Another YouTube Video of Note

I thought this one was another creative way to advertise notary services. I'm not sure if it is the image you would want, but it is still worth taking a look at.

It's a New World

Sunil Jaswal, a California notary public gets it. He has used YouTube to promote his notary business. This simple video, shows his potential clients how professional he is and that he is a leader in technology. It bestows trust without even meeting him. What a contrast this video is compared to a traditional view of a notary public.

Oregon State-Approved Course Now Online!

Notary.net now offers its popular online video course in Oregon. You can view a free preview at: http://or.notary.net

Notary.net is only the second private company to be approved for the mandatory education course in Oregon. We are still the only company to offer online video courses in any state.

Notary Training After You Get In Trouble?!?

I received a nice phone call from the Secretary of State's office in Maryland. They wanted to preview our Maryland Online Notary Course prior to referring notaries to take it. For lesser notary offenses, the Maryland Secretary gives notaries the option to take a training class, similar to defensive driving school if you get a ticket. While Maryland has attempted to pass a mandatory education law, it seems a little backwards to be trained after you do something wrong. Keep yourself out of trouble by getting your training first, then become a notary. The cost of our course is MUCH less than possible fines and attorney fees.

Make $100,000 a Year as a Loan Signer!

This claim made the loan signing industry boom a few years back. People were eager to jump on this "get-rich-quick" program by setting your own hours and only working a few hours a day. People quickly realized how difficult it is to gross $100k as a loan signer, let alone net that amount.

Assuming you work 5 days a week and take a 2 week vacation and make an average of $100.00 per loan signing, you would need to have 2.667 loan signing assignments PER DAY to GROSS $100k per year. If you factor in printing costs, gas, wear and tear on your car, your NET gets down closer to $50,000. It is still a respectable amount of money, but most notaries are lucky to get 3 assignments per week, let alone one day.

This is not meant to discourage you, only to show you how it is neither easy nor automatic. Real Estate agents can make $1,000,000 a year, but they probably do not do so in the first year! Any business takes time. Have patience, build your business steadily and you will be able to have steady work. Eventually, you may make more than $100k or realize it is just too much work and move on to the next late night get-rich-quick scheme.

To Journal or Not to Journal

I get calls all the time about whether you should log an event in the journal or not. For the record, here is our policy on the journal:

• If you perform notary service, log it in the journal.
• If you deny notary service, for any reason, log it in the journal
• If your state does not require journals, log your service anyway.
• If you have multiple documents from the same signer, make one journal entry per document, per person signing.
• If you do not charge for notary service, log it in your journal and the reason why you did not charge.
• Make sure the signer signs your journal and, if possible, thumbprint the journal as well.
  
• If you run out of space in your journal, buy another one and possibly a back-up!

The notary journal with the signature and thumbprint of the signer is positive proof that the signer appeared before the notary. It is fool proof evidence if ever called to court. Your journal is your best friend, as long as you are consistent in using it.

Make Your "Competition" Your Friend

Ever get a call for a loan signing job that you couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts? Instead of sending the title or loan signing company to find a random notary, you should point them to a network of friends in your area. How do you find these "friends?" You should look no further than your "competition." Get to know other notaries in your area. By networking with a few other notaries, you can each send each other business when one of you isn't available. You can expand or stay small if you choose. You may have seen examples of these networks on the internet, such as: www.californiansanetwork.com and http://floridansanetwork.com/. If you get big enough, you can start your own Loan Signing Company and not have to worry about if and when you will get paid.

Business is Slow, What Should I Do?

As a business owner, I look at slow times as perfect opportunities to expand and develop new programs and products. It is important that you do the same and not sit around and wait for the phone to ring. Think of new marketing ideas, read a marketing book, such as Guerrilla Marketing. Slow times are not necessarily bad. Make sure you keep a positive attitude and think about what you can do today that will make you more money tomorrow. Spring is right around the corner and the market will be flooded with home sales. Use this time wisely and you will reap the rewards in the coming months.

LoanSigner101.com Acquired by GSN, Inc.

Kelly Robertson, owner of LoanSigner101.com, SigningAgentCoach.com and others has agreed to release these domains to Golden State Notary, Inc. Robertson used these domains to promote her signing agent mentoring program. She has left the notary industry to pursue other projects. Her presence will be missed, but her legacy remains.

LoanSigner101.com will be the new gateway for our new loan signing training program. We will have this new training program available by the end of 2008. We are now accepting feedback on what you, the student, would like in a loan signing training course. We have received several great suggestions, but please keep them coming.

Notary Website Marketing

If you are a notary looking to make an internet presence for soliciting business, you need to check out Sharon Hassler's new eBook, "So...You Think You Want a Website." Sharon is an internet SEO (search engine optimization) expert and has written this eBook as an exhaustive guide for any notary, whether technically savvy or not. Whether you have your own personal website or if you are just using notary search sites such as Search.Notary.net and GoGetNotary.com. This eBook will show you the ins and outs of getting your notary website to the top of Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

New York Newspaper "Steals" Empire State Building

The New York Daily News stole the Empire State Building in 90 minutes by drafting bogus documents and with bogus notary seal. Their stunt showed just how easy it is for anyone to obtain a notary stamp. Link to Story

This story echoed the one of Matthew Cox that aired on Dateline in April of 2007: Matthew Cox Story. The title was "Thief of Hearts" but it should have been "Con Artist of the Year." Cox used single, desperate women to pull off his mortgage fraud schemes. He would purchase a home with them, get a mortgage, then file a bogus deed of reconveyence on the property. He used a fake notary stamp to do so. He would then apply for several mortgages simultaneously on an apparent paid for home. He did this in states like Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas where there are no regulations on how notary seals are manufactured. To this date Arizona, California, Georgia, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington are the only states that restrict manufacturing of a notary seal. In fact, in this story, Dateline created a notary stamp in Texas with the name of I.D. Fraud. The Texas Secretary of State said that they would not burden businesses with verifying that the person is authorized to have the notary seal.

Further complicating this story is that the county clerks are not verifying that the documents are legit. It would only take a few extra minutes to check to see if the notary stamp was legit.

With more and more of these stories surfacing, hopefully, more states will realize that their archaic notary laws and policies need updating to help deter some of these serious crimes.

State-Approved Missouri Notary Course Now Online

We have been working diligently with the Missouri Secretary of State to get our online video course approved. It has been filmed, reviewed and approved! We offer what no one else in the country offers: Streaming video online notary courses. It is the next best thing to being personally taught by Bruce Johnson. If you would like more information about the mandatory Missouri notary education, please go to http://mo.notary.net. If you would like to view a FREE sample of this innovative notary training course, please click this link: Missouri Notary Course.

It is our pleasure and privilege to continue to the be the notary training technology leader in the U.S. We always love to hear from our students, so feel free to drop a line or two in the comments below.