Marcus Lemonis: "Business Is Not Freedom" (Lessons Learned from The Profit)⏐Ep. #251

Chris Koerner (0:00)

I have a lot of surface area for fraud and scams and partnership fallouts. The more businesses you start, the more of that you'll have.

Marcus Lemonis (0:06)

If you want to be a good business person, you have to try things in and outside of business that make you wildly uncomfortable. I have interest in taking your idea and thinking about it differently. And ultimately, I have one goal, and that's to get the best version of you so that the business can be the best version of itself. That is what I love to do.

Chris Koerner (0:27)

We published this big hit piece about him and his personal life. He never said a word, ever, and it just died.

Marcus Lemonis (0:32)

If you give it oxygen, it will breathe.

Chris Koerner (0:34)

I grew up poor, lower middle class, no money for food, and entrepreneurship gave me everything. I want everyone that's curious, that wants to try it, wants to taste business ownership. I want to help them get there. One of my all-time business heroes is Marcus Lemonis. He is the star of the hit NBC show, The Profit, and he is a business addict. He is a shiny object-driven entrepreneur just like myself. I've looked up to him for 15 years, and so I ran into him by accident at Caesar's Palace in Vegas, and I said, Marcus, can I interview you? He said, absolutely. So I flew all the way here to New York City where I am right now, and I spent an hour and a half with him. It was one of the best hours and a half of my life. So we discuss everything from The Profit, learnings, regrets, failures, how to start a business, what ideas he loves, what ideas he hates. I hope you enjoy.

Marcus Lemonis (1:23)

So I saw that you posted, hey, what should we talk about?

Chris Koerner (1:27)

Yeah.

Marcus Lemonis (1:27)

And I want you to know that anything that was given to you, there's nothing that I won't talk to you about.

Chris Koerner (1:33)

Okay.

Marcus Lemonis (1:34)

If there's a reason that I can't, I will tell you the reason that I cannot.

Chris Koerner (1:38)

NDAs or whatever.

Marcus Lemonis (1:39)

No, I'll just say to you, I'll just tell you exactly what the answer is. Yeah. I'll never be evasive, I'll be direct, but I want you to know there's nothing, you don't have to walk on eggshells. Because I saw some of the questions, I was like, I hope he asked me that.

Chris Koerner (1:53)

Yeah. Well, this isn't like a hard-hitting podcast.

Marcus Lemonis (1:56)

It's okay. But it's if people have questions, people ask me those questions, people ask me all the time.

Chris Koerner (2:02)

Well, it's funny because I see both sides of it, right? And I have a lot of surface area for fraud and scams and partnership fallouts. And the more businesses you start, the more of that you'll have. And it's messy.

Marcus Lemonis (2:13)

I used to get sued a lot. I get really bummed out about it.

Chris Koerner (2:18)

Yeah.

Marcus Lemonis (2:18)

More than I would let anybody ever know. And I do a lot of reflecting like, was it me? Was it my judgment? Was it them? What was it? And there's a common theme. And it took me a while to learn that common theme. And I would talk about it with a friend of mine. And my friend's like, look, you throw more stuff against the wall. And you do it publicly. So you kind of are saying to people, hey, just want you to know, I have some money and I'm going to try to help. But if at any moment in time, you don't like something, you should just sue me.

Chris Koerner (2:54)

Yeah, you're begging for it. Yeah. But you're willing to. You know what you're doing.

Marcus Lemonis (2:58)

I'm less willing to than I used to be.

Chris Koerner (3:00)

Yeah. Is there a certain story or specific thing that happened that got you to look at that differently? Or is it just a combination of things?

Marcus Lemonis (3:07)

That got me to change my willingness to do it? I would say emotional exhaustion, not mental. I have a high belief in people. I go into every situation assuming that somebody is going to be, do the right thing and they're going to work hard. And in many cases, they do.

Chris Koerner (3:24)

Yeah.

Marcus Lemonis (3:25)

And when they don't, I tend to not become disenfranchised by people. I'm like, well, that's that person. The next person is going to be great. People have been very critical of me and my wife, particularly that I'm too naive and I'm too trusting and everybody can't be good.