A guide to high survival in a low-ball world.
These days, so many Notaries are complaining more and more about SnapDocs. In fact, the drama is so intense, that posts about SnapDocs are the most popular articles on our blog these days. SnapDocs is not bad, they just have a system which you haven’t mastered yet, Grasshopper! SnapDocs caters to companies who care about price, but don’t care about experience. Those who want top-notch seasoned Notaries come to 123notary as we focus on having the highest caliber of Notaries at the top of the list. So, read this and you’ll learn the secrets of high survival in a low-ball world.
(1) CALCULATE TIME
Calculate how many minutes you’ll need to fulfill the request.
Some Notaries complain if the fee is too low without looking at the time involved. $40 is not bad if the job is within ten minutes and there are no fax backs and very few pages. For a ten page signing ten minutes away, you might be there and back again in less than an hour. How many people do you know who complain about making $40 per hour? Read the text and see where the address is and how many pages are involved.
Regardless of the specifications, calculate how much time you need to:
Print, Drive, Call, Sign, Fax, and Fedex.
(2) BACKGROUND CHECK
Background Check the reliability of the company making the assignment
Tired of screwball signing companies? Low-balling is not the worst thing. Not getting paid, or being held hostage for three hours waiting for edocuments while your other clients are waiting is. You can background check companies on www.123notary.com/s using your iphone. I just updated the “votes” on all of the signing companies on our list in May 2016.
(3) MAKE COUNTER OFFERS
If you get a job from SnapDocs that comes as a text, you’ll be alerted to the location, number of fax backs and other basics about the job. You can use that information to calculate the amount of time needed to fulfill the order. Based on the time involved, you can decide how much to charge. If you have a base rate for your time (make it more expensive during the last week of the month) then you’ll know exactly what to charge. You might discount your fees a little for SnapDocs clients as they clearly don’t want to pay much.
If you get an offer for $50 to do a Refinance for two signers with twenty pages of fax backs, you can make a counter offer of $85. Some Notaries bid $125 and never get called back. You have to price your bid within the market otherwise you might as well just not use SnapDocs at all.
If you bill your time at $30 per hour and a job will require 54 minutes, ask for $27. Or if you’ll need two hours, then ask for $60. This is a very reasonable way of quoting rates that is fair to you as well as the client.
(4) NEWBIES — GAIN EXPERIENCE!!!
If you are new in the Notary business, I advise not being too picky about what people pay, providing they pay within 45 days. You need to get at least 1500 loans under your belt to be taken seriously by the big guys such as prominent title companies. You should pass the 123notary & NNA certification test if you want to be taken seriously as well. If you want to get experience in a hurry, SnapDocs is one way to do it. You’ll get tons of jobs, and all you have to do is drive, fax, and sign. You might not get paid that much, but experience is worth its weight in gold, so consider that your payoff.
Our list of signing companies that hire new signers is another way for newbies to get started.
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=7059
(5) FILL IN YOUR EMPTY TIME
If your other customers book in advance, and your daily schedule has some holes, SnapDocs might be the perfect way to fill in those unused hours. Although you might not get paid that much, at least you will have something to do so you (and your printer) won’t get bored. If you make $200 a day average doing signings for your regulars and you can pick up another $60 from SnapDocs, that is not a bad daily average.
(6) WIN OVER NEW CLIENTS
What a new client will pay you is different from someone who knows and trusts you. Once you build up trust with a client over the course of a few jobs, or a few months, you might be able to charge more. If they have a written track record about your service and know that you won’t screw up, they might pay you $20 more than they would pay another guy even though they are low-balling. So, you can use SnapDocs to meet new clients, and then once you have them hooked, jack your rates up a bit — but, not too much of a bit as you are still dealing with low-ballers.
(7) THE FIRST 3 WEEKS OF THE MONTH
Business is normally sluggish during the 3rd to the 22nd. So, that might be a great time to augment your business by using SnapDocs! You might need to save time during the end of the month for your regulars, but when things are slow, you should be willing to work at a somewhat lower rate.
(8) LOOK FOR CLOSE JOBS
Working for cheap is not that bad if you can find close jobs. If you get twenty texts per day from SnapDocs, and one or two is really close, you can try to nab those close ones and make some fast money. The key is having something to do during the other seven hours of your work day. If you make $60 for a signing ten minutes away, you might be making $50 per hour when all is said, done, and faxed.
(9) GET PAID UP FRONT
Ken is on our forum all the time offering some old school common sense to our Notaries. The message is — you are not a bank, why do you offer credit to strangers with no collateral? You don’t know if or when those signing companies will pay you. So, why not get $85 up front via Paypal? If they really need you they will pay you!
(10) THE CARMEN METHOD — ABSTINENCE
Carmen thinks that Notaries just shouldn’t use SnapDocs as the fees offered are too low. You can use abstinance as a way of dealing with this situation. Seasoned signers will never get paid what they are worth on SnapDocs, your experience is just not valued enough. With all of the faxing back, they can double check a newbies work and get accurate work at half the price by micromanaging. So, if you are “all that,” then get Elite Certified by 123notary and stick with us as you’ll get paid more from leads from our site — and forget about the cattle callers!
A final note from Jeremy — “Why am I promoting my competitor?”
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You might also like:
May best signing company gossip
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=15417
My interpretation of how the Notary industry went South
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=16500
List of New Signing Companies Feed
http://blog.123notary.com/?cat=419
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The problem I have is that companies that paid well before they joined up with Snapdocs are now offering $50-$75 dollars less for the same work.
Comment by Carolyn — August 30, 2016 @ 12:56 am
Comments by your item numbers:
(3) Forget about making counter-offers. In the LA area, within 3 seconds (most of the time) of the uber-style mass text message (that probably reaches 1000 notaries at once), the assignment is filled. There is no ability in the text message (or time, if there was one) to submit a counter-offer. Occasionally (maybe 1 out of 20 texts) get resent when they can’t get a desperate notary for a full signing in maximum peak traffic to take $75 or less, so they’ll increment the fee by $5 and that works 99.9% of the time.
The bright side is that escrow companies are discovering the Snapdocs platform and are bypassing the signing services (what do signing services contribute to the process anyway other than to spin a ‘lottery wheel’ to assign a notary and swipe half the fee?). Ain’t karma a bitch?! Unfortunately, for now, they only offer $5-$10 more than the signing services, and that will probably get worse.
Comment by BobH — August 30, 2016 @ 1:08 am
I don’t understand the constant bad-mouthing of SnapDocs. I work with them (and my husband and I are VERY seasoned signing agents) and they never fail to meet our price. Yes, the job is sent to many notaries at the same time and frequently it depends on who is the fastest on the draw, but I get a lot of work, at the fee I want, from SnapDocs. Many of the companies that I have worked with for years are migrating to SnapDocs and we get personal calls before the job is sent to the public masses. SnapDocs is an easy site to use and with a lot of companies migrating to them, fewer passwords to,remember. And SnapDocs doesn’t charge a fee for me to use their service.
Comment by Dianne Lue — August 30, 2016 @ 2:00 am
I agree with Carmen- abstinence. As far as ‘adjusting to the market’ with the high being $85., that might work for a while for less experienced signing agents until they realize that they are taking home less than half of the $85. after expenses and running yourself ragged at which point you will realize that you aren’t making anything, go into some other work, and someone newer will take your place. The cycle will repeat. If you are bi-lingual, hold out, charge for it because it is part of your skill set that they must have. Always be excellent- be and give more than what anyone ever expects.
Comment by Dan Serbin — August 30, 2016 @ 4:04 am
Once in a blue moon a valid offer comes in on SnapDocs. If the offer is lowball, I will indicate so and put in my rate, and send it back. Most of the time, however, I hit the delete key when idiotic offers come in. Let someone else take the absurd offers, get 200 pages (x 2) and have to fax back 40 pages after driving 50 miles round trip and then……complain piteously on LinkedIn about how they cant “make a living.” Of course, these same dummies that accept $40 signings have ruined the market a long time ago, and now SnapDocs is just adding the finishing touches.
Comment by Ralph Wedertz — August 30, 2016 @ 5:39 am
I agree with all the above comments. Bidding on jobs through SnapDocs is really a hazzle and sometimes just down right unfair to the experienced signing agents who have worked very hard to keep the fees at a level that covered expenses, time and travel. If you happen to live and work in an area where cell phone service is not always available along the road during the day, it makes it very difficult to reply to each notification in a timely manner, therefore….becomes a first come first serve process. Having to always bid on these low-ball fees makes it impossible to answer quickly enough. If you are driving…you might as well not bother to try to answer the request. Hopefully the lenders will at some point figure out that they need the experienced notaries in order to stay in business rather than allowing the signing services to cattle call for inexperienced notaries. The packages have gotten out of hand with so many pages inserted giving directions on how to sign the documents 9 quite embarrassing) and a waste of paper and making the cost of printing docs out of sight…as well as really distracting for the signing agent and the borrower to constantly have to see instructions all through the package. Major lenders and signing services should not use agents that have not been tested and certified so that this waste of ink, paper and time. The agents who consistently stay up-to-date with the new rules, regulations and requirements for signings should not have to bid on jobs that they have previously been asked to present their fee schedule upfront when signing Contractor Service Agreements. Until the notaries who are accepting the lower fees figure out that it costs money to service signings…and that they are doing themselves an injustice…the cattle call will continue! The absurd offers will probably continue until all signing agents hold out to get paid for their time and skills.
Comment by Lee — August 31, 2016 @ 4:36 am
I always counter with my fee. Consider it as a drop of water on a rock… enough of us countering could become a movement, and wake up some of the less greedy companies to the practicality of hiring knowledge and experience.
Thanks for mentioning the importance of figuring one’s own costs, including not only mileage, but the time traveling.
Meanwhile, the local hospitals and law firms know or are getting to know me. Drop in and say “Howdy! “.
Note: 123Notary is so valuable, get listed if you aren’t already. NNA’s site, “signingagent. com ” is also worth considering if you can pay their fees.
Go get ’em, Guys.
Comment by Donna J. R. Conne — September 16, 2016 @ 4:51 pm
I’m sorry but I do not completely agree with your comments. You missed the responsibility that is entailed with our signings. That has to be worth something. And what about our knowledge of the docs and making sure the borrower understands them. What about, insurance, bonds, background checks, courses, gas? These things all need to be included. I have never based my fees on an hourly basis. It has always been about my worth, knowledge and experience. I would never do a refi for $60. I did that 10 years ago when I first started out. That’s like working for 10 years without a raise.
Do I lose signings because of this? Yes I do but fortunately this is not a full time job so if someone else wants the job for $60 or $85, they can have it.
Comment by Faye — September 16, 2016 @ 4:55 pm
JUST HAD AN E-MAIL FROM SNAP DOC’S FOR A SIGNING OVER 154 MILES ONE WAY FOR $60.00 THAT IS A REAL JOKE. i have over 10 years as a mobile notary. good companys have paid 200.00 TO 300.00 FOR THAT DISTANCE. i have done a great number of signings for that fee. i do agree if it is close i would do some of snap doc’s of a lower fee
Comment by james rutledge — September 16, 2016 @ 5:43 pm
Agree with Faye
Comment by Llona — September 16, 2016 @ 5:58 pm
would you take a look at and critique Loan Closers? They are a leader in low ball offers, I accepted a signing and a fee of $75 from LC. the next day after this signing was confirmed and I had sent in the confirmation I was contacted by Loan Cloers and told this was being reassigned because I had not confirmed the appointment, I explained I had confirmed and sent in a confirmation but also was willing to let this signing go, I was then asked to contact the signers and tell them another notary would be calling to confirm and handle the appointment. The person who contacted me was Stevan, one of the managers, I am sure she was looking to reassign this with a notary who would accept the $60. fee they like to offer, classy company. I dont answer their calls any more,
Comment by cindi — September 17, 2016 @ 6:44 am
How do you put your Paypal info on snapdocs? I just applied for snapdocs in July and I like it. One company removed me from a signing after they sent the docs and I confirmed with the borrower already. I emailed asking for an explanation. They gave me the run around
Comment by Crowe — October 5, 2016 @ 11:24 pm
At 30 bucks I told snap docs I would just pay them to do the closing.
Comment by dave — January 9, 2019 @ 7:21 pm
You might be having a good experience with SnapDocs having your fees met because in your area perhaps they are hard up. But, for the other Notaries, they are having a horrific time and have to cry themselves to sleep, so try to look at the bigger picture.
Comment by admin — March 22, 2019 @ 3:47 am
Snappy has a place of honor and distinction in both my email and phone spam filters.
Comment by Kenneth Edelstein — March 28, 2019 @ 5:33 pm
Hate Snapdocs. If you like them, then maybe your location doesn’t have a lot of NSA’s. Where I am, a town 40 minutes drive doesn’t have ANY NSA’s and I can get a good fee bc I am willing to go there, even THOUGH there is no FedEx Distribution there anymore. Let’s face it, we pay for our YEARLY (used to be every 4 years) Background Checks, training, E & O and bonding and commission and every organization that hires us is trying to keep more and more$, so lowball fees. When you DO negotiate a good fee, you can do one signing for the price of two. I have been an NSA for almost 7 years and I don’t LOVE any lender/title company/vendor!! You have to deal with them like a wolf in a zoo, never turn your backs on them, but act nice and professional, especially bc the signers are usually locals and you may do business with them in the future.
Comment by betty — November 20, 2019 @ 5:20 pm
Simple. I don’t get into the car for less than $125.00. Very busy.
Comment by Michael T Holden — November 20, 2019 @ 6:02 pm
I’m an experienced notary who has a listing on SnapDocs but my contact information says “Call Only.” I get calls occasionally from those companies who haven’t been able to find a notary. I give them my price and they normally take it. This is a low hassle (no constant texts) way to use SnapDocs.
Comment by Rose Ragan — November 21, 2019 @ 3:10 am