You should pack your [bleep] and you should go. 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 is the profit. Lets go to work. In 2009, steve sims started bodhi leaf coffee traders, a purveyor of the finest coffee beans grown in unique microclimates across the globe. Steve we go to the farms, we source all the coffees, import them, handcraft each batch. So, were looking for the best of the best out there. Lemonis previously, steve was in real estate. And he didnt know much about coffee before he got into the game, but he proved to be a quick study, buying only the best beans and reselling them here in the united states. Steve we import for guys that want specialty boutique coffee. They have nice shops, and they want good coffee. Lemonis today, he sells raw beans to other businesses. He has a retail line of roasted beans, and he operates two coffee shops. Bita 12ounce white mocha . Lemonis and his sales exceed 6 million a year, but the bigger bodhi gets, the more difficult it is for steve to keep up. Steve im sick of keeping the train on the tracks here. I feel like i cant grow anymore. Lemonis the company is chronically short on working capital. The Inventory System is nonexistent, and now his employees are frazzled and frustrated. Steve this is this is [bleep] up. Lemonis still, specialty coffee is one of the Fastest Growing industries, and steve knows the market inside and out. Together, im confident we could make a real splash. Bita hi, marcus. Lemonis hey, how are you . This place is huge. Bita i know. Lemonis what is your name . Bita hi. Bita. Lemonis bita . Parker parker. Lemonis parker . Nice to meet you. Whats special about the coffee . Bita its roasted inhouse. We have our roaster over there. Lemonis thats what that smell is. Its so strong. Bita we do also import as well. So, we have a whole warehouse that we can walk you through. Lemonis okay. Great. Ive been to a number of coffee shops, but i didnt expect to see a giant window and 10,000 square feet of coffee beans piled to the ceiling. I didnt expect to see a roaster in the middle of the room. It was a mecca epicenter of coffee. Steve marcus. Steve sims. Lemonis steve, how you doing . Steve great to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. Lemonis dude, i love your beard, bro. Your beard is awesome. Steve thank you. Lemonis if you ever shave it off, youre gonna go out of business. Steve yeah, exactly. Lemonis what makes you different from the other big coffee people . Steve number one, we only source highend, specialty coffee. So, we dont mess around with commodity coffee. We dont mess around with gasstation coffee. Lemonis super premium. Steve we look for the best of the best. Number two, we do source the coffee, so we kind of take the middleman out of it. Lemonis so, theres some extra margin. Steve little extra margin in there. Lemonis what is amazing about the Business Model that steve has built, is he has vertically integrated his entire process. Usually, a coffee shop like bodhi would buy its beans from a middleman who will have already marked up the product to make some money. But by bypassing that system and buying directly from the farm, he allows himself to make all of the margin, from the farm to the cup. On top of that, he has his hands on the process from start to finish, and thats what guarantees him quality control. Brando how are you doing . Lemonis good. What is your name . Brando i am brando, like marlon brando. Lemonis thats kind of cool. Im marcus. Nice to meet you. Brando nice to meet you. Lemonis so, how does that work . Brando so, these are the two pourovers that im gonna do. So, what im doing right now is im preheating the filter and im preheating the beaker. Lemonis okay. Brando if you dont preheat the filter, youre gonna get a papery taste in your coffee. Lemonis okay. Brando im gonna grind them right here. Were gonna do 20 grams of each. Lemonis okay. Brandos very technical. You would think he was getting ready to launch the space shuttle. Like, its an art for him. Brando okay. Okay, add it. Lemonis i just wanted coffee. I didnt want to go into the meth lab. Brando and theres your pourover. Lemonis this is a lot fruitier and sweetersmelling. It tastes good. It was very smooth, but it had a nice flavor to it. It was the best cup of coffee that ive ever had. So, who trains the different people that come to work here . Steve brando, head of the cafes. Brando director of cafes, sure. Lemonis okay. So, you run the whole store . Steve both of them. Two open, one in anaheim hills, which is about seven miles from here. Lemonis it looks like this . Steve very similar, no warehouse. Im also in whole foods, and i have all my bagged coffee in whole foods. Lemonis okay. Steve all right. Lemonis can i get a tour . Steve lets do it. Lemonis awesome. Steve so, this is our roastery. This is where we roast it all. Were roasting fresh every day. And this is jared. Jared hey, im jared. Lemonis jared, im marcus. Nice to meet you. Steve hes our head roastmaster. Lemonis so, can you walk me through the whole process, how it works . Jared absolutely. Lemonis okay. Jared so, this is green coffee. We start with the green, raw coffee. Each batch is weighed precisely for consistency, and then you throw it into the hopper of the roaster. It roasts for about 13 minutes. Lemonis so, do you do all the roasting for the entire company here, or is it just for this shop . Jared everything for the entire company is on this roaster. Lemonis so, if you grew your wholesale accounts, how would you fulfill that demand . Ronnie were almost maxing this thing out. So, were like were like right at the breaking point. Lemonis oftentimes, i go into businesses, and they have capacity, but they dont have the product. That is not their problem here. They have a great product, and i want to figure out how to deliver more of it. How much of the company do you own . Steve 51 . Lemonis who owns the other 49 . Steve i had two investors come in. I needed to buy more coffee. I was selling out of it, and i didnt have any more money. Each one of those green containers back there costs me 90 to 150 grand, and i had to paid for that up front. Thats why i needed investors. Lemonis what prompted you to get into the Coffee Business . Steve uh, i was flipping real estate from 2005 to 2009. Doing well for a while, then the bottom fell out from under me. I lost everything, except for the house i live in. And i have a family. So, i was looking for a way to support them, to be honest. It was a scary time in my life, and it was the last 60 grand i had to my name. So, my back was kind of against the wall. So, i had a friend that had a connection in sumatra for green coffee. Flew to sumatra, bought my first container. Didnt know if i was overpaying for it. Didnt know if it was good. And i came here and started coldcalling roasters in the area, and i got lucky. It was a great container. People were saying, this is the best sumatran coffee ive tasted. It was 63,000 for that container. That same container, today, costs about 120,000. Lemonis i wish youd have bought more. Steve i wish so, too. So, this is the warehouse. Lemonis holy [bleep] theres a lot of cash in here. Steve yes, there is. Lemonis theres a lot of green in here. Steve we import it for guys that want specialty coffee. Say you own four restaurants and you want good coffee in your restaurants. You come to a guy like me. Or ill do private label. We do that for a lot of guys right now. Lemonis its becoming even more clear to me that youre running two distinct businesses here. Wholesale selling green roasted bags then the other business is opening up these cafes. Steve yep. Lemonis this business can be best described by looking at a coffee plant. On the wholesale side, there are three branches. He sells raw beans to other roasters. He sells finished beans to restaurants and other roasters. And he sells finished, roasted bags of beans to retailers who want to capitalize on the Specialty Retail market. Then theres the retail side, the locations that he operates as coffee shops along with the beans that he sells direct to consumer. Look, theres a lot to understand here, but what i want to understand first is how the overall sales process works and how the team interacts together. Jeff marcus, im jeff. Lemonis how you doing, my man . Jeff hey. Lemonis nice meeting you. Jeff yeah, you too. Lemonis what do you here . Jeff been here from the beginning, and i handle the commercial accounts. Lemonis wholesaling . Jeff wholesale, yeah. This is my list of the accounts that i handle. Lemonis how many are there now . Jeff i think i have about 160. Lemonis what is your title today . Jeff green coffee sales manager. Lemonis so, you run all of the green coffee sales . Jeff im kind of the goto. I mean, obviously im handling the bulk, but, um, we have a bit of a team, but im the head. Lemonis and do you have a staff that works for you . Jeff per se. Its not very lemonis whats per se mean . Jeff you know, there have been squabbles. There have been personality conflicts. People are, you know, bickering. Lemonis when you guys have Staff Meetings, who holds the Staff Meetings . Jeff we dont have meetings. Lemonis none . Jeff no. Lemonis but if you and jared have a disagreement about something, who resolves it . Jeff uh, we tend to talk them out, and after a couple days, uh, maybe things cool off a little bit. Lemonis a lack of formal Staff Meetings may seem like a small thing to some people, but for any organization to be healthy, communication is at the forefront, especially with as much as bodhi has going on. And if people are arguing and fighting as much as jeff says they are, well, thats something really need to get to the bottom of. How often do you guys get together as a staff for, like, team meetings, like, you, jeff . Brando very rarely with jeff. Yeah, i mean, he just does green sell, and i just do cafe. Lemonis yeah. So, who do you report to steve . Brando yes. Lemonis who reports to jeff . Brando no one that i know of. Lemonis okay. Jared, so, im trying to understand, how do you guys communicate with each other . Jared we dont really have very many formal meetings, but me, brando, steve, were all here almost every morning. Lemonis okay. And jeff mentioned that nobodys having any meetings with the team. Jared jeff, you know, works from home some days. Hes not here all day. Thats frustrating. Ronnie i personally feel like theres tension there. But i lemonis tension around what . Jared ive had someone come up to me and ask for the Vice President and then ask for jeff. Lemonis does that annoy other people here as well . Jared yes. Lemonis does it annoy you . Ronnie yeah. Lemonis clearly jeff is frustrating people at work with his behavior, and thats something that needs to be discussed and dealt with. Hey. Steve hey. Lemonis but, ultimately, its up to the leader to make sure that his people are communicating with each other and that people are are working together well. The guys were telling me that theres not a lot of Staff Meetings . Steve no. We dont have weekly Staff Meetings. Ive never been good at that. I got a good team around me, good people. Now this business is kind of getting big, and thats part of the reason why im talking to you. Lemonis thats the reason you called me . Steve oh, yeah. Now is a pretty scary time in my life. Lemonis is it that bad . Steve yeah. The company is growing beyond my experience of running a company like this. I just i learn as i go. I always have. And i almost lost everything. It happened before, you know . Can it happen again . And now i got kind of some good people here that i want to take care of. Theyre like family to me. I feel like i need to be their leader. I need to i need to show them the way, and, uh, it gets scary sometimes. I want to do it right. [ voice breaking ] i didnt want to do this. I dont want to do this. I want them to know im strong. [ clears throat ] lemonis you have to have some confidence in yourself. Just cause you have tattoos and zz top gave you their beard does not mean that you cant be a good leader. Steve i appreciate that. Lemonis im telling you that. Your people will respect you more, okay . Theyll respect you more. Steve all right. Lemonis can you grab all your financials . Steve yeah. Lemonis hi, there. Tracey hi. Lemonis im marcus. Tracey tracey. Nice to meet you officially. Lemonis nice to you meet you. Steve i printed out or tracey printed out the key things i think you might need or if you need anything else. Lemonis what do you do in total revenue . Steve last year, we did 6. 6 million. Lemonis of the 6. 6 million, how much of it comes from the wholesale division of green beans . Tracey about 5. 2 million. Lemonis geez. Big number, brother. Steve thanks. Lemonis okay. The business made 77,000 bucks. 77,000 is not awesome, but its its a profit. Theres 3. 5 million worth of assets, but theres no working capital. Steve right. Lemonis do you feel like you have some big needs coming in a short period of time for cash . Steve yes. Central american harvest is coming again, and we have to buy all these containers, and thats a tough time. Lemonis how much do you think that is . Steve somewhere between 800,000 and 1. 2 million. Lemonis but you realize, and im not trying to. Steve i know. Theres nothing. Lemonis . There is no money here to buy anything. Steve oh, i get it. Lemonis but i think you should be very proud, very proud of what youve accomplished. I mean that. Steve okay. Lemonis you know, look, let me study the financials, and then well get back together. Steve okay. I appreciate you coming in. Its an honor. Lemonis thank you, brother. Steve yep. Lemonis ooh were in the middle of bean factory. Steve right in the right in the heart of it. Lemonis how you feeling . Steve nervous. I just feel like im a normal dude. So, i dont know. Its a lot of mixed feelings. Lemonis humility is a requirement for me to be in business with somebody, but theres a certain amount of confidence that i would like you to have to be partners with you. And im telling you now that i am gonna make you have confidence, and you got to be able to communicate. If you cant, its, like, people dont know what to do. Steve i agree. Lemonis steve, i wanted to go over the financials one more time again, if thats okay. Steve yep. Okay. Lemonis business is gonna do 6. 4 million in revenue this year and is gonna make approximately 100,000 in profit. Steve yes. Lemonis theres roughly 3. 5 million worth of assets. Steve okay. Lemonis but its short on cash. My offer is 1,750,000, and i would like 50 of the business. With this investment, the other investors are gonna get diluted by 25 . So, i would have 50 , you would have 26 , the investors would have 24 . Steve its not that i dont want to give. Its just it sucks. I feel like. I work all this time to get to here. Okay. At the start, i had to give up, whatever, 49 for 200 grand. Now here now here i am again. I have to do it to grow. And here i am, gonna dilute myself again. At what point, you know, is the, like, the reward there . Its just it sucks. Brando people have asked me, do i have to listen to jeff . cause he told me to do something. And i said, no, you dont. Hes not your boss. Lemonis why do you need to be telling anybody anything . You are not in charge you should have kept your [bleep] mouth shut. Steve its not that i dont want to give. Its just, here i am, gonna dilute myself again. And now im only gonna be, whatever, a 30 owner of my own company. Its just it sucks. Lemonis steve, i dont want you to feel like you got minimized too much, but everybody has to give a little. Steve okay. Lemonis my offer is 1,750,000. 1,750,000. I would like 40 for that, i would like you to have 40 for that, and i would like them to have 20 for that. Steve so, im diluting 10 . Theyre diluting. Lemonis but im also taking 10 less than i want. Steve okay. Lemonis i would like that 1,750,000 to stay in the bank for working capital so that you could buy inventory without having to think about it. Steve yeah. Okay. Lemonis and im not getting any tattoos. Im just telling you that right now. Steve [ laughs ] lemonis im not doing that. Steve okay. Lemonis we have a deal . Steve yeah. Lemonis so, steve and i made a deal for me to invest 1,750,000 into the business. I invested the money not to just fill it and move it in this warehouse. Id rather be a national business, with one in texas and one in florida and one in chicago, where people can come there and be, like, this is amazing, and the lines out the door. Where steve has really excelled so far is building his wholesale business. His Retail Business is just starting out, but with his expertise and his ability to buy the beans, this would be a waste as a regional business. This needs to be a national brand. Im also not convinced that the branding is right. Jeff im surprised you dont like the leaf. I mean lemonis i dont like the leaf because i dont think its memorable. When you go to disney world, what whats the branding . Jeff the mouse, the princess. Lemonis heres my mouse. Jeff right. Lemonis i this is the brand. Okay . Like, this is what starbucks looks like, and this is what specialty coffee looks like. Steve all right. Lemonis i want to sell that. Steve all right. Lemonis and i want to embrace it. And then we do have to have weekly and monthly reviews as a team. Its about communication. All right, lets go to work. Thanks, guys. Steve yeah. Yeah. All right. Whats our plan here . Lemonis to see where we sit and where the opportunity is. Steve okay. Lemonis okay . There are companies around the country that fight to get on the shelf at whole foods. And the fact that steve was able to get his product into a National Retailer told me a lot about the quality of his product and the passion that he has in selling it. But what i want to think about today is how it compares to other retail brands and how we can best position it for future success. Steve so, this is us, right here. This is our presence. In most of the stores, we have pretty good presence as far as, you know, were not down at the bottom or top. Lemonis i have to be honest with you, iii dont like the packaging. I cant read the name. Steve cause of the style of the font, i get it. Lemonis i have i have rarely seen a coffee package that i like. Like, this, to me, its, like, couldnt be more boring. You disagree . Steve no, i agree. We also sell them the coffee. Lemonis you sell them their coffee . Steve we roast it for them. Lemonis so, do you think that a lot of these people on this shelf bought some green beans from you . Steve and still do. Lemonis as a wholesale customer, if i saw that all the sudden you were selling me coffee, but now you were selling against me as well, it would make me uncomfortable. Steve mmhmm. Lemonis its going to start to poke an