The Digital Apprenticeship Podcast

Unconventional Marketing with Oscar Ledlin

April 20, 2021 Stephanie Trinder Digital Marketer and Digital Marketing Consultant Season 2 Episode 20
The Digital Apprenticeship Podcast
Unconventional Marketing with Oscar Ledlin
Show Notes Transcript

How did Oscar Ledlin turn $240 in to $1.2 million dollars worth of sales?

In todays show I’m chatting with Oscar Ledlin, Founder and CEO of Ledlin Developments.

Since it’s beginning in 2013, Ledlin has experienced a sharp rise to success on the back of Oscars business knowledge and unconventional approach to marketing, not typically seen in the commercial or industrial space. In this episode Oscar shares:

  • The non-traditional marketing techniques that give Ledlin their competitive edge
  • The marketing campaigns that made 2020 (the year of Covid) their most successful yet
  • How he turned $240 in to $1.2 million dollars worth of sales
  • Residential vs commercial property investment and how they compare
  • His best advice for listeners wanting to pursue a career in commercial development


CHECK OUT LEDLIN DEVELOPMENTS: Website: https://ledlin.com.au Instagram: www.instagram.com/oscarledlin

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME? Website: www.thedigitalapprenticeship.com.au Instagram: www.instagram.com/thedigitalapprenticeship

WANT MORE? Download my free ebook, The Digital Marketing Cheat Sheet for tradies here http://www.thedigitalapprenticeship.com.au/ebook

SHOW NOTES (including a blog post of this episode and all links and resources) can be found here https://www.thedigitalapprenticeship.com.au/20

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Stephanie Trinder:

Hey Oscar, welcome to The Digital Apprenticeship podcast.

Oscar Ledlin:

Hi Steph, thanks for having me on the show.

Stephanie Trinder:

I'm really excited to have you on today's show. You've previously covered your journey on podcasts including From Thousands to Millions, the Jessie Williams podcast, your beautiful girlfriend, and the No Limits podcast as well.

Stephanie Trinder:

For the purpose of today's show, I'd really like to focus on the marketing aspect of your journey and give the listeners some practical advice and tips of what you have learnt to date. So to begin, I'd love to know if there's a general marketing plan that you follow in your business and what that looks like.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, absolutely. I think something to first make mention of is I'll bounce back and forward between branding and marketing. I think particularly in recent years with digital marketing, some businesses have lost focus on what branding can be with the paid marketing that is currently available in the digital marketing space. Everything is based on cost per click and cost per lead and ROIs on marketing spend and stuff like that, that some of us have completely forgotten what it means to do just general branding and general awareness of our brands.

Oscar Ledlin:

So I think that's something Ledlin have really focused on the recent 12 months. Prior to, we had focused a lot on direct marketing and we'd put a lot of our focus and branding and marketing spend towards that. But then more so in the recent months, we still do a lot of direct marketing and a lot of targeted marketing, but we've also put a lot of attention to general brand awareness and stuff like that. So I'll bounce back and forward between the two, but I think that's something to make mention of.

Oscar Ledlin:

So from the conception of a project, the first thing that we do from a marketing point of view is try and best understand who our consumer is, who our target consumer is, which I think is pretty much marketing 101, is understand who's buying your product or service and really try and have a fundamental understanding of their needs, as well as some of their desires and wants. So that's everything from what do they want and what do they don't want, what they have, what they don't have but they do want, all those sort of fundamental marketing ideologies that we really need to get our head around when we're targeting a consumer.

Stephanie Trinder:

Definitely.

Oscar Ledlin:

So in the commercial development space that I'm in, we will decide what product that we want to structure the development around, be it an office, be it a warehouse, be it an office-warehouse mix, or a storage product, and then understand there's usually a number of consumers for the product. There'll be small businesses, there'll be private individuals that are buying these spaces for personal storage and stuff like that, and then there'll be the investor consumer, so people who are buying the product for investment purposes.

Oscar Ledlin:

From there we really create an ideal model or description of that consumer and then begin to come up with creative ways to target that consumer. And I think referencing back to my little branding spiel at start, we continually target a number of consumers across multiple different projects, and we've also built our company branding around those consumers as well. So I think there's a very much sort of umbrella of company branding and we need to structure that and tailor that a little bit around to who our ideal consumers are being a number of those consumers that I mentioned before. And then within each project, we really get hyper focused and target the specific consumer that we're directing this product or project at.

Stephanie Trinder:

That's music to my ears Oscar. At what stage of the journey do you begin thinking about your consumer? Is it after you've acquired a new development and reactive to what is possible in that space or is it at the very start of the journey, with each project being built around an ideal client avatar?

Oscar Ledlin:

I think the last reference you made there. Something with branding is that I feel that it needs to be very closely related to the leaders of the business, so if there's one leader, if there's a board of leaders. But I think for a brand to be really, really strong, it has to be authentic, and for it to be authentic it really has to flow from the top down.

Oscar Ledlin:

So we have our ideal consumer and that's based off of the company vision and the company mission and who we are, who Ledlin is as a business and what difference we want to make and what impact we want to have within the market. So there's our ideal consumer within that brand, but then when we enter into a project, there's a lot project specifics that we have to consider when doing our targeted marketing for that project.

Oscar Ledlin:

So Ledlin, we like to target a more professional and a more astute consumer than the typical commercial property developer would and that is echoed right throughout our brand, through the language that we use in our marketing, through the products that we offer, and all those sort of things, and the way we conduct ourselves right throughout all our business dealings.

Oscar Ledlin:

But then we might find a project opportunity in an area that has a demographic that doesn't completely align with our company branding and that those aspects that I mentioned. So what we'll have to do in that circumstance is we will seize that opportunity within that area, we'll take on that project, and we will slightly alter the project marketing to catch the attention of the different demographic to what we generally target, but we'll make sure that our brand flows right through to the product that we're delivering, the way that we're marketing, it'll just be a slightly altered version of it.

Oscar Ledlin:

And I think that's the case with every project. With the different demographic, the sightly different product, different areas, different timings within the property market cycle, we have to alter and really be focused on little changes to best target the consumer in that particular time. But I think everything has to flow through from the top, which is our company branding and everything that is close to my heart personally, and the way I operate personally.

Stephanie Trinder:

Absolutely. You make it very clear who your ideal customer is through the messaging and content you share accross your platforms. It's consistent and reflects a high level understanding of that persons wants and needs, which is so crucial for attracting the right people and not wasting your time with anyone who doesn't qualify for your projects.

Stephanie Trinder:

So now that you know who your client is, what are some of the things that you do to attract them and move them through the buyer journey? And for anyone who is unsure of what I mean when I say the buyer journey, I'm talking about the process of getting your product in front of your ideal customer, giving them all of the information they need to understand how you solve their problem, before they ultimately make a decision to buy.

Oscar Ledlin:

Once we have a really solid understanding of the consumer, we begin to test a few marketing strategies. We use a number of different marketing strategies and especially in the recent 12 months with COVID, we've really turned up our marketing and we've moved to a lot alternative measures or strategies of marketing and different channels that definitely haven't been used in our sector of the commercial property development industry before.

Stephanie Trinder:

Interesting.

Oscar Ledlin:

So when COVID hit early on, I think it was March last year, we really knuckled down. I sat down with the entire team and said that I thought we're in for a bit of a wake up call with regards to our sales strategy. There was a point where we couldn't do inspections at all, and then we're doing inspections with masks, then inspections with council again. So we anticipated that we were going to be really up against it with regards to selling the products that we had coming to market. We tried everything to be honest and we dipped the toe in with each strategy, and then based on the results, we either discarded the strategy altogether or we really turned it up.

Oscar Ledlin:

We did billboards, which billboards have been done before, but not to the extent that we were doing them. But then we did things like ... We had a purchaser come to one of our recent projects and they were buying for car storage and that was something that we had before, but we had never had this level of interaction with the consumer. I should mention that after COVID came, we decided to have a Ledlin representative at each and every property inspection for our products.

Oscar Ledlin:

So traditionally in the development space, you have a real estate agent representing the company and they handle the lead, right through to completion. When COVID hit, we sat with our agents and we explained that we wanted a Ledlin representative at each and every inspection. We had over 600 inspections in 2020, so I went to probably 75% of those inspections myself and then the ones that I didn't go to, I had one of my staff go along and be involved in that inspection process.

Oscar Ledlin:

The idea behind that was one, to portray the brand, the second point was to portray the product. Internally, we understand the product better than any of our agents. We educate them and we bring them on the journey, but we know it like the back of our hand. And then the third and probably most important reason was we wanted to learn from the consumer.

Oscar Ledlin:

So getting secondhand feedback through the agent about the consumer, what they like, what they don't like, their objections and what they really love, it's not as direct as it could be. So we thought if we're there, we can really get an intimate understanding of the consumer, and through that, we can refine our marketing strategy. So we started 2020 with that intention and as we understood the consumer better, we really just set out on this journey to hyper target a personality that we knew better than any other developer in the industry, because we were having direct communication with these people.

Oscar Ledlin:

So early on, one of the examples that I'll use is we had a purchaser come in and they said they loved the idea, we had polished concrete floors and painted internal walls, which minimizes dust completely. So they were using one of our small units for car storage. So what we did from there was this project is up the road from Sandown Raceway, so we did a deal with Sandown Raceway to send out an email marketing blast to I think they have 4,000 people on their register who are regularly racing their cars at Sandown Raceway.

Stephanie Trinder:

Perfect.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, we had direct communication with our target audience who was already buying within project and had a direct need to be in close proximity of that race track to keep their race cars.

Oscar Ledlin:

Then we did an ad in the local Rolls Royce and Range Rover car club magazines, so that went out all across Victoria and the hard copy was printed and in every ... It was Jaguar, Range Rover, Rolls Royce, it was in every Jaguar, Range Rover dealer across I think Southeast Melbourne. And that was a 240 dollar ad and we wrote the copy ourselves and we had I think three transactions from that. So 1.2, 1.3 million dollars in sales from a 240 dollar ad.

Oscar Ledlin:

And this is just unheard of. The magazine company and the car club, they had never had a developer approach them to do ads before, and they were completely unaware of the scale of our marketing campaign in something like that, and they say said, "We charge 239 dollars," or whatever it was, "for a full page spread." And we said, "That's incredibly cheap, do you want a commission?" And they said, "No-"

Stephanie Trinder:

That's the last time.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah. "... we don't do commissions, it's 239 dollars." So we ran that ad for two months. I think the second month was 99 dollars because they had already scaled our ad to their page and it went out in their email blast as well. So that was an incredible result from understanding the consumer.

Oscar Ledlin:

We had some local personal use people that were doing DIY stuff on their home, and understanding them, we then reached out to a lot of local supply centers, so Middy's Electrical, Bowens Timber and those sort of local trades where mum and dad renovators and house flippers, those sort of consumers, they're frequently visiting these trade centers. So we reached out to them and did a deal to target ... They have, again, 5,000 local previous purchasers on their email list and we were able to target directly to them.

Oscar Ledlin:

So we were having direct relationships with the consumers that were buying, and then we were targeting them directly and like a really hyper focused target market that we're able to reach out to moving forward. And the sales results we achieved in 2020 were unrivaled in the industry. Our campaigns last year were more successful than any campaigns we've previously had, but more so, they were more successful than any campaigns we've heard of, and far more successful than any campaigns we've seen last year. So we've achieved some incredible results and we're very lucky to clue onto understanding the consumer process and it all sort of took off from there.

Stephanie Trinder:

Wow thats incredible Oscar and great examples of why your businesses are so successful. You're persistant and not willing to give up when you face a challange, and you understand your consumer so well, you know exactly where they're hanging out and you meet them there.

Stephanie Trinder:

When a consumer becomes a client and they sign on the dotted line, how does your marketing change? How do you make your clients feel confident about their decision? Because there is a phenomena that happens after someone purchases something when they feel a little uneasy and question their decision, and that's referred to as Post Purchase Dissonance. So, how do you handle that and nurture your client post-purchase.

Oscar Ledlin:

This is an incredible question specifically for my industry, because when we sell out a project or when we close the deal, the deal isn't completed from a transactional point of view, because from a contractual point of view it is, but there's always settlement risk for developers. So in a recent project, we have 30 units, it's about 70 million dollars, we're 100% sold out, but we haven't closed the 70 million dollars worth of transactions. We're holding 10% deposits on each of those units. So there's 1.7 million dollars held in a solicitors trust account, but right up until settlement, there's a great degree of risk for a developer of those purchases falling over. And that can be for a whole number of different reasons, some outside of the purchasers control, but some well within the purchasers control.

Oscar Ledlin:

So I think this post deal marketing is even more important in property development than in some other industries, and it's something that we take extremely seriously, and for that we have incredibly low settlement values. So a couple of things that we do, we have a signing pack and this is something that we're further expanding on this year. But when our purchaser signs a contract, we have a signing pack and a singing questionnaire. So we welcome them, congratulate them on their purchase, and then we have a number of questions within that questionnaire that helps us build an even more in depth profile of who the consumer is, what they're particularly using that product for and that allows us to build our post contractual marketing strategy and we tailor that slightly for each individual purchaser.

Oscar Ledlin:

So like I said, for our recent campaign, there's 30 purchases within that, that we've secured with that campaign, so we tailor our marketing campaign to them somewhat. I think it's fairly tailored. It's something that we might not be able to do, make so specific and so tailored within the future, but I think for now with the size of our business, it's something that we'll continue to refine to make that purchaser feel really soft and warm about the whole experience and keep them on track and with the intention to settle on the purchase in 6, 9, 12 months time.

Stephanie Trinder:

Sure.

Oscar Ledlin:

So part of that, after that service, it's about frequent and consistent communication from the time of signing the contract up until settlement of their purchase. So like I just mentioned, this is often a 12 month process, and from understanding the wider commercial property development industry, we know that the majority of purchases of a product like ours, they'll sign the contract and they won't hear from the developer until two to four weeks before settling on the purchase. And for us, we think that's slightly disrespectful. Our average product cost is 550,000 dollars plus GST, so to close the deal and then not communicate with the consumer for 12 months, that doesn't align with our branding and that doesn't sit well with me to think that we take the money and leave them in the lurch for so long, so consistent communication.

Oscar Ledlin:

We send them construction updates, so we send out a video monthly with an update of construction and that's super low cost for us. We film it on an iPhone, we have a little gimbal that we run around with, and we internally whip up a little 60 second video that fits nicely within a MailChimp template and that goes out to all the purchasers to keep them informed on where the project's at, gives them a little insight into how it's taking shape, some of the inclusions that they can now see from the photos, as well completion dates. In the commercial industry, a lot of these people are moving out of other business premises. So to keep them with a real time update of our anticipated scheduled completion time is very important and we feel that the consumer's very grateful to be kept up to date with that.

Stephanie Trinder:

It's the little things.

Oscar Ledlin:

Exactly, yeah.

Stephanie Trinder:

They don't cost money, but they show your clients that your invested in them and their needs. This is something you do for a living, but to them, they've just made a life changing decision that's going to be at the forefront of their mind. At this stage it's really all about delivering great customer service.

Oscar Ledlin:

Absolutely. And I think my industry specifically is really behind the times in terms of marketing and consumer services. It's just for whatever reason the industry is a very mature generation dominated industry. When you think property developers, I don't know another one under 45 years old. So I think that has just led to this traditional consumer, the seller mentality where it's not a collaboration, it's not a really binding relationship, or not a fruitful relationship like we're trying to make it. And a lot of industries are, a lot of younger industries are really nurturing the consumer. So we're not really up against it in terms of what our competitors are doing, but we're continually just trying to refine that process. So construction updates are part of that.

Oscar Ledlin:

We do marketing updates as well, so we include in our monthly videos how the sales campaign is going and that also gives the purchaser confidence. If you're the first purchaser to buy into a project where there might be 30 units in the campaign or they might be the first purchaser to buy in a complex where they know we're delivering 90 tenancies, to not hear if anybody else is buying into that complex is I imagine would be pretty nerveracking for a consumer. So we update them and say in kinder and softer language, "Don't worry, we've sold 10 last month, so the campaign is going extremely well."

Oscar Ledlin:

We often update the early purchasers of price increases. So we have frequent and consistent price increases throughout the campaign, so that lifts the underlying value of the asset that the early purchasers have bought. And they might have 15% to 20% capital growth within their property prior to settling on it. We make sure we highlight that for the consumer. We outline that in percentages, in dollar terms, in everything.

Oscar Ledlin:

So when it comes time for that consumer to organize their finance and get ready to settle on the property, if we've made it undoubtedly clear that they have 20% equity in that property already, they will do everything they can to settle. If one bank tells them that it's a little bit difficult for them to settle, they'll go to another bank, they'll go to a non-bank lender, they'll do whatever it takes to settle if they know they already have a 100,000 dollars equity in that property. So that's something that we really communicate.

Stephanie Trinder:

I love that. At this stage of the project are you still targeting those warm audiences who are interested or sitting on the fence? Is there anything that you're doing to let future clients know what you've achieved and what they're missing out on?

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, certainly. So specifically within that project, like I said, for a project last year, we had 600 inspections. We will have over 1,000 leads that registered their interest in that project from one degree right through the other. They might have clicked through an add or they might have been ready to sign a contract and never gone through with it. That's sort of the range of how qualified these leads were.

Oscar Ledlin:

So we continually retarget those throughout the campaign as well and they can unsubscribe from our list at any time, but we target them with the construction updates and with the sales and marketing updates. Again, these are low resource, very easy to do little touch points. It's a very similar template and touch point to our construction updates with the purchasers. Tiny little bit of change in the copy, and then a call to action at the end to ...

Oscar Ledlin:

We have a project at the moment, which is our third stage of Springvale Business Park and we have an easy click through button in the ad, or they can text SBP3 to one of our sales consultants to get the latest price list and copy of the plans, which these easy touch points, again, they're things that aren't being done in our industry but are being done especially in E-commerce platforms and marketing.

Oscar Ledlin:

So little touch points like that with people that haven't purchased yet, the consumer that haven't purchased yet and we have very high conversion rates from our consumers, where our leads that have told us that they're not interested, then they follow the whole journey right up until prior to sell out. They'll follow that journey and they'll often jump in, in the later stages.

Stephanie Trinder:

For sure and for those who don't purchase this time around, it might just not be the right time. If you continue to nurture them and position yoruself as the solution to their problem, they might buy in on the next project.

Oscar Ledlin:

Absolutely.

Stephanie Trinder:

Everyone's so different and their decision making reflects that. Some people need a lot of information and have a lot of questions while other people can be really quick decision makers. It's so important to consider the spectrum of human behaviour when you're marketing and adapt your messaging for maximum results.

Stephanie Trinder:

People also take in information differently and I've noticed through all of your touch points, you have great copy that's the words you use, visual elements, like high quality images, diagrams and videos including walk-throughs, you've even got a few podcasts under your belt now too. So you have somethign there for everyone, regardless of if they love to read or visualise things. And as I was saying before, for those people who do have a lot of questions and who will read the fine print on your website, you have everything there for them as well.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, I think it's important to note that our target consumer is a very diverse range of personality. We have early 20s trades, and then we have late 60s IT consultants. So there's a whole range of different personalities throughout that spectrum, and while our product is very unique, we can target it to a very wide range of consumers. So I think it's super important to have touch points and marketing hooks that target an array of different personalities.

Oscar Ledlin:

And like you said, we're working to have those different hooks and offers across our different platforms, but we're also working to make sure that they're all very consistent and they're very aligned with our overarching brand. So we want to target the middle aged professional worker and the early 20s trade worker, we want to make sure we target them with information and in a strategy that aligns with our brand. So we need to be considerate of them, but we also need to be loyal with our authentic brand and make sure that we're highlighting that as well.

Stephanie Trinder:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think marketing is as much about repulsion as it is about attracting, you can't market to everyone. I understand and appreciate that for each project you would have those different personality types, but like you said, you do have an overarching idea of who your brand serves and who you're trying to attract... they're the people that are going to resonate with you and with your company and ultimately be a much better partnership than someone who doesn't align with your brand and who, ultimately will be harder to sell to.

Oscar Ledlin:

I think it's easier said than done sometimes and it's something that we've really been able to drive home in the later stages of last year after having an incredibly successful sales year. We made note internally who we wanted to target specifically with our recent project being a very large project in an area where there was a very mixed consumer and there was a higher degree of heavier industrial users in the area that had a lot of demand for our product, and we really didn't want to target those. And like you said, we really want to not ... Repulse is a strong word, but we didn't want them to find our product attractive because it's to the detriment of the project to have those heavy industrial users within what we're trying to portray as a polished business park.

Oscar Ledlin:

Early on in the campaign when you have these heavy industrial users knocking on the door willing to sign contracts and pay deposits, it is extremely testing to be consistent in our messaging to not attract them and to deter them from going right through the lead generation process and through the nurturing process right up until they sign the contract. It's sometimes hard to really stay strong with your messaging and completely understanding that if you do stick to your messaging that these consumers are going to drop off, they're not going to sign a contract because they don't fit with the product. It's very testing not to conform to what they want and then invite them into the project.

Oscar Ledlin:

So from early days that's tough, but I mean as you build a stronger brand reputation, as you develop a more refined marketing strategy and you build confidence in that, it becomes something you take pride in. We had a consumer the other day, they come right through to the inspection and we started with our pitch about the inclusions of the product and we quickly mentioned our matte black tap fittings and our polished concrete floors and this consumer said, "I don't really care for your fancy inclusions." And we said, "You're not going to fit well with a new ... With complete respect, we think this agent has another product that would be better suited to and your demands." We did it in a very delicate and respectful way, but we want to protect our branding now and it's something that we take extreme amounts of pride in and it's easier now that we've built some momentum.

Stephanie Trinder:

Yeah it is difficult for most people in those early days of business because you're focused on making a profit and not going bust, so you don't really care who that money comes from. Being confident enough to really focus in on your ideal consumer is something that can come with time and experience.

Stephanie Trinder:

What did marketing look like for you at the beginning?

Oscar Ledlin:

Our marketing early on was very traditional of the industry. So heavily led by the professionals in the industry being real estate agents and their sales and marketing teams. Well, it's not embarrassing to say, but our marketing for a five million dollar project early on was not much more than a price list on an A4 flyer that might not have even been printed on glossy paper. That was the extent of the marketing in our industry. We quickly tried to expand on that with project websites and different forms of physical brochures and marketing material to go with the black and white A4 price list. But it was very underwhelming and it was extremely commercial.

Stephanie Trinder:

That's not embarrassing at all. You didn't know any better so you were just doing the best you could with the information and experience you had at the time, right?

Oscar Ledlin:

Yes.

Stephanie Trinder:

It's a learning process.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, you're right, you're right. It's not embarrassing. It would be embarrassing to revert to that now. I think that's sort of the mindset that I'm being drawn into.

Stephanie Trinder:

Yes, agreed.

Oscar Ledlin:

The marketing, it was very typical of the industry, a lot of our industry's still like that. Again, it's a heavily dominated industry by older generations. It's a commercial industry and the traditional concept is that our industry is square meter rates, it's very black and white, it's straightforward, it's measurements and figures and everything like that, whereas Ledlin, we really focus on the emotional side of the consumer.

Oscar Ledlin:

So we're very different in that aspect and we have some consumers who are within our industry to some degree. When they become a lead and they come into our marketing funnel, they start with a very commercial perspective of our product and they ask things in terms of square meter rates and outputs and the questions are really commercially structured. By the time they've come through our entire marketing funnel, right before they convert, they're a very emotional purchaser and they're bringing their wife through our display to have a look at the feature walls in our bathrooms and our black tap fittings and stuff like that.

Oscar Ledlin:

So we're really trying to educate our leads as they become a potential purchaser and bringing them through the journey of this is a commercial industry, but you're still an emotional purchaser and the emotional elements of the purchase are still all in play. It's just that we're I guess a little bit innovative in that we're bringing them to the forefront of the purchasing process and the decision making process.

Stephanie Trinder:

It sounds like you do story telling really well, you're focused on building an emotional and personal connection with your consumers beyond the facts and figures. It's a really intelligent approach because it makes you stand out from your competitors and people make purchases with their heart and not their head. We buy things based on an intital feeling and then we rationalise it later. Oscar, was the color blue in your logo deliberate?

Oscar Ledlin:

It wasn't, but I've since learned a lot about the color blue and the underlying messaging that a blue logo brings to the consumer's mind, so completely accidental. Blue is my favorite color, but it's worked out well.

Stephanie Trinder:

Yeah, it has. A lot of the logos from successful companies, are blue. And based on the psychology of colour, every color has an affect on a persons perception and behaviour. The colour blue communicates trust, reliability, and competence. So it seems like a really great match for your company.

Stephanie Trinder:

In one of your previous interviews you mentioned that the property market has changed. Can you elaborate on that and explain how you plan to manage that moving forward?

Oscar Ledlin:

I hold a very biased position on commercial V residential property purchase for investment purposes, so I try and remain as unbiased as I can in my discussions about this, and I am very passionate about it, but I like to throw a little disclaimer at the start that I sold 50 million dollars worth of commercial property last year and that's how I earn my income, so if I seem somewhat biased, that could be the case.

Oscar Ledlin:

I also like to mention at the start of these discussions that I don't own my own home, so when I talk about residential versus commercial property investment, or purchasing on the property for financial gain, I like to say that I do put my own money where my mouth is and I live in an incredible home, but I rent it, because I believe the financial benefits of commercial property far outweigh the financial benefits of residential property.

Stephanie Trinder:

Sure.

Oscar Ledlin:

I also don't think that the property market has changed dramatically, I just think that the residential property market has been over hyped for generations and I think that a lot of people our age purchase their home merely because their parents purchased their home and their grandparents purchased their home and their grandparents before them purchased their home. It's an age old saying of buy your home, get into your property market, bricks and mortar-

Stephanie Trinder:

The Australian dream.

Oscar Ledlin:

The Australian dream, and I think that the Australian dream has really limited some people's experiences, be it commercial experiences within business, or outside of that, their life experiences in general.

Stephanie Trinder:

Yeah, I can speak to that. It ties up all of your money and limits your opportunities as a result of that. I'm currently in that position myself so that's based on my personal experience.

Oscar Ledlin:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And for a number of different reasons, be it if you want to move for personal circumstances, if you have relationships that break down, if you have new relationships that start, if you've recently purchased a property, if you're paying stamp duty, which 95% of purchasers are, if they don't have some sort of government incentive to not pay stamp duty. If you're paying stamp duty on your way into a purchase, you're 5% behind from day one.

Stephanie Trinder:

You're killing me.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah. When you're selling that property, you're 2% behind because you have to sell that property. So when you purchase into a property, straight away, your money, your asset has decreased by 7% in essence, if you're going to sell that property to realize the value that's accumulated within it.

Oscar Ledlin:

So for me, I'm about to move into my fifth house in five years, and the flexibility of renting property has allowed me to be extremely mobile for opportunity sake. So the flexibility benefits can be for negative things like if you break up with somebody or if you need to move for certain reasons and a number of negative circumstances that we can find ourselves in, the flexibility's great for that. But for me, I've been able to move homes as my lifestyle's changed and I've been comfortable elevating my home life into a better position.

Oscar Ledlin:

So if I purchased my first home and then 12 months later sold that home, I would have been at a devastating financial loss as compared to the cost of renting that home for 12 months. And I've modeled this in the four homes that I've lived in the last four years for really interesting specific circumstances. I've been able to model exactly the financial outcome I would have been in if I had purchased that property.

Oscar Ledlin:

And what I mean by that is, the home that I'm living now, I've been living in that home for 12 months paying my rent and I have a direct insight into what I could purchase the property for because the landlord's now decided she's going to sell and she's offered me the first rights to purchase it. So I know what she would accept from a sales point of view, I know exactly what I'm renting it for, I know what the rates and outgoings on the property have been for the 12 months that I've been living here, and I also know that the zip tap is broken, the electric front gates have broken, and the other maintenance costs that she's had to pay throughout that 12 months.

Oscar Ledlin:

So I understand what her interest rates are, I understand the exact cost of this home, I know what she paid for it when she purchased it in 2016 and I know what rent I've been able to live in the home for within that time. So this has been the case in the last four homes I've lived in. I haven't been offered to purchase those properties, but I've lived in a duplex where the identical house next door has sold. So I've had clear insight into the exact value movements of the properties while I've lived in them and the outgoings and maintenance costs of those properties in comparison to the rental expense that I've paid to live in them. And I've been able to do this direct comparison of cost of renting versus cost of ownership.

Oscar Ledlin:

And the results, I've shared them a few times on Instagram and it's always a riot in my inbox of people that you have to buy property, my uncle Bob brought a property when he was 17 years old back in 1934 for three shillings and then he sold it for 400,000 and how can you say that's not making money? But when you go through the maths and you compare the cost of stamp duty, council rates, water rates, maintenance, body corporate if they apply, then selling the property, the interest on the mortgage over that period of time, even in a low interest rate environment, the cost of ownership versus the cost of renting at the moment, it's really not comparable.

Stephanie Trinder:

That's really interesting Oscar. Have you read The Barefoot Investor?

Oscar Ledlin:

I have.

Stephanie Trinder:

So the author Scott Pape discourages people from purchasing a house as an investment, he believes a house should be bought only if your intentions are to live in it as your home. There are multiple case studies of people who have followed the profits of the sales of houses over several years, and the result is that the profit is marginal. I really wish I had of read that book before I purchased my first property.

Oscar Ledlin:

It's so interesting, Steph, because I've spent days when we were in COVID and I've done it for a number of hours before, I've modeled so many different circumstances of residential property investment and it's really not an argument. Residential property investment is really poor performing, it's a poor performing sector, but it's a multi-billion dollar industry in Australia and in much of the Western world. When you think of what goes into property investment right from mortgage broking, financial advice, the banking system, renovations and the education sector and reporting and accounting and all that sort of stuff, it's a huge industry and this Australian dream for previous generations has just created this false sense of financial performance in residential property.

Oscar Ledlin:

And I don't talk about it too often because there's such a stigma around it and some people take so much offense because they've worked incredibly hard for a period of time and then jumped into this property thinking that it's the best financially performing investment for them and then I come out and say, "Don't buy residential property, it's shit." People take offense, but it's really so black and white. It's just that it's a sort of generational institutionalized concept that we have to buy our home, you need to get into the property market, great money is dead money, all these sort of things. It's a misconception in my opinion.

Stephanie Trinder:

I love that. I think it's healthy to listen to other peoples perspectives so before we get too off topic, I do just want to ask.... for the people who would challenge your position on this by saying "how can I afford to save money and rent at the same time?" What would you say to them?

Oscar Ledlin:

I would say that renting is cheaper than the interest component on the mortgage if you were to buy the property and I've modeled this a number of times as well. If I live in my house that's worth just say 1.7 million dollars, the interest component on that will be far greater than the 800 dollars a week or 41,000 dollars a year that I can rent it for. So people have this conception of how can I afford to do something when I'm paying rent, but in fact, paying rent is cheaper than the alternative of the interest on the mortgage and the holding costs of the property, being council rates, water rates, the maintenance, et cetera.

Stephanie Trinder:

So true. It's so true.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, it's a misconception. It doesn't need too much explanation except for to run a few numbers and to see that ... And when I say the interest component, people say, "Ah yeah, but when you're paying a mortgage, you're paying off the home." I understand that, but I'm talking about the interest component purely, the expense of your monthly mortgage repayments.

Stephanie Trinder:

So for myself, personally, out of the month that we pay our mortgage, one week of that is equal to the interest that we pay for the month. Going back to you and Ledlin, another thing you've mentioned in a former interview was a goal of 30 by 30, so reaching 30 million dollars worth of net assets by 30 years old. If you don't mind sharing, I was really interested to know how you're going with that?

Oscar Ledlin:

Yes, a completely and extremely uncomfortable topic for me to talk about, but I'm going to do it for you, Steph, just because I really like you. A very ambitious goal. I'm 28 years old and I'm on track. I continue to set ambitious goals. I set them in five year periods, three year periods, 12 month periods. I pretty much set ambitious daily goals when I sit down in the morning and plan out my day. I'm only in the office for 12 hours and I try and cram 16 hours work into a day. I'm on track and I'm very proud of what I've achieved so far. If I have 30 million dollars worth of net assets when I'm 30, I'll be extremely proud. If I don't, I'll likely be proud of what I've achieved anyway.

Stephanie Trinder:

Great attitude.

Oscar Ledlin:

Yeah, I think that goals like that are extremely powerful provided that we approach them with the right mindset. I did some mapping out, the property market slowed a couple of years ago and I deviated from my plan to be a little bit more reserved in my aggression towards scaling my business. And there was some discomfort when reviewing my goals because I sort of moved away from my 30 by 30 plan and I had to approach it with a somewhat noble attitude of I'm moving away from this plan for the longevity and the safety of my business, whereas if I was completely attached to that 30 by 30 goal, I would have extremely increased the risk in my business approach to stick to a goal that was something that I just said when I was 22 years old and had nothing but 10 dollars to my name sort of thing. So I think goals like that can be very powerful provided that we approach them right.

Stephanie Trinder:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that you're so big on goal setting. I'm currently reading Measure What Matters. Have you read that one?

Oscar Ledlin:

I haven't, no.

Stephanie Trinder:

It's about setting clear objectives, so what you're trying to achieve and key results, or how you're going to achieve them and why that is so crucial to identify what matters and get everyone moving in the same direction. The author implemented this concept at Google, I think they still use it too, and he talks about being ambitious with your objectives or goals, because that's what moves the needle but at the same time you need to be realistic.

Oscar Ledlin:

Absolutely.

Stephanie Trinder:

I think it's also important to be comfortable with changing your goals and go in to the goal-setting activity with the undestanding that they're fluid. You can change them, they're not set in stone. Goals are something that you need to be reviewing and modifying as time goes by because it will be easier to start and there's no point striving for an outcome that no longer serves you, in fact it can create a lot more frustration and hindrance to your growth.

Oscar Ledlin:

Absolutely. And I think you describe it well when you say if it's something that's no longer serving you. It's not always I'm going to throw this goal away because it's something that I don't think I can achieve, it's absolutely not that. I think it's revisiting your goals and making sure that they still align with what you want, be it within your business or be it within your personal life. Goals, they have to be very fluid, they have to be continually revisited and you have to have the courage to move away from them if you think that they aren't serving you like you say.

Stephanie Trinder:

Absolutely. Oscar one last thing before we wrap up today, what advice do you have for someone wanting to pursue a career similar to your own?

Oscar Ledlin:

The goal setting part of it that we're finishing on anyway is a huge element to it. I had ambitious goals when I first set out in this industry, but I had very little objective planning. I think for me that was partly because I wanted to run quickly, I was very young. With that youth came some emotional immaturity and I was just super ambitious, so I was more headstrong, I'm going to run fast and I'll figure it out along the way. But if I could go back and do it again, I would have a lot more objective planning, and I would have milestones along the way that I was focused on achieving that were building to a bigger plan.

Oscar Ledlin:

I think early on for me as well, I had some external opportunities that I was leveraging that were influencing the longer term objectives and the plan for myself that wasn't actually aligned with myself. So that was sort of shadowing the ability for me to build a plan that I felt was fundamentally aligned with me. Once I moved away from those opportunities and developed a really strong plan for what I want in 2 years, 5 years and even 10 years, what my vision is, long term vision for Ledlin, once I had that plan and could set objectives, that was when I really started to progress and things happened with a lot more flow, a lot more ease and a lot less resistance.

Oscar Ledlin:

So I think if you can build a plan around what you want to be in this industry ... I have a lot of people ask me, "How do I get started?" And I say to them, "Well, what do you want to achieve? Do you want to be a builder? Do you want to be a developer? Do you want to be a developer who builds? Do you want to do internal sales? Do you want to do external sales? What segment of the industry do you want to be in? Do you want to be a large company that does high volume stuff, or do you want to be a small company that does more boutique stuff?"

Oscar Ledlin:

Some of them don't know the answer to that question and I approach that with zero judgements, because when I started out, I didn't know the answer to that question. But I think if you can have somewhat of a long term vision and without having the depth of knowledge of the industry, it's a little bit hard to do that, but I think if people can bring themselves to form a long term vision of where they want to be, that vision can change and that's fine, but if you have that vision today, you can sort of reverse engineer your plan and right down to the objectives that you talk about of what do I want to achieve this month, be it this month I want to read a book and understand the different segments of the development industry, that's a perfect place to start. And then if you're reverse engineer plan from there builds up to running an interstate national company doing thousands of homes a year with a board of directors, well, then, fantastic. I think it's just really about cementing that long term vision.

Stephanie Trinder:

Great advice. It's so valuable to have some kind of a vision and goals to keep you accountable. It illuminates the path you need to follow and makes decision making so much easier, you know what to say yes and no to.

Oscar Ledlin:

Absolutely. I think it helps you move through your journey with a lot more confidence as well. If you have opportunities that come up or challenges that come up, if you know that the way that you approach either those opportunities or challenges is keeping you aligned with your long term vision, you'll move through them with so much more confidence and just comfort in that things will work out how they should work out, because you're approaching them with your long term intentions.

Oscar Ledlin:

And I think that's incredible for sustainability in any industry, in entrepreneurship and business is having the confidence that the decisions that you're making are the best that you can make with the resources and repertoire of knowledge and experience you have today. If they're aligned with what you think your vision for five years is, well, then, you'll sleep well at night.

Stephanie Trinder:

For sure. Oscar, you are such a wealth of knowledge and wisdom.

Oscar Ledlin:

Oh, stop it.

Stephanie Trinder:

You are. And I know the listeners are going to want more so, for those who don't already know, where can they connect with you?

Oscar Ledlin:

If they want to follow the behind the scenes of Ledlin and more specifically my involvement within the business, they can follow me on Instagram, @oscarledlin. They can also connect with Ledlin Developments on LinkedIn and our company website, ledlin.com.au. They can register on there and then they go straight onto our VIP email list, so they'll be kept up to date with milestones, achievements of both projects and the company at large. And I think they can get an insight into what it takes and some of the triumphs and tragedies of my company.

Stephanie Trinder:

Amazing. And I really would encourage the listeners to sign up to your newsletter. It's so valuable to experience what other businesses are doing so if you aren't already, start opting into some of the marketing strategies that the people and businesses you look up to provide. Don't copy them, but start to think about what you can learn from them and implement in your own business. Thanks so much for joining me on the show today Oscar, it's been awesome.

Oscar Ledlin:

Thank you for having me. It's been great to chat.