My Initial Tips/Advice to New People

Beginner's Questions
1

I hope the following helps you getting started

  1. If you’re going to set yourself up as a business, go to irs.gov and get an EIN - takes 5 minutes - NEVER NEVER NEVER give your personal social security number to anyone - use your EIN for all your notary work, including using it to report your notary income on our tax return;

  2. Set up a separate checking/banking account for your notary income - keep your personal finances and your business finances separate;

  3. Get some business cards and start passing them out - generate general notary work (GNW) so you can get used to notarizing;

  4. Learn your notary laws - and know them cold - and never stray from them; (for example, we do not notarize jurats - the jurat is our certificate, the document is the document that people either acknowledge or swear to). And NEVER let anyone (hiring parties, personal citizens, etc) tell you it’s okay for you to do something that you are not authorized to do. And believe me, they’ll try - common words “all the notaries do it” - well, don’t fall for it.

  5. Should you decide to move toward loan signings, get a good, solid education on mortgages (unless you already have a background in it) - do NOT jump into the deep end of the notary pool with what may be someone’s most important financial transaction of their life.

6 Make sure you have good, reliable equipment to carry out the work you want to do - good laser printer, reliable cell, laptop if needed, E&O insurance, etc

  1. Don’t forget - standard E&O will only cover you for notarial errors. If you’re moving into loan signings, anything you do as a Signing Agent, and errors you make while wearing that hat like missing signatures, dates, shipping times, costing a rate lock, etc, will NOT be covered by a standard notary E&O policy; you’ll need either Signing Agent E&O or a Professional Liability Policy.

8 Make sure to check with your county/municipality regarding business license requirements before you go setting your business up - do you need to be registered with the state? Do you need a business license? (Here in FL my county requires me to have a business license).

I hope these tips help you all coming into this business.

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I remember the first time I took my first assignment from a well known low baller ( yes! That one, C2C) and I was offered a $30 for a loan mod, when I complained their answer was “every notary accepts it, that’s a standard fee”… yeah, right! :roll_eyes::roll_eyes::roll_eyes:
That was the first and last $30… I started searching and educate myself, starting with fair fees :face_with_monocle:

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This is great information, thank you.

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Bumping this up to the top to help new folks wanting to start out (and there have been a few more lately) and wanting to add a #10

  1. Build/create a profile that accentuates your strengths and convinces people they should hire you over the next person in line. And to accomplish that, take care in your wording, spelling, grammar and punctuation. A properly presented profile will attract a company to you far quicker than a profile fraught with misspellings and bad grammar. PROOFREAD!! again and again - and if necessary, ask someone else to proof it for you. Your profile is your first best foot forward and your first chance to make a good impression…and impressions matter in this business.

Good luck and that is all…for now. :slight_smile:

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@vanzornink Welcome to the Notary Cafe forum! :sparkles: This thread may prove to be a helpful one to you considering you’re a new Notary Cafe member.

:swan: