There is real confidence and there is a false sense of security. Many Notaries go through many stages in the evolution of their Notary confidence.

Complete beginners go through terror and a complete lack of confidence. They don’t know what to do. I remember being there back in 1998 and 1999. Those were the days. The solution is to take courses and get experience with companies who will babysit you. These days there are many companies ready to micromanage you. Treat it like a blessing.

Then there are those with a little experience who get too confident when they know very little. They boast about how dependable they are and their .0001% error rate. Both of these claims are completely unverifiable and anyone can make those claims making them not worth saying. But, the least dependable and least knowledgeable notaries tend to make the highest quantity of BS sounding claims. It is counterproductive to make these claims. Having a false sense of confidence is bad. It pays to be modest until you have some verifiable evidence that you are awesome.

Next, there are those that studied hard and mastered basic notary and signing concepts. They might have book smarts, but do they have life smarts? Many cannot function in real life situations and may or may not have good phone etiquette or business skills. In the notary business, those with masterful business skills tend to do well. Those who were successful in another career tend to transfer that success on over.

Finally, there are Notary Signing Agents with 5000 loans signed, and that have passed many different certification tests from different agencies. These Notaries can masterfully answer any notary question and don’t whine when you ask them technical questions to verify their ability. These Notaries realize how critical it is to verify their skill because these are the Notaries who clean up after other Notaries who are idiots who make a mess out of Acknowledgements, Jurats, and people’s loans.

A Notary who has Notary confidence doesn’t need to boast like the other novice Notaries. They have an air of confidence. They are more than happy to indulge you with even the most nit-picky and annoying of technical notary questions and give you the most professional answer without making it a point to inform you that they are, “very professional.” They routinely show up on time to all of their appointments and get documents back in a punctual manner without needing to inform you that they are, “reliable and dependable.” These Notaries show you how great they are with their behavior and question answering capabilities without all of the song and dance that the other Notaries give — always trying to show off and give you an answer five times as long as what you asked for so they can squeeze in more information that you didn’t ask for. Always doing a sales pitch is annoying and a sign that you have fake confidence. Someone with real Notary confidence knows it all, but doesn’t need to advertise it — it just shows. So, don’t be like these cheap sounding Notaries always boasting as much as they can and covering up for what they don’t know. Know your stuff, pass some certification tests, get some experience and be a signer with real Notary confidence!