Accessing Capital, Partnerships and Nationwide Financing with Jacob Clopton – EP 288

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Rising interest rates and a looming recession are still dominating the headlines, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good time to make deals.

If you’re in the small to middle-market commercial and multifamily real estate space and looking for options to take advantage of the opportunities out there, you’ll love this interview.

Today, I’m talking to Jake Clopton, Founder and CEO of Clopton Capital. He’s arranged billions of dollars of financing for borrowers across the country. He’s focused on LP equity, has tons of relationships with family offices, pension funds, credit unions, and agency lenders–and doesn’t just have the ability to fund debt but can also come into a deal as a limited partner.

Jacob also runs Clopton Insurance Services, a national insurance agency that focuses on commercial property and business insurance. He’s the author of Commercial Real Estate Investing: Understanding, Finding, and Funding Deals in Today’s World.

In this conversation, you’ll learn about Jacob’s entrepreneurial journey and how he started a successful business at the height of the Great Recession. He also shares his insights on what’s happening with the markets right now, the potential of another recession, and how he can help fund for your next deal.

Key Takeaways with Jacob Clopton

  • Why Jacob doesn’t think we’re on the verge of another housing market collapse.
  • What Jacob looks for in a deal whether he’s arranging debt, LP equity, or sponsoring a deal for an owner.
  • Why Jacob completely restructured his business in 2014–and how this move repositioned him to achieve long-term success.
  • The value of knowing what not to work on as an entrepreneur.
  • How to connect with Jacob if he seems like a good fit for your next project.

Jacob Clopton Tweetables

“I don’t try to run too many races. I like to stick to our areas that work really well for us. When people come in and they’re looking for X, I know exactly where it goes.” - Jacob Clopton

“You can be shocked how much one person can do in a day if you are properly able to organize and eliminate all the things you actually don’t need to do.” - Jacob Clopton

Resources

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Connect with Josh Cantwell

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Josh Cantwell: So, hey there, guys. Hey, welcome back to Accelerated Investor with your host, me, Josh Cantwell. I’m excited to be with you today and talk about capital, capital stack, debt, LP equity, joint venture partnerships.

 

And today, I’m interviewing Jake Clopton. He is the Founder and CEO of Clopton Capital. Jake is a serial entrepreneur, author, and economist with a focus on real estate and finance. He is actively involved in various aspects of commercial lending, insurance products, property management, and is a regular contributor to both print and broadcast media.

 

He currently owns Clopton Capital that he founded in 2009, which focuses on small to medium, middle-sized markets and asset classes with a focus on multifamily. And his company, Clopton Capital, has arranged billions of dollars of financing, debt financing for borrowers across the country. Jake also has a focus on LP equity, so he’s got relationships with family offices, pension funds and credit unions and agency lenders and various different types of capital that can not only fund your debt, but also come into a limited partner role. So, if you are actively doing apartment deals and let’s say you’re doing a big one and you need some more LP equity, Jake is a great resource there.

 

He also runs Clopton Insurance Services, which is a national insurance agency that’s focused on commercial property and business insurance. He’s also the author of Commercial Real Estate Investing: Understanding, Finding, and Funding Deals in Today’s World. You’re going to love this interview with Jake Clopton, CEO of Clopton Capital, because we’re going to talk specifically about the markets, what’s happening with today’s market as interest rates move, and what’s happening and what’s stabilizing, what’s keeping going up.

 

We’re also going to talk a little bit about Jake’s entrepreneurial journey, about starting Clopton Capital back in 2009 in the middle of the Great Recession. So, you’re going to really enjoy this interview with Jake Clopton on Accelerated Investor. Here we go.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Josh Cantwell: So, hey, Jake, listen, welcome to Accelerated Investor, man. Happy to have you on the show.

 

Jacob Clopton: Great. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

 

Josh Cantwell: Absolutely, Jake. So, let’s talk about, listen, Clopton Capital is involved in all different kinds of real estate, but especially multifamily. And you’re involved all the way up and down the capital stack, is not only a debt lender, debt provider, LP equity sponsor of deals. So, you’ve been all the way up and down these types of deals for a long time, dating all the way back to 2009. So, I’m just curious to always hear from a new guest, kind of what they’re up to today, like what they’re up to this summer as this gets released. What are you most excited about, projects that you’re working on?

 

And then secondly, let’s talk a little bit about the state of the market because you get to see it from a couple of different angles, specifically as a debt provider and then also LP equity, kind of where you see the market is heading because we’re into that part of the phase of the cycle where it feels like as the cost of money goes up, things are going to slow down. So, personally, let’s start, first of all, personal. What are you up to right now that you’re excited about and passionate for?

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, I appreciate it. I mean, the stuff that I personally am doing is through our business, along the lines of the stuff that we’re always pushing. I mean, the market’s been great. There has been lots of activity, and transaction volumes have been very good. So, we’re involved in, like you said, up and down the cap stack where we arrange first mortgages for banks, credit unions, or debt funds. We do a lot of that fun stuff for value add or maybe construction and stuff like that.

 

But then we’re also involved in the higher cap debt space and we market to probably about like 75 different LP equity investors that target multifamily value add or construction. One of our big pushes for the summer is to find more equity type of deals that we can bring out to market and place our investors. I’ve seen a ton of stuff in like the Sunbelt down in Texas, stuff like that, but I love to see more stuff kind of in Colorado or different areas, kind of shake things up a little bit. So yeah, I mean, I guess I’d say, if I had a goal for this summer, I’d like to get more equity volume and see more deals that make sense on that front.

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. So, I know you’re based out of Chicago. Chicago landed a lot of activity there. You obviously land all over the country. You’ve invested all over the country, the Sunbelt, there’s markets that are kind of made and broken by the Federal Reserve based on monetary policy. I call them boom-bust markets. And the Sunbelt, for sure, is one of those markets.

 

Obviously, the East Coast, the West Coast, Florida, Arizona, Vegas, they’ve been kind of boom and bust type of markets for the last 20 years or so. We invest primarily in the Cleveland, Midwest, Columbus, Cincinnati markets. What other markets are you saying you’re trying to diversify? Some of our audience is in Memphis, guys are in Kansas City, they’re in Charlotte. What kind of other markets are you looking at? And what type of markets interest you?

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, so in my business, I tend to follow macro trends and kind of what’s going on. And yeah, like some of the Sunbelt states, like Miami for instance, it was like a little bit more boom and bust. But I think because of some of the demographic changes that have gone on, like there are different types of capital there, it’s got a little bit more staying power. Like Miami, for instance, it was like I got foreign money that would roll in, and then they would shut off and roll out.

 

But a lot of the stuff down in those areas that I’ve seen post-pandemic like huge demographic growth, when I say I have to try and see stuff kind of outside of there is because a lot of the cost basis I’m seeing in deals down there is very hot. I mean, it’s exceptionally high. I mean, deals are selling at three caps and stuff like that. So, yes, there is the light at the end of the tunnel when you’re looking at a value-add deal and you can lever up to kind of get those 20 IRRs, but I think there’s probably other markets that you get better in going cash from cash than some of the super high competitive Sunbelt markets that everybody has their eye on.

 

If it’s not a specific market but kind of looking or trying to find areas that aren’t so obvious as if somebody says, like, hey, where are the markets that are on fire? Everybody’s names off Florida, Texas. That’s kind of my cases.

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it, yeah. Same. So, with that in mind, because you see so many different deals up and down the capital stack, where do you see rates going, this talk of recession? Obviously, recessions typically happen because the cost of money gets more expensive or money becomes less available. And again, the Federal Reserve and the capital markets get kind of turned up and turned off, which create kind of these sometimes boom-bust periods.

 

I guess the question in a lot of people’s minds is, are the capital markets going to slow down? Is there going to be less liquidity? Are we at the top of the market? And I think, again, what people have to remember, all of our audience, you guys need to remember is, is that real estate is still very local.

 

And Jake mentioned demographics. So, the demographics in Columbus, Ohio are going to be much different than the demographics in Mobile, Alabama so you can’t make a blanket statement, but as cost of money goes up, liquidity becomes– we’re not going to have a liquidity crisis like we did in ‘08, ‘09, but liquidity maybe not quite as available. Cost of money goes up. How do you see things shaking out? You’ve been in this business since ‘09, so obviously, you saw the crash of ‘08, ‘09, ‘10 and how that recovered. So, I’m still curious to hear your opinion there.

 

Jacob Clopton: Right. And in ‘08, ‘09, I was trading interbank hedging product futures. So, I had a real front-row seat to all that was going on. So, okay, the Fed’s trying to slow down the economy to kind of bring down inflation. And they’re actively trying to rein in the economy and kind of job growth. And you have a huge dislocation of supply and demand in the labor market. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to squeeze in.

 

Recessions happen for various reasons, but if you kind of look back, and I’ve seen people on LinkedIn saying there’s going to be a housing crisis and there’s going to be another real estate thing and all this. And to my opinion, not saying anybody else is wrong, in my opinion, that’s not going to happen for a couple of different reasons.

 

So, back in ‘08, it was a combination of– it was a financial crisis because bank balance sheets had been sucked dry, and then also, there was asset deflation because obviously, there were no buyers in the residential markets and all that stuff. Bank balance sheets are extremely healthy. I mean, when I go out there and I talk to lenders, in fact, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re hungry for deals. We need deals that work.”

 

I think it’s not as much a, can we find lenders to land it? Can we find the appropriate economics in the deals to make them work right now? Like the market maybe needs to adjust, and a lot of times that always kind of comes down to like the deal needs more equity versus debt. Like somebody else says, “Oh, well, the Fed’s trying to take liquidity out of system.” Yes, they are.

 

But there’s another aspect of the banking system that a lot of people don’t see. And you can go on to like the St Louis Fed and look it up. Look at the overnight repo markets where banks park money that they’re not using. There’s $2 trillion of cash that gets parked in the overnight repo market every single night to earn absolutely nothing that they’re waiting to deploy. So, there’s still $2 trillion in the banking system that needs to get out and lend out and all that stuff.

 

So, as far as like, are we going to have a recession? Is there going to be asset deflation and like a crash? I really, really don’t think so. There’s just an enormous amount of liquidity out there. To make that argument, like, otherwise. Interest rates, so I used to trade interest rates for a living. So, I mean, probably, I still remember some of that.

 

What I think is going to happen and I remember seeing an article about this a couple of weeks ago, my feeling is that we’re going to end up with an extremely flat yield curve because the Fed is raising short-term rates. And anybody who’s doing a construction deal or doing a debt fund deal that’s tied to SOFR or Fed funds or Prime, they’re definitely feeling those lists because those are all tied to short-term rates.

 

Long-term rates are kind of a different animal. And like the 10-Year Treasury, which a lot of these long-term mortgage rates are based off on the swap, it’s more tied to inflation and economic growth and kind of what else is going on in the rest of the world. And you’d kind of notice that the 10-Year Treasury rates haven’t really popped up like everybody. I mean, they have gone up, but not to a degree where people are thinking they should have.

 

And my feeling is that short-term rates rise, the long-term rates are going to kind of either hold steady or come down in a little bit. And I have this target of like 2.5% in the 10-year in my mind because the Fed’s trying to pull back on growth and the 10-year rate is tied to growth.

 

What’s happening right now and that people have seen rates explode kind of all over the place, it’s not the index rates, it’s the credit spreads that are the other side of the equation that have come out an enormous amount. And I think a lot of that has to do with, one, there’s pain in the high of that market and corporate bonds. But also, there’s a lot of uncertainty, and I think once you get more certainty about how far the Fed’s actually going to move, buyers can come in and price those spreads a lot tighter. And ultimately, rates will come in more.

 

And then things like the CMBS market will start working better, and RMBS will come in and you’ll get better residential mortgage rates, stuff like that. So, my feeling going forward here, kind of the short to medium term is short-term debt gets more expensive. You can get to the latter part of the year, those rate caps will come in a lot more. And then long-term rates, I think, will probably stay steady or even come in as credit spreads tighten. They’re probably into the second part of next year.

 

Josh Cantwell: It’s an interesting thing, too, I think. Kind of some shock to the system when Powell comes in from the Federal Reserve and says we’re going to raise rates seven times when you haven’t seen interest rates rise for over, really, 10 years. And all of a sudden, the markets have the shock of, oh, my God, it’s going to be Armageddon. And what you saw was the 10-Year Treasury yield go from 1.6% back in October, jumped up to 2.9%, 3%, and now it’s hovered there for about 45 days.  And to me…

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah. There has been this trend of channel.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, it’s been right into that 3%, 2.9% to get a little like 3.05% yesterday. And so, the market now knows what the Federal Reserve is thinking and the market has made this quick adjustment. Rates, short-term, went up, and even the long-term rates jumped up to 5%, and then they settled back down like 4.5%. And now the market knows what the Federal Reserve is thinking. And to me, that kind of all this uncertainty went from October really until about April of this year, that six-month window.

 

And then it’s kind of leveled off. Right now, everybody knows that these future rate increases are coming. But frankly, short-term debt, like you work a lot in the middle markets, the short-term debt on a bridge loan probably should be at 6% to 8%. When they were dropping down to 4.5% or 5%, it was like, what is going on? This is way too cheap of money here.

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah. When you have transitional non-recourse debt that’s pricing at like what’s a real coupon, like 3%. You know what I mean? You’re right, I mean, it seems like a risk dislocation. I mean, think about it, too, like– and I mean, this is the way that I look at real debt pricing, which are real cost effective. If inflation is 8%, you’re paying– like if your rate is 3%, you’re paying -5% on the money.

 

Josh Cantwell: I’ll take that all day.

 

Jacob Clopton: There’s still a lot of accommodation in the system.

 

Josh Cantwell: No doubt.

 

Jacob Clopton: That much higher rates than we have today.

 

Josh Cantwell: So, Jacob, some of our audience wanted to engage with you and all the services that you provide from an owner-operator perspective, from an LP perspective, from a debt perspective, you’re obviously looking for more transaction volume, like help us understand what’s the ideal type of deal for you, for your niche. And if some of our audience wanted to reach out to you, what’s the type of deal that you’re looking for? Whether it’s to arrange debt, whether it’s to arrange LP equity, whether it’s to actually sponsor a deal or be an owner, what’s the sweet spot for you and your company?

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, I mean, we’re in the small-to-middle market space. So, on the debt side, we’ll do perm loans, bridge, and construction, anywhere from like a million bucks and up. I tend to kind of fly under that institutional level. So, I don’t even know what that is anymore because some of my middle market guys are getting pretty big, man.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, right.

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah. And then, so anything that’s in that space is kind of in our wheelhouse. On the equity side, what we do is we arrange joint venture partners. And I stay very clear and careful of what looks like a real estate security. And that’s something that I think a lot of sponsors should look into, what’s an actual security, and make sure they’re not selling those by accident.

 

So, our LPs are like funds and maybe some family offices, stuff like that. And the sponsors that work really well for us is a guy that manages his own deals, finds off-market stop. He’s going to look for like a 90/10 kind of LP/GP, somewhere in there, get a contribution split, and like a three to five-year horizon because the capital that we use for LP deals likes to recycle. And if you look at that IRR kind of on a curve when it starts to kink downward or flatten out that we want to exit and recycle like that.

 

Josh Cantwell: God, love it. Okay, great. So, guys, check out CloptonCapital.com to connect with Jake if you have a deal that fits the criteria that he just mentioned. Jake, I’m interested to hear more, with all of our guests, about their entrepreneurial journey. That was interesting when I first knew that you were coming on the show, and we looked at your websites and did some research that you actually started and founded Clopton Capital in ’09 right in the middle of the crap show that was the economy back then.

 

And so, I’m interested to hear more about your entrepreneurial journey. Like how did you form up Clopton Capital? How has the growth been? What were some of the major wins that you had along the way? And then we’ll talk about some of the challenges and chokepoints, too. So, tell us about the start. How did they get going? How did you build the company to be so successful?

 

Jacob Clopton: Right. So, as I mentioned before I started this company, I traded three months LIBOR, and like I said, find the future of the Treasury, stuff like that. And yeah, in ’08, ‘09, I mean, obviously, what happened was rates went to absolutely zero, again. And actually, that whole market, like all the volume dried up, and it was pretty much gone.

 

So, I think I was in the same position as a lot of people, saying, well, I got to figure out something else to do. And I kind of looked at what was going on in the economy and said, “Alright, well, where’s the real meat?” And it was a financial crisis, and lenders weren’t lending. I said, “Well, okay, I didn’t really know anything about this type of business yet,” but I said, “I’m going to go out there and I’m going to try to make a transaction, some sort of transaction fee, finding people money.” That was just the idea because everybody needed money, nobody could find it.

 

And really, honestly, all I started doing was cold calling banks and private lenders. And I’m a big advocate for cold calling and having it as like a skill. Even though I had people that do it for me today, I still get on there and try just to keep it fresh. But that’s how I start a business candidly, I mean, I was just making a couple hundred phone calls a day calling around to every bank or private lender or whatever that I could to find money.

 

And then I would just put it out there that we had found people that were lending and we could do X, Y, Z, and people would just come to us because everybody was so hungry to find actual liquidity. So, really, the idea was deals.

 

Josh Cantwell: The deals were 30% to 50% off.

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah.

 

Josh Cantwell: So, now, you’re like, oh my God, it’s 2009 to 2010. The stock market usually recovers first, and then the economy recovers second. People start to feel better that we’re past the crisis, but then you’re like, “Oh God, there’s all these deals on sale, but who’s going to freaking lend me the money on that niche of, “Hey, now there’s deals to be had.” A lot of bank-owned stuff, a lot of repo stuff, a lot of stuff in receivership, but no lenders. So, you’re like, okay, now there’s an opportunity. Who’s going to lend it? Who’s going to put the money on the street? And you’re going to start to connect the dots. That’s a great idea, I mean, basically, just serving the market. I love it.

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s where the vacuum is. There was no supply. We were going to be a liquidity provider. And so, just over time, as we were doing that, I mean, it started really growing into a real business. And that was a challenge for me.

 

So, what I was doing before I traded, it’s just you and a screen. It’s not an app. I mean, it is a business, but you’re not dealing with other people. So, making it into an actual business that had employees and had other people, that was the challenge. I mean, I knew how to find clients. I knew how to find lenders and capital. It was kind of growing the business itself.

 

And I, at first, took it more like traditional kind of model, like a lot of brokerage firms have a lot of sales guys. And then they deal with the clients, and then I would deal with all the capital market stuff. But what I didn’t like about it was the bifurcation of communication and understanding because I didn’t know what the clients actually wanted because I had to hear about it from one degree of separation or two, whatever it was. They didn’t know what the lenders wanted because of the same thing but in reverse.

 

So, around like 2014-ish time, I actually just completely flipped the whole thing around. And it cost me a lot of money because our volume dropped off because I had to redo the entire business. But instead of having a bunch of sales guys and brokers, I don’t know the capital market, I built out a huge support staff for myself.

 

And so, now, I have all this time on my hands to do nothing but just talk to people that are looking for deals, but talking directly to the debt and equity providers also, so that a lot of other firms, you go to them and they send something out, the 5,000 people, and see who comes back. I don’t need to do that. I know exactly who is right for this deal right off the bat, and it’s maybe five or six guys. And our efficiency is just so much better, and the execution is better because of that.

 

Josh Cantwell: And Jake, what do you think was the key to you redoing the business in 2014? Like from an entrepreneur’s perspective, what did you see? Obviously, that one degree of separation of communication, miscommunication you saw was a problem, and then rebuilding it. But what was going through your mind when you’re thinking, okay, I have a successful business, we’re making transaction volume, we’ve got the sales reps on this side, we’ve got the capital market guys on this side, and I’m going to blow it all up and start over?

 

Jacob Clopton: Because there was a chink in the armor as it was. I mean, there were obvious inefficiencies, and I was spending a lot of my time doing things that didn’t directly generate revenue. You know what I mean? And I think, as an entrepreneur, this is everybody’s pet peeve. I’m like, if I could only spend more time doing the things that are actually making me money versus doing all these other housekeeping things, like managing employees or this or that or training people.

 

And the thing is when you have people underneath you, like you’re the head of a company, you inherently end up being all roles at a certain point. And so, that’s really what I wanted to do. I was like, I need to find a way for me to spend more time understanding and doing the things that are actually generating revenue versus all this other stuff. And that’s what the catalyst was.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. I think that check-in is key because when I was talking with Kevin O’Leary, Kevin talked about, look, it takes a certain amount of just muscle to take a business from zero dollars to a million. And then, it’s really still just the entrepreneur working their face off to get to $5 million or even $10 million. But when you’re a five or ten and you’ve got employees, like, that’s where the entrepreneur needs to do what you did and take a step back and say, “Where am I at? Where are all the inefficiencies? And how do I scale to the next level? How do I bring in other people to either scale the business for me or step out of the business so that they can run it and empower them?”

 

And Kevin talked a lot about giving people 90-day goals and giving the hell out of the way. So, that’s one way to do it. Another way to do it, like you said, is take all the inefficiencies in a business and say, “I’m just going to stop doing all these.” Just cut, cut, bait, get rid of them, and do it differently. And that’s going to allow me to grow the business where I’m just closer to the money. Like you became a lot closer to the money, closer to the debt, closer to the borrower, and be able to just say, “I know exactly who needs this product” or “I know the borrower that needs to find this type of loan.”

 

So, on a day-to-day basis, Jake, I imagine you have inbound deal flow from borrowers and you’re maintaining these relationships with this whole capital stack over here – limited partners, debt providers, construction loans.

 

Jacob Clopton: Exactly.

 

Josh Cantwell: All this type of bridge financing. And you’re just kind of staying on top of that and then you’re just going to search for the borrower, the operator that needs it. And you’re like, “Yep, I know exactly what you need. It’s right over here. I’ve got the relationship. I can package up the deal and provide it.” Is that about right?

 

Jacob Clopton: Exactly. I mean, to the level where I just know, like, for instance, I don’t have some spreadsheet with like, oh, this company is looking for this to lend out. I’ve had conversation with them in the past 48 hours. We know what they need. I don’t try to run too many races. I like to stick to our areas that work really well for us. And then, when people come in and they’re looking for X, I know exactly where it goes already.

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. Jake, so what have you learned? Based on this journey of being an active operator doing joint ventures on the LP side, doing the debt side, having these close relationships with the cash, the capital, what kind of advice would you pass along to your younger former self? Or what kind of advice would you give our audience about what you did right and what you do differently? Like what entrepreneurial lessons have you learned that you think our audience could take back from your journey?

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, good question. There are probably several, but I’ve been pushing this one lately, and that’s having really good time management skills because you can be shocked how much one person can do in a day if you are properly able to organize and kind of eliminate all the inefficiencies and things that you actually don’t need to do. I mean, everybody knows, like, one person that’s out there that seems to have their entire day taken up by a haircut appointment and then, I don’t know, going to like, you know what I mean?

 

But being able to appropriately allocate your own personal time and resources into the things that are actually going to make you money, and then knowing what to forget about and what not to work on, I think, is really, really important. And I guess it comes down to what not to work on and being able to actively identify those things and push them to the side.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, no doubt. I think it was the book Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy, said something along the lines of, look, as entrepreneurs, we all have this laundry list of stuff we want to do. The best entrepreneurs realize there’s only a certain amount that’s a revenue-producing activity and they’re just totally fine. The really successful ones are totally fine with taking maybe the other 80% and just either never even doing it or just delegating it or just saying, look, it’s important, but I’m just not going to do it because this other 20% of the real entrepreneur to-do list that’s going to move the needle, that’s going to make money, that’s what I’m really going to focus on.

 

And what so many people do, and Brian points this out in his book, Eat That Frog! came out at least 10 years ago, he talks about, look, the non-successful salespeople or the non-successful entrepreneurs are the ones that are kind of start with the easy stuff that doesn’t move the needle because the activity feels like success. It sounds like, Jake, you said, “I don’t really want to feel like I’m busy, I want to be successful.” And you were successfully able to separate those two and then only focus on the really important stuff.

 

Was there an exercise, Jake, that you did? Or was there some habit that you got into that allowed you to successfully separate the muck from the really important stuff? Or was it just focus and self-discipline?

 

Jacob Clopton: It just happens over time. And you’re right, the concept you mentioned. Some of the days where I feel the busiest, I also feel like I didn’t make any progress. I’m like, great. I answered a bunch of emails that went absolutely nowhere. But then…

 

Josh Cantwell: That’s a successful day.

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, but then other people have days where it’s like, yeah, you kind of sat there for a while and you answered a couple of emails, but you had actually made a lot of great progress and stuff. And yes, so definitely identifying things that actually have impact and make a difference, and not hoarding small, menial tasks and just letting them go. That’s really a skill that I think not a lot of people realize they don’t have, but it’s very important.

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. Yeah, that key – self-discipline, focus, and just knowing what’s the really important top 20% of the workload is so critical to being a successful entrepreneur. Jake, listen, I had a blast getting to know you today on Accelerated Investor. Thank you so much for jumping on the show. Why don’t you tell our audience a little bit more about if they have a deal, whether it’s LP equity, JV, whether it’s debt? Where can they reach out to you to just network with you and possibly do some deals together?

 

Jacob Clopton: Yeah, I’m exceptionally easy to find. I’ll be up on LinkedIn. You can call me directly. My phone number and my email are right on there or through our website. I’m always around.

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. CloptonCapital.com. Look up Jake and Clopton Capital on LinkedIn, guys. Definitely reach out, make a connection with Jake, and make some deals happen. Jake, thanks so much for joining me today on Accelerated Investor.

 

Jacob Clopton: Absolutely. Thank you.

 

[CLOSING]

 

Josh Cantwell: Well, hey, there you have it. What a great resource Jake is for not only debt, but LP equity, joint venture partnerships, and insurance services. So, make sure you reach out to Jake at CloptonCapital.com. Also, check him out on LinkedIn, he’s very active on LinkedIn. And I really enjoyed some of the resources that he can provide.

 

Matter of fact, after I recorded this interview, Jake’s actually going to be contributing and doing a special call with my mastermind and coaching group, which is called Forever Passive Income. And so, I like to bring on these types of guests to specifically do a deep dive with my high-level group, my Forever Passive Income group. If you’re interested in learning more about that, about coaching, mastermind, and partnering, and getting really kind of insider access to some of these kind of resources, tools, strategies from guys like Jake who do deep dives with my group, check that out at JoshCantwellCoaching.com. There, you’ll find an application. You can apply to be a part of the group. The membership is not cheap, but it is worth it. I can promise you that.

 

My guys are doing big deals. I’ve got a member in my group that’s taking down a $17.5 million deal in Memphis with a broker that I personally introduced him to. So, that one member joining at JoshCantwellCoaching.com as he takes down this $17 million deal in Memphis is going to do a life-changing transaction because he’s part of my group. So, check it out at JoshCantwellCoaching.com.

 

And if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you leave us a rating and review all over social media, whether it’s Spotify, whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s iTunes, on our website, through Google. We appreciate your ratings and reviews on all those platforms. It would mean so much to me. I’d be so grateful if you would share that with your other people, with your other friends, family, all over social media. So, thanks so much for being here, again, with me on Accelerated Investor. We’ll talk to you next time. Take care.

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