Amazing Grapes Summary

A brief summary of Amazing Grapes and what The Profit wishes to do

The episode of Amazing Grapes in the Profit demonstrates a failing business who lacks sufficient management and leadership but sustains hardworking employees who put it unto themselves to manage and lead the business through near failure. Amazing Grapes is based in the Orange Country in America. The business has way too much wine inventory and lacks sufficient profits to keep financially stable. When Marcus Lemonis (the investor) first visits Amazing Grapes he is overwhelmed by the clutter outside of the business, by the excess of inventory and lastly the lack of management and leadership. He noticed that there are 3 sections to the business: the retail side (which takes up

However, this did not lead to ultimate failure of the business but instead encouraged the workforce and staff to take it unto themselves and work together to keep the business going (regardless of the lack of management). The team dynamics of the workforce in the Amazing Grapes retailer and restaurant is outstanding and essentially the reason behind Marcus giving the employees (the new managerial team) 1% higher than what the co-owners received. “He retained 51 percent and gave 25 percent to the existing managers. The initial owners, who could not be reached for comment, retained 24 percent” (Shimura, T. 2014). However, this new team had previously lacked sufficient leadership in order to sustain that team dynamic before Marcus came in to restructure the business. This lead to conflict within the business where the employees began to stand up to Greg. For example, he had his band come in and play once a month. Greg claimed that the business benefited from the performance and increased profits drastically. But the employees and bartenders begged to differ stating that they actually made more money on a night where the band was not there. The only difference the band made, according to the workforce, was the number of people who came into the store. This conflict was handled incorrectly by Greg and thus caused even more dysfunctional conflict – and is ultimately the result of a poor communication channel between the employees and the