis that i did. Larry okay. So, lets add, uh. So, uh. Uh. Lemonis if your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to. Lemonis i want you to do the salarry okay. That i did. The machine run is not a lot of money. So, lets add, uh well, with repair lemonis just do labor in this analysis. Larry all right. Fair enough. Lemonis one of the things that i like about larry is that hes openminded and hes willing to sort of learn new things. And so he struggles the first couple of times, but in the end, he has to get it. Larry so, were gonna save 24 an hour. Lemonis okay. Larry i suspect that this thing will run eight hours a day. Lemonis okay. Larry 330. Lemonis 50. Larry . 50 hou days a year. Lemonis right. Larry 67,200 savings. Lemonis okay. Larry now, its gonna be a 79,000 investment to purchase the machine. Lemonis okay, and your return on capital is how much . Larry 85 . Lemonis 85 . Larry do you feel comfortable on this . Lemonis well, do yois the question. Larry i feel great about this. Lemonis shake his hand, make a deal. Thank you. Thank you for your business. Larry thank you. Lemonis we got a ton of great equipment at fabtech, and the co2 cutter is gonna be custommade for us. We should get it in a couple of months. We spent well over half a Million Dollars, and i dont mind financing it for them because the return on investment is fantastic. [ machinery whirring ] weve got some great equipment on the way, and im loving the progress with the gotham job. In fact, im loving the progress everywhere. So, larrys asked me to come in to talk about a potential new hire. Larry this is george. George was with me, and business got bad, and he needed to move on. Lemonis are you back here full time . Larry we havent hired him. George not yet, no. Lemonis how come . What are you waiting for . George im waiting for you guys. Lemonis do we need him . Larry oh, we would love to have him back. Lemonis so, then, whats the decision . Whats your cost per hour . Larry 30 an hour. Lemonis 30 an hour. What does our typical guy cost . 17, 18 . Larry about 18. Lemonis okay, so theres a 12 difference. If you give him a light to make that requires welding and you make a 200 margin on it with the 18anhour person, okay . And it takes an hour, if he does it in a halfhour, in 30, did your margin get better or worse on the job . Larry well, better. Lemonis larry needs to understand that cheaper isnt always better, especially when it comes to labor. If theres two men that are being hired for a job, one at 18 and one at 30, larry would assume that the 18 employee would be better. But what if that 30 employee could actually do it in half the time, making the Effective Labor rate 15, a 16 savings over the 18 laborer . Cheaper isnt always better. Youre gonna teach me how to weld . George im gonna teach you how to weld. Lemonis do i need gloves . George yeah. Youre gonna go across. Lemonis you stay away from it . George yeah, about 1 4inch. There you go. Lemonis that was awesome. George you might want to hire him. Lemonis im 29 an hour. Larry im doing the math, you know. [ laughter ] one of the things i wanted to look at was the light output. You want to buy something thats dimmable. The ballast isnt hidden. Its easy to access. Bolt to bolt. Lemonis we made a light that i expect gotham to be thrilled with. We added a dimmer to the light, and we made the ballast easily accessible. And when that happens, maintenance for the actual owner of the light is even easier. Now its up to larry and his crew to actually finish the balance of the production. We should be able to get it done next week. Larry yeah. [ machinery whirring ] yeah, no, its not working. No. All right. Do you know where the plastic is . Jay . Can you come here . Do you know where the plastic is . Jay you said you were gonna take care of it. Larry drew do you know where the plastic is for this . Drew no. No. No. Why . We needed it . Larry yeah, yeah. This is supposed to go out monday. Drew no ones told me anything. Larry were about to ship. Im gonna have to call this customer now and tell him, after i promised him it wouldnt be late. I got to call brian. [ ringing ] brian hello . Larry brian, this is larry from vision quest lighting. I have a slight issue with the hospital light. Im trying to make this delivery for monday, but were missing a critical component. We may be tuesday. Brian it is what it is. Larry all right, brian. Thanks. Brian have a good weekend. Larry you too. Bye. Brian bye. Larry spectacular. Lemonis i wanted to get an update on the hospital job. Whats the status of that . Any progress or anything . Brian i felt that it was good. When we showed the sample to the hospital, they were very receptive. Lemonis so that went well. Brian yes. But we had one little thing that turned me off a little bit. Larry i broke the company. You were right. Lemonis youve spent a lot of time kind of admitting fault. I sympathize with you, but i kind of dont give a. Anymore. Im scared to bring business here. Lemonis i wanted to get anany progress or anything . Ob. Brian we had one little thing that turned me off a little bit. On friday afternoon, i got a call from larry. He couldnt make the meeting on monday, and i set that meeting up a week beforehand, so i couldnt even call anybody to cancel on that monday. We had to push it to the tuesday. We saved the sale, but it was a little embarrassing. Lemonis because you put your neck out there. Brian absolutely. Lemonis whats the deal with that . Larry one of the problems here is production flow. Its not always apparent. You know, right now were going through changes. I have to fill in every gap there is in the entire company. When we grow lemonis thats not true. Brian thats larry as we grow brian i got to tell you. Lemonis thats not true. Thats never gonna happen. Im not gonna allow that. Larry i know okay. Lemonis were given a job by gotham, and were already late on the first job, and im not happy about it. [ door opens ] hey, bud. Larry hey. Lemonis i got to be honest with brian, hes not wrong about him being disappointed with the deliveries. Larry yeah, no, i know. I know. Its our numberone problem, is deliveries. Lemonis but why, though . Larry because we started constraining. I broke the company. You were right. Lemonis since you and i have been working together, youve spent a lot of time, you know, kind of admitting fault and taking responsibility, which i love. But i think were now at the point where its like i sympathize with you, but i kind of dont give a. Anymore. Im scared to bring business here. You have to have a production manager. Larry its a lot of money. Lemonis but ive given you that support. Larry i know. Lemonis i need you to hire this guy, cause if he has a lot of experience. Larry yeah. Lemonis . Hes going to improve the process. So we need that help. Larry yeah. You got it. Lemonis okay . Thanks. Im bringing larry to my new sweet petes location in chicago. After what happened with the gotham job and them missing deadlines, i want larry to get out of the production side of things and focus more on the creative. I have a funny feeling that thats where hes gonna shine. I want you to go in and sort of assess what you think is wrong before we kind of have our opening. And i want you to be honest about whats here, whats not working, what you like, dont like. Youre not gonna hurt my feelings. I know its a disaster. Thats okay. Ill give you some candy at the end. Lemonis okay. [ both laugh ] as you walk the store. Look at how dark it is. Larry i mean, this is candy. It needs to really, really brighten up. Its got to hit the product, and then all of that light thats gonna shine off the product will light the store. Lemonis look at this wall, even, where all the yogurt is. Larry its a general area. We need to bring up this whole area. cause theres no individual product. But the decorative stuff thats the stuff im excited about, to be able to do that, especially in a store like this. It needs to Say Something about the brand, and it needs to be recognizable on its own. And i dont think its gonna take a whole lot of money. Lemonis i need it in two weeks. I needed it like two weeago. Larry we can you know. I dont want to be too negative, but it is gonna take. Lemonis two weeks. The grand openings already scheduled for. It cant be late. How are you . Larry welcome. Lemonis im excited to head back to vision quest to see the production with the warehouse, the machinery, and all the jobs. But larrys told me hes hired a new production manager, bob. I cant wait to meet him. Bob, i have a question for you. Whats the numberone thing you thought was wrong when you first got here . Bob the lack of communication and consistency. Lemonis okay. Bob no followthrough. All the information was not there. Some of it was still in the engineers heads, versus looking at the packet and saying, oh, its all written here. Lemonis has larry been staying out of your way . Bob absolutely. Lemonis thats a lot of progress for you. Larry yeah. Good. Lemonis do you agree, janelle . Janelle yeah. Jay its huge. Lemonis do you guys agree . Jay no, definitely. Jason we can just go to bob now. We dont have to worry about larry. Lemonis i think the fact that bob acknowledges that larrys been letting bob do his job is a sign that larrys not really managing in crisis mode anymore, and thats a good sign for things to come. Show me what you have in the shop. Larry okay. Lemonis larry has 12 days to create a whole new lighting look for sweet petes. And im not gonna lie to you its a lot of pressure for both of us. If larry gets this right, then hes got 10 or 20 more jobs. But if he gets it wrong, im back to the drawing board, cause i still need to solve this problem. Todays the grand opening of sweet petes, and as i look around, there is still a ton to do. Im not sure if this is gonna get done in time. Another larry deadline problem. Larry. Larry yeah . Lemonis how many hours you really think it would take to get this done . Larry 6 00. Lemonis four hours . Larry yeah. Lemonis you realize that people are coming at 7 00 . I have tons of people coming. It literally is the grand opening tonight. Is i have tons of people the ccoming at 7 00. Have it literally is the grand opening tonight. Larry i got it. I got it. Lemonis youre gonna get those up in time, as well . Larry yeah. Lemonis and the stores gonna get put back together . Larry yeah. Lemonis and youre not living in fantasyland . Larry come over here. Lemonis 15 minutes, guys. 15 minutes. [ glass shatters ] [bleep] theyre gonna all go on this half. We are literally racing around the clock here trying to get everything done. Larry, five minutes. This is his doordie moment, and it has to get done. Hi, guys. How are you . I guess were open. You did it. You met a deadline. By one minute. Larry [ laughs ] lemonis you did a good job. Larry thanks. Lemonis what did you do over here . Larry these are gummybear lights. These are resinfilled gummy bears. Youre looking at 3,500 gummy bears. Lemonis little gummy bears. Is the light changing on top, there . Larry yeah. Lemonis you did a great job with this light. I expected Creative Work out of larry, but i never expected something this fantastic. This place is bright, it feels fun, the energy level feels even better than i ever thought it could. Whats the biggest difference in larry . Anne well, confidence, less worry. Lemonis you were sad, larry. Anne yeah. Larry i didnt realize how bad i was. I was really gonna lose everything. Anne as far as the stress that came to the table originally, its not about that stress anymore. Its not about, you know. Larry its not financial stress. Anne . Viability. Its about lemonis that make things easier for you, too . Anne yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, yes. Lemonis thanks for letting larry and anne sort of come into your business and larry trusting me with this. Anne be in your way. Pete sure. It looks a lot better with the lighting. Larry i appreciate that. Pete you did it. Lemonis so, i wanted to thank everybody for stopping by. This is obviously a big day. Its an opening of a new store for us, but its the start of a new day for larry. You know, when i first met larry, he told me in his office that he felt like he was letting everybody down. You know, all of us have sort of been in a dark place at one point in our lives, but larrys kind of in a bright place now. Larry yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed seeing what weve created, and thanks for coming out today. Man thank you. Yeah man 2 yeah larry thanks. Thanks, bud. Lemonis over my time with vision quest, ive watched not only the business transform, but more importantly, ive watched larry transform. Larry come on, marcus. Lemonis all right. [ laughter ] and i think hes finally settled in and gained the sort of selfconfidence that vision quest needs him to have. This company is going to be very successful, and hes gonna make the employees and his family very proud. [ cheers and applause ] this is one of the most storied pieces of real estate in the entire world the las vegas strip. In 2017, more than 40 Million People came to vegas, and they spent 34 billion. I wanted to see how the city works not as a spectacle, but as a business. So im going to spend the entire next three days and 20,000 of my own money learning how vegas got so good at separating you from your cash. Well keep track of every cent, and im betting well learn a few secrets along the way