Why My Bird Dog Journey Failed

[Shaun Ortiz]

The truth is, I’m back. After a brief detour trying to find "something else" after leaving my retail job, I realized real estate is the only thing that consistently calls me. And this time, I’m not going back to my old strategy. I’m pivoting from a messy, scattered bird dog to a highly focused wholesaler.

The Spark: Ben Mallah and the Failed Bird Dog Strategy

My journey into real estate started with a single, major inspiration: Ben Mallah. I was hooked on his videos, his style, and the sheer scale of his success. After I quit my retail job, I was determined to bounce back and applied my motivation to bird-dogging.

I had even attempted it briefly in high school, but it was a non-starter. This time, I learned the fundamentals. I learned how to vet leads, pull lists, and even secured a few viable off-market homes. The skill wasn't the issue; the strategy was.

The Struggle: Overwhelm, Chaos, and Zero Dollars

Here's where the journey got messy and eventually failed:

1. The "Too Much" Overwhelm: In my excitement, I thought the wider the net, the better. I was communicating with investors and sellers in every state imaginable. The sheer volume of different state laws, closing processes, and personalities was overwhelming and completely unsustainable. I was spending all my time trying to manage a national network as a one-person lead-gen machine.

2. Zero Financial Reward: Even with the hours I poured into learning and generating leads, I was unable to translate the effort into income. The blunt reality is: I didn't make a single dollar. I had leads, I had calls, but I never successfully closed a deal for a finder's fee. I was doing 80% of the initial work only to get a 0% return.

When that whole chaotic, unpaid effort sputtered out, I briefly tried to find a traditional career path again—anything to pay the bills and stop the real estate obsession. But unfortunately, there was nothing else out there; all I could see and think about was real estate.

The Pivot: The Power of Focus (and the Need for Income)

I was wrong to run away from wholesaling simply because I thought it was "too tedious and expensive." The painful bird dog experience taught me two vital lessons: Focus trumps frantic action, and effort must equal income.

The problem wasn't the market; the problem was my lack of discipline and strategy, and a model that required me to hand off my hard-won leads for zero financial gain.

This is why I’m officially pivoting and adopting a focused wholesaling approach:

• One Market, Deeply: Instead of talking to people in every state, I have selected one specific city and state to start my wholesaling operation. This allows me to become an expert on property values, title companies, and contractors in one place, eliminating the chaos.
• Controlling the Value: I'm no longer just finding the lead; I'm committing to owning the entire process—marketing, securing the contract, and finding the buyer—to finally capture the true value of the deals I find and, critically, make money this time.

I’m starting where I failed last time, but with a new mindset: narrow focus, maximum effort.

The Moral of the Story for New Investors

If you're starting out and considering being a bird dog, here's my painful, hard-won advice: Don't try to be a remote bird dog. The complexity and lack of control just aren't worth the tiny fee you might get.

If you are committed to the initial hustle of finding deals, you have two better options:

1. Go All In on Wholesaling: Control the whole process, secure the contract, and get paid for your work.
2. Focus on D2D (Door-to-Door): If you want to bird dog, do it intensely in a local market, build relationships face-to-face, and generate instant value for a trusted, local investor.

I wasted months trying to do a hybrid model that gave me all the work and none of the reward. Save yourself the headache and the zero-dollar bank account. Focus on owning the deal.