Mark Sylvester: John Davies has a method, an approach he systematically developed over a career spanning three decades. He's proven it to be invaluable for dozens of industries and thousands of projects facing public acceptance. Up until now, the method has only been available to his select client list. John is unpacking his insight and wealth of knowledge to overcome opposition and earn public support for the first time right here. Throughout these episodes, we'll take a deep dive step by step with John into his strategies to overcome opposition and create support. Nothing is free in this world, but good ideas are priceless. This show could be just the thing you've been looking for. I'm Mark Sylvester. Now, let's get started and talk with John.

Mark Sylvester: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. We are now going to talk about the next step in the process, which is cultivating the relationship. And John, we've done so much work up to this point, and you've got, you're building relationships with all of these people along the way, these various audiences. Talk to us about cultivating and why that's so important.

John Davies: Well, if you think about so many things in our society today, and especially with digital social media. It's hard to cultivate a real relationship isn't it? I mean, you get the fake emails and the stuff. And we all know they're fake now, the name. But there was a time where it sort of worked on digital media, that you could send it and ... I mean, I always thought Amazon, when they first started, were recommending books to me on email that should come from let's say Mark. Mark's my guy. And whoever recommended it, whatever computer recommended the books needed to sign it saying, "Hey, here's some more book ideas," so you bought some more books lately. It's Mark. But even with that, cultivating relationships takes a relationship. How do you cultivate something you don't have, right?

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And so our idea is, the goal of cultivating a relationship is to get others to share our story.

Mark Sylvester: Ah right.

John Davies: And as we talked about.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: They're better at persuading people than we are. I mean, I can't persuade someone who's not interested. But they can. So that's our whole goal here.

Mark Sylvester: So how do you, but how do you do that, because you, I mean, you're talking about in some cases, hundreds or thousands of people.

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: And especially in these communities. And you, what do you do? Do you invite them to a picnic?

John Davies: Well, yes.

Mark Sylvester: Really?

John Davies: Yeah. Picnic, barbecue, dinner. I mean, whatever is appropriate for the community. And you know, it's ... So early on, when we have small group meetings, we talked about, the last series.

Mark Sylvester: Which you've been having all along the way. Right.

John Davies: We had them all along. And you know, the opponents come. And the interesting thing, the opponents are afraid to eat our food.

Mark Sylvester: What?

John Davies: I'm sorry, but for one group. They don't like to eat our food because they feel like it makes the committed to us or they're doing it. So that's, we'll talk about this, and why sharing food and sharing relationships works. But the deal is, there was an exception in Pennsylvania is the power plant. And we had a dessert table, and all the opponents lined up around. I don't know who came up with it on our team, but we had cream puffs.

Mark Sylvester: Sugar sells.

John Davies: It does. Well cream puffs, you know, they're irresistible, and the people just lined around the table. And we actually increased the weight of the average citizen in that ton that night. But normally they won't. So it's almost the opposite with people you wanna have a relationship with, is you wanna break bread with them.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And so something powerful happens when you do that.

Mark Sylvester: What do you call that? I mean, I think-

John Davies: I call it the psychology of eating. But the idea, when you sit and share something with someone, so that's part of this is we wanna invite them out. Let's go, let's have breakfast, let's have dinner. We've had breakfasts where we do a pancake breakfast, invite everyone, bring a can for the local food drive. And all of a sudden now we're not only sharing breakfast and talking. We're sharing a cause in the community, and we get to talk about where we're going, thank them all for coming. And the most important thing, if it's a breakfast, if it's a lunch, barbecue, a formal dinner, is they look around the room, and they go, "Oh. Oh."

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: "I thought I was one of a handful." So it's dangerous, because if they are only one of a handful, it starts, it hurts you. You gotta make sure people show. So when there's a lot of people showing up for something, it makes the supporters feel good about themselves.

Mark Sylvester: So that's, we would call that social proof.

John Davies: Right. And so, you look back and read The Influence, the book before Presuasion, right? The whole idea is that when people I like, people I trust are doing something, then it must be right. So if I show up in a room and there's a lot of people that I know and I trust, and I go, "Well, I'm on-"

Mark Sylvester: "I'm in the right place."

John Davies: "I'm in the right place."

Mark Sylvester: Yeah. Yeah.

John Davies: "I'm in the right place. I'm doing the right thing." And so the idea of doing the food, first off, people like to gather about food.

Mark Sylvester: Right. Right.

John Davies: And so if you go to someone's house, and they're a great cook, as you are. We should all know that.

Mark Sylvester: Thank you.

John Davies: So if you invite us all over, and you invite us to come back, and we just had an amazing meal at your house, and you invite us to come back, it's like we all salivate a little bit when we get the invitation. It's like, "Oh." And so we wanna make sure we give them some real food. It smells great as you come in. Everything's, it doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to be tasty. And it's gotta be a neat event where you're taking care of people. And you create a graceful reciprocity with them. So you create something so special that they're willing to do something special for you.

Mark Sylvester: And isn't that, the goal here is getting the message out. We've spent so much time through this process of crafting exactly the right message.

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: And if the message comes from their friends, it's gonna be so much more effective-

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: ... than if it comes from you, right?

John Davies: Right. And well, so it's, with these folks that are on our team, they're like, "Wow. These people have taken care of me. When they write to me, they write "Dear Mark." When they write to me, it's on good paper. It's a card. It's a note. They don't forget who I am. And what happens, and this is the other side of this, that I don't talk about a lot. By doing this, and putting these people into a room with a real estate developer, they start listening to these people in a way they wouldn't normally, 'cause they're in a room. It's friendly. Their guard's down, and the project gets better. So they do have an amazing input of what's going on. When you go to a community meeting where everyone's yelling at everyone, there's no input there. I mean, it's just the opposite.

John Davies: So this, they sit with someone, and they go, "Wouldn't it be cool if you did this and this. And by the way, that one road where the exit comes out, that's really bad. Do you ever drive on that road?" And I've sat in rooms where the developer takes out the plan and starts scribbling on it with some neighbor that's a friend, willing to talk. So there's this reciprocity of relationship, and everything gets better. And then they go take it to the rest of the community. That makes a much better game.

Mark Sylvester: So is it fair to say that they're motivated to advocate on your behalf as a result?

John Davies: That's our job. So we used to have our Davies method was educate, motivate. And what I noticed is I can't get you to listen to be educated about anything until you're motivated. And so we have Patrick, our engineer, here today. So if I motivate Patrick about something, we're gonna hire him to do something, Patrick's a lot more interested in the project than before when I'm telling him about doing a project somewhere else, and he's not gonna be part of it. I mean, to get people motivated, now they've gotta listen to everything. So we've gotta switch that around. Educate becomes second. Motivated first. And now they're like, "I gotta know more, 'cause I wanna tell more." So when they wanna tell people, they'll get educated. Now all those digital assets we talked about are there. The fact booklet we give to them is there. Then they start using it. So we're empowering them to share why they support it and why they think it's good. Now the world changes.

Mark Sylvester: You know what's interesting to me is a common thread through this whole program has been how you looked at everything differently. You looked at it backwards. I mean, we even did a show in how everybody's doing I backwards.

John Davies: Yeah. Right.

Mark Sylvester: But here's another example of it. I would think I need to educate you to motivate you.

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: And you said, "No, no." I mean, you were doing it that way, and then you looked and went, "Hmm.'

John Davies: And the deal is, I don't think anyone was educated til I motivated them.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: I tried it the other way.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And I did it for years. But what happened, as I motivated, they probably went back and got the education ans stuff afterwards. They went back and got what we'd given them.

Mark Sylvester: I'm curious. Just little sidebar here, what was the spark of inspiration where you noticed that? 'Cause, you know, your learnings come from these real-

John Davies: Right. It's like being in a room with supporters, and half of them are asking more questions to get motivated about it. And others who are fired up and ready to go work for us. And I'm like, "What?" These guys don't wanna know anymore. They're not with us 100% yet. It's like, "Hmm. These people are at different places, and I'm treating them all the same." So we gotta get people motivated first.

John Davies: So think about, I mean, when we make a decision to buy something, do we make it based on the facts, or do we make it based on how it makes us feel? So you're gonna buy a new car. If I asked people today, people out in podcast land, how many of you bought a new car in the last two years, raise your hand. Why did you buy the car? And you're gonna give me a bunch of facts. And then I'm gonna say, "No. Why did you buy the car?" 'CAuse the facts tell you that we should all be driving the same car, 'cause there's not that big of a difference in the basics. But what happens, someone buys a car, and it's how it makes them feel. And when they get, "That car makes me feel good. I like that car."

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And then they make up the facts from real facts, why they bought the car.

Mark Sylvester: To justify it.

John Davies: To justify it.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And so that's part of the deal. So in product marketing, you gotta motivate people to buy it, and then they go look for a fact to anchor why they did it. When their friend says, "What the heck did you buy that care for?" Oh.

Mark Sylvester: It is, and again, another thread is around the emotional, that you talk about.

John Davies: Yeah. I mean-

Mark Sylvester: It's like, let's talk to the emotional bit.

John Davies: Well that's how our brains take information in. There are people that are totally factual and take in factual information. God bless them. We get them easy.

Mark Sylvester: Which is why you have a big fat book that says fact book.

John Davies: Exactly. That's why. But they come in easy, because we give them the facts.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And they get it. But the ones, the rest of society, they're a little more emotional. If you look at the two sides of the brain, the right side and the left side, you tell stories to get through, on the soft side, where people are open minded. And it gets through. It's one brain. Crosses over, and all of a sudden, they're looking at the facts and that's what this is about. So cultivating a relationship is respect. It's respecting them enough, but not expecting them just to jump to work. It's the hardest thing we have with clients.

Mark Sylvester: Why is that?

John Davies: 'Cause they just wanna go forward. Why can't we just make this happen?

Mark Sylvester: Let's take action.

John Davies: Yeah, "Let's go. They're good. Why do we have to keep writing to them?" We just had a series of meetings of county and the mid Atlantic, where it's known that everyone's against development, every single person. They have a local, regional, environmental group that's supposed to be the most powerful in the universe, and they know everything, own everything. They actually own the local newspaper.

Mark Sylvester: Literally.

John Davies: Literally own the ... Like they didn't just wanna own the publisher because he's a friend. They bought the paper. And so we're having these small group meetings. We're having huge turnouts. We're respecting them, showing them the project in a very logical, simple manner. And 50, 60 people in the room where we told them we only wanted to have 30, and they're just showing up. And we're walking away with 95% of the people saying, "I am so in. I cannot believe how simple this is. I can't believe how good this is." And they're in the game.

John Davies: Here's the deal. That's great. So we all go home. We rub our hands together, "What a great day. Wow." But if we don't cultivate a relationship with them, they're gonna say, "That's a great project. Hope it gets approved."

Mark Sylvester: So that, I've been waiting, because that's the last step. So I motivate. I educate, so that I can activate.

John Davies: Right. And so that's our final step of what we do. So you can't jump form someone saying, "I'm with you," to getting them to work. And is the guy who was a bachelor to 40. It's like going on the first date, saying, "Hey, can we stop by and meet my parents?" You know, you gotta have some-

Mark Sylvester: How's that work for you?

John Davies: Luckily my parents are on the East Coast, so that didn't work. But I did have a lot of time. So I mean, that was, I mean that's what happens in most development related projects that you're trying to rush the relationship. And you're rushing the relationship because you didn't start in time. Everything's a panic. You have no relationship. You can't cultivate a relationship. And then when you go to ask them, you have a horrible turnout, because they're like, "What the heck? I've gotta go sit at a public hearing for a day? I'm gonna write a letter? Put my name on this? I'm not sure."

Mark Sylvester: So I wanna save the ask for help to our next show.

John Davies: Do you wanna do another show?

Mark Sylvester: I would love to do one more. Is that okay?

John Davies: Yeah. I'm good with that.

Mark Sylvester: But I wanna, before we leave, what could someone, the person who's listening right now, what could they do in this, like how could they come up with ideas to cultivate the relationship? Just, let's brainstorm for, help them brainstorm for a second.

John Davies: Well, so you have some relationships. And maybe it's a half dozen or a dozen. And it's gonna be hard to do a social proof unless it's a big crowd. But what could I do to form a real relationship with the people? What can I do? Well, number one, we talked about food. So when you have food, and you're together with food, and I've talked about this before I think. And is, it's a very emotional, very vulnerable moment.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And so, and the reason is it's pretty disgusting. I mean, we just get used to it. You're sticking cooked objects in a hole in your face. And then you're chewing it up in front of people and smiling, and sitting around a table together. I mean-

Mark Sylvester: Oh, I can't wait.

John Davies: Well think, right. So think about, I mean, you know, quite frankly, the opposite we do in private, right?

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: I mean, so at the end of the day, it's sort of a weird thing to do. So when you eat, you're vulnerable. And the other thing is when you eat, you change your blood sugar and your chemical-

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: And when you do that, you feel better, and you feel different. And if I'm hanging around you when you're eating good food-

Mark Sylvester: It's gonna be a good time, good conversation.

John Davies: It totally is a-

Mark Sylvester: Yeah.

John Davies: So that's part of the reason to do food. So, a meal's always a good thing. The other is the [inaudible 00:16:22] listen to them. Find out what they care about. Find out who they are. Talk to them. Let them talk first.

Mark Sylvester: I think something else that might be interesting. What do you think of this, if I was to, we love drawing the line down the middle of the paper and putting stuff on the left and right. We've talked about that a lot. But if I went through my various audiences on the left, and then gave myself a relationship score from one to ten on how good that relationship is.

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: Ten is great. And be honest. And then look at that and say, "Hmm. What could we do?" So maybe even listen to this episode again to think about that.

John Davies: Well, yeah. I think the challenge is that we need so many people now to do something that it's hard to have, really have an individual relationship that you can track. And so we use pretty sophisticated databases. So we can track exactly that that person showed up at this event, and we remember the conversation. And so in there, we know. So that piece of paper is now housed probably in a Google Cloud house, and that they're-

Mark Sylvester: A cloud house.

John Davies: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:17:34].

Mark Sylvester: I like that.

John Davies: Yeah. On the webernet. In the internet, webernet. So they're, it's up there. We have thousands and thousands of names.

Mark Sylvester: Yeah.

John Davies: And we know what they said. When they responded to us, they wrote a sentence on a little card they sent back.

Mark Sylvester: Last question for you, because I really wanna have this other conversation about asking for help. Do you, before one of these events, knowing that you have all of this intel, background information on what people have actually said, do you go and review all of that, so you walk in kind of, that's all in memory.

John Davies: Headlines. And so the memory is in a quick note to our client. And make sure you see so and so, who is the past president of a school district-

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: ... who is loved like crazy in the community. Don't pass that person by. And then, we're always there. We check everyone in. We talk to everyone. We check everyone by the way on iPads. So when we check you in an iPad, I can talk to you a little bit, get you to answer a couple questions.

Mark Sylvester: Oh.

John Davies: I get to collect your email. So that's part of the cultivation is I'm collecting, "Hey, can we have your email? I just noticed we don't have it. Oh, you will? Good. Great. We've got your email." And you also, they bring a spouse or bring a family member, we get to collect that. So you know, hey, when we call, our caller's calling to get people to go to an event, which we'll get into next. We had the opportunity to really know something about that person. It comes up in the database. You know, "Hey, Mark. How are you? Thanks for coming to our dinner last month. How do you feel about making it to the hearing next week? Oh, you're gonna be out. How about your husband or your wife?" You would have a wife. You wouldn't have a husband. Maybe. Yeah.

Mark Sylvester: So that all feels just really natural, and you've-

John Davies: Yeah.

Mark Sylvester: ... coached everybody up on how to-

John Davies: They just got it. They, yeah, they just do it. So that's it. Then we start asking. So we have the cultivation. We may have five cultivation events before we have a real need event, depending on what's going on.

Mark Sylvester: John, thanks so much for helping us. We only have one show left, and we've gonna wrap this whole thing up and kinda do an overview of that. So we'll run that.

John Davies: What would you think if we turned this into like a couple day conference twice a year?

Mark Sylvester: What would that look like?

John Davies: It would look really good. Maybe call it like a Real Estate Master Series, the Davies Method, or something like that.

Mark Sylvester: So people who listen to the show could come and spend two days with you.

John Davies: We could unpack some of this stuff for like a half a day.

Mark Sylvester: I love that.

John Davies: And do some serious worksheets to really bang this out. Anyway, but why don't we do that?

Mark Sylvester: We'll let the listener know when that's available.

John Davies: Alright, great.

Mark Sylvester: Thanks, John.

Mark Sylvester: Thank you for listening. It's now your opportunity and responsibility to use the method today. You've completed one segment toward understanding the Davies Method. We look forward to you subscribing. Join us as we uncover and explain the nuances of John's distinctive approach. For more episodes, visit TheDaviesMethod.com. I'm Mark Sylvester, recording at the Full String Press Studios in Santa Barbara, California.