The director from Little Big Shots sat me down with his British accent and said, “Mr. Harvey I’d like to tell you something… and you can tell me to f*ck off and I will...b ut you’re absolutely the busiest person I’ve ever met in my life and I’m concerned about you. I want you to read a book called Essentialism.”
Photo by Joe T. NewmanSteve Harvey in his trailer.
You know what? This book along with my anniversary trip helped changed the whole way I think. The basics of essentialism is this:
Everybody must do the things that are essential to your life to make you happy or successful. You must eliminate everything that doesn’t make you happy or don’t lead to your success. All day long people come up to me... asking me to do things to benefit them and I had to find a better way to operate my days. This was it.
I got half way through this book and I knew this was something I had to share... I’ve shared with my entire staff and I want to share it with you! You can preview the book for free here!
Definitely check out author Greg McKeown’s Linkedin Speaker series below.
Who doesn't love a good game of Monopoly especially a real life one? Large swaths of the Atlantic Boardwalk are changing hands. Philadelphia developer Bart Blatstein is buying up practically everything that is for sale on the boardwalk. Miami based Bruce Kaye, the CEO of Fantsea Resorts, is also looking to expand his holdings in Atlantic City and is spending millions of dollars to upgrade his current properties.
Kaye is a charismatic entrepreneur that had a long storied career in real estate before he entered the timeshare business. He previously co-owned the world renowned Fontainbleau Hotel and co-developed the million square feet Miami International Mall. Fantsea Resorts, currently owns three properties in the Atlantic City Area-the Flagship located in the inlet, Atlantic Palace on the boardwalk, and La Sammana in Brigantine. The properties are in high demand with 45,000 vacation owners for the approximately 900 studio, one bedroom and two bedroom units that all are equipped with kitchenettes.More importantly for Atlantic City, he attracts tourists who stay the longest duration and want to spend money in the region not just at the gaming tables.
The high demand for units is attributable to his ability to put out a good product at a fair price. Fantsea Resort rooms are larger than average hotel rooms and include mini-kitchens, making longer stays more affordable and easier for families. The Atlantic Palace includes a pool, hot tub, member's lounge, and gym. The Flagship, which is in the midst of major renovations, will feature a lobby bar, pool, hot tub, grill, children's play room, movie theater, gym that offers classes, full service spa and large outdoor deck over the ocean perfect for weddings and parties.Their restaurant, the Blue Water Grille, has the best views in Atlantic City.
One could be forgiven for thinking they were in the South of France as boats sail by at they eat their expertly cooked branzino or surf and turf. The Flagship property will get an even bigger boast when the boardwalk in front of the property is finally refurbished next year. This will be the first time the boardwalk is completely walkable for possibly the first time in 25 years.
Kaye is seeing such great demand in Atlantic City that he is negotiating with Revel Casino owner Glenn Straub to take over the 12 unfinished floors of the Revel Casino and convert them to timeshares. As with all things related to Straub, it might be hard to complete a deal. The one disadvantage of a timeshare deal at the Revel would be the casino operator would not be able to use those rooms for gamblers.
The timeshare industry has been rightfully criticized in the past for some shoddy practices. It appears to have cleaned its act. The industry has grown 7% annually since 2011 with $8.6 billion in sales for 2015. Kaye was honest about the industries past reputational problems by indicating that there were some bad apples n the business in the 70's and 80's, but pointed out the largest leaders- Marriott, Disney, Hyatt, Starwood, Wyndham; are part of the leisure industry today.
He explained, "The timeshare owners experience depends on the financial strength of the operator. We are strong." A cursory glance at the company's financial records revealed 96% of the timeshare owners are paying their mortgage on time, which indicates a high degree of satisfaction with their property. Approximately 15% of the owners become repeat customers and buy more units.
The gregarious mogul treats his employees, many of whom have been with him a long time, as extended family. He serves 3 meals a day to more than 500 employees at the Flagship. When his son declined to enter the business, he established an ESOP to sell the company to his employees with the share price rising appreciably since inception.
While Kaye has been in Atlantic City for over 25 years, Blatstein is a new entrant into the Atlantic City market buying his first commercial property last year. He believes he is buying real estate at a rock bottom prices in Atlantic City, which still attracted more than 24 million people visitors last year despite the closing of 4 casinos in 2014. He said, "Property on the boardwalk in Atlantic City is going for $30 a square foot. In nearby Margate and Ventnor, it's going for $1000 square foot. When I go into an area, I buy critical mass. I welcome other developers to come in."
He has thrown out the idea that if Atlantic City could attract celebrities it would become "hot". So it would not be surprising if when the Showboat re-opens next summer, after a major overhaul this winter, there is a celebrity living there. Let's hope it's not Kanye and Kim Kardashian West. Or he could go the entirely opposite way in developing Atlantic City. He has proposed to New Jersey legislators that they declare Atlantic City an Opportunity Zone which does not levy state and local taxes on senior citizens. While Florida never has to feel threatened that Atlantic City will become more popular for the elderly, it certainly could become a viable alternative for many in the Northeast that want to stay more involved with their grandchildren and are fearful of the Zika virus. Blatstein, ever the showman, likes to do the big reveal so he is keeping details close to the vest for now.
He is also in talks with investor Carl Ichan to take over the currently closed Trump Plaza. Unfortunately, his 2015 lease/purchase of the pier near Caesar's, now called The Playground, did not include any parking, which has prevented its rebound.The Plaza acquisition would give him the much needed parking capacity. He has big plans for the property including a walkway which would connect the Tangers Outlet to the boardwalk. He pointed out that "shoppers currently have to use narrow alleyways to get to the outdoor mall from the boardwalk".
The Showboat's controversial neighbor to the right, Straub, has proven to be toxic to everyone-the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), politicians, and fellow developers. He is no closer after 2 years of ownership to opening the property. Unfortunately, this is modus operandi. After he bought the Palm Beach Polo Golf and Country Club, the Palm Beach Post labeled him "The Man Wellington Loves to Hate" after home owners at the property complained about him.
On my last visit, there will signs of life at the Revel. There were about 15 male executives, possibly from the Connecticut casino operator that he has contracted with or the E sports fantasy company that is considering making the Revel their national headquarters, working in the office. Straub seems almost prisoner of the palace that he bought on the cheap. He is no longer living on his yacht, the Triumphant Lady, but in a makeshift bedroom smack in the middle of his offices. On the day we met to discuss his plans for the casino, he was rambling, for some reason, about bringing up 2800 horses from Florida to house at the currently closed Atlantic City racetrack. Although he bought a casino property, he clearly wants to be in any other business but gambling. One idea that he has thrown out is to house one of the leaders of the E sports fantasy industry in the Revel. He dreams of holding their competitions at Boardwalk Hall.
The cantankerous developer blames his problems on NJ politicians. He complains to anyone who will listen that "no one from the governor's office or the state legislature has come to see me." Meanwhile his neighbor on the boardwalk, Bart Blatstein, was able to partially open the Showboat in 5 weeks. Although he has threatened to leave Atlantic City, I suspect his bizarre threats are just a cry for attention since he has told me in several interviews, "I am stubborn and never give up." He also has no reason to sell. Straub said, "I bought for $89 million a building that was built for over $2 billion, the power plant next door for $50 million, and my carrying costs so far have been $24 million ($1 million for 24 months). That is a total of $150 million for a building that cost over $2 billion to build. I can afford to hold on."
Could 2017 be the year that Atlantic City finally rebounds? Those of us that are nostalgic about the ocean resort have been saying next year is the year for decades. Every time, Atlantic City takes two steps forward, such as luring new money to the city and electing a competent mayor, it takes three steps backward with the New Jersey legislature threatening to legalize gambling in North Jersey. The difference this time is that exceptionally talented real estate developers such as Blatstein don't stop until they succeed. It would help if the banks, which have been burned in the past in Atlantic City, started investing again.
Sell everything. That's what famed investors such as George Soros, Carl Icahn, Jeff Gundlach, Bill Gross and Stan Druckenmiller have been preaching about equities since May, noted Barrons this August--at the same time CBOE's Volatility Index fell to its lowest level in two years.
Despite the fact that the 2016 S&P 500 is up 5.9 percent on a price basis in the face of uncertain times (think Brexit, the U.S. elections, the record low yields of the U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note and more), the stock market can't and won't go up forever. Bad news drives interest rates lower, and lower rates support loftier valuations, said Barrons.
Bonds are equally risky. In a weak business climate, the fixed yields of bonds look more attractive as stock prices fall. But that traditionally inverse relationship between stocks and bonds has broken down in the last two decades, noted The Wall Street Journal.
A 2016 McKinsey Global Institute report suggests the combination of higher interest rates, lower economic growth and weak corporate profits is here to stay - and a portfolio made up only of stocks and bonds will generate lower returns for years to come.
Commercial real estate has the potential to offer long-term returns that are both healthy and stable. Most significantly, when added to a traditional portfolio of stocks and bonds, this asset class can decrease volatility and increase returns. But it's important to understand the different types of real estate investments you can make, and each one's potential impact on your portfolio.
For instance, an investor recently asked us why buy into our Fund III at Origin Investments instead of a successful publicly traded REIT such as Realty Income Corp. (O-NYSE)? Both products boast similar target returns, and the REIT has a lot going for it. This includes:
A proven long-term record of 14 percent returns (compared to Origin's Fund III's targeted return of 17-19 percent), with a current dividend yield of 3.76 percent;
Dividends that have increased over time; and
Liquidity, since the REIT is traded on an exchange and can be sold like any other stock.
In truth, when it comes to deciding between a publicly traded REIT and a private equity real estate fund, it isn't an "either-or" proposition but rather an "and" proposition; you don't necessarily have to choose between the two. Here's why, along with four other compelling reasons to invest in private equity real estate funds:
1.Unlike REITs, private equity real estate isn't tied to stock market fluctuations. While public real estate products can be lucrative investments, they are highly correlated to the stock market. That means they rise and fall based on what's happening in the economy, and their values can be impacted by events that have nothing to do with real estate fundamentals. Because of this, adding publicly traded REITs alone will not necessarily improve your portfolio's risk-adjusted returns.
2.Public equity real estate funds achieve different investing goals. When evaluating a potential investment, it important to look at alpha and beta. Beta measures the volatility of a fund relative to the market by gauging how much the fund's returns move up or down given the gains or losses of its benchmark market index. Alpha is the difference between a fund's expected returns based on its beta and its actual returns, and it is sometimes interpreted as the value that a portfolio manager adds, notes Morningstar.
Public REITs are a good example of the difference between alpha and beta.
With pubic REITs you are essentially buying beta, while a private equity real estate fund seeks to achieve alpha--and does with strategic business plans for properties and skilled asset managers. Origin's goal is to outperform the market on a risk-adjusted basis and achieve returns well above the index. We focus on finding high quality, underperforming commercial real estate properties that can be turned around. Our philosophy is that this is the best way to protect the downside while maximizing the upside of each deal. 3. REITs are a volatile asset class. When the economy tanks, REITs can get hit hard. "In 2007 and 2008, REITs lost 15.7 percent and 37.7 percent, respectively," the Wall Street Journal noted recently. Also, since 2000, REITs "are second only to emerging-market stocks as the most volatile asset class. And with interest rates likely to rise, the next few years could be tough," especially for investors buying REITs now, concluded the WSJ.
4. Funds minimize risk exposure. Our private equity funds are one of the most effective options for investors because they are a diversified investment. At Origin, each of the properties in a fund are run as a separate businesses. So if one underperforms it doesn't impact the others. A deal by deal investment strategy does not offer this same benefit.
To better gauge how well a fund will perform, it also helps to look at a company's other products. In our case, our earlier Funds I and II had projected returns of 17-19 percent, however Fund I is on track to generate a 28 percent net return and Fund II is on track to deliver a 26 percent return. Preqin, an industry leader that tracks performance of private equity fund managers, ranked these two funds in the top quartile as of June 2016. 5. Consider the manager's alignment of interests. According to Towers Watson, a leading global advisory company, co-investment is the most effective way to align the interests of a manager and investors. We started Origin to invest our own capital, and maximizing investment performance remains our primary goal. We continue to keep our skin in the game with Fund III by committing $10 million of our personal resources.
If private equity real estate isn't part of your portfolio, it needs to be; asset allocation is a large determinant of investment success. Private real estate has low correlation to other asset classes, high expected returns and low volatility. That makes it a trifecta, since most asset classes only have one or two of these qualities.
Are We the People the boss of giant multinational corporations, or are they the boss of us?
Imagine, if you will, going to the IRS and saying, "I don't think the tax rate is fair so I'm not going to pay it." Regular Americans can't do that. But Apple just did.
Apple's CEO Tim Cook was interviewed by the Washington Post early this month. He was asked about the vast sums of profits that Apple has shifted into overseas tax havens thanks to a loophole in US tax law that lets them "defer" paying taxes on those profits as long as the money technically stays outside the country. Cook said (emphasis added, for emphasis):
And when we bring it back, we will pay 35 percent federal tax and then a weighted average across the states that we're in, which is about 5 percent, so think of it as 40 percent. We've said at 40 percent, we're not going to bring it back until there's a fair rate. There's no debate about it.
What would happen to any regular American if they did what Cook did, and said they they aren't going to pay taxes because they don't think the tax rate is "fair"? (Hint: Jail. And maybe 2 or 3 years added to the sentence for the contempt of saying, "There's no debate about it.")
But Apple is a huge multinational corporation, and these days huge multinational corporations are the boss of our Congress. So, CEO Cook gets away with it -- and with keeping $181 billion in tax havens to dodge paying $59 billion in taxes. Cook knows he can just come out and say they are not going to pay their taxes until there is a "fair rate."
Of course, huge multinational corporations will tell you a "fair rate" would be zero. Or better yet, how about We the People just bow down and pay taxes to them. The corporate tax rate used to be 50%. CEOs complained it was "unfair" so it was lowered to 35%. Also, by the way, Apple can deduct taxes it pays elsewhere, including to states, from its federal tax bill.
Think about what We the People could do with that $59 billion Apple owes us.
In all multinational corporations have more than $2.4 trillion stashed in tax havens, dodging maybe $700 billion in taxes.
Think about what We the People could do with that $700 or so billion they owe us.
Meanwhile
Americans for Tax Fairness released a new investigative report showing that Gilead Sciences exorbitantly priced hepatitis C medications -- price gouging ill American patients -- then shifted billions of dollars of the resulting profits to offshore tax havens to dodge taxes.
An August 21 news story in FORA, an Irish business publication, confirmed key findings of the report:
Company filings show that one of the firm's main Irish subsidiaries had revenues of $2 billion in 2012 and made a full-year profit of $1.3 billion but paid nothing to the Irish exchequer as the firm was tax resident in the Bahamas - where zero corporate taxes apply.
At the end of the year, after which the subsidiaries finances are not publicly accessible, the Irish subsidiary had accumulated profits of just under $7 billion.
The company also transferred the ownership of one of its most valuable money-makers, which it acquired for $11 billion, to a separate Irish subsidiary.
So, this company gouges sick Americans and shifts the profits out of the country to dodge taxes. Are We the People the boss of these giant corporations, or are they the boss of us? Whose government is this, anyway? Who is our economy for?
"The Little People Pay Taxes"
Times have changed. People and companies didn't used to get away with snubbing their nose at We the People, and doing things like dodging taxes.
In the 1980s Leona Helmsley was known as the "Hotel Queen." Helmsley and her husband Harry were known for buying apartment buildings, forcing out the tenants, and converting them into condominiums. The Helmsley real estate empire included the Empire State Building.
They also owned hotels. Leona ran as many as 30 Helmsley hotels, with the luxurious Helmsley Palace at the peak, and became famous after she was featured in advertisements.
But Helmsley became known as "the Queen of Mean," because she was notorious for doing things like abusing employees, firing them at Christmas, even evicting her son's widow a few days after he died. Eventually a dissatisfied employee turned her in for various tax crimes and she was indicted on 235 state and federal counts.
The Helmsleys were charged with using hotel money to buy personal items to evade income taxes. Helmsley famously said of the charges, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
We the Little People sentenced Helmsley to 12 years in jail for evading $1.7 million in taxes (eventually resulting in 19 months in jail and 2 years of home arrest.) At her sentencing the judge said:
'There is a community that needs to be served by the enforcement of the law. . . . It is my judgment the motion for sentence reduction should be denied.'
Griesa said that Helmsley's conduct had been 'deliberate, fraudulent, directed against the United States government. It involved evasion of taxes.'
Helmsley was sentenced to jail for evading a pittance of $1.7 million in taxes. Today Apple owes $59 billion. In this age of "mass incarceration" for regular people, imagine a wealthy Wall Street banker or corporate CEO going to jail for something. Actually, you can't even imagine it.
No, instead this is today's reality: Lawmakers Overseeing Wall Street Given Bigger, More Favorable Loans Than Others: Study.
Senator Wyden Says End Deferral Loophole
Some people are trying to restore our democracy, and make We the People the boss of the giant corporations and wealthy CEOs again.
Senator Bernie Sanders has been calling for ending this deferral loophole for a long time. His residential campaign platform called for using the resulting revenue to pay for $1 trillion of infrastructure repair. Senator Elizabeth Warren has also called for ending this loophole.
Last week Oregon Senator Ron Wyden penned an op-ed calling for an end to this corporate tax haven "deferral" loophole, titled "Ending the Biggest Tax Rip-Off -- Tax Deferral." In it Wyden wrote:
...[Tax deferral] is the rule that encourages American multinational corporations to keep their profits overseas instead of investing them here at home, and it does so by granting them $80 billion a year in tax breaks. This policy is as foolish as it is unfair. It simply defies common sense.
Most Americans probably aren't familiar with deferral ...but ... some of the most profitable companies in the world can put off paying taxes indefinitely while hardworking Americans must pay their taxes every year.
Unfortunately, Wyden resorts to offering to bargain with the corporations, offering lower tax rates if they would please invest in the US. Like so many others, Wyden has forgotten that Congress is supposed to be the boss of the corporations.
Sign The Petition
SIGN THE PETITION: Stand with Americans for Tax Fairness and Public Citizen and demand that U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew investigate Gilead's multi-billion-dollar tax dodging scheme and make Gilead pay the taxes it owes U.S. taxpayers.
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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progressive Breakfast.
Here's a not-so-shocking newsflash: nobody wants to fail.
While I don't know them personally, I'm pretty sure that none of the hundreds of American athletes traveled to the Olympics with the "F word" on their minds. There is absolutely nothing emotionally pleasant about failing, because it makes you feel like, well, a failure!
But if you want to be an entrepreneur, you'd better suck it up and get used to it.
Last month, I sat down with Forbes' 30-Under-30 Creator, Randall Lane, to discuss the entrepreneurial honorees for this year (check out our full video interview here on The Unicorn in the Room).
Now, the 30-Under-30 are the cream of the crop millennial entrepreneurs, who are building game-changing companies in twenty different industries. As you peruse the list, you'll find that each of them are very different - but according to Lane, the three traits they all have in common are originality, spirit, and fortitude.
"If you're going to be an entrepreneur, that's what it takes. Because you're going to fail, fail, fail, until you succeed," he explains. "And we're looking for people who can overcome failure even at a young age."
Why Failure is Necessary The list of successful entrepreneurs and self-made billionaires who overcame adversity on their way to the top is long. Very long, in fact. Oprah's first boss told her that she was "not right for television" and now she's a television icon. And don't forget that Steve Jobs was once fired from his own company!
I could go on, but you get the point. Overcoming adversity makes us stronger. Lane believes that one of the reasons that America is such a great place to be an entrepreneur is the general acknowledgement that failure leads to success.
In many cultures, failure is associated with shame - if you fall down once, you don't get back up again. You don't get access to credit or doors opening for you anymore and there's pretty much a perpetual cloud hanging over your name. But in the States, over the last twenty years or so at least, it's accepted that you have to make mistakes in order to develop. "Frankly, it's a lot easier to raise money after you've failed once, because people understand that you have to learn," Randall says.
Failure (cold, hard and scary as it is!) is the best way to learn. Look at a company like Instagram. Kevin Systrom originally started it as a geolocation app and almost nobody used it. He was staring at failure, running out of money and decided to focus on filtering photographs instead. Systrom switched things up and is now a 32-year old billionaire; Instagram has over 500 million users worldwide, making it one of the top social networks in the world.
All of this to say - learning to embrace failure isn't about setting yourself up to fail, it's about emerging from the ashes of defeat stronger and more determined. If being an entrepreneur is your life passion, then let learning from your mistakes guide your great journey.
Last week Aetna, one of the country's largest insurance companies, announced that it was cutting back its participation in the health care exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With several other major insurers also cutting back their participation, there will be very limited competition in many markets. This prospect has supporters of the ACA worried and opponents gleefully looking forward to the day when millions may lose their insurance.
Before looking at the economics, it is worth mentioning that Aetna is upset because the Justice Department is blocking a merger with Humana, another major insurer. Aetna quite explicitly threatened the Justice Department with reducing its participation in the exchanges if it blocked the merger. While there could be real economics behind both Aetna's threat and its pullback from the exchanges, it is also possible that Aetna's main motivation is to retaliate for the refusal to approve the merger.
Leaving Aetna's motivations aside, there is a real problem with the exchanges. The people who are signing up on the exchanges are proving to be less healthy than the population as a whole. As a result, they are more costly to treat. This means that either people on the exchanges will have to pay more for their insurance or the federal government will have to pay larger subsidies. We can try to make the insurers swallow the cost, which is pretty much the policy currently in place, but they will not stay in a market if they are losing money, as Aetna now claims to be doing.
It is important to recognize that this is not a problem of health care costs rising rapidly in general. The rate of growth in health care spending has fallen sharply in recent years and has been much slower than was projected at the time the ACA was passed. So the problem is not overall health care costs, the problem is the mix of people who sign up on the health care exchanges.
There are two simple ways to address this problem. For one, the insurers are still making money in the individual market outside of the exchanges. We could simply make participation in the exchanges a condition for participating in the individual markets. This in effect tells the insurers that if they want to make money insuring healthy people, they will also have to bear the risk of insuring less healthy people.
The other route would be to do what President Obama originally proposed in his 2008 campaign: set up a Medicare-type public option in the exchanges. This would ensure that everyone had an efficient low cost plan which they could buy into.
Both of these steps would require political action either by Congress or state legislatures, as would most other routes for dealing with the problem. At the moment, the Republican Congress is not about to do anything to sustain the ACA since they have made its destruction the centerpiece of the last three national elections.
A main reason that they can attack Obamacare - threatening the health care insurance of tens of millions of people - is that almost no one knows what it is. Back when the ACA was being debated, Republican opponents circulated absurd stories about the government deciding which people would live and which would die. For tens of millions of voters, the ACA is about death panels coming to take away their mothers.
It is not about people, including white Republican people, getting health care who could not previously afford it. Republicans are happy to attack their fictionalized version of Obamacare (who wouldn't?), but they are unwilling to go after the real thing because they know it matters to their voters.
We have a chance to see this hypocrisy in action in Kentucky where Republican governor Matt Bevin recently got elected on a platform of destroying Obamacare. Yet once he took office, he has left in place the state's popular system of exchanges, Kentucky Kynect. He also is continuing to have Kentucky take part in the ACA expansion of Medicaid, although he does want to increase the role for private insurers.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did the same thing in his re-election campaign in 2014. While calling for the death of Obamacare, he insisted that Kentucky Kynect had nothing to do with the ACA. Obviously McConnell is an astute politician, he surely knows that Kentucky Kynect is Obamacare, but he also knows that his constituency actually likes Kentucky Kynect. Unfortunately McConnell's opponent was too scared to defend Obamacare and point out McConnell's deception.
If we are going to see the problems with the ACA addressed, Democrats will have to start talking about the program and explaining what it has done in ensuring that people have health care. If people understand what the ACA is, they are likely to want to protect it, just as millions now rush to the defense of Medicare whenever it is threatened.
If people understand that their own access to health care, or that of their friends and family, would be threatened by the demise of the exchanges, it could be possible to muster the political force to bring about necessary changes. If people think ending Obamacare is simply about putting the death panels out of business, then we have a problem.
Over the last couple of years, I have had the privilege of overseeing more than 3 million cold email messages. Unfortunately, most of them fail miserably.
Why Most Cold Emails Fail
If your cold emails look like this, you are doing it wrong:
"Hi Justin, hope you're doing well! Can we schedule a short meeting to discuss our company services at your convenience?"
There are several reasons why cold emails fail: these can include anything from bad subject lines, to emailing the wrong contact, to not personalizing your message enough. Unfortunately, it is pretty easy to create bad cold emails.
A Simple Cold Email Framework
Because quality cold emails are so rare these days, I came up with a simple formula I call "QVC" to help people increase their responses.
Q is for Question. This should be one sentence.
V is for Value Proposition. This should be one to three sentences maximum.
C is for Closing. This should be one sentence.
You don't want to worry about introducing yourself in the very first sentence; this immediately tells the recipient that they don't know you. Aside from the subject line, this is the single most important element of your entire email, because it's what shows up in preview panes in their email client and on their phones.
You can introduce yourself and your offering in the next section. However, you want to focus on your benefit here. This means you should replace the "I" and "we" with a "you" in this portion of the email.
Lastly, you want to close the email with another question. Ideally, a question that is easy to respond to while helping the conversation advance to the next stage.
Using the QVC framework, I've been able to generate a 45 percent open rate on my cold emails. Even better is the combined 14 percent response rate (31 percent combined between the first two emails).
Nail the Subject Line
Two things need to happen with your cold email subject lines. One, you want to capture their interest, and two, you want to avoid being flagged as spam. Believe it or not, 69 percent of email recipients flag an email as spam solely based on the subject line.
Emails that have "Re:" perform higher than any other subject line. This is especially important for follow-up emails: include your previous email correspondence in your follow-up for easy reference, while using "Re:" at the beginning of your subject line.
If you are having a hard time coming up with a great subject line, don't stress. Studies show an 8 percent improvement in open rates with no subject line at all!
Send at Least Four More Follow-ups
Unfortunately, 44 percent of salespeople stop following up after two attempts. Meanwhile, 80 percent of sales occur after five attempts. Don't just quit after one or even two emails.
You also want to avoid the typical "checking in" or "I haven't heard back" follow-ups. Instead, try to bring value. Use a case study for one follow-up, ask a question for another follow-up, link to a relevant blog post for another, or focus on a different benefit than what you did in your previous emails.
Getting a Response
By writing cold emails with the intention of getting a response, you are helping your future email deliverability. This is because you are showing engagement. Any response is a good response (even when they request to never be emailed again).
In addition, by having a more naturally flowing email, you help reduce your risk of being flagged as spam.
Lastly, you won't have to burn through so many of your ideal prospects, because you'll be converting a higher percentage of them into actual conversations that move the sales process forward.
If they do respond and are interested in what you offer, I recommend sending them a link to your calendar to book a time to chat further. Don't try to simply close the deal via email.
Justin McGill is CEO & co-founder of LeadFuze, a B2B lead-generation platform that automates prospect discovery and personalized outreach at scale.
We've all bemoaned the headlines. Exorbitant CEO pay, environmental devastation, corporate fraud, corruption. We read about big scandals in the business world, are dismayed, and then we see them happen again. But what many don't know is that thousands of people are working all over the United States and worldwide to reverse this trend by using business as a force for good.
How do we counter the adverse natural selection that has come to characterize corporate behavior where the spoils go most to the agents willing to act the worst against people and planet?
B Corps give us an answer. They offer a way to improve the state of business by re-imagining how a company defines success.
A B Corp measures its success based on its impact on people, communities, and the environment just as much as its profitability. These companies have embodied the triple-bottom-line approach, meaning they are structured to create and achieve economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental sustainability. This approach makes the company accountable to all of its stakeholders, not only shareholders. To gain certification, every B Corp undergoes a rigorous assessment of five categories: environment, workers, customers, community, and governance. And they must perform to very high standards, well in excess of industry averages.
There are many naysayers who would condemn us all to a dismal view of the role of business in society, but we hold a more hopeful outlook. By helping businesses align their operations with their values, tackling equity and inclusion in the business world, and building a powerful movement, we and the entire B Corp community can and will change the world.
At Beneficial State Bank, we believe in total values-alignment. We use the B Corp assessment tool as a yardstick against which we are constantly measuring and re-measuring our success. We're able to reinforce what's going well and identify areas ripe for improvement. The B Corp assessment helps us to look at our company's relationship with our workforce, such as compensation, worker health, and job flexibility. It examines the environmental sustainability of our supply chain, our products (are they promoting public benefit?), our community involvement, and of course our mission and overall transparency of practices and policies. It affirms our strengths, but more importantly, it reveals our weaknesses and gives us a roadmap for how to do better, and be better, for the world. As a certified B Corp since 2013, we've been honored "Best for the World," a designation reserved for the top 10% of all B Corps, and we score in third place, worldwide, on the B Corp impact assessment. Our certification is a signal to potential customers and vendors of what we are about, and our score is a benchmark against which we are always trying to improve.
Our B Corp status keeps us accountable to our mission of building prosperity in our communities and creating an equitable future. When we think about the world we want to live in, it is one that recognizes the promise of every person, realizing that we do better together than we can apart. We envision a world that doesn't leave anyone feeling desperate; it's fully inclusive, racially and gender justice, and environmentally restorative.
Banking fits into this vision of prosperity if you think of it as the original and most powerful form of crowdfunding. Banking is our collective desire to pool deposits to finance the economy -- and therefore, to a good degree, the society we want to see. It's not that a specific deposit funds a specific loan, but all deposits fund a lending practice with which depositors are therefore associated.
Our Beneficial State Bank model is designed to address the imbalance of power, justice, and equity in the economic system. Our B Corp certification ensures that we are addressing issues of racial, ethnic, and gender equity in all aspects of business, from our hiring practices to our procurement policy.
Finally, we know we can't do this alone. Our system is designed to work against the B Corp model of business. With critical mass, we can shift the perception that the sole purpose of business is to generate profit, and prove that business has the potential to be a much more powerful force for good.
The B Corp movement is strong and growing. Today, there are over 1,600 certified B Corps from 42 countries representing over 120 industries. With more B Corps getting certified every day (and thousands more taking the initial B Corp initial assessment), our missions are strengthened by the increased commitment to measurement that ensures we are using business as a force for good.
B Corps tend to be community-oriented businesses. In certain cities, the network of certified B Corps get together for monthly meetings to coordinate their efforts and find ways to better serve their community. B Corps are already making a difference, and there is significant potential to do more. By continuing to ask: "What does our community need?" B Corps will change the nature of business as we know it.
We invite you to join the movement! If you believe in aligning your business with your values, addressing and solving for equity and environmental issues through your daily business operations-- and if you want to be a part of one of the most important movements of our time, join us! Consider taking the B Corp assessment.
As an individual, your role is critical to stop the trend in business that rewards those who act most harmfully against our planet and communities. Support B Corp businesses with your everyday shopping, including where you bank. Banks are, after all, a part of your personal and commercial supply chains. Find B Corps near you here.
We must turn the spotlight toward businesses that are using the power of social markets to solve social and environmental problems, and away from those that exploit communities to merely reap a profit.
The B Corp Life is a new blog series geared towards exploring what it's like to work at a benefit corporation. Why do b corps matter, and what does the future hold for them? Let us know at PurposePlusProfit@huffingtonpost.com or by tweeting with #TheBCorpLife.
Actively managing your credit card account can save you money, improve your credit scores and help you manage your overall financial life. If there's something your credit card issuer can do to make things easier, it never hurts to ask. You might be surprised at what they're willing to do to give you a little help.
Here are six questions to ask your card issuer. The worst thing that can happen is you get a "no."
1. Will you forgive a late payment?
Obviously, paying on time every month should be a priority -- but sometimes life takes a sharp turn. Say you miss your payment due date for some reason. "If you have a good record with your credit card company, and you miss a payment due to illness or moving or something, ask them to let it slide and ask to have the fee removed," says Beverly Harzog, credit expert and author of "The Debt Escape Plan."
Some card issuers make forgiveness a policy. Others give their cardholders tools to make late payments less likely.
Discover, for example, doesn't charge a late fee on the first late payment or raise your interest rate, says spokesman Derek Cuculich. "We do not have a penalty APR, so the second missed payment would not result in a raised APR, but it would come with a fee."
Citi offers a card that doesn't charge late fees or a penalty annual percentage rate even after multiple late payments.
Capital One is trying to make sure customers don't pay late. "About a year ago, we automatically enrolled every customer in the payment-due alert," says Jennifer Jackson, managing vice president of Capital One's U.S. card division. "We're designing products and services to help our customers succeed. We're measuring the impact, and we know that it's impacting customer behavior."
Even if you do get a late fee set aside, be aware that the missed payment itself could still be reported to the credit bureaus, which would hurt your score. Usually, payments are reported to the bureaus once they're 30 days late. Whatever happens, consider it a learning experience and work to avoid repeating the mistake. Paying late is a terrible habit to get started.
2. Can I choose my payment due date?
One of the best ways to ensure you pay on time while managing your cash flow is to choose the date your payment is due each month. When you can pick your own due date, you can set it for a time when money isn't as tight. All major card issuers allow you to choose your own due date; some even let you do it online.
"When people can change their payment due date, they can set it to stay on track with their overall finances," Jackson says. "They can decide how they want to manage payments."
One thing to be aware of: You usually can't choose a due date of the 29th, 30th or 31st because not every month includes those dates.
3. Will you lower my interest rate?
If you've been a good customer and you're carrying a balance, consider asking your issuer to lower your interest rate. Harzog says there's another signal that it's time to ask for a lower rate: "If you start getting offers in the mail for premier cards, it means your score has probably gone up. You can call your issuer and tell them the offers you're getting, and leverage that to see if they can match it."
4. Will you raise my credit limit?
You can always ask for an increase in your credit limit -- but be sure you know both the upside and downside. A higher credit line gives you access to more borrowing power, and it can improve your credit score by lowering your credit utilization ratio. The downside is that the issuer may pull your credit report, which could ding your credit score.
"You can decide whether you want to take that short-term hit to your credit," Harzog says. "If you're close to the next level up -- from average to good, for example -- a hit of even five or 10 points could hurt you, especially if you're planning to apply for a mortgage or other large loan."
Asking for a credit line increase can also produce unintended consequences. Harzog says she knows someone who asked for a credit line increase and it backfired. "When the issuer looked at his credit history and saw some black marks, they actually decreased his credit line. If you don't have a good record, you don't want to ask them to look at your credit account."
Many times, issuers have mechanisms in place to boost your credit limit when they think you're ready.
Jackson says Capital One has a "credit steps program" to increase customers' credit limits. Customers "have to do two steps to get a credit line increase," she says. "Use your card, pay on time for the first five statements, and on the sixth statement you will get a credit line increase. We continue to evaluate accounts over time for additional increases, looking at on-time payments and the ability to pay. We want to make sure our customers won't inadvertently get into trouble. And we don't extend lines where we don't think they will ever be able to pay it off."
5. Which credit score do you use?
To reduce your chance of having a credit card application rejected, check your credit report and credit score before you apply. These days, you can get your credit score for free from many credit card companies. Discover and Capital One will give you your score even if you're not a customer. Once you know which card you want, call the issuer to see which score it uses when considering applications.
Here's why it matters: Each credit bureau collects its own information and calculates scores based on that information, so scores can vary from one bureau to another.
"You can ask which bureau they pull from," Harzog says. However, she adds, "I've noticed in the past few years, some issuers have changed their policy and don't tell you. The best strategy is to be sure all your credit reports are good so you don't have to worry which bureau is being pulled."
Federal law entitles you to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three credit bureaus once a year. You can access those free reports at AnnualCreditReport.com.
6. When do you report account information to the credit bureaus?
"If you're trying to raise your score, paying off your credit card balance before the issuer reports it to the credit bureau will help by lowering your utilization ratio," Harzog says.
Call your issuer and ask when it reports account information. If you don't want to call, your best bet is to assume it reports that information on your statement closing date, which you can find on your statement. It could take a few days for the credit bureaus to update their data. If you're working hard to raise your credit score, another alternative is to pay your credit card more than once a month so your utilization ratio is lower throughout the month.
The common thread of these six questions is this: Getting the most out of your credit cards means managing your accounts so they put you in the most advantageous position. Don't just passively accept what your issuer gives you. Ask your issuer to work with you to produce the best financial results for your situation.
Ellen Cannon is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: ecannon@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @ellencannon.
Yes -- it boggles the mind. Entrepreneurs will go to extraordinary lengths to connect with people who can help them -- potential investors, mentors, partners, employees, customers -- and then permanently damage these relationships with unnecessary mistakes.
What mistakes are these? I give you three of the worst -- and better yet, I talked to two expert relationship builders to show you how to fix them.
First up: meet Ryan Westwood, founder of a software company called Simplus, contributing writer on Forbes, and organizer of Evening on the Terrace -- an event which brings together people from many different backgrounds, to take part in a meal and talk about anything except their work.
Turns out, the foundation of valuable conversations is simple: stop and listen.
1) Don't pitch. Listen as if your life depends on it.
Never made sense to me: an entrepreneur finally manages to reach an experienced person in their field, and then talks over them. Worse, they even try to pitch. Yikes.
Westwood suggests the exact opposite. While interviewing people for Forbes, he realized the value of such conversations.
"I feel like I've accelerated my growth as an entrepreneur by doing these interviews better than any school I did, or anything else."
"It was the best way for me to get educated as quickly as possible and with the smallest number of mistakes by simply listening to people with experience."
And hence, he founded Evening on the Terrace, to take this personal and business growth to the next level.
The point? The atmosphere of trust and cooperation at these gatherings made it easy for people to discover new ways to attack old problems.
For instance, at one such event, when Westwood put a problem into play in the conversation -- something he and his staff at Simplus struggled with for some time -- it gave him a fresh look on his business. Novel angles to a current problem, discovered only because he listened like crazy.
Same for you. Take this to heart: when the other person talks, you listen. Mouth closed, ears open. Full attention on their words and message.
Make sense? Good -- because if you fail at this, you lose on two counts. Once, because you can't learn anything, and then again by wasting the other person's time.
2) Do not let relationships die. Nurture them.
Sad fact: many entrepreneurs connect with influential people once, and then never again. Huge waste of potential.
Our second expert, Cheryl Snapp Conner, founder of SnappConner Public Relations, shared a powerful story with me.
While running her firm, she connected with Tom Post, who at the time ran the Entrepreneurs content channel on Forbes, and asked if she could have a column on his platform.
He agreed. Several years later, she made him a job offer...and now Post acts as SnappConner PR's "feet on the street" in New York.
How did this happen? Conner had a gut sense Post was ready to become an entrepreneur himself. Plus, due to internal changes at Forbes, Post now faced a long daily commute. And Conner was attuned to all of this.
See the point? To nurture a relationship, you need to tune into the other person's world. To continually support them on their journey. You must ask yourself: since they live in their world, and you in yours, where can the two connect such that the other person gains from it?
Try this: pick 10 people you respect and would love to build relations with. Now go and see what they've been up to for the past couple months. Can you spot an opportunity to be helpful to some of them?
But look -- you can touch base in small ways. Congratulate them on a recent achievement, thank them for something they helped you with, or just take the time to thoroughly read something they wrote and then tell them about it -- any of these count.
Once you identify a way to provide value for them, go for it -- and better yet, don't expect to get anything in return.
3) Take the self-interest out of it.
Conner nailed this one. She told me:
"When something is genuinely given, nobody has to keep score."
True. To constantly keep score means you did not truly commit to giving.
As an entrepreneur, you need to "take the self-interest out of it," as Conner puts it. She sees this in many of her clients: they set out to get published on various platforms, to achieve their own business goals, rather than provide value for readers.
Bottom line? Sounds strange, but it rings true: you rise above the noise when you genuinely help another person. Barriers vanish which you couldn't even see before.
Westwood sums it up for us. The most valuable asset is not money, but human relationships:
"My view: relationship capital trumps actual capital. If you have the right relationships, it will pay immense dividends in the long run."
Now -- guess what? When you do all the above with diligence, things change. People start to take you seriously. The strength of your relationships will no longer take a nosedive every time you talk.
Unlike laws for drunk driving limits, which are fairly uniform across the U.S., regulations on driving with marijuana in your system vary from place to place. Six states enforce specific limits on how much THC, the main psychoactive element in marijuana, drivers can have in their blood. Twelve others have zero-tolerance policies. Most states, however, still lack concrete marijuana laws for motorists, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.
The point at which stoned drivers are considered "impaired" fluctuates by state, but if you're found guilty of driving under the influence of drugs, or DUID, you will likely face an increase in car insurance rates at your next renewal time, no matter where you live.
To give you an idea of how high your rates could leap, NerdWallet looked at car insurance quotes in five states for drivers with a DUID, which can encompass other substances as well as marijuana. Check out the results here.
» COMPARE: Car insurance quotes
California car insurance rates were the most affected in our price sampling. Our research found that rates in the Golden State jumped by more than $1,500 per year for a first DUID conviction. Ohio had the smallest increase, $336 per year on average.
Higher auto insurance rates are just one of the possible costs drivers face if charged with a severe moving violation. Those convicted of driving high could also have to pay steep legal and court fines, drug-treatment program costs and a driver's license reinstatement fee, among other penalties. All told, a single DUID could mean thousands of dollars down the drain.
» MORE: Arbitrary marijuana limits on drivers impair legal judgment
We also tested rates for drivers who receive a repeat DUID citation within a year of their first conviction. Here are those results.
If you're hit with a second DUID conviction, expect rates to spike by several hundred dollars again. Having multiple serious moving violations on your record also increases the chances that your car insurer will drop you at renewal time. If you have trouble qualifying for a policy with another company, you may end up looking into coverage for high-risk drivers.
Shop around if you have an imperfect driving record Because insurance companies treat accidents and violations differently, consider shopping around if you've recently been convicted of driving under the influence of marijuana. The company that offered the cheapest rate the last time you searched for a policy may no longer have the best deal.
NerdWallet's car insurance comparison tool lets you view quotes from multiple companies.
Alex Glenn is a staff writer for NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: aglenn@nerdwallet.com.
METHODOLOGY
To estimate the car insurance increases after a DUID, we first ran rates for 30-year-old drivers with no accidents or violations, then we ran rates for those with one and two convictions. We did this by averaging the three lowest rates from the largest insurers across 10 ZIP codes in California, Colorado, Ohio, Texas and Washington.
Coverage included 100/300/50 liability insurance limits, 100/300 uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage, and collision and comprehensive with a $1,000 deductible. We used a 2012 Toyota Camry in all cases. These are sample rates generated through Quadrant Information Services. Your own rates may be different.
It was just over three years ago that I thought my career was over.
I remember the exact moment well: There I sat in my drab, mundane-looking cubicle, which sat in the middle of a rather large call center. Most days I could drown out the noise.
However, on that day, the sound of what seemed like 1,000 simultaneous conversations going on left me unable to focus. I sat there with my head buried in my hands.
You see, I had just realized at that very moment that the company I had joined was far more dysfunctional than the one I had just left.
This wasn’t the first time I had left a job to go to another company in hopes of greener grass only to end up being worse off than I was before. I was depressed and unhappy to think that a career that only a few years before had looked quite promising was in jeopardy of going nowhere, and I felt like a complete failure.
I needed to do something to change the course I was on, and it wasn’t simply to change companies again. I attribute reversing my career path to five things.
1. Take ownership of your career.
Up until that point, I had been quick to blame external factors for my unhappiness and the shortcomings in my career. I put the blame on things like bad management, company policy, poor timing, etc.
The result is that I stopped improving as a professional, and if I’m honest, I probably regressed a bit.
Making a change in your career is tough. However, perhaps the hardest part is admitting that you need to change yourself to make the career change you desire.
2. Be bold.
If doing things the way you’ve always done them has gotten you to the point in your career where you’re feeling like a failure, it’s time to try something new and bold.
For me, that was starting a blog. Before I started my blog on LinkedIn just over two years ago, the only people who had ever read my writing were my college professors and my mother.
In fact, there was almost nobody from my inner circle telling me I should start a blog. I decided to do it anyway.
Can a blog change your career? After a few of my blog posts went viral on LinkedIn and received over a million page views, I began to get offers to write professionally, which led to the start of my company and the career path I’m on now.
3. Continue your education.
For me, that meant getting an MBA at age 39. I needed additional skills and knowledge to move ahead in my career.
I reached the point where I was no longer learning in my position. I needed an outside source to inspire me to develop the new skills I lacked, which was preventing me from reaching my career goals.
You don’t have to pursue a fancy degree from a formal institution. In today’s online world, there are all sorts of ways to further your learning and gain the skills you need to move ahead: certificate programs, short-term courses, webinars, online learning programs, etc.
4. Become entrepreneurial.
You don’t have to quit your day job! However, if you’re like I was and you feel stuck in a position where your skills are being underutilized, consider doing some consulting work or starting a side business.
Doing so could lead you to several positive career outcomes: additional income, added skills that you can use to gain a more fulfilling position, or a successful startup that ultimately replaces your corporate job.
Today, I’m working with two startups―my own Social Marketing Solutions, a social ― media marketing agency, and beBeebeBee, a high-growth business social-media and blogging network with 11 million users.
5. Get social.
Before I invested in social media, I was always the one reaching out to people about opportunities. My networking activities were 100 percent outbound-based.
Once I started to grow my online community and produce insightful content, a significant shift occurred: People began to contact me. In fact, all of the business for my company has come from my online activities. Instead of me always being the one to initiate contact, now people regularly seek me out to discuss opportunities.
While my career journey is far from complete, I now feel as though my work is appreciated, meaningful, and fulfilling. I’ve stopped blaming external factors and switching jobs when things don’t go my way.
I finally realized that when it comes to my career, the grass is as green as I make it.
This article was originally published for my column on Inc. Magazine. Republished on Huffington Post with permission.
But bathrobes and business cards for hotel guests’ kids are not what people mean when they ask if an employer provides child care. Donald Trump doesn’t seem to know that.
When he bragged about Trump Kids in Iowa last year, he claimed it was a child care benefit the Trump Organization offers its workers: “You know, it’s not expensive for a company to do it. You need one person or two people, and you need some blocks and you need some swings and some toys. You know really, it’s not expensive. It’s not an expensive thing. I do it all over. ... They call them Trump Kids. ... Another one calls it Trumpeteers.”
In fact, neither program is aimed at employees’ kids, and neither the Associated Press nor HuffPost has found any evidence that Trump provides child care for his employees in the U.S.
Trump Kids affords luxury amenities to guests’ children at Trump hotels, adding the cost of many of those services to the parent’s final bill.
The Trumpeteers program provides camps and other activities for the kids of club members and guests at his golf courses in Charlotte, North Carolina; Jupiter, Florida; and Miami. The Trumpeteers Kids Camp at Trump National Doral in Miami costs between $250 and $350 a week, according to a online registration form.
Trump National Golf Club CharlotteChildren participate in the Trumpeteers program at the Trump National Golf Club Charlotte.
On Thursday, AP first reported that calls to Trump hotels and golf courses found no Trump properties that provide child care services for employees. HuffPost reached the same conclusion from its own conversations with employees at every Trump hotel and golf course in the U.S.
HuffPost also searched state databases of registered child care facilities and did not find any at a Trump hotel, golf course or office building.
Trump National DoralChildren color at the Trumpeteer camp at Trump National Doral.
The Trump International Beach Resort near Miami also offers another program called Planet Kids. A promotional video on YouTube says that “trained counselors will keep your kids happy all day long with beach and pool games, sports, arts and crafts, and evening events.”
But like Trump Kids and Trumpeteers, Planet Kids is neither for employees nor a registered child care program.
The Trump Organization’s vice president and assistant general counsel, Jill Martin, said in a statement that the company “is very proud of the family-friendly environment it fosters.” She added, “We take an individualized approach to helping employees manage family and work responsibilities.”
When HuffPost called the company’s Trump Tower headquarters on Fifth Avenue in New York, the person who answered the phone seemed confused by a question about corporate child care benefits. “You must have the wrong number,” she replied.
Asked about on-site child care, an employee at Trump National Doral said, “You mean Trump Kids?”
A human resources employee at the Trump International Las Vegas said the hotel provided health insurance, paid time-off and 401(k) retirement plans to its white-collar workers. “You know, the basics.”
The hotel does not, she said, provide child care.
This story has been updated with a statement from Jill Martin of the Trump Organization.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.
Over the last three years, Berman has worked on various farms in New York’s Hudson Valley with the intention of one day starting her own farm. But it wasn’t too long before she started to notice disheartening trends.
“We always had to plant more than we could actually harvest ourselves,” Berman told The Huffington Post. “And the demographic we were selling [our food] to was a little more wealthy and well-to-do while, at the same time, good food wasn’t accessible to everyone and a lot of that had to do with affordability. It started to bother me.”
She began to research what she could do about it. And that led to the launch earlier this year of Long Table Harvest, a food recovery group.
Led by Berman and co-founder Laura Engelman, the group works with 16 farms in the Hudson Valley to collect their surplus fruits and vegetables — which would otherwise go to waste — and distribute them to food pantries, community organizations and other charities throughout the region.
A certain amount of surplus is practically inevitable on farms. Farmers plant more crops than they’ll need for their buyers to protect against losses from pests, weather and other issues. Oftentimes, it’s cheaper for farms to let the surplus rot in the fields rather than pay for the labor to harvest it.
Each Monday, Berman and her small team travel to their donor farms to pick up market leftovers and other extras farms have to offer. They fill up their van and drop off the proceeds at their recipient sites.
In June, the organization was picking up about 940 pounds of produce a week. Two months later, that number has grown to about 1,100 weekly pounds of summer staples like watermelon, cantaloupe, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and corn.
“It’s all really high quality, all really beautiful and the people receiving it are all excited to get it,” Berman said.
Groups like this often operate under the radar and struggle to make ends meet. Their work ― known as gleaning ― is an ancient practice, one that dates back at least to the days of the Old Testament.
It is written in the Bible that Ruth would glean the fields of the well-to-do farmer Boaz, collecting any produce left after harvest was completed and redistributing it to the poor. The practice is said to have continued in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, too.
Today, gleaning is experiencing a resurgence of interest as Americans become aware of the estimated 70 billion pounds of food the country wastes each year. Some of this loss is due to surpluses on farms. As a result, recovery groups like Long Table Harvest have popped up across the country ― the National Gleaning Project lists more than 400 food recovery organizations ― and are likely saving many tons of food from being left to rot in farmers’ fields or sent to landfills.
While there is no national estimate for how much food these groups are diverting to people who need it, some organizations reclaim hundreds of thousands of pounds each year. Oregon’s Salem Harvest, for example, gleans 300,000 pounds of fresh produce annually.
It’s safe to assume these organizations, collectively, are preventing millions of pounds of produce from being tossed each year.
Long Table HarvestLong Table Harvest's van gets filled many times over during the busy summer months when bumper crops and other factors can leave farmers with surpluses.
Funding this work is a challenge, however. Berman and her Long Table Harvest team worked diligently applying for grants and fundraising ahead of their launch; an Indiegogo campaign raised over $11,000. But their operation has been limited in size, with just one van and one paid staff member, because they haven’t been able to secure major funding.
While financial struggles are not unusual for nonprofits of all kids, food recovery organizations appear to be facing unique challenges. Among them is that there is little federal or state-level grant funding available for this work, though the farmers who donate their surplus to food recovery groups can receive tax incentives in many states.
One initiative offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the Community Food Projects competitive grant program, which was funded most recently at the level of $8.6 million. Though gleaners are eligible for this grant, which focuses on meeting the food needs of low-income communities through food distribution and community outreach, it is not specifically catered to food recovery.
Some states, like New Jersey, do offer grants specifically geared toward gleaners, but these programs are not particularly common.
Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty ImagesLovin' Spoonfuls' Meg Kiley loads donated produce onto a truck during a 2013 pickup from Whole Foods. Their group picks up surplus fruits and vegetables from stores and farms.
Most organizations rely overwhelmingly on individual donors, fundraising and corporate support to sustain their operations.
The Ithaca, New York-based Friendship Donations Network, a gleaning group, noted that while it does receive support from local foundations, it has never received state or federal funding and derives about 70 percent of its operating budget from individual donations.
Another prominent food recovery group, the Boston-based Lovin’ Spoonfuls, said it currently receives no government support and also depends primarily on individual donors, events and grants from local groups.
That funding just isn’t enough. Food recovery is “chronically underfunded at every step,” Dana Gunders, a staff scientist specializing in food waste at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told HuffPost earlier this summer.
The lack of financial support is also reflected in gleaning groups’ heavy reliance on volunteers to gather surplus produce from participating farmers. Though well-meaning, these volunteers typically aren’t particularly accustomed to the task at hand and don’t tend to work all that efficiently.
“Gleaning is good, but it’s not the most efficient way to get produce off the farm, even for donation, in terms of getting large volumes,” Gunders added. “Volunteers picking stuff are not trained and not nearly as fast” as farmworkers, she said.
In addition, gleaning groups often struggle to gain the attention of media and potential funders when compared to flashier food waste solutions.
“There’s a lot of excitement around people who are making apps or making a big splash in terms of media and promotional campaigns,” Berman said. “I’m really trying to do the work and connect the farmers with our recipients at our distribution sites and I’m not out there proselytizing the work. I’m trying to figure out the balance to that, but it’s a little disheartening.”
Though the practice of gleaning is far from groundbreaking, Jordan Figueiredo, the anti-food waste activist behind the Ugly Fruit and Veg campaign and a petition drive asking Walmart to more widely sell cosmetically imperfect produce, agreed that it’s deserving of more support.
“Overall, I think technology is not the answer [to food waste],” Figueiredo said. “I see those articles all the time — ‘The App That’s Going to End Food Waste.’ No one app is going to do that or make a big dent, even. Overall, it’s about valuing [food] enough so that we’re paying attention to the easy, old solutions like gleaning and putting money into them.”
Despite all the obstacles faced by groups like hers, Berman is optimistic that change is happening as Americans begin to value food more — and are adopting that mindset in their neighborhood grocery stores and kitchens.
“The biggest impact we can have is with ourselves and the decisions we make as individuals. How we live our life, what we buy and [do] not buy, what we cook and don’t cook,” Berman added. “If people say, ‘Hey, I’m a part of what seems like this big problem, but I can start with myself,’ I think that would be really exciting.”
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Joseph Erbentraut covers promising innovations and challenges in the areas of food and water. In addition, Erbentraut explores the evolving ways Americans are identifying and defining themselves. Follow Erbentraut on Twitter at @robojojo. Tips? Email joseph.erbentraut@huffingtonpost.com.
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The Food Your Grocery Store Doesn’t Want You To See
Meat Eaters Should Have Been Listening To Vegetarians All Along
Farmer Forced To Dump Insane Amount Of Gorgeous Cherries
Al Capone’s Brother May Have Invented Date Labels For Milk
