My investor said something last week that I genuinely cannot stop thinking about.

He said the bird dogs who last are the ones who know which sellers are ready to talk before the seller knows it themselves. I asked him what that means practically and he said county filings, utility shutoff patterns, probate filings within 90 days of a listing, that kind of thing. I'm selling a business right now and figuring out where the proceeds go, so I've been looking at this from the buyer side, trying to understand who finds the actual deals before they hit any list. And what he described is essentially a small research operation, not someone driving streets on a Saturday. He said the last bird dog he paid well, and paid consistently, was running a spreadsheet updated three times a week from three different public sources and cross-referencing against his own criteria. The guy before that brought him 60 addresses and maybe two were any use. So I'm sitting here wondering if the difference between a bird dog who gets cut after two months and one who turns into a real vendor relationship is just that one of them understood what "ready to sell" actually looks like in the data before anyone picks up a phone.