n 1968, a 19-year-old kid with no car, no suit, and his last $100 walked into a real estate office wearing a purple band uniform. He failed the license exam three times. His first six months in the business, he earned an average of $42 a month.

Six years later, Tom Hopkins had closed 1,553 real estate transactions - including 365 homes in a single year, one every single day. He became a millionaire at 27. Then he walked away from selling to do something even bigger: teach.

Over the next five decades, Tom Hopkins trained more than 5 million salespeople on 5 continents. His book How to Master the Art of Selling is still the most widely read sales book in the real estate industry.

In this episode:
- The Dodger Stadium steel worker origin story
- His last $100 investment that changed everything
- The "master asker" philosophy that still beats every AI tool
- How he closed 365 homes in one year without email, Zillow, or a CRM
- What agents in 2026 can still steal from his playbook

Ambitious Agent is brought to you by Dustin Fox of the Fox Homes Team — The DMV's top-rated real estate teams with 2,124+ five-star Google reviews. Buying or selling in the DC Metro area? Visit FoxesSellFaster.com

Email remains one of the most powerful ways to leverage our database and turn contacts into listings.

The problem is: real estate agents often make the mistake of bombarding their list with emails that aren't valuable enough to open.

In order to get listings from emails, we need to be sending content people would be crazy to ignore or tag as spam.

My team found an email formula that doesn't just get a ton of opens, it brought in 9 listings in 6 months.

What are the 4 emails we should be sending to our list consistently? Why are they so effective? In this episode, I was a guest on the Stay Paid Podcast with Luke Acree and Jason Stike. We talk about how we turned email into a lucrative source of deals.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

-The best way to get more Google reviews

Getting our clients to review us or getting our agents to make reviews a priority is a matter of giving the right incentives. What makes people want to review you?

-Don't bombard your list with low value content

The only thing Gmail loves more than not spamming, is a reply to your email. How do you send emails people want to respond to?

-The secret listings strategy

Scarcity and exclusivity are hallmarks of good marketing. How can we use it in real estate?

Guest Bio

Luke Acree and Jason Stike are co-hosts of Stay Paid Podcast. Stay Paid tackles business-building subjects like lead generation and retention, digital marketing and social media tactics. Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

About Your Host

Dustin Fox is the co-founder of the Fox Homes Team, a speaker and the author of Six Weeks to Real Estate Success. Dustin and his wife Devon have grown the Fox Homes Team to $400 million in production in just 3 years. Growth that is driven by Dustin's innovative marketing that generates leads for their team of agents. If he's not split-testing his latest marketing campaign, Dustin is probably taking a long bath and reading a business biography. Yes, long baths.

Check out this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to leave a review if you like what you heard. Your review feeds the algorithm so our show reaches more people. Thank you!

In a competitive real estate market, agents are walking into a listing appointment with a skeptical seller. When they don't know you, you're lumped in with the other agents and that makes converting a lead a lot harder.

What if you could win the battle before you even get to the appointment? What if, instead of convincing them to work with you, they are clamoring to become your client?

That's the power of leveraging YouTube ads. Through a very simple strategy, you can become a local celebrity and convert sellers before you walk through their door.

Why are YouTube Ads more effective than Instagram/Facebook Ads? Why does organic YouTube content kill the success of this strategy?

I was recently featured on The Real Rockstars Podcast with Shelby Johnson where I revealed the YouTube strategy that grew my reach, raised my conversion and led to more closings. Today I bring you into this awesome conversation so you can implement the same strategy in your business.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

• The power of a YouTube ad
  A lot of agents rely on Facebook/Instagram ads, but they don't position you as a local celebrity. How do YouTube ads make you micro-famous?
  
  
• Organic videos vs. video ads
  It sounds counter-intuitive, but posting organic videos and running ads at the same time can get you punished by YouTube. Why do we need to avoid doing both?
  
  
• How to build a YouTube lead funnel
  YouTube ads don't just make you a local celebrity, they can become the top of a very profitable marketing funnel. How do you get the most out of each video you post?
  
  
• Elevate your open houses
  One of the biggest mistakes agents make is not putting enough effort into their open houses. How do you turn an open house into the hottest ticket in the neighborhood?

Guest Bio

Shelby is a real estate agent and co-host of Real Estate Rockstars Podcast. She served in the Army for 6 years and got out as a Captain in the beginning of 2018 to dive into real estate full time as both a broker and investor. Out the gate, Shelby was recognized as the Keller Williams Rookie of the Year for all of North & South Carolina with 48 transactions closed. She moved on to create a traditional team, Five Pillars Realty Group, which closed 500+ transactions in the first 2.5 years. Subscribe to Real Estate Rockstars on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

About Your Host

Dustin Fox is the co-founder of the Fox Homes Team, a speaker and the author of Six Weeks to Real Estate Success. Dustin and his wife Devon have grown the Fox Homes Team to $400 million in production in just 3 years. Growth that is driven by Dustin's innovative marketing that generates leads for their team of agents. If he's not split-testing his latest marketing campaign, Dustin is probably taking a long bath and reading a business biography. Yes, long baths.

Check out this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to leave a review if you like what you heard. Your review feeds the algorithm so our show reaches more people. Thank you!

Want to master persuasive marketing and set yourself apart from every other agent in your market? Get my book, Six Weeks to Real Estate Success. Available on Amazon. And if you send me a screenshot of an Amazon review, you'll get my 100 top split tested headlines for Facebook and Instagram ads. Just DM that screenshot to me on Instagram, @dustinmfox.