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Re: Brand New Notary
Posted by  JanetK_CA of CA on 11/29/23 11:48pmMsg #647259
Thanks for giving the teacher in me the excuse to once again clarify something I believe those of us in this field should get right - even if others don't... Wink

The noun "notary" (or "notaries") always refers to a person (or persons). You are a notary, I am a notary, etc. The verb for what we do is "notarize", and the noun for the end product of our work is a "notarization". [If you're going to "do a notary", hopefully it's someone you have a relationship with... Wink] So you probably should have asked how many 'notarizations'...

Now that I've got that out of my system again (I probably posted something like this here eons ago), my best advice to you is to learn as much as you can in two different areas. The first, as someone else stated, is to know state notary law inside and out. The ultimate resource is the Secretary of State office and the Notary Handbook they publish each year. The whole thing is available here: http://www.sos.ca.gov/notary/handbook.

The second thing to learn is how to operate as a business, which includes more than just how to find work, although that's obviously a critical part. To do that, the best resource is probably this forum, which has been around for about 20 years, with previous posts stored in the archives and searchable via the orange Search button on the forum home page. A good starting point is probably Msg #630000. That one will refer you to many others linked threads well worth reading in full.

As to your original question, here's some questions for you: Do you have specific training for loan signing or previous experience with loan signing or related functions? Do you have any contacts in the industry? If not, go read Yoli's message again. There are likely lots of folks with years, maybe decades, of experience who have plenty of time on their hands these days, so hiring parties have little incentive to hire the inexperienced - unless they don't plan to pay you (it happens a lot), or will only pay very little. Unless many notaries in your area have given up and moved on to something else, it may take you months to get any business at all.

If you read posts backwards from this page for the past few months (which shouldn't take you too long since it's been so quiet here), you'll get a good feeling for what it's been like. Your best bet might be to focus on what we here call General Notary Work (GNW), rather than loan signing. Just be sure to set your fees sufficiently high enough to not only cover your expenses (all of them), but to provide some profit, too. With our allowable fees here in CA, that can be worthwhile, but again, finding the work will take lots of effort and direct marketing. Just signing up on directories won't get it done. (And be careful about paying to sign up on different directories. There are quite a few of them, but only 3, *maybe* 4, that are worth it.)

If you've done your research but can't find a specific answer you're looking for, come back to post your questions here. Best of luck!

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Messages in this Thread
 Brand New Notary - Samantha Bork on 11/29/23 3:06pm
 Re: Brand New Notary - VT_Syrup on 11/29/23 4:04pm
 Re: Brand New Notary - Lee/AR on 11/29/23 5:20pm
 Re: Brand New Notary -  Yoli/CA on 11/29/23 5:34pm
 Dose of Reality... -  Roger_OH on 11/29/23 7:30pm
 Re: Brand New Notary -  JanetK_CA on 11/29/23 11:48pm
 One more very important thing... - Lee/AR on 11/30/23 8:12am
 Two other observations here..in addition to the ones - Linda_H/FL on 11/30/23 10:29am
 93010 has about - Clem/CA on 11/30/23 10:34am
 Re: Brand New Notary -  Expeditor on 12/1/23 10:51am



 
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