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. In 2010, Justin Romines started rayjus with his fishing buddy, ray odom. Justin if you take the graphic stuff out of there, i bet you its almost. Lemonis as 50 50 partners, their goal is to bring professionallooking sports shirts to amateur fishermen. Katie we only need five small. Justin okay. But were short this material for all this . Katie correct. Lemonis with little experience in the apparel industry, they set up a fullservice operation in lawrence, illinois, where they cut, sew, and print customizable garments. Katie i expect at least two to three more of these today. Justin well, then, fine. Well ship today. Lemonis fishing fanatics started snapping them up, and sales eventually grew to over a Million Dollars a year. But fishing is a seasonal sport, and that means unpredictable revenue. Ray well, february, march isnt bad. April got our ass kicked. Lemonis and the slow months have led to a lack of funds while their debt continues to climb. Justin we also have no material here right now to get the lamb order done, so we got to figure out how to get more in the bank. Lemonis now, rayjus finds itself on dangerously thin ice. Sports apparel is a 35 billion market in the u. S. I have a massive investment in the outdoor space with my acquisitions of gander and overtons, and this could be a great addition to them. Hello . As i look through the warehouse, ii honestly thought i was in somebodys storage garage that was just holding boats in there. Hello . Cathy hello. Lemonis how are you . Cathy good. How are you . Lemonis hi. And then i go into this area where i see all these women working, and, i got to tell you, it was it was hot as. In there. Hey. How are you . Nick hi, there. Matt marcus. Matt thompson. Lemonis how you doing, matt . Matt nice to meet you. Nick nick. Lemonis nick, how are you . Brian brian. Lemonis brian. Nice to meet you guys. I didnt know where to walk in. Where are ray and justin . Matt ray and justin . Brian ray is right at his desk in there. Lemonis i went into another area that felt like an airconditioned office. Ray we already made a blue one that goes with it. Lemonis hello . Justin hello. Hi. Lemonis hi. Justin how are you . Lemonis im good. Justin im justin. Lemonis justin, how are you . Im marcus. Justin thats ray. Lemonis nice to meet you. Ray hi. Lemonis hey. How are you . Im marcus. Ray good. Nice to meet you, marcus. Lemonis nice to meet you. So is that what ray and jus is . Ray exactly. Yep. Justin thats right. Lemonis okay. Justin its a little bit of a play on outrageous. Lemonis okay. Justin jerseys and crazy stuff we make. Lemonis they dont seem so outrageous. Justin if you wear it to the store, people kind of look at you funny. Lemonis you guys have, like, a boat dealership in your garage. Justin yeah, thats my boat and his boat. Ray my roomateincolleges boat and then two other rentals. Lemonis you guys do a lot of fishing, obviously. Justin as much as we can. Ray yep. [ laughs ] justin we are kind of geared towards the fisherman and the boater. Sunprotection designed. Ray completely custom shirt. So, this starts as plain white fabric. Lemonis so a customer calls you and says, i want to make a shirt for my fishing tournament. Ray on our website, they can actually go on and build their shirt. Then they can add their logos because we have a logo library online. Lemonis they can add their logos or other peoples logos . Ray well, theyre adding other peoples logos. Theres a lot of companies that either, a, dont mind that they use their logo, but a lot of these guys that we deal with are sponsored by these companies. Lemonis its almost like a dryfit shirt from under armour or nike, so im thinking to myself, this is really cool because, in all of my stores where i sell outdoor equipment, these products could do really well. So an individual customer that buys this, what does it cost . How many is the minimum they have to order . Justin one. Ray one is the minimum. Justin one is the minimum. Lemonis where does the bulk of the revenue come from . Justin essentially that. Lemonis and so your entire business is individual consumers going onto the website, making a custom shirt . Ray 80 percent of them. Justin 80 percent of it, yeah. Lemonis wow. Justin yep. Lemonis youre in the customprinting business one consumer all the time. I think that the customizable shirt business is a nicetohave. Its a nice little Side Business in my opinion, not a core business. What experience do you guys have in this space . Ray none. Lemonis oh. Ray i was a disc jockey. Justin im in management information. Lemonis disc jockey. Justin it guy. Lemonis what are the roles that you guys have . Ray design, product development. Justin and i do some sales work. Lemonis can you show me the factory . Ray sure. Lemonis well, how did you make that transition from radio to here . Ray i always built websites for myself and designed tshirts for myself cause i was a disc jockey. Lemonis okay. Ray and im still on the radio now. It was always my creative outlet. Lemonis youre still a disc jockey today . Ray yeah. Lemonis and how often do you do that . Ray i go twice a week, but im on every day. Lemonis so youre good. Ray i like to think so. So it just kind of transitioned from i get to be creative on the radio and write stupid songs and fake commercials, and, here, i get to draw. Lemonis oh, very cool. Justin heres our factory, marcus. This is our area where we do sewing. This is cathy, by the way. Lemonis hi, cathy. Im marcus. Cathy hi. Lemonis how are you . Cathy nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. What are you sewing . Cathy jockstraps. Lemonis [ chuckling ] jockstraps . Okay. So, this is part of your lineup . Justin we do this for a client. The seasonality of the business, this is to help us keep these guys working all year round. Katie you can laugh out loud because everyone does when they hear that we make jockstraps. Lemonis i dont feel like ive met katie oh. Im katie groves. Nice to meet you. Im manager in charge of special projects, so im over jockstraps, lamb and goat products, as well as. Lemonis wait. What . [ laughter ] katie sorry. This is a lamb blanket. They put it over their wool to keep them clean. Theyre mainly used for state fairs, all that sort of thing. Lemonis so, this is also contractmade . Katie correct. Justin correct. Katie this is for goats. They are leg warmers. Lemonis these are for goats . Justin goats and lambs both. It stops them from biting on their leg. Lemonis jockstraps, lamb coats, and goat leg warmers . Like, Richard Simmons goat leg warmers. Like, theres nothing else you could have come up with . How much revenue will you do in jockstraps a year . Justin close to 30,000 a year. Lemonis and how much will you generate in revenue from the lambs and the goats . Justin lambs and goats so far this year are at 80,000. Lemonis 80 . Justin yeah. Lemonis so how much revenue will you do in those custom tshirts . Justin about 1 million a year. Ray about a million bucks. Lemonis i like the fact that they are trying to fill these voids of the irregular cash flow, but the products that theyre making are such a small percentage of their revenue, its so off the mark of their core business that its not even really scalable. All right, guys. Ill hang out here with them. Justin okay. Lemonis i dont need you. Justin all right. Holly hi. Im holly. Nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. What do you guys think about them cutting and sewing things like lamb and goat and jockstraps . Katie it takes about three times as long to do a lamb product as a shirt product. Holly mmhmm. Katie . Just because the shirt construction is super simple. Lemonis and how much money do you make on the lamb product versus the shirt product . Katie oh, shirt is way more. I mean, it cost us, what, about 30, id say, to make a shirt, and we sell it for over 100. And, a lamb product, we sell for 17. Lemonis and it costs three times the amount of time to make it, takes three times . Katie yeah. Yeah. Lemonis have you guys gotten together and had an opinion with the two of them and said, this is ridiculous . Holly it doesnt really matter. Lemonis at all . Holly were kind of, like, on our own out here. Nobody really comes out here. It gets really hot in here. Lemonis no ac in here. Holly and katie no ac. Holly every friday, theyre gone fishing. Lemonis theyre gone fishing. Holly they go fishing all the time. Lemonis well, how do you make payroll through fishing . Katie yeah, well, those are questions we have, as well. Holly yes. Lemonis did they tell you why i was coming . Katie they didnt actually tell us why you were coming, but its a real small company, so we know why youre here. Holly we know all the gossip. Lemonis why am i here . Katie well, youre here because the business is out of money. Theres nothing left to pay anyone. Our vendors are maxed out on their credits. We cant order more material, and if they dont make a deal with you, well all be looking for jobs. We have payroll due, and there were at least three to five people who hadnt cashed their checks from last pay period. Lemonis you guys hold the paychecks . Holly yes. Lemonis have you ever had a check bounce . Katie yeah. Lemonis maybe one of the reasons that the business is struggling is because these guys are only putting in 4 days of effort. All right. Ill see you guys in a little bit. Holly okay. Lemonis thank you so much. Katie bye, marcus. Lemonis bye. Is it warmer in here than it was in there even . Marci oh, yeah. The thing is the press runs at 390 degrees, so its always hot. Lemonis yeah, but, i mean, they could pump some cool air in here. Marci it would be a little more enjoyable. Lemonis its odd to me that marci is out in the warehouse standing and working with this very hot machine i mean, really hot. And right on the other side of the wall are a bunch of guys sitting in cubicles with plenty of light and plenty of air conditioning. So what is is this printed on paper . Marci yeah. So, this is printed on special paper. Lemonis okay. The girls inside were telling me that the business is somewhat disorganized. Marci it is a little frustrating, though, to know that theyre out fishing and then we might not be able to make payroll. Lemonis as opposed to getting on the phone, selling, making money. Marci mmhmm. Fishing is more important. I actually have a video on my phone of a friday afternoon i think you would probably find pretty interesting. So this is just me. Its a quarter after 1 00. Lets go see whats going on in rayjus. Lets see whos all here. Lemonis nobody. Doesnt that piss you guys off . Marci yeah. Lemonis you want to talk about morale being bad . When one of your employees feels the need to go video things that bother them. Justin. Justin, why dont you and i, well go take a walk . Justin okay. Lemonis lets get some fresh air. Look, after all the things that ive heard from the employees, i thought it would be a good idea for me to grab justin oneonone and get to the bottom of some of the issues. How much money do you have invested personally in this business . Justin right now, me personally, about 16,000 of my own personal money that was actually money taken from tax returns because of past payroll taxes that were due. Lemonis what . I dont understand. Justin so, they took from my personal tax returns. Lemonis who is they . Justin the irs. And applied it to Tax Liability for rayjus. Lemonis were you guys not paying taxes at the company . Justin correct. Correct. Lemonis how come . Justin cash flow. Lemonis is the company past due on taxes now, too . Justin yes. Lemonis how bad . Justin 88,000. Yep. Lemonis holy. Justin they visited us two, three weeks ago. Lemonis the irs did . Justin yes. Lemonis im now starting to feel sorry for the people that are working in the warehouse. This heat, the conditions, and, at the end of the day, ray and justin are just literally, like, running a house of cards, it looks like. It would be nice if there was air conditioning in here. Justin yep. The only thing is, is you couldnt you would not want to air condition this guy because its 390 degrees basically a giant oven. Its a heat press. Lemonis is that space air conditioned . Justin yes. Well, to a certain extent. We blow air into there from the other room because the girls complain. Lemonis cause the ladies told me its not air conditioned at all. Justin well, we leave the door open. Lemonis [ chuckling ] we leave the door open. I cant believe that he just told me that they open the door a little bit so that the women can have air conditioning. I have a really mixed emotion here because i like the potential for what this product could deliver, and i know where i would sell it. But you dont want to judge a book by its cover, but the first couple of pages arent looking good. What is cool is that you have people here in illinois making a product, and youre designing stuff. That is why i came. So, if i look at the financials for last year, you did 1,282,000 in business, gross profit of 596,000, which is not a great margin, especially when youre selling direct to consumer. Youre not wholesaling the product. Why are the margins so bad . Ray we need to raise the prices just if we want to keep selling. Lemonis the counterargument to that is you dont just raise prices to fix margins. You have to find out whats actually causing the margins. Ray sure. Justin and i know exactly. Lemonis what is it . Justin we had, in the heart of our busy season last year, both of those printers go down. And, that happening, it just absolutely killed our momentum, killed our ray sales. Justin . Our sales, it killed our profitability. Ray yeah. Justin we lost, printer time alone, 254,000 last year. Lemonis so how much would it have cost to buy a new printer . Ray 30,000. Justin [ sighs ] yeah. Lemonis and what could you guys have sold personally to buy a printer . Justin nothing. Ray plasma . [ laughs ] justin well, the company is on life support, and i know that. Ive known it for several months, several years even. Lemonis how far do you guys think you are away from closing . Justin if some things dont turn around, within a month or two. Lemonis can you make payroll next week . Justin not yet. Ray not at this point. Lemonis how do you guys pay your bills . Like, how do you pay your personal bills . This place makes no money. Ray i have the radio job. But thats why i reached out because its time where we need to turn the ship around. I see the numbers, and they suck. I know that. Lemonis the numbers dont suck. The margins suck. Ray yeah. Lemonis and your employees think you guys suck. They think you guys are more interested in going fishing than you are making sure they get their paycheck. Justin thats a shock to me cause i feel like im the one that tries to settle differences with them. Ray ill be honest. Im shocked. Lemonis [ groans ] ray no, really, cause i think i have a great relationship with the employees. Lemonis youre on the radio. Ray sure. Lemonis and you have the gift of gab. Ray sure. Lemonis so i doubt that youre shocked by much. Ray depends, yeah. Mmhmm. Lemonis okay . Ray but the character that im playing lemonis do you understand what im saying . He can get away with it. Ray the character that im playing on the radio is not the character i am in real life. Lemonis i dont want you do be a character. Ray im dad in real life. Im a guy that cares about my family, about my employees. On the radio, this is not me. Im a sexist, egotistical, racist pig on the radio. Lemonis did you just say that out loud . I make a living telling people that i am a sexist and a racist. That just got uncomfortable really fast. If your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to. Ray on the radio, this is not me. 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Plus get 250 back when you buy an eligible phone. Click, call or visit a store today. Im a sexist, egotistical, racist pig on the radio. Lemonis i knew ray had a side job, and i thought it may be a distraction. But i didnt realize that the focus of it was to demonize minorities and degrade women. What do you think a woman would think of your radio show . Ray that im a pig. Im going to say what every other man wants to say that doesnt have the balls to do it. Justin i dont like sexist or racist things. Absolutely not. So my hope with having you come here was to eliminate the tax burden. Lemonis but im just trying to understand this. Ray okay. Lemonis when you go onto the radio. Ray mmhmm. Lemonis . And youre doing your thing, and you said sexist, racist are the people that are listening also the same . Ray yeah, i think so because i put a humor spin on everything. Lemonis but whats funny about racism . Ray its not the dick joke you tell. Its how you tell the dick joke that makes it funny. Lemonis i dont understand that. I am a big believer that you are who you do business with. And so the fact that you think i would do business with you because you do that, whether its your personality or not, i just cant. I can get over business problems. Fix the process. Make it safe. Put the air conditioning in. Figure out how to pay the taxes. Create a better work environment. Sell more. Diversify the product. I can fix those. I cant fix you from being a racist and a sexist. But heres the good news. I wont have to fix it cause im not gonna be here. Nice meeting you. Justin nice to meet you, too. Lemonis i wish you guys luck. Justin all right. Lemonis thank you so much, okay . Sometimes, you deal with people that dont have their head screwed on straight, then they have a perspective about others that isnt right. And, sometimes, you deal with others that only think about other people, like my friends at bentleys. And so, while im here in illinois, i want to see what theyre up to. In 2015, i invested in a sevenstore pet chain called bentleys corner barkery. It was started by lisa and giovanni senafe. Lisa we do allnatural food, no byproducts, corn, wheat, or soy in our foods. Lemonis lisa, the president of the company, oversaw the product assortment and the merchandising while gio, the head of business development, hunted for new locations. Giovanni i hav