The 250 Square Foot View

I was all set to write a snarky review about the season 3 premiere of The Profit. I assumed it would start off with a bang–and by bang I mean another stubborn, inept small business owner who, by halfway through the episode, the audience ends up hating and rooting for Marcus to walk away from.

Instead, I saw actual human beings having actual human emotion, and the story about the failing business was secondary.

Marcus and the audience first meets Mike and Chris of SJC Drums at a trade show in California. Their booth is packed and everyone seems to be having a good time–a little girl shredding it on drums!–but we learn that Chris, a “partner” at SJC, quit his six-figure job to make half that doing the operations and books for SJC. Oh and “partner” is in quotes because he doesn’t have any equity in the company for some reason. Huh?

The product seems top-notch–Marcus says the drums are “badass.” (From what I know about drums–literally nothing–they look really nice.) SJC’s customers, apparently, include Green Day, Imagine Dragons, and Lady Gaga. But they’re only making “15 points,” or 15% margin, on their drums. (Marcus says their low margins are “not badass.” Good one.)

Later, Marcus visits SJC a  their headquarters in Massachusetts. The warehouse is pretty messy and we learn their process for making drum kits stinks–Chris and Mike aren’t on the same page on which orders are the highest priority, which means the employees don’t know which ones to make first–and they are just about broke. Nothing surprising here as far as The Profit goes–if the business was doing everything right, Marcus wouldn’t need to be there.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Marcus sits Mike and Chris down in the back office and Mike tells him that he and his brother Scott started the company (SJC are Scott’s initials) but Scott left in 2013. Mike bought out Scott’s half of the business for–get this–$533,000.

WHAT???

Mike explains that in order to pay Scott back, he has been paying $2,000 a month and will do so until year 15, when he will pay the remainder in a balloon payment of $285,000.

WHAT???

Mike says he didn’t want to short change his brother on the way out–whether he jumped or was pushed we’ll find out later–by offering less than the company was worth. He starts crying when Marcus observes that Mike put his brother ahead of himself. “I wish he understood that,” Mike says through tears.

But something’s not quite right here. Mike’s coming off as the caring brother (no idea if he’s older or younger than Scott) but clearly something big and ugly happened that we don’t know about yet.

After a scene where now Chris is also crying to Marcus in the snow about how much he loves the business–despite being a 0% equity partner–Marcus is ready to BALL OUT. Here comes symbolic handshake and check time.

BOOM. $400K for a third of the business. Mike hesitates and has dumb concerns. Marcus shoots him down. YOU WILL TAKE THIS MONEY. Mike takes the money. But there’s a catch. Marcus is also pushing a third of the company to Chris, so they are all equal partners at SJC. Mike is like, oh yeah I was totally gonna suggest that, and agrees to Marcus’s conditions.

Marcus rounds up all the employees the next day, explains the deal he made with Mike, and tells them from now on they are selling three levels of drums–good, better and best. Instead of only selling kits worth of Imagine Dragons, they will sell sets that a beginner can afford and hits the 40% margin goal Chris set so that they can, ya know, make money when they sell drum kits.

But the staff is having trouble cutting costs without cutting quality significantly.

Marcus goes to visit the mysterious other brother, Scott. Scott is a soft-spoken, seemingly sensitive guy who clearly loves music and making instruments. (He estimates having made 5,000 drums in his life.)

Scott’s side of the story is that Mike hired all his friends to work at SJC and those guys would all make fun of Scott. Listening to him talk and having seen some of SJC’s employees, I can totally see that. Mike’s the guy with tattoo sleeves, a black cap and a black hoodie, and so is all the staff at SJC. Meanwhile Scott is a little artsy, maybe a little music-nerdy, not necessarily the go along to get along type. It’s not hard to imagine a work environment in which he, despite maybe being the most talented guy in the shop–AND THE FREAKIN’ CO-FOUNDER–might feel intimidated into walking away from his own business, which has taken on a bully culture in which he’s the sole target.

Marcus convinces Scott to come back to SJC, at least temporarily, to put his expertise towards their 40% margin problem.

When Mike sees Scott walk in with Marcus it’s Awkward City, population: 3.

Mike tries to open the conversation but Scott is clearly hurt. “What did I ever do to you?” They go back and forth a while and finally agree to talk about drums rather than personal beefs. Marcus brings Scott out to the warehouse.

Now Mike is crying–literally crying, again–to Chris in the back office about how it’s too awkward, he won’t work at SJC if Scott is there, etc.

Marcus comes into the office and rather than trying to play therapist he gets REAL with Mike. He tells him his earlier apology to Scott during their bickering session was garbage. (Marcus was totally right, BTW. It was one of those apologies where you apologize for how the person is feeling, but not for your part in it. Classic apology loophole.) “I’m not Oprah. To think that your brother doesn’t add value is f—ing asinine.” Go fix it, he tells Mike.

Mike goes back to Scott and makes a better apology, but Scott is still not ready to talk about “brother things.” Mike replies, “Well just so you know, I am ready to talk about brother things. I want some sort of relationship that is healthy for us.” As much as Mike has ostensibly dicked over his brother, it sounds like he’s genuinely remorseful and feels really bad about what went down. This explains why he’d be agree to those ridiculous buyout terms. At this point I kinda just feel bad for both of them, not being able to settle their brother things.

They shake hands and leave the conversation there. It’s a rare case in reality TV where the emotion feels real, not manufactured by the producers.

The next day Scott is back and straight SCHOOLING SJC’s staff on how to cut costs for the drums to get to a “40 points” margin. Dude is just solving EVERY problem the rest of the guys couldn’t. Even Marcus is blown away. “It’s kinda cool to listen to your brother,” he tells Mike. “Cuz he’s got some crazy s–t in his head, but he’s very smart.” Watching Scott work is pretty fascinating, even if you–like me–don’t know jack about drum-making. He’s like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, banging out that math problem on the blackboard at MIT like it was nothing.

Thanks to Scott, SJC now has a prototype they can make for $537 and sell for $895–a 40% margin. They test it at a studio with fancy schmancy audio equipment–which, BTW, who the hell knew there was so much technology in music?–and it passes with flying colors. You could actually argue the SJC “good” prototype is actually too good compared to what you’d get from most beginner kits. But either way it’s within the quality standards of SJC’s brand.

Mike–who up to this point doesn’t seem to be all that valuable of an employee at SJC–has the tall order of going to Sam Ash in New York City with Marcus to convince them to carry SJC’s “better” kit alongside their better-known, multi-national brands.

They’re not having it.

Mike, a better salesman than I gave him credit for, pulls out the big guns ad plays up the handmade in America angle. On top of that he name drops Green Day–they don’t actually say say Billie Joe but it’s implied that “he” and Mike went to each other’s weddings–and says he could get the band to make an appearance at Sam Ash. Richard Ash, grandson of Sam Ash, eats it up. (This scene, BTW, feels TOTALLY fake, but whatever.)

Meanwhile back at SJC Mike and Scott are tight again. Mike says the best part of Marcus’s visit was that Scott is back in his life and they have a relationship again. Again, it seems genuine. They hug it out. And scene.

Marcus does it again–rescues a failing business, and this time mends a family riff. WHAT CAN’T THIS MAN DO?