Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chris D. Bentley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Chris D. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know

Outside of getting a mentor or business coach, I would only do two things differently to expedite where I am today. First, I would buy online leads or hang my real estate license with a Brokerage that provides you with leads to work and build-up my client book of business. Second, I would pick one area in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (usually where you live) and become the expert of that area. Know all the streets, most sought after communities and subdivisions, and the vibe of the area. It’s just about impossible to know anything about everything everywhere. The D-FW area is too large for that and your client will test your knowledge.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, I’m Chris D. Bentley! An award-winning Dallas real estate Broker and owner of Bentley Fine Properties. I’ve been selling real estate for over 18 years in multiple states (Maryland, Virginia, and Texas). I’m a 7x Multi-Million Dollar Producer seven years in a row. Have over 150 YouTube videos. 4x Voted D Magazine, “Best Realtor in Dallas”, number 13 of Top 20 Dallas Realtors on social media 2018 and 2019. Been on over 19 podcasts. Contributor to Entrepreneur and Newsweek.

Bentley Fine Properties is a residential and commercial real estate brokerage based in Plano. We’re a small and fairly new (2.5 years) brokerage that specializes in helping people relocate to the Dallas, Texas area. At Bentley Fine Properties, we put a greater emphasis on leveraging social media to enhance communication, acquire new business, and get more deals done.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One of my lowest moments of my journey came when I went all in with an online lead company (I won’t mention the name) and after two months in, they got delisted from Google. Which means, their ads didn’t show on Google’s search engine. With no ads for homebuyers to click on, meant no leads for me. I went all in and bought just about every zip code in the Dallas area. As with most online lead companies, you have to sign six month or one year contract. So, every day I had no new leads to call and a massive (at the time) monthly bill with no way of terminating it. I went broke.

With over $22,000 in debt and facing the real possibility of having to live in my recently newly leased BMW (a story for another time), I had to break down and get a job. Well, multiple jobs to stay afloat until the contract with the online lead company expired. It was really a tough time. I slept on the couch because sleeping in a bed was too comfortable and I didn’t deserve to be comfortable. I couldn’t go out and do anything that cost money. Every meal consisted of eggs, bacon, and toast, which was at the time very inexpensive and still very unhealthy.

But in the end, I never gave up. I just kept fighting. I met a guy at one of my jobs that was selling merchandise on Amazon. It’s called Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA). He was growing his FBA business storefront and at the time, I thought it was a joke and small potatoes compared to selling real estate. But I kept asking him questions to the point he was pretty sick of me and eventually I started my own FBA storefront like he did. I made over $30,000 in my second year and used that money to start my rebound in real estate and ultimately create Bentley Fine Properties.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Let me start off by saying, I have a love hate relationship with social media. Yes, it has helped me tremendously in my career and has made me an unbelievable amount of money, it is also an all-consuming job with more vanity over substance recently. Now that that’s out of the way, I moved to the Dallas area from the Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia (DMV) area over nine years ago. I maybe knew five people in Dallas and those five people that I knew, as cool as they are, weren’t into the same things that I was, so I had to find some new friends.

I started attending free networking events posted on Facebook and Meetup.com and while attending those events, I found out that I was not alone. Many people that I met at the networking events moved to the Dallas area for work and they too didn’t know very many people. Ahh ha!

After getting to know the people I met at the networking events, I added them to my social media accounts. Attending the networking events became a bit of an addiction because it was like hanging out with friends I haven’t seen in a while.

Eventually, I started my own networking group called, Plano Socialites, and started hosting my own networking events. My friend network exploded and more events were created. I also had people over for barbeques and hosted pool parties.

My advice for those just starting out and looking to build their audience is two parts. The first part, try different things and don’t be scared to post it. Find the thing that works the best and build off of that. It could be funny cat videos, to hot rodding muscle cars, to blogging dieting tips. The most important part is knowing when to post your content because your audience attention time is the most important. Is your audience in hospitality and wake-up late or are they business professionals that go to bed early?

The second part is to take the audience on a journey of your success by documenting it. An example, you just purchased the muscle car, then you pulled the engine, then you started working on the body, etc. People love to watch the journey and documenting it will create a fan for life. Haven’t you ever been around someone that starts the conversation with I remember…?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chrisdbentley.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisdbentley/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.d.bentley
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdbentley/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisDBentley
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BentleyFineProperties

Image Credits
P-R Images