Real estate agents, youve been practicing for this moment for years.

Hear me out. Whether you realize it yet or not, your community needs you. They need your unique leadership right now, more than ever. And many agents have been polishing their video and communication skills through marketing efforts for a long time. They have skills and influence that can now be used to unite the neighborhood.

Agents everywhere have an opportunity a responsibility, even to be the adult in the room; to be a beacon of hope, positivity, honesty and optimism for those in their communities who see them as local experts or local leaders. Furthermore, video is the perfect medium to reach a large number of people quickly and inexpensively.

During tough times, people look to their leaders for reassurance and guidance. At a national level, a state level, all the way down to their local neighborhoods. Leadership is necessary during the best of times, and absolutely crucial during tough times.

Many agents have become leaders in their communities, whether they realized it was happening or not. Additionally, weve learned a thing or two about how to reach our community. We just thought we were marketing: growing our brand and attempting to grow our influence and credibility. But really, weve been practicing.

Weve been practicing for a time just like this. A time where people need clarity and leadership. People need a voice of reason. They especially need it smack-dab in the middle of their newsfeed.

This is why I believe Realtors right now have the opportunity, through video, podcasting, social stories etc. to make a major difference in peoples lives. For those who already follow you and find you credible, you have the chance to calm nerves and provide reassurance for a scared, nervous community.

While you are publishing videos aimed at calming nerves, you can also really grow your market share and name recognition locally as many of your competitors play defense and scale back their marketing dollars.

During times of fear and panic, many professionals and business owners scale back their marketing efforts. Even more, they scale back what they spend on marketing. Playing defense does sound reasonable. I completely understand it. Its the natural response when uncertainty rules the day.

However, the majority of agents pushing pause creates an amazing opportunity for anyone willing to step up and spend more on marketing during this time of decreased competition.

Your competitors are literally sitting on the sidelines until things normalize or until they feel comfortable spending money on marketing again. Should you sit next to them and wait it out? Possibly. Thats 100% for you to decide, and it is a very personal thing to consider.

But if youre in a position where you have a few extra dollars that you can allocate to a Facebook ad campaign, or finally hiring an editor to put together some marketing videos for you do it! This is a huge opportunity.

One of the biggest takeaways I got from Grant Cardones 10X book was that in 2008 and 2009 when most entrepreneurs stopped spending money on advertising he doubled his ad spend! He saw that everyone else was clearing a path for him to be seen by more people, for much less money. So he took it.

Fast forward to now, and everyone knows who Grant Cardone is. Hes become a celebrity and a huge influencer in the entrepreneur space. But would he be had he not taken advantage of the Great Recession? According to him, no!

Were in a very unique time where we can make a huge difference for our neighbors, possibly helping to save lives, while also setting the table for massive business growth and brand recognition six months, a year, two years down the road. The hard part is that its intangible. Whether or not it worked is not something we will know until time has passed. We wont know if we did enough until were looking backward.

A year from today, when the economy is likely recovering, we have a coronavirus vaccine and were making our way back as a society, ask yourself this question when reflecting on these unprecedented times that were in:

Did I do enough?

Did you do everything you could to reach your neighbors and be a positive resource to them? But also, did you put as much as you wanted to into marketing and advertising while everything went on sale, and your competitors took a breather?

Time will tell.

Agents, its time we all step up and guide our neighbors through these incredibly trying times. Well all be better off for it, in more ways than one.

Connect with Dustin on LinkedIn.

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Agents, it's time to be the leaders you claim to be - HousingWire