Lessons from TV Show “The Profit”

I usually spend at least a couple hours every weekend doing some type of personal or professional development for myself.  It’s almost always through audio books, but recently I found a television show that has captivated me.  It’s called “The Profit”.  It is about an entrepreneur who brings private equity into businesses of his choosing, gains majority control and then changes the entire business into something that was 10 times more profitable than what the business started with.  Many times the business is completely failing and about to go under.

The thing that I love about it is that you get to see how other people run their businesses.  You get to see how passionate they are about it.  You witness their attachment to doing things the way they have always done things.  But most of all you get to see how crazy entrepreneurs can be!  We are a funny group.

Watching the show really makes me proud of what we have created at the FBA because it highlights the things we do right that I never really gave us credit for.  We listen to our employees.  We focus on people.  We focus on products and we focus on profitability.  We do all the things that Marcus Lemonis tells these struggling entrepreneurs to do.

I’m not saying we don’t have room to grow.   We absolutely do.  However, it’s easy to look at all the problems in a business and what is going wrong.  Many business owners have a perfectionist mentality (I know I do).  I tend to constantly be working on the problems and finding those solutions.  It’s what I like to do and yet you have to be careful in that mode not to go negative.  Seeing the show reminds me of what we are doing right.  And I like that.

Here’s my key take away.  I found he always focuses the business owner on the one key thing they do really well and uniquely.  He totally removes everything else.  Think about what your business would look like if all you did was focus on the handful of things your do extremely well.  It is very challenging to achieve this because the nature of an entrepreneur is creative and innovative.  By that thinking we constantly grow our products and services, getting broader and broader.  Marcus reminds us to trim the hedges.  Cut out what is unnecessary, unprofitable and unproductive.  Focus on what makes money, you are great at and what you can make the biggest difference with.

“The Profit” is an awesome show.  I hope you watch it and enjoy it.  It definitely gets those entrepreneur juices flowing in the right direction.  Remember you are the creator of your destiny and you can become a success with the right focus and opportunity.