NotaryBay.com Blog

Let’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

1. 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.
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

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Running 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.

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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?

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We 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?

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Change isn’t easy.

In fact, it’s darn right difficult for most companies and industries. This year has been a tough one for many notaries as well as the companies we work with.

I’ve spent most of this year building NotaryBay, designing it as an alternative to using a signing service when you need a mobile closing. The technology is of the application is smart, the design is top notch, it’s ready to go.

And now we need your help. Yes, you!

The truth is that for big change to happen in this industry its going to take more than just one person, or even one company. It’s going to take a community. Thousands of title, escrow and mortgage companies use signing services. Using a signing service means just one call or order online to get a notary scheduled. Many don’t even realize that there are alternatives to signing services.

NotaryBay offers an alternative to signing services that is good for notaries and good for the industry. Our interface encourages searchers to input their maximum budget ensuring that they get the most comprehensive results. You as a notary have the ability to set your minimum price so that you get contacted for jobs you’ll actually take.

Do you know a title or escrow company that could benefit in time savings and increased efficiency from NotaryBay? When you refer a customer to NotaryBay not only do you get rewarded with 100 points, but you also are helping the notary community.

To refer searchers to NotaryBay put your NotaryBay username into this link:

http://www.notarybay.com/yourusernamehere/customer

for example: my username is “mobilenotary” so my link is: http://www.notarybay.com/mobilenotary/customer

Let’s say you refer 10 of your current clients to NotaryBay (that would be 1000 points!). You’d also get points for every positive review they leave for you when they contact you through NotaryBay. Those clients may often have signing outside your area and now they can use NotaryBay to find other quality notaries to work directly with.

In fact, if you really want to look good to your clients you should suggest they look at NotaryBay.com. It’s a 100% free tool for them that could greatly increase their productivity, and they will be very happy that you made them aware of the site!

Our little NotaryBay team can only reach so many offices, and we only have so many connections in the industry. An e-mail from you can do so much more than a cold call from our sales team.

We have many more great features planned for NotaryBay, but we need to tell the world about our little site. So please write personal e-mails to contacts you have to let them know about NotaryBay.com. Make sure and use your referral link so that you get credit when they register. Don’t write people you have never done business with.

Free Premium Memberships Expiring

Next Monday on Nov. 5th, all NotaryBay members signed up during our beta testing period will be downgraded to our free membership level. This gives you a week to check out some of the latest features. Free members will always rank below premium members in the results. Free members will not get the awesome profile page that we have designed and search engine optimized for best results in Google and yahoo.

Final Note

We want to give escrow, title and mortgage companies an amazing alternative to using a signing service, and give those currently hiring notaries directly a great tool to improve their efficiency in finding quality notaries. For Notaries we want NotaryBay to be the simple, low cost, easy way to manage and promote your mobile notary business! Your profile page makes that all possible!

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When I first starting working as a mobile notary I was totally down with the NNA. I was listed in their directory, I was a member, I even got NNA business cards (which I misspelled my domain name in so thankfully never used).

Like many signing agents, I soon noticed the plethora of seminars, overpriced training material, and other products the organization continually puts out. As I was running my business, I would look at those postcards and say, “what in the world?” and “why are they doing this?”

The NNA has over 300,000 members.

300,000. Wow.

The NNA Makes Money Hand Over Fist

Let’s look at those numbers real quick. A one-year membership costs $52, a two-year membership costs $89. For our purposes lets say the average fee the NNA collect is $45 a year. That’s 13.5 million in revenue just from membership dues alone. Not too shabby for a very niche organization.

What is the NNA?

You might think thus far in my NNA analysis that I think the NNA is the devil. Far from it. I think part of many NSA’s hatred of the NNA stems from perceiving the NNA in the wrong light.

The NNA is a business. It’s a business that has a huge payroll expense to meet each month (nearly 300 staffers…see description at bottom of this page). If you think of the NNA as a non-profit, doing all kinds of goodness for the notary community…you’re going to be disappointed.

Not All Bad

The NNA is doing everything in it’s power to defend the legion of NSA’s in has created in the last decade. As much as many mobile notaries despise the NNA, they do attack legislation aimed at limited the powers or opportunities of notaries. This is easily evidenced by their opposition to attorney-only legislation in any state.

Bottom Line

The NNA is not going away. Love it or hate it, hopefully you’re a little more informed about the NNA’s role in our business.

Scott

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I was talking on the phone with my mother yesterday (she is retired but works part-time at a small florist shop) and she mentioned that her boss has been stressed because of a huge slowdown in business.

“But Mom…you work at a florist? Why has it slowed so much”

“Oh, most of our clients are mortgage brokers and title companies. They usually send a flower basket or gift basket to their customers when they close”

Wow. I didn’t realize how far the pain had spread from the slowdown. It’s not just notaries. It’s not just mortgage brokers and real estate agents…It’s florists too!

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* Note: While we are not huge fans of signing services ourselves, that doesn’t mean you can’t work for them if you’d like! If you know a signing service that is not listed here, or you have more contact information or updated information (company went out of business, etc), please e-mail updates to Blake. (babel @ notarybay.com) Nice work on this Blake. This list will always be free, so please help fellow notaries out and contribute to the list!

The NotaryBay, Updated Massively Massive Master List of Signing Services

See the updated list here

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Interest rates are up. Sub-prime loans have pretty much gone the way of the buffalo. The NNA keeps pumping in new notaries…

How does all that make it a good time to be a mobile notary Scott?

Let’s take a look:

1. This profession isn’t going anywhere

Sure, things have slowed down. But we live in a country that puts a premium on time, and mobile notaries are time savers. The mortgage trend may be down, but premium services that save time or are convenient (like a mobile notaries) will continue to trend up.

2. Mobile notaries can cut costs for Settlement Companies

As title and escrow companies get squeezed, they will be looking to cut their costs as well. Why have the overhead on an office when processing can be done in a central location and a mobile notary used? Plus one for the mobile notary.

3. Time to weed out the bad

Slow times will weed out many of the notaries who’ve come into the profession in the last few years looking for an easy buck. Being a mobile notary is about running a quality business, and any business takes hard work. It’s just something you can’t get around. Great notaries will continue to market themselves and differentiate themselves from their competition.

4. NotaryBay.com is here

OK, so we can’t change the industry overnite, but we sure as heck are going to try. Our application makes it so simple (and automated) to find great notaries, we think it has industry changing potential. If you haven’t registered yet, do it now (you can get a premium membership free trail during our beta test)!

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