When you can Work Less & Make More With a Signing Service

I like your calculations, and that is a good point.  BTW, I like your pic better than what you have up, BUT I do like that pic as well.  You should put your pic back up, and use the 'signing paper' pic on your profile.....  :-D  my 2 cents anyway!

We like your mug better! I agree work less get paid more.  Less headaches and you know what you have to do.  New companies have their little weirdness.  Though they are good for experiences.  Happy Signings all!

Lacey, I’ve got one better.  We have a lot of one-page traffic school documents from my site.  I contend they are much more profitable that any loan docs you can sign. 

I'm in California, where the legal maximum notary fee is $10.00, excluding travel.  

Any assignment within 5 minutes travel from my home I notarize for free.  However, I do have a minimum $25 trip charge.  Usually, I meet my client at a local coffee show a block from my residence.

It takes me all of 5 minutes to walk there.  I'm usually with the client 5 -7 minutes.  I do charge $1.00/minute if I have to wait for them to take the test or arrive at the coffee shop.

I get back home 9 out of 10 times within 15 minutes after I left with a cool $25 cash in my pocket.

You example above doesn’t factor in the time value of money ad even with reputable companies it can take 60 to 90 days to get paid.

At $25 for 15 minutes of effort, equates to $100/hr. What makes it profitable is the traffic school office has our site bookmarked and has my profile page individually bookmarked so I can usually depend on 2-3 calls weekly. Plus, all out of area calls go to notaries in our network.  

You'll be amazed at how your annual income can be affected, if you have 15 to 20 unique firms monthly giving you 2-3 small bits of business regularly.  You’d also be amazed at the number of people who have to go through traffic school and choose the online option, which require a form to be notarized. 

I've had people track me down at a restaurant to get the forms completed before the deadline expires.  Believe it or not!  I had one guy drive from Riverside County (about 45 miles) to get a form notarized, that after I assured him he could help him find a local notary.  Once I meet with the client, I inquired as to why he traveled so far; his response was the Class Instructor guy gave him my name!

I am a notary public and  that statement means I do a lot of notary work that has nothing to do with loan signing.  I am in Riverside Ca and today I made $65 for doing a swearing in for a deposition.  The person was an invalid and had to do the depo on the telephone.

I was out of the house in approximately 10 minutes.  I love this type of notary work.

  I also did 2 loan signings today and I think the refi market is going to really take off in CA in the next few months.

I think you did a really nice job presenting this, but I do think you might have over-looked quite a few factors in your calculations.  Two points:

 1) These calculations aren't considering any of your overhead costs of doing business - such as insurance, advertising, maintainence/purchase of hardware, subscriptions/dues for memberships (particularly the 'listing' sites), cell phone, internet service, fax service, postage, software, pens, binder clips, etc, etc, etc.  

 Perhaps a better measure of your actual cost-per-signing would be to divide your total annual business expenses by the number of signings performed during that time period.  Not only will this be an accurate cost/profit illustration, it will most likely be quite an eye-opener.

2)  Think about this - if every one of the bazillion NSA's out there accepted these lower fees, only restricting them to the ones very local, what would the effect on the overall market be?

 There's just no way to justify lower-than-professional fees without impacting the whole industry in a rather unsavory way, no matter how many conditions you put on it.  Unfortunately, it can take a whole year (until the next time we do our taxes) for it to become so evident that volume does not necessarily equal profit.   

Great Post!

I like my business model:  Zip Code to Zip Code (easy to remember)

To go from zip code A to zip code B costs me the same in gas and vehicle wear and tear to sign ONE QUICK DOC or an entire set of loan docs. 

Of course, there are other factors to consider, such as those Renee pointed out. 

Kelly@SigningAgentCoach.com

I believe your time estimates might require modifications, especially here in Southern California.  5 miles of travel can be a 20-minute trip.  65 pages with complete double-checking and collection of signature only are on average about 30 - 45 minutes.  Then you to spend 20 minutes to notaries and prepare the docs for shipping back to the lender or title.  

Then there is a matter of drop-off at the shipper, Transbox, FedEx, UPs, etc.  I would better guess the time for complete signing is more like about 2.25 hours.  The real question becomes what is your Internal Rate of Return.  Personally, I would not do a signing for $65.00 and no lender who I work with would consider asking me for such a ridiculous low rate. 

If you are accepting $65 as a base price for notary signing, I would strongly suggest that you raise the quality of your client.  You cannot become financially successful as a mobile notary public with such a fee structure.  It might cover the cost of gas buy a lunch every now and again, but you won’t build an independent business at $65 per signing.

I sincerely hope that one day the consciousness of notaries could be elevated such that they refuse work from signing agencies and reject a $65 fee offer.  The quality of life for all notaries is lowered when any notary public accepts a lowball offer for a notary assignment. I think the real question is what is the value of YOUR services and time and how do YOU find clients will and agreeable to paying a price consistent with YOUR Market Value.

Our newsletter shares sound ideas with our notary member, and we find they won’t use proven ideas and ultimately select the passive choice of waiting on calls from signing companies instead of making rain and giving people reasons to call.  This business is not about who has the lowest price, but NOTARIES by their action and responses are making it seem that way.

I have put together a zipcode directory for the target counties that I cover.  It is color coded for each zipcode within a county and by the amount I would charged based on the distance from my office (roundtrip).  This has save me on many occassions from taking jobs that were not worth the pain and suffering.  It took about 2 days to put it together and it is a worth while tool to have.  I also a convenience fee which is based on a flat hourly rate of $30.00.  Great Blogs! 

It's can become difficult sometimes within a zip code. 

 I live at the start of a zip code: Riverside CA 92507 and the end is at the beginning of Grand Terrace CA and the difference between the 2 cities can be 15 minutes or 30+ minutes if the traffic on the 215 is congested.