– He’s a business man, inventor, philanthropist
and television personality.
– He has an estimated net worth of 150 million dollars.
– He leads close to 6,000 employees in over 100 cities
across the U.S.
– He is Marcus Lemonis and here are his
top ten rules for success.
– You know there’s this myth that people think they don’t
need a business plan.
And often times I find business owners who have an idea,
a great one,
and where they miss it is the execution.
They don’t go through the process of writing things down.
Because any time you can take pen to paper,
write out your ideas and share them with other people,
and get feedback,
which is essentially a business plan,
you’re going to do better.
It could be a white board in an office, uh,
it could be notes taken on your computer or in a journal.
But I want it to start with something that says
here’s what my product or service is,
here’s how I’m going to attack the market,
here’s how I’m going to beat the competition,
here’s how I’m going to learn from my competitors,
here’s what I’m going to take from my customers,
and here’s the kind of people I need
to surround myself with.
If you don’t answer those questions then really you’re
just kind of, like a dodge ball game,
you’re just going to go out there and wing it.
And at some point you’re going to get whacked in the side
of the head.
You know, cash flow to me is, is important
but working capital from the beginning is also important.
I find people come to me with a projection about their
business, it’s a brand new idea,
they think they’re going to make money in six months,
they don’t make money in six months
and they don’t have a backup plan.
They don’t have a reserve, they don’t have a line of credit.
And so they go out of business and that’s probably
the single biggest reason small businesses close,
not because the idea is terrible, not because they have
bad people, they don’t have the sufficient amount
of working capital.
One of the things that I do do before I go to bed at night
is I make a quick list of the things that I know I have
to deal with the next day.
And I try to get those knocked out before noon.
Because from noon on it’s kind of like the wild, wild west.
I don’t know what’s going to happen.
I don’t know what new issue is going to come up.
And so you want to really be smart about your time to knock
out the things you have to.
Who do I have to talk to?
What do I have to review?
What do I have to do with a bank or an employee
or one of the businesses?
You want to get out, what I call the housekeeping,
you get the housekeeping done in the morning
and then you get to kind of farm the fields for the rest
of the day.
And part of the challenge or part of the challenge for me
at least is that the lines get very blurry of when the day
actually shuts off.
And that can present a real challenge to, you know,
your personal life and your friends
and kind of that balance, so it’s hard.
But the first part of my day is the focus.
I tell you, we need you here,
and this is more important than any pie we’ll ever make,
but I’m going to need your help before you leave,
– [Woman] Absolutely.
– Because I’ve got to get some stuff done and you’re
going to be our leader here.
Okay?
– Okay.
– But in order for you to be able to have good peace
of mind I wanted to give you some money.
I’m going to give you six month’s worth of pay, okay?
And when you come back you will be fully in charge
of this location.
And I’m going to pay you $1000 a week,
so you don’t have to bartend, okay?
(crying)
Okay.
I’m going to give you a check.
And it should help you just kind of, be able to rest,
take care of your baby and then when you come back
you’re going to bust somebody’s ass.
(laughs)
Alright, okay?
– Wow, thank you.
– The reality of it is that the employee is number one.
Because if the employee is happy, ultimately the customer
is going to be happy.
If the employee is happy they’re going to take care of the
assets of your business.
If the employee is happy they will have a pride
of ownership and they’ll stand side by side with you
and they’ll fight during the tough times
and they’ll celebrate during the good times.
If you take care of your employees they will
put the customer first.
But if you don’t, it won’t matter.
There won’t be any customers.
If you don’t take care of your employees there will be
nobody to help and you’ll have no business.
I say follow your passion, which should be sports,
I say if you have a passion for business you also
better have a knowledge for it.
And so if people want to own a business they better have
worked for somebody else for a while and they better have
an intrinsic knowledge of that industry.
And so it would be like me getting into, you know,
the barber business and I never went to learn
how to cut hair.
I should have a knowledge.
If I don’t have the knowledge then I better have a partner
or I better have a manager or a leader in place who’s
vested in the business who does have a knowledge.
And so three guys want to open up a restaurant because
they think it’s cool to open up a restaurant but none
of them know how to cook or wait tables,
they shouldn’t be in that business.
Entrepreneurs who have offered a product or a process
that isn’t working today have to make the bold step
of reinventing themselves.
I talk about it all the time, how over the course of my life
whether it was at 12 years old or 18 years old,
or 25 years old or even today, I’m constantly working
to reinvent myself.
I’m no different than a package on a shelf,
people have to feel that it’s relevant,
they have to see the warning labels,
they have to understand the contents,
it has to be appealing,
it has to provide value to people.
And so when an entrepreneur has a product or a process that
they’ve offered and they’re not willing to change it
then they’re going to end up like Circuit City,
or Montgomery Ward, or Sears,
or Fiat or whatever these
brands are that don’t exist anymore, right?
Every single company in this country today,
if they’re not evolving, they’re dying.
And I don’t know why an entrepreneur would think
they’re exempt from that process.
I’m not interested in their ego, I’m not interested in
their pride, I’m not interested in their feelings,
I’m interested in their business being successful.
And so I think not only does their business have to do it
but we as entrepreneurs have to do it as well.
Let’s talk about the myth that your product
is already good enough.
People often develop a new product and it’s fantastic
and it hits the market, like, in a blaze of glory,
and it sells and there’s back orders.
If you’re delivering them a good product or service today
they’re still going to expect something better tomorrow.
And the one thing you have to worry about is there’s
a competitor out there,
somebody that can mimic your offering.
And so you always have to stay one step ahead of them.
And so when products don’t morph into something new,
they don’t develop into something better and smarter
and faster and less expensive,
that’s probably the biggest takeaway, less expensive,
then people are going to find alternatives.
For me I like to go out and study the competition,
that’s how I reinvent myself.
I go out and I study businesses that aren’t exactly the same
but they run their business with a set of ethics
and a set of principles that are second to none,
and they can be in a space that’s completely different than
mine but I learn something from them.
I don’t think we do that enough.
How many people you meet at a party or at a restaurant
that tell you they’re entrepreneurs,
and in the past I used to say now,
does that mean you don’t work?
– Mm.
– And so an entrepreneur to me um,
is kind of a nonsensical word.
You’re either a business owner or you are a team member,
one of the two.
And I think being a business owner is the hardest thing
to do in this country.
You take your money, hopefully not your mother’s money,
but you take your money and you invest in an idea
which is essentially investing in yourself,
but if you do it solely to make money you’re going to lose.
And you really have to do it and I know that a lot of people
out there get up every morning and they hustle,
– Right.
– And they’re driving in the car right now and they’re on
their way to a job right now that they may not love,
– Yeah.
– And, I encourage them just to stick to the grind.
Get the paycheck, pay the bills,
learn, learn and learn.
And too many young kids out of college tell me they’re
entrepreneurs and I tell them you can’t be an entrepreneur
until you’ve worked for somebody else and you know what
it feels like to be fired,
– Right.
– Or to be called on the mat or to be harassed
or to be mismanaged,
you’ve got to know what that feels like so that when you’re
on the other side,
– Yeah.
– You can be respectful to people.
– Yeah.
– You know I have a terrible fear
that I lay awake at night with,
and that’s the fear of failure and the embarrassment that
comes with it.
And so people like to have a lot of pride and say, you know,
I’m not embarrassed I’m not,
I think anybody that’s an entrepreneur deep down,
really deep down in their soul has fear of failure.
What will people say, what will people think?
And it’s hard, it’s a hard challenge.
And so I try to ignore it as much as I can
but I find it kind of haunting me.
And so I push through because I really believe that I have
an obligation to keep trying and trying and trying.
And I’ve had plenty of failure in my life.
What happened was when I turned 35,
and 2008-9 happened, I became much more comfortable
with admitting my vulnerability,
acknowledging my mistakes, saying when I was wrong,
showing my cards and saying oh that was stupid.
Crumbs could be one of those situations where I tried
to outsmart something and now,
I don’t think it’s going to fail,
but I have to be realistic, it could.
Anything I do could fail.
I go through thousands and thousands of applications
and sometimes I pick businesses that are new and innovative
and the product’s exciting and sometimes I pick businesses
that are pretty ordinary.
When it’s ordinary and it’s saturated the biggest challenge
is you’re now dealing with a commodity,
and so whether it’s a coffee shop or a yogurt shop
the question is is the product relevant in the marketplace?
And if it’s saturated can you rise to the top of the list?
I want to encourage people not to
run away from saturated markets,
But I want you to run away if you don’t have the time,
the resources, the energy, the people,
the process or the attention to detail to be best in class.
And so if you’re going to open up
a coffee shop in a very crowded market you’d better have
something that’s unique.
It better be experiential.
Your product better be amazing.
You process better be on pointe.
And the people that sell it better be better in product
knowledge and better in experience than anything else.
I guess a different way to look at it is if you go into
an industry that’s not saturated
you should probably ask yourself is there a reason
that nobody else is in this?
I can’t be the only person with this idea.
And so you get into a business that’s not saturated
it may tell you that there’s not really a market there.
I think I’d like to get into the hanger business,
I mean, is it saturated, is it not,
is there a reason that everybody’s not in it.
I don’t really mind whether it’s saturated or not,
I have to like the product, it has to be relatable.
It has to be not totally recession proof,
but it has to be kind of recession proof.
I think it’s important that if you’re going to get
into a business and you’re thinking about taking your
last $50,000 and getting it,
getting into something,
you better have something that is unique if it’s going
to be a commodity.
And you better, better make sure that you really understand
what happens when the economy goes up and down
and study those trends.
– Thank you so much for watching, I made this video because
Black asked me to,
so if there’s a famous entrepreneur you want me to profile
next leave it in the comments below and I’ll see
what I can do.
I would also love to know which of Marcus Lemonis’ top
ten rules you liked the best,
meant the most to you, leave it in the comments
and I’m going to join in the discussion.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Continue to believe and I’ll see you soon.
and television personality.
– He has an estimated net worth of 150 million dollars.
– He leads close to 6,000 employees in over 100 cities
across the U.S.
– He is Marcus Lemonis and here are his
top ten rules for success.
– You know there’s this myth that people think they don’t
need a business plan.
And often times I find business owners who have an idea,
a great one,
and where they miss it is the execution.
They don’t go through the process of writing things down.
Because any time you can take pen to paper,
write out your ideas and share them with other people,
and get feedback,
which is essentially a business plan,
you’re going to do better.
It could be a white board in an office, uh,
it could be notes taken on your computer or in a journal.
But I want it to start with something that says
here’s what my product or service is,
here’s how I’m going to attack the market,
here’s how I’m going to beat the competition,
here’s how I’m going to learn from my competitors,
here’s what I’m going to take from my customers,
and here’s the kind of people I need
to surround myself with.
If you don’t answer those questions then really you’re
just kind of, like a dodge ball game,
you’re just going to go out there and wing it.
And at some point you’re going to get whacked in the side
of the head.
You know, cash flow to me is, is important
but working capital from the beginning is also important.
I find people come to me with a projection about their
business, it’s a brand new idea,
they think they’re going to make money in six months,
they don’t make money in six months
and they don’t have a backup plan.
They don’t have a reserve, they don’t have a line of credit.
And so they go out of business and that’s probably
the single biggest reason small businesses close,
not because the idea is terrible, not because they have
bad people, they don’t have the sufficient amount
of working capital.
One of the things that I do do before I go to bed at night
is I make a quick list of the things that I know I have
to deal with the next day.
And I try to get those knocked out before noon.
Because from noon on it’s kind of like the wild, wild west.
I don’t know what’s going to happen.
I don’t know what new issue is going to come up.
And so you want to really be smart about your time to knock
out the things you have to.
Who do I have to talk to?
What do I have to review?
What do I have to do with a bank or an employee
or one of the businesses?
You want to get out, what I call the housekeeping,
you get the housekeeping done in the morning
and then you get to kind of farm the fields for the rest
of the day.
And part of the challenge or part of the challenge for me
at least is that the lines get very blurry of when the day
actually shuts off.
And that can present a real challenge to, you know,
your personal life and your friends
and kind of that balance, so it’s hard.
But the first part of my day is the focus.
I tell you, we need you here,
and this is more important than any pie we’ll ever make,
but I’m going to need your help before you leave,
– [Woman] Absolutely.
– Because I’ve got to get some stuff done and you’re
going to be our leader here.
Okay?
– Okay.
– But in order for you to be able to have good peace
of mind I wanted to give you some money.
I’m going to give you six month’s worth of pay, okay?
And when you come back you will be fully in charge
of this location.
And I’m going to pay you $1000 a week,
so you don’t have to bartend, okay?
(crying)
Okay.
I’m going to give you a check.
And it should help you just kind of, be able to rest,
take care of your baby and then when you come back
you’re going to bust somebody’s ass.
(laughs)
Alright, okay?
– Wow, thank you.
– The reality of it is that the employee is number one.
Because if the employee is happy, ultimately the customer
is going to be happy.
If the employee is happy they’re going to take care of the
assets of your business.
If the employee is happy they will have a pride
of ownership and they’ll stand side by side with you
and they’ll fight during the tough times
and they’ll celebrate during the good times.
If you take care of your employees they will
put the customer first.
But if you don’t, it won’t matter.
There won’t be any customers.
If you don’t take care of your employees there will be
nobody to help and you’ll have no business.
I say follow your passion, which should be sports,
I say if you have a passion for business you also
better have a knowledge for it.
And so if people want to own a business they better have
worked for somebody else for a while and they better have
an intrinsic knowledge of that industry.
And so it would be like me getting into, you know,
the barber business and I never went to learn
how to cut hair.
I should have a knowledge.
If I don’t have the knowledge then I better have a partner
or I better have a manager or a leader in place who’s
vested in the business who does have a knowledge.
And so three guys want to open up a restaurant because
they think it’s cool to open up a restaurant but none
of them know how to cook or wait tables,
they shouldn’t be in that business.
Entrepreneurs who have offered a product or a process
that isn’t working today have to make the bold step
of reinventing themselves.
I talk about it all the time, how over the course of my life
whether it was at 12 years old or 18 years old,
or 25 years old or even today, I’m constantly working
to reinvent myself.
I’m no different than a package on a shelf,
people have to feel that it’s relevant,
they have to see the warning labels,
they have to understand the contents,
it has to be appealing,
it has to provide value to people.
And so when an entrepreneur has a product or a process that
they’ve offered and they’re not willing to change it
then they’re going to end up like Circuit City,
or Montgomery Ward, or Sears,
or Fiat or whatever these
brands are that don’t exist anymore, right?
Every single company in this country today,
if they’re not evolving, they’re dying.
And I don’t know why an entrepreneur would think
they’re exempt from that process.
I’m not interested in their ego, I’m not interested in
their pride, I’m not interested in their feelings,
I’m interested in their business being successful.
And so I think not only does their business have to do it
but we as entrepreneurs have to do it as well.
Let’s talk about the myth that your product
is already good enough.
People often develop a new product and it’s fantastic
and it hits the market, like, in a blaze of glory,
and it sells and there’s back orders.
If you’re delivering them a good product or service today
they’re still going to expect something better tomorrow.
And the one thing you have to worry about is there’s
a competitor out there,
somebody that can mimic your offering.
And so you always have to stay one step ahead of them.
And so when products don’t morph into something new,
they don’t develop into something better and smarter
and faster and less expensive,
that’s probably the biggest takeaway, less expensive,
then people are going to find alternatives.
For me I like to go out and study the competition,
that’s how I reinvent myself.
I go out and I study businesses that aren’t exactly the same
but they run their business with a set of ethics
and a set of principles that are second to none,
and they can be in a space that’s completely different than
mine but I learn something from them.
I don’t think we do that enough.
How many people you meet at a party or at a restaurant
that tell you they’re entrepreneurs,
and in the past I used to say now,
does that mean you don’t work?
– Mm.
– And so an entrepreneur to me um,
is kind of a nonsensical word.
You’re either a business owner or you are a team member,
one of the two.
And I think being a business owner is the hardest thing
to do in this country.
You take your money, hopefully not your mother’s money,
but you take your money and you invest in an idea
which is essentially investing in yourself,
but if you do it solely to make money you’re going to lose.
And you really have to do it and I know that a lot of people
out there get up every morning and they hustle,
– Right.
– And they’re driving in the car right now and they’re on
their way to a job right now that they may not love,
– Yeah.
– And, I encourage them just to stick to the grind.
Get the paycheck, pay the bills,
learn, learn and learn.
And too many young kids out of college tell me they’re
entrepreneurs and I tell them you can’t be an entrepreneur
until you’ve worked for somebody else and you know what
it feels like to be fired,
– Right.
– Or to be called on the mat or to be harassed
or to be mismanaged,
you’ve got to know what that feels like so that when you’re
on the other side,
– Yeah.
– You can be respectful to people.
– Yeah.
– You know I have a terrible fear
that I lay awake at night with,
and that’s the fear of failure and the embarrassment that
comes with it.
And so people like to have a lot of pride and say, you know,
I’m not embarrassed I’m not,
I think anybody that’s an entrepreneur deep down,
really deep down in their soul has fear of failure.
What will people say, what will people think?
And it’s hard, it’s a hard challenge.
And so I try to ignore it as much as I can
but I find it kind of haunting me.
And so I push through because I really believe that I have
an obligation to keep trying and trying and trying.
And I’ve had plenty of failure in my life.
What happened was when I turned 35,
and 2008-9 happened, I became much more comfortable
with admitting my vulnerability,
acknowledging my mistakes, saying when I was wrong,
showing my cards and saying oh that was stupid.
Crumbs could be one of those situations where I tried
to outsmart something and now,
I don’t think it’s going to fail,
but I have to be realistic, it could.
Anything I do could fail.
I go through thousands and thousands of applications
and sometimes I pick businesses that are new and innovative
and the product’s exciting and sometimes I pick businesses
that are pretty ordinary.
When it’s ordinary and it’s saturated the biggest challenge
is you’re now dealing with a commodity,
and so whether it’s a coffee shop or a yogurt shop
the question is is the product relevant in the marketplace?
And if it’s saturated can you rise to the top of the list?
I want to encourage people not to
run away from saturated markets,
But I want you to run away if you don’t have the time,
the resources, the energy, the people,
the process or the attention to detail to be best in class.
And so if you’re going to open up
a coffee shop in a very crowded market you’d better have
something that’s unique.
It better be experiential.
Your product better be amazing.
You process better be on pointe.
And the people that sell it better be better in product
knowledge and better in experience than anything else.
I guess a different way to look at it is if you go into
an industry that’s not saturated
you should probably ask yourself is there a reason
that nobody else is in this?
I can’t be the only person with this idea.
And so you get into a business that’s not saturated
it may tell you that there’s not really a market there.
I think I’d like to get into the hanger business,
I mean, is it saturated, is it not,
is there a reason that everybody’s not in it.
I don’t really mind whether it’s saturated or not,
I have to like the product, it has to be relatable.
It has to be not totally recession proof,
but it has to be kind of recession proof.
I think it’s important that if you’re going to get
into a business and you’re thinking about taking your
last $50,000 and getting it,
getting into something,
you better have something that is unique if it’s going
to be a commodity.
And you better, better make sure that you really understand
what happens when the economy goes up and down
and study those trends.
– Thank you so much for watching, I made this video because
Black asked me to,
so if there’s a famous entrepreneur you want me to profile
next leave it in the comments below and I’ll see
what I can do.
I would also love to know which of Marcus Lemonis’ top
ten rules you liked the best,
meant the most to you, leave it in the comments
and I’m going to join in the discussion.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Continue to believe and I’ll see you soon.
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