Peter
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Watch it online first.
Well, this was an episode with surprising results, to put it mildly, and one which provides the second season with a strong start.
In a nutshell, successful residential real estate investor and car buff Pete Athans has sunk his entire life’s savings into a new used car concept. The problems with this move are two-fold. One, Pete doesn’t really understand the car business. Two, he has this very odd idea that a dealership should also be a neighborhood hangout where people will come to watch television and play video games instead of just buying cars.
The result is that he has sunk $4 million of personal funds into a money-losing concept that wastes about 95% of its retail footage. The interior of the building is a huge empty cavern with just three cars in a space that should hold twenty. There’s also a wing that serves as a lounge outfitted with leather furniture and wall-mounted flat screens TVs. This space could easily hold another ten vehicles.
Marcus Lemonis
I just watched the first episode of the second season of Marcus Lemonis’ The Profit about the Athans Motors dealership located outside Chicago. Judging by the episode and trailer it looks like it’s going to be a strong season.
Someone emailed me yesterday about the progress that Marcus has been making with the business from his very first episode. In it he acquired Car Cash an NYC based company that buys your used car for cash. So what has Marcus done with that single location business since becoming a partner with the two brothers?
The answer is that he’s taken the winning formula and duplicated it a few times.
Go ahead, and take a guess as to how many locations there are as of this writing.
No peeking.
Take a guess before clicking for more.
Talent Acquisition
What does a firm in need of additional talent do in a tight job market? Here’s how one company grew.
Shortly after completing my degree I went to work for a management consulting firm that specialized in helping technology companies with their financing and marketing challenges. Our firm ended up becoming an equity partner in a client I brought in. The client was an engineering consultancy that was evolving into a designer and manufacturer of electrical instruments.
The Profit Returns for a Second Season
I have some really great news.
Season 2 of The Profit with Marcus Lemonis starts on Tuesday Feb 25th, 2014.
Marcus has become a sort of unofficial poster boy for The Tycoon Playbook in that he is an exemplary practitioner of one of the three main ways that tycoons create value in acquisitions. While I enjoy most shows about experts who go into ailing or failing businesses to fix or save them, Marcus’s is the best of the lot in my book.
My long lost bearded twin?
I don’t recall what piqued my curiosity to watch Downton Abbey a few years ago, but I quickly found myself hooked. This is in large part due to all the very likable characters that populate the Downton Abbey universe such as Mrs. O’Brien and Mrs. Patmore. Who wouldn’t want these wonderful women as friends in real life? Then of course there’s Maggie Smith as the Countess Dowager who gets all the best lines. Hers is the role of a lifetime. Then there are the men: Mr. Carson the old school butler, Matthew Crawley, Tom Branson, and last but not least Lord Grantham himself played by Hugh Bonneville for whom I am being mistaken with ever increasing frequency these days.
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