'The Profit' Star Marcus Lemonis Previews Season 3

If you’re among the viewers who’ve already watched all 24 episodes of The Profit multiple times — including the remixed episodes with social media commentary — set your DVRs to catch a whole new batch, as business investor and host Marcus Lemonis returns for Season 3 of the binge-worthy CNBC series on May 12.

Lemonis, the Camping World CEO who’s also appeared on Celebrity Apprentice and Secret Millionaire, talks to Yahoo TV about the small businesses he’ll try to help in Season 3, how he’s called upon to act as peacemaker almost as often as he acts as investor, how much of his packed schedule is spent making the show, the investments that went very, very wrong, and the thing that weighs on him most while vetting the hundreds of applications he gets from small business owners every day.

I just saw a sneak peek of the Season 3 premiere, with the drum-making, estranged brothers of SJC Drums. It’s an emotional episode.
Yeah, it’s a different sort of episode, because it’s got so much heart and so much emotion that while we know that we’re traditionally a 100 percent business show, we found ourselves in a moment where we could not let it go. We couldn’t get down to business until we resolved this issue, because [the brothers’ relationship] is so, so fractured. Everybody was so emotional… you see real, raw emotion.

Do you like those kind of episodes, or do you dread those kind of scenarios where you have to cut through that before you can get to the business?
That’s a great question. I don’t have a preference, because I get so lost in the moment, no matter what the episode is. Every business we do is different. Our show is not a super-formatted show. It doesn’t have a script. It’s what you see is what you get. Sometimes it’s all business and no personality, and sometimes it’s all personality and the business of it is different. They’re exhausting. As you would imagine, I go home mentally and emotionally just drained.

The SJC Drums story: we see these tattooed guys going to work every day in their hoodies, doing exactly what they love, being their own bosses, and making a living at it. They needed some help, obviously, but this episode is a really good example of what is the dream scenario for a lot of people.
It is, but, as we see, there’s a very fine line between everyone hanging out with their buddies, making things they love, and having it be sustainable. I think what happened ultimately was that the business needed a real steward on a daily basis, someone that was going to keep the guys very disciplined and very structured, without eliminating the fun and the enjoyment that they have. It will probably seem simple to everybody who will watch it, but putting in the 10 steps [we implement] about, “You have to start here and end here, and you have to clean the place up” — I literally say to them when I put these 10 steps in place, “You start here. You go to sanding. You go to painting…” It seems elementary, but they had nothing. They were winging it. When you put structure into an environment that’s already relaxed and comfortable, it doesn’t change the dynamics when it’s simple structure, but it gives them a higher probability of success. We put shelves in. They take inventory. We make sure we have the inventory in stock. We drive out nine dumpsters full of trash. It seems simple, but it gave these really cool, fun, hip guys some level of process, because they had none.

That is often the case with the businesses on the show, though, isn’t it? We can sit at home and say, it’s so obvious and simple what they need to do.
Look, I think all of us, definitely including me, when we live in our universe, and we get caught up in our own drama, in our own issues, in our own tensions, we have trouble seeing what’s right in front of us. It’s very easy for all of us to look from the outside in and Monday morning quarterback other people’s situations. When you go down into the weeds with them… if you came to something that I was doing, I’m sure you could find things, because we get so trapped in our own mud that you just can’t see it. People always ask me why I don’t get more frustrated, why I don’t get more upset [with people on the show], and it’s because I really do try to put myself in their shoes and understand, from their perspective, why they feel that way and how I would feel if I was in that situation. It allows me to be a little bit more open-minded and a little bit more patient.

As the show has evolved, do you see yourself now as, obviously an entrepreneur, but have you taken on the role of life coach as well?
I’ve always been that way. It’s not like it transformed. I think what’s essentially happened is, as the businesses that we’ve gotten involved in have become more complicated, and as our viewers have seen that we’ve been able to have some limited success in that regard, the level of applications that I get, the level of participants, has changed. The dynamics, the types of businesses, but also the extent of the issues; I’m finding that some people are applying just for that reason, because they need to figure it out. I would never use the words “life coach,” and I never use the word “entrepreneur.” What I always tell people is, “I just do business the same way I always have: I take whatever situation’s in front of me, whether everybody likes it or not, and just deal with it.” Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not work. We’re doing a bit of a recap episode in Season 3, because people are always dying to know what happened in the previous ones. You’ll see that I had a couple that went really bad.

From Season 2?
From the first 24. I had one that went really, really bad, really fast…. It was Artistic Stitch in Queens. It ended up being a total disaster for me. I lost a lot of money. I think the key for people like myself who may watch the show is, I think we all like to celebrate the successes. I think it’s fun. It’s emotionally gratifying. But I think it’s also important for the college students who watch the show to make sure that people understand that life is not Extreme Makeover… We don’t always move the bus and everybody cries and has a new house. That’s not what happens in life. Sometimes we move the bus and the house falls down. I want people to know that that’s real life, and everything isn’t glossy and shiny. That’s important.

What are some of the other businesses we’ll see in Season 3?
We’ll see a burger restaurant, Standard Burger, on Staten Island that was owned by five friends who have been friends since they were kids, and whose relationship completely fell apart across the board, all five of them. We changed the concept, and we have a good experience there. We’ll see a furniture manufacturer in Miami. We’ll see a marshmallow manufacturer in Indiana. We’ll see a sign company, for interior signage, in Pennsylvania. We’ll see a home delivery food service in West Palm Beach. We’ll see a makeup manufacturer in Kansas City. And you’ll see Birchbox — they’re a participant in the show as a helper. We just see a lot of really cool things, things we’ve never done before, things we’ve never seen before. You’ll meet a wide range of characters this year.

How many companies are applying to be on this show at this point? I would guess the number has tripled, or more, from the beginning.
Yeah. We get hundreds a day sometimes. It’s very difficult. It’s kind of heartwrenching to go through all the different applications and to find 10 or 12 people that you believe deserve the time and the energy and the money. What I always wonder to myself — and this is a very honest, private moment — is, did I pick the right ones? But more importantly, who did I not pick that really needed it, that isn’t going to make it, and am I letting them down? It sounds corny, but it’s an unbelievable amount of pressure to figure out who to pick, and who not to pick, and did you pick the right one. Is somebody’s life going to be helped, or is somebody’s life going to be ruined because you missed them? Honestly, it really wears on me. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s something that I spend a lot of time thinking about and probably more than I should. It’s a hard process.

How much of your time is spent on the show now?
We’re shooting north of 20 episodes in 2015. We’re going to break it up, because I need to have a life, as well. If we break it up 10 and 10, that’s just as an example and not specific, I’ll spend five months making 10 episodes. Just this week alone, I was in Kansas City, I was in Chicago, I was in Salt Lake City, and I’m in Miami right now. It’s a full-time responsibility. The reason it has to be is this is not a studio show where I go in and shoot three episodes in two days. It’s not a show where I go in, and say, “All right, we’re going to change the paint from white to gray, and put some new carpet in, and hang a new chandelier.” It’s not that show. It’s a show where you really have to be deep, deep, deep in the weeds for a long time to really get to know what’s happening in the business. Like you’ll see with Standard Burger in Season 3, it’s our biggest transformation ever. It is so extreme and so complicated and so detailed, it took a month and a half to do the transformation. I will tell you this: it truly is a labor of love for me. I truly do fall in love with the businesses, except when they go totally bonkers on me. We have a couple this year that just totally fall off the rails and make it, I guess, entertaining for viewers and exhausting and emotionally draining and frustrating for me. Most of my friends actually like those episodes more. They like the ones that are harder for me.

Is there a limit on how much cash you want to invest, to how many businesses you want in your portfolio? Could this show go on forever?
Well, the show will go on as long as I feel like people are really getting something from it, and being inspired by it. That really is the metronome. It’s not how many deals I do, it’s not how much cash I spend. And also how long the network wants to do it. It does have to perform for it to continue, because it’s a business. But people that watch it have to really find value, and the minute they don’t find value and they’re not enjoying it and they’re not learning, then it’s time for me to go do something different.

The Profit Season 3 premiere airs May 12 at 10 p.m. on CNBC.