Yes, it is possible to make money as a Notary in 2019. Our other articles about successful Notaries were mostly from 2013 or before as business was not fast from 2014 until mid 2019. But, this Notary did 90 signings and made $10,000 in a single month. And yes, her primary advertising is on 123notary.

She is full of energy and enthusiasm. She had eighteen months experience, so she was not seasoned by any standards. Additionally, she did not drive more than 20 miles in any direction. She got roughly half of the work from 123notary too.

It is always refreshing to learn about a new notary who is doing well in 2019 as it was very slow for so long. Most of the Notaries who make the big money have years and years of experience. So, how can newer Notaries do well? Being very businesslike, answering the phone, maintaining your listing information, getting reviews, and advertising with a high spot on 123notary.

I hope to hear more stories like this.

I apologize for my lack of information. But, in the Notary profession, nothing costs $6. Perhaps that was the extra fee for eDocuments, but that is what a Sprite costs at the Improv where I met that cool 62 year old guy who looks 45 who rides a cool motorcycle and lived in China before — so charismatic! I was impressed by him and let him know. The Sprite, not so impressive though.

In any case, one Notary wrote a response to a blog article — I would not cross the street for $6. My commentary is: What if it were a very narrow street. In that case I might cross it for only $3. And what if I were already on the side of that street when offered the $6. It would be no big deal, especially if I got paid for a return trip so I don’t go back with an “empty load” as the truckers say.

When considering fees for tasks, please consider the whole package and see if is the best use of your time. If you are offered $60 for a job, the expenses are $11.50 and the next best thing you can do with your time is clean your attic, then compare the intrinsic value of those two activities.

You might also like:

Five things a notary can do worth $1000 per minute
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=20521

$30 loan signings, is it worth it under any circumstance?
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=10456

Many Notaries have a problem getting paid. It’s not you — it’s the industry. But, by using good principles, you can avoid most of the drama. Here are some guidelines to help you through every step of the process.

BEFORE THE SIGNING
When you get that call from a particular company, you need to either have records on each company out there, or be able to look them up. That means you either need online records on a cloud, or accessible from your iPhone, or have a cheat sheet in your glove compartment with up to date records on all signing companies. You need to keep track of:

1. How many jobs have they given you
2. Payment record — average # of days to pay
3. How much outstanding
4. Are they pleasant to work for
5. Cancellation rate.
6. What is their track record on the forums and 123notary’s list of signing companies.

If company cancels too much, you should up their rate or make them pay a cancellation fee or nonrefundable deposit up front, otherwise you will be left holding the bag (and the freshly printed documents.) If a company owes you more than a few hundred, you should deny service until they pay up. If a company has no track record with you, please consider asking them to pay up front via Paypal. If you are a newer signing agent and desperate to get experience, you should be more flexible and take more risks so you get experience. People who use 123notary reward Notaries for having a lot of experience.

You can check new companies on your iPhone while on the road to see how they do on the various forums and 123notary’s list of signing companies with reviews. If a company has a bad track record of payment, you should charge up front or you will likely get stiffed. Some of these companies have no remorse.

CONFIRMING THE SIGNING
Confirming the signing using our tips in the real life scenarios section of Notary Public 101 will not help you get paid, but will help you reduce the amount of signings that end in mid-air. If the signer doesn’t have ID with matching names, or if the other signers aren’t going to be there, or if they don’t have that cashier’s check they need — you are better off not going to their house as it will be a waste of time. Signings that end in “no signs” often do not get paid, so by avoiding this type of scenario, you will have less unpaid jobs as a total percentage.

AT THE SIGNING — MISTAKES
Most Notaries brag about how they have a 99.9% accuracy rate. The truth is that most Notaries make mistakes from time to time, and sometimes FedEx or the Lender screws up too resulting in a second trip. In my experience it is very hard to get paid for a second trip. Companies will often offer to pay, and then not pay you. So, triple checking your work and getting packages to FedEx fast will help reduce your rate of non-paying jobs and also help you from getting fired as much.

AFTER THE SIGNING — FAX
After you are done with your signing, fax a bill and include all pertinent information such as the borrower’s name, property address, loan number, and whatever else the signing or title company wants. Send a bill every week by fax or email or whatever medium your company wants. Also, keep records of every signing company you work for, and all of the jobs they assigned to you. When they pay you, you can indicate the date when they paid you to the right of the job description, borrower name, property address on your records. Your records can be paper or online. It is very fast to do this by paper by the way and less chance of data loss unless you keep the paper in your car.

EVERY MONTH — RECORDS
Every month or so, update your records that you keep in your car. Keep records on each signing company. Track how many jobs they gave you, how fast they pay, what they still owe you, how much you like them. You can assign them a grade too. You can have a customized pricing strategy for each company depending on their track record. You can give lower prices for companies you like. I would base prices on estimated time spent and NOT a fixed price. You could have a — near, medium and far price, or a price that is more intricate depending on number of pages, number of signers, distance, time of day, etc. That is up to you. But, having an intricate pricing strategy will make your life a little more complicated, but will weed out the more difficult companies, or at least make them pay for grief they cause you. Otherwise, those companies will think they can get away with causing Notaries endless headaches. You could keep two sets of these records and update them monthly. One at home and one in the car. If someone offers you a job, don’t quote a price until you look at your records and see if they are on the “A” list.

30 DAYS
If a company is past 30 days, time to consider sending them a demand letter. Or you could wait until the 45 day mark depending on how tough you are. We have a demand letter (from hell) template on our resources page. People have had consistently excellent luck with it, and it was given to us by our very most seasoned Notaries on the site.

45-60 DAYS
If anyone gets to this point, definitely send them a demand letter, but consider hiring an Attorney to write a letter threatening them. There are Attorneys who will write a letter for about $30 using their legal assistants. If a company owe you $300 or more, it might be worth it to write a letter. You can also charge for damages which include your time lost and legal fees.

CONTRACTS
We wrote another article on contracts. Signing companies have contracts to protect their interests. Their contract defends what is convenient and good for the signing company but not what is good for the Notary. You can have your own contract too and make people sign it if they want your services. If you are inexperienced, many companies might not sign it. But, if they need you and you have experience, they just might. You can state terms about partial signings, no shows, cancelled jobs, printing fees, resigns, and whatever else you want. Try to be reasonable in your terms if you expect anyone to sign it and continue using your services.

CREDIT
Try to determine before hand how much credit to offer to particular companies. This needs to be customized. Companies with a bad track record should not get any credit and must pay up front. Companies that have been solid towards you for years might get $400. But, don’t offer more than that because good companies turn bad all the time the minute they run into credit problems. Each company you work for should have a credit rating with you and an individual amount of credit you will offer them. When they offer you a job, see how much they are in debt to you already before saying yes, otherwise — it’s Paypal — or no job!

Trouble getting paid?
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=15339

Tips for getting paid
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19794

Scary results when someone uses our demand letter from hell
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=2006

Template for our famous demand letter
http://www.123notary.com/howto-get-paid-signing-agent.htm

Have you ever stopped to think about the pay differential between a Notary and a hit man? Notaries are always complaining that they don’t get paid enough and don’t get any respect. You would get respect if you were a hit man though. You could even advertise on one of those hit man websites.

Hit man profile (fictional… of course!)
I am responsible and reliable. Once you hire me the job is as good as done. I always confirm my appointments, show up on time, and hire a professional cleaner who I call, “Da cleanuh.” All I ask is to be paid on time, otherwise you might end up being on my list of assignments… capiche? Just make sure you include a return FeDex package with every assignment, and let me know if the job has any special considerations or if you want me to do the job in a particular special way. I’m experienced with guns, knives, clubs, bats, maces, machetes, numchucks, strangulation (for an additional fee), and more. Long distance no problem and we specialize in bilingual hits. Hablamos Espanol y Italiano. Additionally, if you hired the wrong guy to save money and he left work uncompleted, I do clean ups as well.

If you don’t pay a Notary, they just sit and whine. But, if you don’t pay a hit man, guess what happens. Hit men get respect — Notaries don’t. Of course Notaries spend less time in jail in general unless you are like Harry who engaged in Real Estate fraud using his Notary seal – don’t be like Harry.

A Notary can make $20 to $40 average per hour doing signings depending on what the job is, and how far it is. But, a hit man might get $50,000 for a job that might take a few hours to plan and an hour to “execute.” There is more risk involved, and probably more skill. But, look at the bright side, as a hit man, you don’t have to deal with the county recorder or the IRS! A hit man’s salary could be computed as $100 per minute if you work out the math. A good hit man only needs to do two or three jobs per year and the rest of the year can be taken off lounging at an Italian villa, or in a not so Italian jail cell. Such an efficient use of time.

So, the basic break down is 50 cents a minute being a Notary vs. $100 per minute being a hit man with possible jail time. Which do you choose? But, there’s more. Hit men end up in hell making it not worth it no matter what they get paid. Notaries go to whiners purgatory where they whine about not getting paid, but at least don’t get burned in scalding oil every day. So, you are better off being a Notary, so try to learn to be good at it.

You might also like:

How far do you push for payment terms?
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=22590

Payment for jail notary service
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=22145

Notarizing the Mafia at a gelato place
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=22163

One Notary was reading one of my instructional tutorials on 123notary. He claimed that there was a lot of information that he used to know but had forgotten about. He was very happy that I had published Notary Public 101 as that was a great opportunity for him to review his Notary knowledge. Personally, my brain is not good at acquiring new information. I have to read over information again and again and again, and then review it periodically over time for the information to solidify and sink in. I very rarely forget Notary information that I have learned unless it is very technical, and California notary law can get very technical.

But, other people are not like this. Other people learn their stuff and then forget most of what they have learned slowly over time. This is why I think it is critical to maintain your knowledge and keep studying and reviewing your technical knowledge. So, the minute you think you know it all, that’s the same minute you need to review!

You might also like:

Beginner Notary 103 – gaining industry knowledge
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=21118

Does knowledge matter any more as a signing agent?
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19887

When I do welcome calls, I will spend the better part of a day offering our newsletter to people and asking them how many loans they have signed. It is so hard for people to think about how many loans they have signed. Don’t they keep some sort of count? When I was a Notary people used to ask. Of course that was back in what I call the “Pre-Instagram Age.” That is a time not far after the horse and buggy went out of style.

When I ask people by phone how many loans they sign, although the answers are awkward, at least I feel I am getting an honest, but not necessarily accurate number. People are more comfortable telling me how many years they have been signing. But, if you signed one loan per year for ten years, that is equivalent to someone who signed ten loans per day in one day. Which experience is worth more and what does it all mean?

But, when I go through people’s profiles and look at their number of loans signed and it says 5000, and then I call them and ask them how many loans they have signed, the answer usually goes down. I ask because I assume they didn’t bother to update their numbers for a year or two… or six. But, I uncover lies, deception, and deceit when I ask this question. How did we go from 5000 loans down to 1500. Did you sign negative loans over the last six months?

Maybe I should keep track of who the liars are. Hmmm. That might be a longer list than I care to know about.

As always, keep your number of loans signed up to date and if possible — honest and accurate, or as accurate as humanly possible.

You might also like:

Number of loans vs. number of years using “since”.
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19270

What types of loans do you know how to sign?
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=16712

A list of things you probably did not add to your notes section
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=22287

Some people who are Real Estate brokers invest heavily in licensing fees, insurance and other expenses to maintain their Real Estate career. But, how many Notaries invest heavily in their career? People who advertise with us often do, but not all of them.

E&O Insurance is not for free, but can make you look like a serious contender, especially if you get a lot of it. The irony is that when you try to collect, they might not pay if the situation is not a notary error. A signing agent error on a non-notarized document is not a notary error. Read the fine print.

High placed listings on 123notary get a lot more business than the rest. Smart people get it that they need one if they want their business to grow.

Asking for reviews is free, but an investment of a small effort on a regular basis. Smart Notaries understand that asking for reviews is investing in credibility and nothing beats credibility. If you have no credibility, then you are reduced to being one of those notaries who brags about how great they are when none of their customers think they are good enough to write a review for. Food for thought.

123notary certification gets more clicks and more title work. Most people think that knowledge is not important. But, the cost of screwing up a loan and losing a client is heavy. And the cost of not getting clients in the first place because you have no credibility is a problem too. Investing in knowledge pays off day after day for decades. So, why not invest in knowledge?

Writing more in your notes section takes very little time. It is an investment of minutes that can pay off for decades. Smart Notaries get it that they need a really comprehensive notes section. The others just write a one liner about how great they are. Do you think title companies are dumb enough to fall for that? Think again.

There are other ways to invest in your business. Websites, business names, education from other entities, and more. Those that take Notary work seriously typically do a lot better than those just winging it. Choose the path of solidity and you shall prosper.

You might also like:

Nice things people said about 123notary in the blog comments
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=22401

How does pricing for top placements on 123notary work?
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19355

Here is a compilation of posts about Notary Business names, and names in the signing business in general.

Names for Notaries to name their children
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=21044

Names for Notary businesses with commentary
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=20765

Names for Notary businesses that can get you in trouble
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19064

Geographic notary business names
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19060

2012 – Notary business names
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=2302

Deceptive identities – signing companies that change their names
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=1090

Choosing a name for your business license
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=7103

Silly names for notary businesses

Grandma’s notary service & Paralysis notary service

Registering a business license
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=742

Stealing a business name
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=2660

You could get sued if you don’t have a business license
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=7100

The California Secretary of State has a list of acceptable nicknames for notarization.
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=15883

Two guys with the same name; One cashed the other guy’s check!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=16102

The ID says John Smith
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19953