Marcus Lemonis, the host of the long-running CNBC hit The Profit, which was about righting the balance books of struggling small businesses with his expertise and investments, is back with The Fixer, a similarly entertaining new reality business series on Fox.

Premiering on Friday, July 18 with two episodes, the entrepreneurial host tells us how The Fixer differs from his previous show and what we can expect in this new iteration.

Your new business reality show features your attempt to expand and strengthen a small business each week, much like your previous one. Tell us about The Fixer, who is you, of course.

Marcus Lemonis: I work with these small businesses, and as I’ve gotten older, I tend to become a lot firmer and a lot more direct than ever before. Ultimately, the principle’s the same, but maybe the single difference between The Profit and The Fixer is that the former was rooted in businesses that were on the cusp of closing. We now have a good blend of businesses that are at a crossroads potentially closing or potentially going from $5 million to $20 million. And I really appreciated it as a participant that will work with people in a much different way.

In the opening of each show, you meet with companies asking for help and you choose one. What do you look for when selecting the right business?

What I’m really looking for is, is there a way for me to make money and do they have a need for me in their business? And in some cases when meeting them, if I find that they have all their stuff together and I don’t feel like I could add a lot of value, I don’t want to waste their time or mine. It has to be clear that I have a chance to make money. That’s the primary premise for me. I’m not doing this for charity.

For those who don’t know, what is your three P’s strategy to improve the margins of the company you are working with?

So about 15 years ago, I started operating on the strategy of people, process, and product. It’s a simple way for people to think about any business. Does the company have the right people and are they functioning properly? That includes the owner. Does the company have a product that’s relevant or a service that’s relevant? And if not, how do we fix it? How do we make it better? And does the company have a process? And the reason I went to a very elementary way of explaining it is that my goal is to have entrepreneurs of any size, shape, any background, be able to think about their business clearly by just taking those three things and asking themselves those questions. Profit started in 2013. Over the last 12 years, people have really bought into and followed that process, including me.

Let’s talk about Jazz Audio, a company you choose on the second episode of the premiere night. It is involved with the aftermarket of cars, i.e., personalized tire rims, upgraded sound systems, etc.

Jazz Audio is on Long Island and it had an interesting owner who had, we’ll call it, a high regard for himself. In some cases, that can be an asset. In this particular case, it was a liability because he was doing the number one thing that ruins businesses. He was making it all about himself, and that is not understanding the value of his people and not really recognizing that without them, the business would be closed. The second thing is in order to generate revenue, you have to have inventory. This was one of those episodes that there was a bad relationship between people at the company, no focus on the product or the inventory, and no process to manage the business. There is a twist at the end, after a tense negotiation. I think we taught a great lesson. This one is part of my heritage.

How so?

I grew up in the auto business. I always joked that I was raised by mechanics because my family’s business required me to work all the time; even as a child, I would work in the repair shop on the weekends. So when I go into a repair shop and the mechanics aren’t happy, that usually is my motivation to fix the business.

What is the company that you open the new series with?

Perspirology, a new fitness trend built around different disciplines founded 10 years ago in Seabright, New Jersey. Health and wellness as a category is expanding from high end wellness resorts to new club/gym concepts. The idea felt ripe for expansion and ideation with a concept around bounce, low impact that I hadn’t seen before.

What was a stumbling block in that business?

A husband-and-wife team that sees the world very differently particularly around money and investing in the business. I knew from day one that we needed a full people, process, and product evolution. Tough love is at the heart of it with one owner who mis-prioritizes time and money.

At the end of each show, you promise an investment of your own money in the business you are negotiating with. I know you might offer a smallish business maybe $50,000, but how high do you go in this first season?

Yeah, there are some much bigger businesses. There is one negotiation that involves a half-a-million dollars!

You have at least one rather unusual negotiation in an upcoming episode, don’t you?

We have an episode that is with three Orthodox Jews who became friends and opened up a popcorn business, and the deciding person that determined whether I would be involved in the business or not was their rabbi, who flew in from Israel to meet with me. To be candid with you, I chose that business for two specific reasons. I’m Lebanese, and my wife is Jewish. I’m horrified by the antisemitism that goes on in certain parts of this country and in the world. It was really important for me because I love the culture. The partners told me if he blesses you for being involved, you’re good.

I assume you passed the test. Can you mention a few other companies that you try to wrestle into more profitability?

We also have fitness, dog grooming, apparel, tie dye, and plant businesses, among others. We have one episodes that covers two businesses. Some of the negotiations don’t go well — in fact, go very badly fast. I told Fox that they need to be prepared that everything doesn’t wrap up with a beautiful bow on top. That’s not how life works. That’s not how real business works. In some cases, I lose money. In some cases, it goes well, while in other cases, I leave before there’s even a chance to do anything.

I like the graphics that the show uses to illustrate the company’s finances, both present and future, which could be good or bad.

Let me share something with you about that. So one of my signature techniques in making the show is what I call infographic. And I’ve had that throughout my career. And I built a show when I started in 2013, to be able to be used by a fifth grade schoolteacher in a class. I want young people to see how easy it is to learn if you pay attention. I also want very experienced, knowledgeable people. About four years ago, I got a phone call from Jamie Dimon, the chairman of the world’s largest bank [JPMorgan Chase]. He said, “I just called to tell you, Marcus, that I’m a huge fan of your show. I watch it with my family, and the one thing that I appreciate and you should do more of is how you teach people on the screen how simple math is, because people are normally intimidated by business and intimidated by money. And you made it feel so easy that my 12-year-old could understand that if they wanted to sell candy, what needed to happen for them to be successful.” He said, “The secret sauce is the infographics, because it makes everybody smarter and not feel dumb while they’re watching.”

FOX

In the several episodes I watched, you didn’t bark, yell, or demean anyone, though you did strongly disagree, of course, with the business owner. Do you mostly keep your cool or do you sometimes go off on somebody this season?

You’ll see me be more like a chameleon. There are really three things that have changed for me. One, I’m a lot older. I’m over 50 now. And so as time goes on, I’m more mature as a human. I think the second thing is, there’s so much noise in the world today that I felt I can get my point across and I can be persuasive. And the calmer I could be, the clearer I could be, and the clearer I could be, the more effective I could be. I really believe that. People want to go high-decibel thinking that if they get angry and they throw things or they yell, that it’s going to be more effective. It is not. But there are episodes where I boil over and I unfortunately get a little vulgar because my frustration boils over because people start either patronizing me or insulting me. Then things happen. But, you know what, I tell them when I meet them to be themselves. And If they really feel a certain way to defend themselves, I’ll respect them more if they tell me who they really are, as opposed to just say yes to me. I don’t like yes people, it’s not good for the world. If people have a point of view and they have a belief about something, they should be able to express that belief. But they should do it intelligently with facts and figures. And when people just do it without facts and figures, or they insult me, or they try to take stuff from me, then I’m going to react differently, and you’ll see that happen.

I know you beat a lawsuit when you were doing The Profit, against company owners who accused you of stealing their companies. Though you won, have you made any changes in how you work with these companies?

Well, first, it broke my heart, if I could be really vulnerable with you, because I saw the world differently. But I think it did not change my perspective on how I look at people. And the one thing that I definitely have as a superpower is my ability to treat everybody for who they are in that moment. And a lot of times when we go through bad situations, we build up this muscle memory or these scar tissues, and then we start to look through a shaded lens. But if you notice, there’s one single difference in the show between this show and the old show. I do my negotiation at the end and not at the beginning. I used to do it at the beginning, and then I would go on a wild ride. Now I do it at the end to make sure that the preview for the movie and the beginning of the movie and the middle of the movie is exactly what I thought it was, as opposed to just watching the preview and buying my ticket.

Is it true that you were left at a Beirut, Lebanon orphanage as a baby?

Yes, I was four days old. My birth mother left me on the doorstep of the orphanage. In 2018, NBC went back and did a documentary with me. I went to the orphanage and met the nuns that raised me. The network ended up finding my birth mother, whom I chose not to meet on the show. I chose not to. The reason that I chose not to is my adopted mother will always be my mother. She died three days before The Profit premiered. I never wanted to break her heart that I was seeking something that she didn’t give me.

Is your adoptive family Greek?

My mother is Lebanese, and my father is Greek. I identify as Lebanese because that’s where I’m from.

The Fixer, Series Premiere, Friday, July 18, 8/7c, Fox