Notaries often ask me, should I use a business name? Do notaries need to register as a business? Does a notary public have to get a business license? The answer is yes. Any business, including a home-based notary business needs a business license, otherwise, you might be operating illegally. For a notary to get a business license is not hard, just contact your county clerk’s county recorder office and ask them what the procedure is. It is generally under $200 and the paperwork is not difficult. Getting a fictitious business name for your notary business can also be the prerequisite to getting a bank account with your company name on it!
But, what to name your notary business? Too many notary businesses have similar sounding names, and they all become one big blur. We wrote a blog entry all about signing company names which sound similar which is a fun blog entry to read.
Yellow Page Names
It is common for notaries advertising in the yellow pages to want to show up at the beginning of their section. Names like A1 Notary, AAA Mobile Notary, AAAA Traveling Notary, and Aardvark Notary are common. Unfortunately, your clueless customers will get mad when you are not the auto club and tell you to change your name!!! It happened to me, I know.
Glamour Names
Then, there are those who want the glamourous names like Royal Notary, Elite Notary, On Time Notary, and other vanity names. You could capitize on a character trait such as Integrity Notary, Rapid Notary, or Honest Notary.
Geographic Names
Geographic names are very good for website optimization. If your business name is Glendora Mobile Notary Service, then your website will show up very well for local keywords.
Personal Names
We have one client who’s business name is Ellen the Notary. That is easy to remember and very personable too! Johnson’s Traveling Notary is another example of a personal type of a notary business name. Sam’s Meandering Notary is yet another.
Unique Names
But, what about more unique sounding names? I generally recommend either geographically recognizable business names or unique ones. A confusion between your business and some other business with a bad reputation can be crippling! If it were me, I would really put a few weeks of brainstorming and asking your friends to find that perfect name for your notary business. After you have narrowed it down to a few names, reflect carefully to select the ideal name as you will be stuck with it for a very long time!
You might also like:
Compilation of posts about Notary business names
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=21760
Comedic slogans for Notaries listed on our site
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=20410
Deceptive identities – Signing Companies with Similar Names
7 ways to use Facebook to market your notary services
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=5396
Business cards for mobile notaries
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=36
Power of Attorney at a nursing home
Power of Attorney signing at a Nursing Home
This was a signing that was doomed from the beginning. I was a relatively new notary, and hadn’t been burned enough to have any sense. I was like the cat who hadn’t learned to be wary of crossing the road. On the other hand, during my childhood, we had a cat who regularly sat right on the yellow line in the middle of the road. Let’s just say that she had a good sense of timing. My timing unfortunately wasn’t so good this time, and neither was my judgement.
A call from a convalescent home
It was a call from a lady in her late fifties. She seemed like a very normal person. She was taking care of an elderly lady who had nobody. Of course, when I got the call, I didn’t have the sense to ask who was going to pay me or how they were going to pay me. This job was so bizarre, that even the most experienced notary has probably never seen anything like it. So, I went to the nursing home and went in the door. This place was horrible. People were screaming and moaning all the time. Plus the stench was horrible. The nurses didn’t want to open the windows because they didn’t want bacteria coming in. My news for them is that there would be more bacteria going out than in if they opened the window.
A walk down the hallway.
“Help me…. help me…. will you help me?”. An old bedridden lady wanted to be turned over. I am not skilled at pampering the elderly, and the nurses were ignoring these helpless victems. A crazy old man tried to make conversation with me walking down the hall. This hallway should be called the hall of desperation. I got to the correct room number finally. If only I had brought an oxygen tank so I wouldn’t have had to breath in there. The lady in her 50’s wanted me to have the elderly lady sign a power of attorney document. Neither one of them had a clue how these documents worked. They needed my help filling it out and I told them that I don’t offer legal advice. So, I had to wait while these crazy ladies took thirty minutes to do what they should have had prepared long before they called me. I neglected to ask them if their document was complete by the way.
The finished power of attorney
They kept asking me what to do. I kept saying, “you need to talk to an attorney”. I asked them why they had me come all the way down there when they were not ready to sign a completed document. I had to teach them what a grantor and grantee was. I told them that in this other place, they should write what the powers the grantor is assigning to the attorney in fact (grantee). That helped get them through this daunting task. Finally, the document was done. The old lady could hardly sit up, let alone write anything. She wrote some chicken scratch which was not even ledgable. I had to do a signature by X with two subscribing witnesses with her. Finally, we were done.
The payment
The attorney in fact got out a checkbook and proceeded to pay me. I said, that the check didn’t belong to her, but to the old lady. The lady in her 50’s said that she had been granted the power to do financial transactions for the older lady and would use the old lady’s check book to write me a check. I didn’t like this idea. I said that I wanted to be paid in cash please. Neither ladies had a dime on them. So, I took the check, and needless to say it bounced.
Insist on cash
If you do a jail or hospital signing, you will be dealing with very unreliable people a very high percentage of the time. Get your travel fee upon walking in the door before you even meet the signer. If for any reason you can not complete the signing, you at least have some cash in your pocket. Knowing how to do a signing by X is a valuable skill that experienced notary publics use if you work with the elderly.
You might also like:
12 questions to ask at hospital notarizations
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=20519
Rules for notarizing a bedridden person
Do you like your job? A major headache of a hospital job.
Dragging the person’s arm