Today’s RealTrending features an exclusive interview with Chris Bentley, founder, broker, and owner of Bentley Fine Properties in Texas. Bentley’s 14-agent office serves the Dallas area. In 2020, he positioned from a top agent with a local broker, to building his own brokerage. He talks to RealTrends about how he’s overcoming growing pains while trying to increase his agent count to 40 agents in 2022.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Bentley. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: What are some of the challenges that you found in building the brokerage so far?
Chris Bentley: Every day, you wake up to a problem and every day you go to sleep with a problem. There’s never a day that you’re just not worried about something. And when I say worried, there isn’t a fear or anything like that, it’s just you have to deal with something and you have to let time kind of play it out.
That’s the one thing that a lot of people don’t see — behind the scenes of being a business owner or entrepreneur.
There’s just a lot more responsibility, a lot less time and you have to be way more accountable. When I was an agent, I didn’t really have to be accountable to anybody except for myself. Gary V. talks a lot about when he got going with VaynerMedia, that he was basically an employee to his employees. And that’s exactly how I feel because my agents need something, I have to be there. If my agents are having problems with something, I have to be there. That’s really not written in a handbook somewhere.
RealTrending features the brightest minds in real estate. Twice a month, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.