My Journey Began

The Early Days

Since 2013, I have been self-employed. At that time, I was a transcriptionist. For the uninitiated, a transcriptionist is someone who listens to a recording with special software, and types what is heard, to varying degrees of exactness. How exactly the recording is transcribed depends on the client’s order. Transcription having been my bread-and-butter for 15 years in an office setting, I was pretty good at it, and I had very steady work.

I did that for three long years, but the pay was exceedingly low for someone who depended on getting work from large transcription companies. These large companies get the clients and dole out the work to their independent contractors, taking the lion’s share of the fee from the client, of course. (Sounds familiar, hmm?) At the time, however, it was pretty good supplemental income, which was all I needed at the time.

Hmmmm, what’s that? Oh, you thought this is supposed to be a notary blog? Indeed! I am just getting to that.

Discovering the Notary World

So in 2016, I discovered something called a notary signing agent. That sounded pretty interesting to me, so I dug a little deeper and thought, hey, I could do this! So I got my California notary commission, took the NNA signing agent course, bought my materials, and away I went! Not.

No, once I was commissioned, educated, and ready to set up my home office and take my first appointment, I had a crisis of confidence that stopped me in my tracks. I was looking at how much laser printers were and the continuing costs of toner and paper, and I thought, what if I spent all this money and couldn’t even walk outside my door? I had already spent so much. How could I justify spending so much more if I wasn’t even sure I could actually make myself do it? So I put everything away and went back to typing for four more years.

The Impact of California’s Uber Law

I would probably still be typing, but California implemented AB 5, lovingly known as the Uber law, and I went out of business in one fell swoop…almost. The Uber law is the one that reassigned most California independent contractors as employees. Most people know that this greatly affected the gig economy in California, but what they don’t know is it also affected the rest of us independent contractors that had nothing to do with Uber, Lyft and the like.

That said, while transcription companies across the United States cut off California independent contractors on January 1, 2020, I was still able to get work from across the pond — you know, the big, salty one — for a short while. Until their lawyers decided it was best to also cut us off. I mean, why hassle with trying to determine if a Californian qualified as an employee or an independent contractor when you had a whole 49 other states to draw from? It didn’t matter that I made sure I qualified as an independent contractor according to California law, no one was hiring Californian transcriptionists.

The Turning Point

And then COVID…and Kittens! (Kitten Academy) Lockdown. Kittens! Fear. Kittens! Husband recovering from radiation for cancer. Kittens! More fear. More kittens! This was essentially my life at that point.

Then in June 2020, I started getting offers for signing agent work right out of the blue. Now remember, I had done nothing with my California notary commission since 2016. Just got my commission and took the NNA signing agent training and was listed only on the NNA’s general notary and signing agent listings. That’s it.

Diving in Head First

But I remember seeing that first offer, and I was like, huh, weird. Then I got several more offers over the next couple of weeks, and I thought… maybe? Then I got three offers in one week. So I pulled out my books and started to review the material.

And that crisis of confidence hit again, but I had nothing to fall back on this time. It was time to get brave and bite the bullet. So I determinedly retook the NNA training, updated my background check, purchased all my office supplies (printer, toner, paper, etc.), and away I went! Not.

I did a little research on how to get notary signing agent jobs and ran across this thing called Snapdocs. I signed up, uploaded all my credentials, and landed that first job! (More about how that process actually went in the future.) Now I was doing it, and, oh, boy, I was so terrified that I was literally shaking in my boots.

Key to Early Success

But I did one crucial thing that I believe led to my initial success: I communicated with my hiring party. Let me repeat that. I. Communicated with. My hiring party. (More about how very important communication is for notaries in the future.)

When I downloaded and printed the documents, I went through them, wrote on sticky notes how I would introduce them, and flagged which documents needed to be notarized. Additionally, I flagged some documents that I had absolutely no idea about and called my hiring company for advice, which they were most happy to give. (More on how I prepare for my appointments in the future.)

Landing My First Assignment

That company, by the way, was Coast2Coast, which is a fabulous company for brand new notary signing agents. In fact, I worked with them exclusively for the first couple of months. I’ll admit, it was mostly because they were the only ones offering work. But that is another story for the future.

So I landed the assignment, prepped the documents, got advice from my hiring company — and this is the most important part — actually walked out my door and completed my first assignment!

Path to Expertise

After working with them for a few assignments, Coast2Coast sent me an email asking if I would like advanced training. Oh, yes, did I ever! So they sent me a link to take Carol Ray’s Notary2Pro training at a discount. I jumped right on that! Oh, so many more questions were answered! That blank space in my head where all my notary signing agent knowledge resided started to fill up nicely. It was pricey, almost prohibitively so for me, but that’s what credit cards are for, and it was the best investment of my career. I highly recommend it for anyone who has not taken it. Even if you are already established and think you know everything. There is always more to learn.

Wrap Up

Now, just to review, I took the NNA signing agent course and was able to start working right away with no further training. I do not recommend doing this, but I didn’t know any better. I didn’t yet know about Carol Ray (Notary2Pro), Bill Soroka (Notary Coach), Laura Biewer (Coach Me Laura), or Ronnie Mickle (Notary Stars). Even worse, I didn’t know what I didn’t know! But thanks to Carol Ray, I learned about Tuesday Notary Titans and this wonderful notary community to which we all belong. And away I went! Finally!

Join the Journey and Share Your Story

Now that you know a little bit about me, please leave a comment so I can know a little bit about you! I plan on posting weekly, so don’t forget to subscribe! See you next week!