BGBS 069: Don Wenner | DLP Real Estate Capital | How Do You Instill Grit?

Don Wenner is the founder and CEO of DLP Real Estate Capital, a multi-faceted company that leads and inspires the building of wealth and prosperity through the execution of innovative real estate solutions. DLP Real Estate Capital is the parent company to 7 subsidiary companies with the purpose to “Dream. Live. Prosper.” They are located in Pennsylvania and Florida and conduct business throughout the United States.  

DLP has been ranked in the Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies in the US for 8 consecutive years. They have earned the #3 spot for Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies 2020 in the real estate and property category by Financial Times and have been named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 15 real estate firms in the U.S. for the sixth straight year, including the #1 team in PA and NJ for sales. Don has built a track record of generating consistent profits in all market conditions and cycles. In less than 10 years, he has grown his business to over $100 million in annual revenue, and in less than 15 years, he has amassed over $1 billion in assets under management. His company has grown by 60% every year for the past 13 years. Since DLP’s founding in 2006, they have closed more than 16,000 real estate transactions totaling $4 billion+ and have over 500 loans in our portfolio. They currently have over 1,000 real estate investors and a portfolio of 11,000 units.

Don is also an author and speaker. His first book, Building An Elite Organization: The Blueprint to Scaling a High Growth, High-Profit Business, along with its companion – The Elite Journal was published in April 2021. In 2019, he founded the DLP Positive Returns Foundation, focused on making a monumental impact on two epidemics: the creation of well-paying, stable jobs and providing safe, affordable housing. DLP has made a pledge to donate ¼% of all capital, ¼% net revenue, 100% of all book proceeds, and 100% of all American Institute of Investment Housing (AIIH) proceeds to the Foundation. They are focused on raising $1 million by the end of 2021.

Don studied Finance and Marketing at Drexel University, in Philadelphia, PA. He and his wife, along with his two young sons, reside in St. Augustine, FL where he is active in faith and community. He is passionate about fitness & health, devours books on a weekly basis, and enjoys many outdoor activities and discovering new places with his family. He also spends time at his homes in Asheville, NC and Bethlehem, PA.

In this episode, you’ll learn…

• Many Americans are struggling with depression and feelings of inadequacy from the current state of the world. As a leader, you can bring significance and happiness into your team member’s lives by helping them live fully and feel connected to an impact bigger than themselves.


• Every problem is a leadership problem at its core.


• Affordable rent has skyrocketed disproportionately from the slow rise of income in the US, on top of many future jobs being lost to automation. It’s a challenge to keep housing affordable without sacrificing a decent standard of living in this age of inflation, but DLP Real Estate Capital is committed to doing so.

Resources

Website: dlprealestate.com

Instagram: @don_wenner

LinkedIn: Don Wenner

Facebook: Don Wenner

Quotes

[9:45 ] I do believe that grit is what separates the most successful people in the world from everybody else. And I believe that’s a fact, not a theory. But the question is, how do you instill grit? How do you instill that drive?

[19:09 ] What I believe is every organization has four quadrants: their strategy, people, operations, and acceleration — acceleration is sales and marketing integrated — and you need to be able to grow all of that together, part of one plan in order to be able to grow consistently and profitably.

[28:45 ] I believe it’s our job as leaders to help our team members connect their day to day work with making impact bigger than themselves…and we focus heavily on helping our team members live fully across the eight F’s of life, which are faith, family, friends, freedom, fun fulfillment, fitness, and finance.

[37:34 ] The first fundamental part of the challenge is aligning what’s good for society or the world with what’s good for us or for our investors and trying to align that always because a lot of real estate — good, great companies — are actually a part of the problem, not the solution.

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Podcast Transcript

Don Wenner 0:02

You know, that sort of taken off so we couldn’t we didn’t have enough capital. So I launched private investment funds and started taking in capital into our funds. And then we start having too much capital more than we could deploy. And we said, well, how do we help other people trying to run businesses similar to us and we started in lending money to others do a running business similar to as other real estate investors. So it’s happened in a very natural manner of progression off of helping home sellers and are beginning days.

Marc Gutman 0:34

podcasting from Boulder, Colorado, this is the Baby Got Back story Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today’s most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big backstories and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman. How in the world can anyone afford housing expenses these days, the market is going crazy and the rising cost of housing is far outpacing the rise in wages. It’s truly the crisis of our time. I’m Marc Gutman, and on today’s episode of Baby Got Back story we are talking about, you guessed it, real estate, housing, and living fully. And before we get into this episode, I want you to live fully. I want you to excel in all eight apps, you’re going to need to listen today’s episode to understand what that truly means. That all starts by heading over to Apple podcasts or Spotify, and giving us a five star review and rating. By this point in our lives. We all know that algorithms rule the world. And as such apple and Spotify use these ratings as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on their charts. Show that algo who’s boss and rate this podcast, own the algorithm. Don’t let it own you. Thank you for your reviews. I do appreciate it. Today’s guest is Don Wenner founder and CEO of DLP real estate capital. And as you’ll hear DLP capital has $1.6 billion in assets under management and they are on track to be a fortune 500 company. You could say they are going places. DLP real estate capital is a multifaceted company that leads and inspires the building of wealth and prosperity through the execution of innovative real estate solutions. DLP real estate capital is the parent company to DLP elite DLP Capital Partners DLP lending, DLP realty DLP, real estate management, Alliance servicing and Alliance property transfer and they are located in Pennsylvania and Florida and conduct business all throughout the United States. So what does all this mean? DLP is taking on the workforce housing crisis head on. They’re on a mission to align affordable housing with investor returns. no easy task. In addition to running DLP, Don winter is an author and speaker. He is passionate about fitness and health, devours books on a weekly basis and enjoys many outdoor activities in discovering new places with his family. And this is his story.

I am here with Don Wenner, the CEO of DLP capital. Don, welcome to the show.

Don Wenner 3:40

Hey, thank you, Marc. Really excited to be here.

Marc Gutman 3:42

Oh, really excited to have you before we get into it. Can you tell what is DLP capital? Like? What do you guys do?

Don Wenner 3:50

We do it we do a few things. So So yeah, so DLP capital is the parent company to about a dozen operating businesses that operate under the DLP brand. And then short we’re a private real estate investment and financial services company. easier way to say it is we invest in, in housing, specifically workforce housing, and then we do a lot of different ways we do that and execute on that. And we’re really focused on, you know, making an impact on the affordable workforce housing crisis in America today.

Marc Gutman 4:21

Yeah, and affordable housing. It’s a topic that I’m sure we’ll get into deeper later in the episode, but it’s, it’s a hot topic right now. It’s a real real issue.

Don Wenner 4:30

That’s not never never been a bigger issue than it is today. That’s for sure.

Marc Gutman 4:34

Well, I’m happy to hear that you’re working on that problem. And looking forward to talking more about what that looks like. But before we get into that, you know, is real estate something that you’ve always been interested in when you were young and a young young kid? Where’d you grew up done?

Don Wenner 4:51

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, known for Lehigh University. Probably most of anything today.

Marc Gutman 4:58

Yeah. So you know, when little was running around Bethlehem? Like, were you i