I don’t how many of receive leads from Notary Cafe, but if you do … you can list "as low as $125 " special for your area… county, towns, etc. This will give them a heads-up so you don’t receive those $70,$80 emails. Weed out these so you can cancel the low-ballers and leave yourself open for the better offers. After getting NO decent offers, we did this and had 2 Title Companies hire us at the $125 for 2 refi’s close to us. Yep
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Yeah, not sure why your paying SE taxes, as notaries are exempt from SE taxes (NOT income taxes). Most confuse the two.
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Deleted it posted twice.
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Again, like most, you look at the individual signing. That’s great for you, but my business is not structured that way. If you were told that you would be assigned 10 $50 assignments by a client and you had the week to complete them, are you telling me you wouldn’t take them? You can “set” fees all you want, the job ALWAYS goes to the lowest fee. Why? Because that’s BUSINESS! If you get $200-$300 signings its because the inventory of available signing agents is low in your area, or your going on a road trip. As far as your 'time" and its value? As stated in the post you replied too, “logistics” is the key factor in our business. If you don’t take a $70 REFI an hour away, its understandable, but if you don’t take the $70 REFI up the block, then that’s on you, and not too smart from a business perspective in my opinion. As a side note, there is a hefty portion of signing agents who don’t have the luxury of a full time day job such as yourself, so setting the bar “high” on their fees is not an option for them.
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I’m just curious. What state are you in?
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Only the notary fee is exempt, not the entire fee…see Arichter,'s post above
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Yeah, I keep forgetting… my state doesn’t have any laws on what notaries can charge and their fees, so I have to pay on all of my income
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I remember from an old post that Lisa Bitner, from Coast to Coast, gave a similar example on how to make money doing 10 plus signings in one day at $50 each…
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Yup! It’s simple math. If one wants to “boycott” the $40-$50 signings just “because”, then they’re not gonna make much money. I’m not saying do one an hour away, but the one right in your town, or a bunch of them? Again, experience and reputation IS compensation, and if you don’t eat the small fish, the big fish wont bite!
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I don’t mind taking them. Money is money and not taking them pays $0. There’s always someone out there that will take it. It’s also good to do a lot because you end up signing for great Title companies/Lenders over and over again, possibly earning you the chance to become their main signing agent. Then you can demand more money.
Looking at your comment, it appears your issue is your printer and your scanner. You may want to consider getting a different printer. My brother prints letter and legal in order super fast. I can print a 150 page mixed legal/letter packet in less than 5 minutes and it allows for a high yield cartridge that prints up to 12,000 pages with one cartridge. I was able to buy a 4pk of cartridges off Amazon for about $70. That’s about 48,000 pages and will last me many months. You can also get a multiple page scanner or a scanner that scans a little faster. I have a back up printer with a scanner that scans a little slow, about 35 pages in about 5 minutes, but that’s the only thing that takes time. I rarely have to do scanbacks. Only evening appts usually require it. If I only have 2 appointments daily @ $85-$100 each, that’s $170-$200 each day for less than 6 hours work, including an hour each way drive time (worse case). Most are within a half hour drive because I live in the outskirts of the more populated areas.
Get a better printer and scanner. It’s worth it. Trust me. I used to have a slow printer and was buying ink every week. I feel your frustration. I couldn’t take ASAP orders that paid more because I wouldn’t have time to print and read directions, etc. Now, I’ll take them with ease because the printer is so fast. Each appointment takes an hour or less, printing two copies takes about 10-15 minutes including any distractions or the occasional jam, and just my drive time. I plan out the closest FedEx/UPS shipping stores on my route. Sometimes I will have to make a special trip if the signing is out of the way, but no big deal. I love that I can make my own schedule and spend time not working for someone else. I have a certain income goal each week and I have no problem meeting those goals, I work about 30 hours a week or less, and I am making a lot more money doing so than if I were to work 40 hours a week for someone else. Good Luck!
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I just made a comment from a signing service owner “perspective”… I’m not encouraging anyone to take or not take those $85 offers.
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For all those SA looking for a good laser printer/scanner (all in one). Please research the Brother’s MFC-L275ODW compact laser All-In-One. I am not sure if Brother’s still made them, however they are moderately price and very affordable. Fast printing and Scanning capabilites. I also believe all SA need to have at least 2 printers to run a successful Signing Agent business. I have 3 to include a canon all -in one color printer. I caught the color all-in-one on sale and it works great. I do not use the color printer much, but I use the other two printers like no tomorrow. You have invested your time and money in becoming a Notary/Signing Agent. Please invest in good equipment so you do not waste your time and money.
In addition, I agree with all the other SA to stop taking these low bid signing jobs. If you are getting in your car at a negative, why are you taking the job. THINK!!!. We all need to stick together and stop accepting these stupid ridiculous low ball signing bids. UNITE!!! I say.
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Agreed. Everyone conducts their business differently, and everyone does not have the same profit margin. That’s why the talk of fees and what is and is not fair is pointless (to me). Everyone is not in the same boat when it comes to this, ESPECIALLY in this line of work.
Yes, our time is extremely valuable and if we accept jobs under $100.00 with scan backs it is not worth it. I had a scanner that was slow and I invested in a fast scanner because it took too much of my time. You might find it worth your while getting a good scanner that will scan fast with legal and standard size pages.
After lots of research on scanners, I ended up purchasing an Epson DS 770. It makes the files small is turns them automatically into PDF. It scans 130 pages in less than 5 mins. It is user-friendly using the machine and the program.
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They will not pay. Tittle companies, and lenders don’t want to pay signers, and not to mention the signing companies that keep half of it anyway. The expense just in paper and ink, is as bad as the mileage. If there is a loan closing fine but I am not exclusively doing loan closings.
That’s is why I only do regular notarizations now as a mobile notary and I am also starting as a RON here in Florida.
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I have been doing this for 30 years. One thing I noticed is that you NEED A NEW SCANNER!!! I have an Epson ES-500W. It scans that amount in a few minutes. You really need to invest in a new scanner.
All the other stuff you will figure out but don’t worry about each detail. You will know that you have to charge $125 minimum for regular documents and I will take $100 for seller docs if they are close. But…please get a new scanner. That is an important piece of machinery you need. You will be asked to scan a lot. It is something all notaries need to have now if you do this full time and also so that scanning is a non issue. It literally will scan that much in maybe 5 minutes total.
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Good for you! 125 is the min I think for a decent profit. You might be spending too much on toner. I spend $30 for a 17000 yield toner so my toner cost for 350 pages .61c. I have a very old bizhub250.
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If we are all on a same page, we will be valued! But if some of us selling their services “for free” that will not happen. So we have to preach and preach until they woke up!
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Thank you for sharing.
The only reliable way to know how much profit you make. You add up all of the actual costs, that is money spent on materials, gasoline, insurance, equipment. You subtract that from the money you were paid. I don’t know anyone in this business who pays themself a wage. so the minimum wage argument doesn’t work. If you get no orders, your time is worth zero.