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.

Mark Sylvester: 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. Welcome back to the show. John, this week we're on the last bit of that four-part strategy, the overarching way that we're looking at how we overcome opposition. The last bit, you called Bridge. We talked about it in the introductory session. I'm curious. Why do you call it Bridge?

John Davies: I want people to think that they have to go to that. They have to take step to there, that they take a little break to get there. It's walking across a bridge. It pulls it together. It's on the other side of the river. On one side of the river, you're acknowledging you're going to have an impact. Then you're going to immediately contrast the impact of doing something with the impact of not doing it. Then you're going to embrace all the benefits. Then you're going to take a breath, and you're going to walk across the bridge, and then you're going to talk about the financial benefits.

Mark Sylvester: We were talking about all of the other benefits that weren't financial in Embrace, right?

John Davies: Yes.

Mark Sylvester: The improved traffic, improved schools, all of those things, but now we're going to get nitty-gritty with finances.

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: It's interesting that you said that. We're going to have a whole show called Backwards. Why do people do it backwards? But, why do they start with finances, usually? Because it's interesting you finish with it.

John Davies: They could be doing pretty traditional polling, or they could be listening to people, what they respond to, that are supporters. People who are persuaded to be a supporter will stay as a supporter, and be stronger and be excited because of the financial, but they won't become a supporter because of the financial. Think about it. We're going to build this big project on a green field, meaning this open space. It's going to provide a bunch of jobs. It's going to put in a lot of tax revenue. Are you willing to sell out your environment? Are you willing to sell out the impact to traffic for all this funding?

John Davies: The answer is no. Most people are going to say no. I'm pro-business. I'm actually pro-growth, but that's the wrong project at the wrong place. You come to me to sell me something all about finances, my first response is, "You can't buy me. You can't buy me." I want to put that river between us after we've already embraced all the other things. We've contrasted acting versus not acting, and then we can talk about finances. Then, once we get landed there, now we're off and running. Now they're going to talk about that. They're going to keep coming back thinking, "This is good for my community for a lot of reasons, but I sure like the financial."

Mark Sylvester: We make sure that the social value proposition-

John Davies: Is first.

Mark Sylvester: Got it.

John Davies: With real estate, in the old days, for real estate projects, homes in most places didn't pay their own way. They pay their property tax. The income from the people spending in the community, the people doing things, the old theory is that didn't pay its own way, that the police, and fire, and all those things, city services ended up in the negative. A lot of people still think of this.

John Davies: Every study I've seen in the last three or four years is it comes out positive. The price of housing in most places in America, and mostly the places where you're going to have to fight to get it approved, you're going to have to overcome opposition, housing is costly enough that the property tax will be high enough that it's a net benefit. In some places, it's actually better than doing a commercial project, which usually was the big number. The financial argument is a really positive one in real estate today.

Mark Sylvester: Is there a psychological way to frame this financial conversation that is maybe not obvious to us?

John Davies: Well, I think the idea is it's about the people and the services. When you look at where does money go in local government that matters, what are the things that matter to most people? Schools, police, fire, roads, the condition of things. You look at what you're going to pay and what's going to happen. Schools, most developments pay a large amount of money in school fees. Many end up providing the site or even donating the site for schools to build there, so you're benefiting the school district. That's important to a community, a good school district, not overcrowded. You're funding it with revenue every year.

Mark Sylvester: Let's stay with the school, because we talked about that in an earlier episode. The social value of the school is significant. The reduction of impact on traffic, we made that argument before. Now there's a fiscal benefit to that, as well.

John Davies: Also the traffic, if you have the school right near the site.

Mark Sylvester: Exactly.

John Davies: That's a traffic issue, and then the financial is you give them a site, because it's hard for school districts to buy a site. It's in the right location, and it's hard for them ... You have a 600-acre property, and you're going to provide 40 acres. It's hard for the school district to come in and say, "We want 8% of your site for our school." We're not going to sell you 8% of the site.

Mark Sylvester: Yeah, that's right. Exactly.

John Davies: There's a symbiotic relationship between growing communities, the school district, and the property owners and developers. That's a benefit now. It's not something to throw away, but it's a financial benefit as well as something to embrace.

John Davies: What are the jobs? The jobs are the short-term construction jobs and ongoing jobs. Also, you could build 2,200 homes. You're going to have 5,000 or 6,000 more people spending money in a community. That's not a bad thing, either.

Mark Sylvester: When you are pitching these projects, I know you love imagery. You love pictures, right?

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: Because that's that emotional buy-in. I've seen you do that in projects. It's all about the pictures. How do you make interesting pictures out of numbers? What's your trick on that?

John Davies: It's different every time. Sometimes, it literally is a really interesting chart, if we have something to compare it to. What's the overall budget for the school district? What are we going to add? In a small community, our piece of the piece turns out to be 30-40% of the tax revenue going to the school district. That's a pretty good thing. So, how many kids? How many kids are we going to be funding? What's the size of school? Maybe it's pictures of the kids and the technology, but we really make it simple. We always put it, when we're doing a booklet, at the back.

Mark Sylvester: You put what?

John Davies: We put the financial information in the very back pages. By the way, most people don't read any book or magazine front to back. People jump around and look at what they want, but there's something about putting in the back and saying, "We're not leading with this." This is a by the way.

Mark Sylvester: You mean it's the fourth step in the process on purpose.

John Davies: Yeah, totally. It just sits there. We don't have neon lights flashing. We don't have little arrows pointing at it. It's just there. Based on the research on what matters the most, we'll have a huge image of whatever people care about the most. Is it the revenue for new streets? Is it revenue for fixing streets? Is it revenue for police and fire, or for a school? We'll make a big picture of that.

Mark Sylvester: When we were talking about embrace and engage the benefits, you left us with as much as you need and as little as possible when we were talking about that. Does that rule apply to financial as well?

John Davies: More.

Mark Sylvester: Even more?

John Davies: Even more. Simple, simple, simple. The thing is, you have two things in most projects that you need to share, and you've got to get it simple. What are the one-time fees? Because you're doing development, you're going to pay fees to the schools, development fees to the city, and they're big. They're big numbers. Then, you have annual fees from the tax revenue, the property tax. Then you've got to play with the property tax in the right way depending on where you are. What percentage of the property tax does a local get versus a state or other agencies? You've got to be pretty straightforward and honest about that, otherwise people will call you on it.

Mark Sylvester: One of the things I'm always thinking about in communication is how do we break it into a formula, which is what the method is, but then, what are the transitions like between each of those bits. You said that the bridge, I want a river in between. I want a transition. Give me an example of how you might go from social value benefits to our financial part where I don't feel like I'm going left brain to right brain.

John Davies: Interestingly, my first round of presentations ... If we're doing multimedia or a video, I don't even talk about the financial.

Mark Sylvester: It's just in the book.

John Davies: It's just there. What I love is we usually get asked. "What is this going to mean?" "We're going to pay $14 million in development fees. We're going to be paying $2 million. To the city, our economic analysis says it'll be a net positive of $250,000 a year. After all the city services are done, after everything's happened, $250,000."

Mark Sylvester: You'll give them one number.

John Davies: Yeah, that's it, and that works, because you're not trying to oversell them. Once they get into it, and they start blogging for you, or they go to hearings, they want to talk about the finances, because that motivates them.

Mark Sylvester: Why does that motivate them?

John Davies: Because they're worried about their community. Most of them are people who care about the future financial value of their community and the services.

Mark Sylvester: It's about fiscal responsibility?

John Davies: Right, but they're not going to support you until they know that it's good for the community in other ways, not just financial.

Mark Sylvester: Not to foreshadow the coming episodes too much, but part of this is all towards building up relationships with the community, building up your fan base, building up these people who are going to support you, building all of that up. They need to have enough and the right amount of ammunition for the right time.

John Davies: Right. As you look at what we've been talking about with the acknowledge, contrast, embrace, and bridge, is we're doing a messaging drill. This is a messaging drill more than anything. When we get into the next, when we really get into what's happening and how we reach out, how do we figure out what people think? We're going to talk about how we listen first. We don't tell people what we think. We find out what they think. How we address their dreams and fears, how we get the message out. How do we get the story out there? How do we cultivate relationships once people say, "We're with you"? Then, how do we get them to do something? How do we ask them for help, and how do we keep doing that?

John Davies: The deal is, this is to get a framework for how you're going to present and position your project. When you think about it, we're going to spend a bunch of time talking about this, and we have. I think this is our fifth podcast on this, or fifth week of doing this. We're going to talk about sort of a traditional approach, just the logic of this next, and then we're going to talk about how most people do it backwards and why that blows it. All of that is just-

Mark Sylvester: [crosstalk 00:13:41] information, right?

John Davies: This just sets up the next stage. This is about a message. How many people spend 70% of their time coming up with a message on a project? No one, except when we're working with them. Because the deal is, it's all about the message. The message has to be done in the right way, and we'll get into that, but the idea is, if you don't have a message, why are you talking to anyone?

Mark Sylvester: Isn't that interesting?

John Davies: Yeah, but the deal is, let's go get a flyer or a book. We've had people copy our style of our books and not have a message, and it's just going to dig you in a deeper hole.

Mark Sylvester: I love that, thinking about it as a messaging drill. Is there something that you would have someone today, they're listening this week and they're sticking with us, is there a little bit of homework we might give them?

John Davies: Yeah. Let's dig in and figure out what are the economics. Let's have it. Don't go run off and use them [inaudible 00:14:45], but let's really dig into the economics and understand what they are, and what the benefits are, and where they drop. How's the school district doing? What's this extra money mean? How is the city doing? How is the revenue for police and fire?

Mark Sylvester: Is it fair to say that if I add 100 pages of background information, I need to have done that work, that's the drill, so that I can get it down to a paragraph, so that when I talk about it, I'm talking to-

John Davies: Exactly. I would just take it. Just give me all the wheat, give me all the stuff, and I'm going to shake it out in a big basket until I just get the good stuff. All the chaff and all the stuff falls out, and I have this little ... I have the gold at the bottom.

Mark Sylvester: That's going to be the perfect message.

John Davies: Right.

Mark Sylvester: John, thank you so much. Just to recap, we've gone through the four steps, and it's all been real strategy. Next week, we're going to talk about what motivated you. We alluded to this in your introduction, but what motivated you to know that this was the right way to go. Then, in the subsequent episodes, we're going to go and dive deep into how you implement that messaging strategy. John, thank you so much.

John Davies: Thank you.

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 00:16:25] Studios in Santa Barbara, California.