How To Sign Georgia Banking Presentation

Notarize company initial

welcome ladies and gentlemen boys and girls and notaries of all ages to how to start and build your general notary work business I'm very excited about this class because general Norman work is a good business of being if you work that business right Judith and I've wrote a book make your business our business so that's why we're doing his class everybody know Judith she's one of the most hard-working dedicated notaries she does not and this is for the signing agents out there does not even own a car her business is booming okay so whatever she says you want to take a lot of notes my name is Daniel Lewis been a notary since 2003 started off like a mini many of you started off doing loan signings I evolved in and doing a lot of general notary work so that's what primarily what I do now was 2010 national notary of the year I mean that same year made honorary Secretary of State in Indiana and now teach classes and do this kind of stuff for notaries well the objectives of this class is to how to start and build a general memory work business the next objectives discovered the benefits of starting your own general Nouri business understand steps needed to start a successful business that's important tips on maintaining your business to ensure a long-term success before I go on to any more slides I'm gonna give you give you guys five tips that helped me earn more money because you came here to know how to make money as a general notary the first way tell people you are notary do you know how many people don't tell people they're a notary you know what I'm talking about right you know what I'm talking about I'll give an example I was in a business notarizing a document for this lady she had a business office when I was leaving the office I had on one of my lowest notary shirts on her next door neighbor came out said oh my god I was just out looking for a notary can you come and notarize these documents for me I said yes the business owner and runs out and says wait a minute I'm a notary why don't you ask me she never told him that she was a notary losing money that's the first thing you need to do next thing you need to do is network everybody says oh yeah a network I'm a notary how do I network I'll go to these coffee shops I'll go in these rooms and tell people I'm a notary and they got on it they got a financial guy they got somebody they're from the bank they got accountant how do I network a couple of very effective ways to network is network with people that are going to be your clients for example one notary told me she was very effective at networking with the bar association in her state because a lot of attorneys anybody ever worked for attorneys it has do attorneys attorneys need notaries and network we're people that need your service that makes sense so network in those areas also I recommend if you are doing this full-time going to your local Chamber of Commerce and networking there and if you can join the local Chamber of Commerce because a lot of times they have a special fee for small business owners and get you in there join us Chamber of Commerce and then join the Membership Committee look at you can a lot of times go on their website look at their membership and see does these businesses actually use our my service makes sense third one get involved in your community one of the questions I get asked a lot how can you become a notary of the year how can you become a notary of the year or what are you doing in your community my community what are you talking about as a notary you can go to your local schools high schools athletic directors music department directors and say hey I'm a notary let me come in and do notarization for your families when you have to take those school trips you know how special that is in your community go to the local VFW's American Legion I usually don't charge for that but each of you have your own personalities have your own experiences and you have to determine that but I don't charge for that in my community you can come up with I'll be there one day a week or one day a month and do that for you I know you're gonna have this big trip coming up even our junior High's are going on big trips another great idea is doing a community shred day I've had the privilege of working on a community shred day with the famous Doug Deebo back there though he wanted me to say say a couple words about what happened with the Shred day we did let it rain but those worked really well you can partner with a local bank and how many new notaries are even seasoned notaries a budget like you're budgeting a very small budget here's how to shred de Fame worked contact a local bank banks use notaries sometime we contact a local bank and say we want to put on a shred day for our community we just want to get some information out to our community about what notaries do in a community and how we help protect the community with their private documents so we went out and hired a shred truck you just can google tread trucks in your community you use the bank's parking lot because the banks they have do you know banks are required to have some type of community service project did you know that yes so they love if you're going to organize it they say use our parking lot you can put signs out in front of our banks and not only that we're going to donate to your cause which paid for the Shred trucks all you do is market it on social media and since you're already in the schools the VFW is the American legions you can market it there too how much money have you spent does that make sense cuz I was on you know heard of a shoestring budget I was on a dental floss budget so you have to be innovative network with other notaries this look young lady up at the front said this is her first conference she's scared to death I was scared to death when I came to my first conference I didn't know anybody I came by myself but I network with other notaries when you network with other notaries this is what happens this I network with a lady named Quincy Perry and I said hey Quincy I'm new you've been doing this for a while if you get some jobs can you sit on my way cuz she's seen and I was here and I was taking notes just like you guys and very professional and she said yeah but Daniel if you get something would you send it my way so Quincy would send me work I was seeing Quincy work how much did it cost me you see in that trend that's happening would that work for you guys on that dental-floss budget if you're in this room you got to understand you have to at some point evolve your business because some things you do now not gonna make sense three years from now you gonna say I was running my business like this now I'm running my business differently because just being very honest here can I be honest with you guys every quarter if you wanna be successful in this business every quarter you need to be looking at your business and looking at where's my numbers you need to know your numbers in this business let me just say this again you need to know your numbers in this business because this is a business this isn't some for me this isn't some I'll do this every now and then to get grandkids some toys if I'm later this is a business this is I'll pay my mortgage every quarter you should treat this like a business you're looking at your numbers you're looking at seeing how profitable am I am I making more money here where's the trends going in my industry what is those laws that's gonna affect how I conduct my business anybody ever look at that you got to look at this as a business how am i varying my customers if I'm a signing agent am i vetting my customers am i busy do I have enough time to look and see if my business is efficient and effective because there's a wave in this industry and we need to be on that wave being here helps you get on that wave that makes sense creating and maintaining a web presence a lot of people go out and hire people to optimize their website and that type of thing a couple of years ago and this is just my own personal feeling about that whenever somebody wants to find me notary near me and my information could pops up and I haven't hired anybody a couple of years ago the National notary Association had a gentleman that sold swimming pools anybody was here for that what he did was he sold more swimming pools than anybody else in his area how I did that he went online and say who's the best swimming pool manufacturer and he pulled up a bunch of names and then he said I'm gonna write a blog who's the best swimming pool manufacturer and guess what whenever somebody he does that guess whose website comes up his he didn't hire anybody and then he outsold all our competition so for me with no budget I said I want a deck can apply to notaries so guess what happens notary near me how are people finding you what are they doing they're googling I don't know any new I don't notice they know what's the most popular phrase you don't hear me and that gets you a lot of hits but I didn't hire in in my area one of the biggest complaints that I get and I'm sure Doug has heard this why are you teaching all these notaries how to make money is putting too much many notaries in the business that's what I get all the time but let me give you the one secret whether you're a seasoned or new notary the one secret that's gonna make you money all the time here's a secret you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on courses you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing but your business will completely fail unless you take care of this one area you have to flat-out give the service in your area you cannot have poor service and expect to make money in this business you cannot be holding on to the documents you can't not be not communicating back to the clients you have to have flat-out good service and it starts with even answering the phone do you answer your phone on the first call you know what I'm talking about right answer your phone on the first ring when that company calls you and says hey we need a notary this is what I always say ding hey Daniel can you do us job at this this is Betty Betty you know what you were one of my favorite people I say that every time Oh Daniel thank you so much you know what Betty's doing Betty's calling to put money in my pocket sometimes when you call yeah I don't know how far is it what county what are you gonna pay me is it to customers you know what I'm talking about that little thing that little thing not spinning of tons of money on marketing not spending tons of money on business cards I need business cards those little things like that will pound money in your pocket year after year after year I want to talk a little bit about how to protect your business how do you protect your notary business sometimes I get mentoring notaries they said what a state don't require me to have this stuff does E&O insurance stuff so I'm not going to happen because state go because that's an expense to me let me tell you you're in business you make a mistake as a notary you're gonna go through documents during the week don't go through over a million dollars worth of assets and you gonna tell yourself you don't need insurance they'll protect you I want to talk about financial planning for your business but you should have an end game in mind it's called retirement you got to understand your business understand how much it cost you to do that service it costs you 35 bucks to do it and you're doing it for 25 bucks sooner or later you're gonna be out of business and you should keep in mind everything paper ain't gas maintenance on your vehicle write up a budget for yourself there's budgets online that will really help you just outline everything make sure your business is properly protected make sure you're properly protected one of the things I offer a lot of notaries is critical illness insurance anybody knows what critical illness insurance huh you do know Jamie knows I unfortunately had to cash in on a critical illness in 2010 2010 was a banner year it was Notary of the year honorary Secretary of State's office and I was diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and I had to use my critical illness benefit but most notaries don't they think it's an expense is an expense until you have some issue so Europe how many people drive everywhere to their notary assignments and that's all nobody how many put your hands up how many people drive everywhere to your notary assignments because most of you you drive everywhere you consider yourself safe drivers right not having critical illness insurance means you think everybody around you is a safe driver I just had a notary in my in Indianapolis got hit from the behind from somebody and he took off so make sure you properly protect yourself make sure you managing your debt sometimes notaries kind of like to put a bunch of stuff on credit cards as a financial planner I would want you not to be paying interest but the earning interest should be thinking about building wealth for yourself when you're doing these closings a lot of times notaries just completely take that completely out of their picture because they're so busy just operating their business they're not thinking at some point I need to build wealth for myself this is a wealth building machine the notary business for me is my foundation of my businesses and you can build wealth with the notary business but you have to be obsessed with efficient effective and being profitable you have to be obsessed with that every quarter run into numbers in your knowing where your numbers are you should have an emergency fund emergency fund should be three to six months of your expenses so first of all in that first category cash flow need to know what your cash flow is what your expenses are each month and then once you get that figure out wait a minute I'm spending too much money here in my case I'm spending too much money and this is a while ago at McDonald's Burger King mister Taco Bell because you go from here to here to here to here to here to here when do you eat oh there's a convenient place right there that you make adjustments you know how much money you save you just go to a Costco or sans buy lunch and pack it for it on a Sunday and didn't have that each week from going to mr. Burger King McDonald's Costco's and also is good for your health too right so building murders emergency funds three to six months of savings in your expense account and then you have to work on preserving your wealth now let's hear for Judith Lawrence let me tell you a little bit about me first I own a company in Center City Philadelphia and we do an enormous amount of general notary work and as we go along I'll tell you how I did it okay general notary work can be for anyone attorneys physicians nurses banks accountants borrowers students students always need things notarized business owners and the list continues you will find if you go into general notary work that certain times of the year graduations come especially medical students and they have to have their paperwork notarized so there are campaign finance reports they're due at certain times of the year with a general notary work business you kind of have to be on top of your game location is one of your most important ingredients so if you're near a college then go over to the college and say hey I'm here if you're near six hospitals go to these hospitals introduce yourself you hand them a business card and you say you know I'm only five minutes from you so you can call me at the last minute and I'll get there and then of course the second thing that you have to do with that is when they call you at the last minute you have to really get there so you can't you know you have to do that my most important slide that I'm going to talk to you about and it says what do you need to store it in a computer and and all that in a website and a website is critical but in my mind as I look back on my journey and I look back on the last five years what you really need is to make yourself the expert and I'll give you an example when I say the expert you have to read about them you have to find the course and take a course about them you have to talk to someone else who does them so that when the person comes in and says hey do you do I nine verifications you say yes I do and you can pass maybe one piece of knowledge to them that they know that they've come into a place and you are the expert and people generally will won't mind paying you that extra two dollars or even five dollars because they'll say as that's alright I'll go to her because she really knows she knows what she's doing and again you go back to learning which is why you're here and if I can make a difference to any of you it's to go out there and learn and and be able to offer these people the best offer them the best thing the expert knowledge of all of this so that's that's kind of my my Creed thank you and you guys have been wonderful thank you guys been great [Music] you