Scott K
E-Mail: scott@notaryone.net
Yahoo IM:
AIM:
Jabber:
Web Page: http://www.notarybay.com
Registered Since: 2007-09-26 00:14:52
Profile: I live here in beautiful Seattle. Becoming a notary changed my life, as cheesy as that sounds. I started working part-time as a mobile notary while in college in 2001. This industry has been very good to me and I'm way excited about helping other notary businesses improve their bottom line with job requests direct from lenders via the NotaryBay platform. I love to run, it keeps me sane! I'm a huge Seahawks fan, and at least once a week you can find me running receiver routes with my younger brother. NotaryBay is my current big project, but I also do some freelance writing as well as SEM (search engine marketing) consulting. I'm a huge geek, but I feel like I can relate well with wide ranges of people (partly thanks to hundreds of signing jobs meeting random couples!). I do some volunteer work once a week at a Homeless outreach program here in downtown Seattle. It's usually the highlight of my week!
Posts by Scott:
- Work harder than your competition - This may seem obvious, but many notaries simply think being a mobile notary is just about the closing. Wrong! Running a successful notary business is a business. In business you have competition, and if you’re not out hitting the pavement meeting new potential clients I can guarantee your competition is.
- Be different - How are you different than the other mobile notaries in your area? Why should a company hire you vs. your competition? Do you have a real estate background? Special connections at Fedex? Make sure you bring something different to the table in 2008 if you want to win
- Diversify - Business that can survive downturns often have diversified their services. Have you? Can you do edocs? (this is a must) What about on-site inspection work? General notary work? You should offer a number of different services beyond just mobile closings to your clients. The more versatile you are, the more valuable you are.
- Take advantage of technology - One of our main focuses here is utilizing technology to improve our results for our customer accounts who find notaries through notarybay.com. Do you have a cell phone? That’s the baseline for a mobile notary. Can you get e-mail on your phone? Do you have a printer in your car to print docs out on the go? Even better.
- Go Premium - Our premium membership at NotaryBay offers more than just an advantage in getting jobs. Premium members also get access to exclusive videos and content for growing and building your notary business. We cover topics from collections to fee negotiation to building your own webpage, but you can’t get access without upgrading! Login to your account and upgrade today.
Winnning in 2008…
December 27th, 2007Let’s just forget 2007….
Just kidding. We can’t forget 2007, but hopefully we all learned valuable lessons this year. One lesson I learned? Things change fast!
We were working with a fairly good sized firm this summer having them look at our early versions of the NotaryBay.com application. A few months later, their whole division ceased to exist! Poof. Gone.
Don’t let that happen to you. Here’s some tips heading into the new year…
5 Ways To Win in 2008
Notaries! Get more time…
December 4th, 2007
We’ve been hard at work planning out more upgrades to NotaryBay and have a few changes that we finished up this past weekend.
1. Premium Members Get More Time
Premium members now get first crack at all automated alerts coming through NotaryBay.com. This means all automated job requests put in by customers through the big blue button will go to premium members first. If Premium members do not respond in time, or there are not enough results, the next round starts based on proximity and points. Click here to login to your account and upgrade.
2. Opening Up To More Companies (even some signing services)
When we originally came up with the NotaryBay concept, the biggest concern was signing companies abusing the automated features of NotaryBay. That, and of course my general disdain for most signing companies.
But, as we’ve continued to add features we’ve given and will continue to give our members complete control over the notifications they receive. Since our members have control, I feel better about allowing more companies to use the site. This means more work for our members. We’ve also noticed that most of our members minimum prices are within many signing companies pay ranges.
We aren’t opening the automated features up to all signing companies. Heck no. We will allow certain reputable companies only on a case-by-case basis. So, if you receive a notification from a signing service, and you want the job, great. If you don’t, make sure to update your minimum price to price yourself out of those notifications.
With the current slowness of the market we want to get our members as much work as possible. If you’d like to nominate a company that:
1. Pays on time
2. Pays decent
3. Treats their vendors well
Please e-mail us, and we’ll evaluate sending a proposal to the company. If the company begins using NotaryBay we’ll give you a 1 to 6 month premium membership based on the size and usage of the referral.
3. Time and Date in Alerts
We’ve added the ability for searches to add the time and date of the closing into our alert system as well. That way you’ll be able to see when the closing needs to take place without having to call in. Good for the searcher, good for the notary.
Coming Soon:
- Ability to adjust your minimum price for each type of service (single edoc, overnight, HELOC, on-site inspection, etc)
- Language Filter - Will give searchers the ability to filter by language spoken
+ More!
Giving You More Control
November 20th, 2007One of the big concerns with our cool application is that we don’t send out requests that aren’t welcome. So, we’ve added more flexibility to your account to make sure you only receive the job alerts you’re really interested in. We’re committed to making NotaryBay as useful as possible for both notaries and searchers.
Here’s what’s new this week:
Limit your geography
You can now limit yourself from being alerted to jobs too far out of your geographical range. Don’t like driving more than 50 miles? No problem, make sure and login to your account to set your distance preference to a 50 mile maximum. The default is set at a 100 mile maximum (the highest level), but you can set it as small as 10 miles.
Personal Documents 101
We’ve added a new video covering personal and legal document work. I think you’ll find it helpful for expanding your mobile notary business to include services outside just mortgage closings. This video is only available to premium members. Login to your account to view the new video.
Referral Winners Announced!
Here are the winners of our October refer-a-notary contest. In order of most referrals:
1. Kelly R.
2. Jim L.
3. Zandra W.
4. LaShon J
5. Gladys F.
6. Eunice J.
7. Mary B.
8. Katherine S.
9. Joyce S.
Kelly and Jim will be receiving a new iPod Nano courtesy of NotaryBay! The other winner will get their upgrade bonuses completed after the holiday break. Thanks to everyone who referred other notaries, please continue to refer your friends to earn points!
What’s The Best Company In This List?
November 15th, 2007Running a survey here to see people’s favorite larger company to work with. I have a feeling I know who’s going to end up last in votes..but we’ll see.
Always Be Improving…
November 12th, 2007Good products and services are continually updating and improving. Think back a few years ago to the very first iPods…compared to today’s models they are giant ugly bricks!
NotaryBay is a web application that we will continue to improve for searchers and notaries. That being said, we improved a few things this weekend that I’d like to point out:
1. Feedback form added
When notaries are logged into their account, there is a new feedback form where they can e-mail our support staff with feedback, or comments about the application. See screen shot at bottom of post.
2. Advanced Search Features
We added an advanced search tab so that companies can specify what type of signing and what fee they are paying when they search on NotaryBay.com
When companies use the advanced search feature you will be notified of the zip code of the signing, the type of signing, as well as the fee offered. If you do not want to be notified of signings under a certain $ amount, you can update that number in your account control center.
3. More Localized Search Results
We tweaked the search algorithm a bit to favor more local results. Try searching in your home zip code. As NotaryBay continues to grow the search algorithm will be tweaked to return the best results for our searchers and members.
4. Performance Improvement
We significantly increased the speed of searches by make some database improvements. Speed is good!
Account Screenshot:
The more things change, the more they really change
November 8th, 2007
2007 has been a year of change in the Notary world. Our bread and butter refi’s have dropped dramatically and the fallout from the sub-prime mess hasn’t helped any.
So, what can you do as a Notary? There are a few options
1. Keep doing what you’ve been doing and hope things will get better
2. Buckle down, hit the street and market, market, market
3. Turn in your stamp and call it a day
4. Look at ways to use your stamp outside the mortgage industry
5. Realize that you must change as the industry changes
Personally, I like options 2, 4, and 5.
Many notaries will choose option 1, and many option 3. The day’s of 15 calls in a day are gone, and most likely won’t be returning anytime soon.
So what’s a notary to do?
First off, go back to all your clients you’ve had in the last year and let them know you are still around. Don’t beg for work, actually ask them how they are doing. With many notaries leaving the industry you might be able to pick up some extra business just by following up with past clients.
Secondly, if your state laws allow this, look at doing more personal document work. These jobs are usually pretty straightforward (ie, a family will) and pay cash right away. No waiting for a check in the mail. For example, here in Seattle we’ll charge a $25 trip fee + $5 per notary act. Of course, this fee is not set in stone, but it’s a good base price to tell people when they call to weed out those who think you’ll travel 20 minutes for $5.
Thirdly, keep watching us here at NotaryBay.com. Our application is a new way of finding notaries for companies. New things take some time to getting used to, but we think we’ve built something really revolutionary. As we continue to show off our application some are very responsive, others are content to their standard operating procedure of calling, calling, calling. Well, you can’t please everyone. But, as companies look to cut their costs and increase their efficiency we think they will choose NotaryBay vs. laying off workers or trying to lower fees to their notary vendors.
What do you think? Which option are you choosing for your business?
How Often Do You Get Broker Calls?
November 7th, 2007We are looking at doing a deal involving mortgage brokers, and I just wanted to ask for a little feedback from NotaryBay members:
How often do you get contacted or scheduled directly by a loan officer or mortgage broker?
5 Reasons to become a Premium Member
November 6th, 2007 
We’ve created some amazing content to help you grow, build, and market your notary business. We have 6 videos, 15+ text tips, and a great .pdf report (”4 Perfect Side Jobs For Mobile Notaries”) that premium members get access to. Each week we’ll be adding a new video and tips to the premium member section of the application.
Premium members will also rank above free members in search results.
5 Reasons to Upgrade Now
1. Access to exclusive multimedia content you won’t find anywhere else. Developed just for mobile notaries. Video’s like: “Fee Negotiations - The one question you need to ask to get higher fees” and “The simple secret to getting testimonials and referrals from your clients” + many more! Access our pdf report: “4 Perfect Side Jobs For Notaries”
2. Beautiful profile page (www.notarybay.com/yourusername) to use in your advertising. Customers can call you directly or use the “click to call” feature to send you a text message and e-mail.
3. We will be announcing a partnership with a major player in the mortgage market by the end of the month, upgrade now and make sure you’re ranking high!
4. The first 300 notaries to upgrade this week will receive a 50 point bonus for the next 3 months on NotaryBay.com
5. Because it’s only $15/month!
Login to your account here and upgrade now!
Beta Testers Downgraded
November 6th, 2007I want to thank everyone who joined NotaryBay last month during our beta testing! Your feedback and suggestions and testing helped a ton! So Thanks!
During our beta period we allowed all members to have a access to some of the premium member features such as the beautiful profile page we designed. With our beta period over, all members that signed up before Oct 28th have been downgraded to our free membership.
NotaryBay Fliers
October 31st, 2007Want to let your clients know about NotaryBay? (and earn loads of points?). Use these 7 fliers that we designed! Put your own name and referral link in the document and go to town! (I like flier #3 the best)
Download 7 NotaryBay Promo Fliers