Suggestions to Beginners

I have read on this forum many times where notaries are saying what they will or will not accept as compensation, how far they will go or will not go as it relates to travel. New NSA’s, “eat the fish and spit out the bones”. The notaries that say this likely have 100’s or 1000’s of signings under their belts, you may have 1 or you may be waiting for your first. I am sure this has been stated before, but it bears repeating; get the experience before you start trying to negotiate fees with signing companies; they will pass you up and give the assignment to someone else. Be willing to go an extra mile or 2 or take a ‘low’ offer to build your resume and your confidence. I accepted many $30 loan mod assignments in the beginning…I don’t regret a minute of it. Have a successful day, and thanks for reading.

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This business is not a sprint to success, its a slow walk.

We provide a commodity service, meaning that hiring agents will go for the lowest cost option. In their view one NSA is like every other NSA. Unlike regular employment, your experience carries little when it comes to negotiating fees.

Fees are down due to two major factors. First, there’s a glut of NSAs in many markets due to new NSAs buying into the 6 figure sales pitch. In Texas there are approximately 20 to 50 new notaries entering the market each month. At the upper end, that’s 600 newbies per year. The glut has affected the supply/demand balance that lowers fees. The second factor, is the advice we give the newbies. What worked for us when we got started doesn’t work in the present market. The advice we offer is often based on our local market conditions. In my market I found about 30 new notaries that came on in September 21’. Some of these Notaries are now calling me of engagements, asking how to get signings.

I launched my NSA business at the beginning of the Refi rush. My area had few NSAs and high demand for Refis. I was able to capitalize on this by closing nearly 200 loans the first year (9 months). My second year, business more than doubled. My experience is not typical, so I won’t encourage others to follow my steps.

Accepting $30 for a loan modification isn’t too low depending on the local market and the NSAs operating costs. Typical fees for modifications here runs $50-$65. Taking on a $75 Refi that has upwards of 200 pages (common in Texas) and driving 80 miles (round trip) means the notary may be loosing money due to both time and costs. My territory is three counties that ranges over 2000 square miles. I’ve had to shrink my footprint to keep my costs down. I now focus on where I can gain the most business for the lowest operating costs.

BTW I will take the occasional money loosing engagement because my client(s) have sent me a large volume of business. In my market customer service and professionalism carry a lot of weight.

I wish all of my colleagues the best in this business.

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Agreed , use common sense however. I had to redo a notary job, another agents signing because they only printed a partial package. Keep in mind the further you travel if you mess something up you will have a double whammy loss. As well as a fractured relationship with the title company if you cant or don’t go back .
I had to have a whole package resigned in a remote mountain town because the previous notary couldn’t go back. Costing them time money and missing deadlines !

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If a notary is not willing to clean up their mess, then they may be in the wrong business…we all have made mistakes.

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Agreed however food for thought if you choose to take a signing 50-70 miles away.
Be prepared to go back to that signing if you mess something up!
It will cost time and money for everyone involved.

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Ron, I agree that when you are new to a business opportunity you need to be open to most jobs, just to get your foot in the door. But I would also, strongly advise, that new people understand what makes a profitable job and what does not. Taking business that pushes you into the red ink will put you out of business. The sooner you set your business standards the more money you will make and the stronger business you will create.

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I totally disagree with you. I can’t say that strong enough. You have bought into a impossible situation. If you take signings with the excuse that you need experience before you can raise your price, you are dead wrong. That is a scam to get you to work for extremely low low wages. How long can you work for nothing? When you have experience and think you can raise your price GUESS WHAT? NEW NEWBIES COME in working for nothing. It’s a never ending cycle.

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I respect your opinion, however, what advice would you give the newbies who are trying to get the number of signings up? What success have you enjoyed when you were starting out that could help? Remember, every market is different. Cali, Texas, NC, FL among others are a lot different than where I am in Virginia. Why not share your success story?

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You are both right! But it is up to an NSA to decide what is best for his or her needs.

This is a very complicated and confusing subject. Yes, you can start off with a decent fee and maintain that fee by being super proactive and be creative with networking. Or you can start with low and accumulate signing # and hope they pay you more with experience. Question is, will they? Yes, no, maybe cause you are taking your chances.

Personally, I wouldn’t take low fee ever! One good example in regard to making choices. You decide. I got one hybrid today for $227 but it’s 45 mins drive one way. Which I don’t mine.

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Concur, @VIPnotaryCO with “hope” being the operative word here . . . in most business sectors it’s quite difficult to raise your fees & when you do it’s usually only possible in painfully small increments. :astonished:

NOTE: It’s critical to the survival of your business to calculate your out-of-pocket expenses to include all overhead costs. Do a Search via the Magnifying Glass above to the Right of the SUPPORT tab to review multiple threads about all that should be included in this number. After you’ve done your research & due diligence regarding YOUR costs to perform the services you offer, that is your baseline number to work from for the addition of the cost of your time . . .

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There are many items to consider within your Overhead calculations. Here are a few to get you started:

• telephone expenses including cell
• office equipment and furniture including desk/workspace, comfortable work chair, dual-tray printer, scanner, etc.
• rent and utilities
• paper
• toner
• binder clips
• pens
• stationery and supplies
• travel costs to & from signer locations including gas
• travel costs to & from FedEx/UPS/USPS, etc.
• web page creation & maintenance expenses
• business insurance
• E&O insurance
• CNSA insurance
• vehicle maintenance expenses
• turnpike fees
• parking fees
• business-related meals and entertainment
• professional association memberships
• annual background checks
• annual certification expenses
• state commission & business licensing fees
• legal and accounting fees
• advertising and marketing costs; i.e., Google ads, yellow pages ad, website, business cards, or brochure

Your individual overhead would also include the cost of fringe benefits; i.e., medical insurance, disability insurance, retirement benefits. Also, remember to include income taxes (Federal & State as applicable) and self-employment taxes.

This can be a bit of an overwhelming situation when considering it initially. Some will reach out to a CPA for a bit of expert guidance & assistance to ensure they’ve considered & included everything. :white_check_mark::blush:

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Ronald I agree with you about the pay, CXChoice pay is $ 50 at the beginning, I don’t regret a minute either, they will raise it after you be with them for a while. The reason I do RON Loan Signing with CXChoice is because I don’t like to be in traffic, wasting time driving, my car, spending money in restaurants, and I am in my house that it is very quiet and I love it. Right now I think CXChoice they are hiring RON Loan Signing and Loan Signing Agents.

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A newbie will learn just as much taking on full fee closings as they will taking low ball offers. Since this is a commodity type service business, jobs will go to the lowest bidder. This means as a new NSA gains experience their fees will still be ‘low ball’ as there’s another newbie in the wings following the ‘taken em’ cheap to get experience’ advice. These low ball offers can impact the fees more senior NSAs can bid for.

We have to remember old business models that worked in an earlier era don’t work today. We have to be careful about the advice we give or at least caveat that advice, as being applicable to a particular State or region.

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Well, it’s been my experience that I am now able to get more per signing. However, there are companies that have a fixed fee ($75 or $85 for scanbacks)…somebody is taking these jobs b/c I don’t get everyone I bid on. Whatever the reason.

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Speaking of fixed fee. Timios just blast out a refi closing for $90 with scan back required for tomorrow’s closing. I am 100% sure someone took it! I’m maxed out for tomorrow but if I wasn’t I would accept the order and then I call them immediately and ask for more. I always negotiate after I accepted because their packages are usually pretty large and too many notarizations. I’ve been getting $150 from them successfully. If they say no we can’t do that. I would ask them to kindly take it back immediately:)

I agree with more experience comes more closings as relationships are built. An increase in volume doesn’t usually equate to higher fees. More volume is nice unless the costs exceed profitability.

I’m find similar results in my practice. When things aren’t busy I can’t seem to accept an engagement before its closed. Later in the month as things get busy I can get more offers. I suspect this is due in part to a NSA saturation.

What I’ve done to reduce my costs is to shrink my coverage area, more rural areas. I have a some very reliable clients that I’ll do the occasional long distance closing despite loosing money. This loss is made up for a volume of closings I get from them that are closer to home base. I want to keep my top shelf clients happy.

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The Timios offers I’m getting have a comment in the email for the NSAs to make a counter offer. When I called to ask for higher fees they will tell they’ll reassign the engagement. Your experience is likely due to your specific market and not applicable nationally.

This is why the senior NSAs need to make it clear to the newbies that local market conditions can have an impact on fees.

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You are correct. Location location location. I haven’t accept anything from timios since April of this year, no time to negotiate. But due to market saturation I now keep an eye out for other options!

I only accept them if they’re within two zip codes. I’m seeing an uptick of resignings due to newbie errors.

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I don’t understand why these companies are doing this to their clients just to try to save a few $$! They just push these out and hope for the best. And the clients will suffer due to delays on funding and amongst other thing. Ugh!

The willingness to except low fees is contributing to the low pay in some areas. In the end you are just screwing yourself,

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