Jim Wallert’s path to becoming a Notary Signing Agent began when he was stranded in Florida, unable to get home to Omaha, Nebraska, because of a raging snowstorm. When he finally got home, he declared, “That’s it. I’m leaving.” Within two months, he was in Ft. Myers, Florida, for good. He had been working for a data company doing sales training, but he was burned out and tired of the grind, so he started researching new opportunities. He stumbled upon becoming a NSA and decided it was time to leave his safe, full-time job and become his own boss. He never turned back.
“I wanted to be my own boss and have my own schedule,” Wallert says. “After four years, it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I don’t have to have people working for me and I’m not working for anyone else.”
Of course, leaving the nest and becoming your own boss isn’t a one-day transition. There are plenty of challenges when making the leap from employee to self-employed.
Several established mobile Notaries recently shared with The National Notary their advice for making the transition and avoiding serious pitfalls that could derail your efforts. If you plan ahead and think strategically, you can make a good living as a mobile Notary and enjoy the freedom of calling your own shots.
Do your homework before going solo as a Notary
The first thing you need to do is investigate your potential market, Wallert said. Some Notaries attempt to become NSA’s in places not suitable for a growing, long-term business, such as small towns that get very little new construction and little turnover in the real estate market.
Before you consider moving into NSA work, it’s important to know whether your region has enough activity to support you. Ft. Myers is a great place to get loan signings because of all the new housing construction, refinances and other mortgage-related assignments. Wallert also gets a lot of general Notary assignments at senior living facilities, which are plentiful in his area of the Sunshine State. As a mobile Notary, he can always travel to a home-bound signer.
Kimberlee Larsen, a mobile Notary in Southern California who lives near beach cities, had been doing office work for dental practices and was interested in doing something new. She saw a notice that encouraged people to become Notaries, and that got the wheels in her head turning.
She began researching the market exhaustively. Among other things, she called several people to get their take on NSA work. Properties in these markets are expensive, so there’s less turnover and fewer refinances. Instead of loan signings, Larsen built her business on assignments from CPAs and financial advisers who need various financial documents notarized. She also does a lot of work for people who have conservatorships and for attorneys who handle trademarks and other documents.
Taking the plunge and starting your Notary business
Once you have a good feel for the kind of work that suits you and what type of assignments are plentiful in your community, it’s time to start building the groundwork for your new business and detaching the strings from your old.
“You can absolutely create the life you want.”
Kimberlee Larsen, mobile Notary
Larsen started out taking Notary assignments part-time while keeping her day job. It’s hard to let go of a steady job and the security it provides, she said, but the old work can eventually get in the way of the new opportunity. She would miss calls for notarizations. Eventually, she “bit the bullet, and went on a hope and a prayer.”
Of course, she’d done her homework, so she knew she had a good shot at success.
Wallert said it may take a lot of time to become profitable, up to a year, so make sure you’ve got the capital to sustain yourself in the interim. “You don’t really start making money that fast, I hate to tell you. It takes time to build up your business. It’s the one thing I’d really warn people about,” he said. It can take a while for signing companies to start to trust you and call back for repeat business. Word of mouth also takes time to spread, and a web presence isn’t built overnight.
Both Wallert and Larsen emphasized how important it is to get a website up and running.
Wallert set up his website through GoDaddy and got a business email address at the same time, which he says appears more professional than using a personal name and a server such as Yahoo or Hotmail. He says he gets about 60 percent of his business through a Google business ad, which helped him rank high on search engines.
Larsen says that within a month or two of building her website, she was on the first page of Google searches. She encourages Notaries to copyright their site, because she’s found that people will poach information; she even had someone copy and paste her website, though the Notary agreed to change his wording after she spoke with him.
“(Notaries) have to be set up with their website, and they have to know they’re SEO’d to the max,” she said. “I was first on Google before I quit my full-time job. Until they get calls from Google, don’t quit a full-time job.”
Notary business housekeeping is important
Larsen also recommends people look into task-software, such as Google calendar, to make your life easier. When she schedules an appointment, it goes into the calendar, and when she clicks on the appointment, she can then click on the location, so she doesn’t need to waste time finding it on the map.
If Notaries are going to be working with real estate documents, she advises them to get errors and omissions insurance in addition to the bond. When you become self-employed, insurance is necessary to protect your business and financial assets.
It’s also vital to develop people skills, such as an ability to cultivate trust and dependability. “People call me, and I almost never say no,” Larsen said. This kind of adaptability and commitment to customer service has earned her a lot of repeat business.
Wallert and Larsen both said NSA work can be tailored to individual needs and desires, so it’s important to think carefully about what kind of day-to-day work you want to do before diving in. If you don’t like the pressure or haste of loan closings, you’ll want to avoid working for title companies, but if you depend on the larger paycheck closings provide, you might be willing to overlook the frazzle.
“You absolutely can create the life you want,” Larsen said.