08/27/2018
I usually don’t have a lot of time to write posts on Facebook, with regular work and day to day events taking most of my time but something happened last week that inspired me to share the experience and help validate my passion with being a mobile notary. So this is lengthy but stay with me...
Last week I helped a client with his urgent need to get a background check notarized for an upcoming trip to China for work. The local document in question had no notarial certificate so i offered to call the contact he’d been communicating with at a Tallahassee office that would receive this documents for validation so he could acquire a working visa. After some research I found a notarial certificate online that could be customized for our needs. We met again, I administered the oath, notarized the document and walked away feeling good of having helped relieve this man’s anxiety. Friday afternoon i’m getting ready to leave for a trip to Atlanta, and receive a call from this same client that after speaking with his Tallahassee office the notarial certificate we used had to be amended! Being almost on I95 we both talked about doing this Monday when i return. He was fine with Monday, but after hearing the anxiety in his voice, I quickly decided to turn around and fix this as i could not imagine both if us having to think about this all weekend. I got home, amended the certificate, traveled back to meet my client again and got the mission accomplished.
He was happy, I was happy, his family was happy, enough that his mother emailed me a very nice thank you note and copied a long list of her contacts to it. 🌸
That’s where it gets interesting. After receiving her email praising my notary services, I then received another email from one of her contacts stating that I was “just a notary” and that banks notarize for free.
It made me think that a notary’s work is really under appreciated and possibly misunderstood. It brought up to mind a piece i saw on a blog not long ago regarding the “Notary Value”, i want to share this piece from Aimee McCaffey’s blog:
“In a meeting recently the question came up about how to decide what to charge a client for our notary services, but really it was more a question about feeling. How can we charge a client $### when we only had to drive a few miles or when it was only a single stamp or when they met us halfway and other questions that can come up when you are trying to assess your value as a business owner and get comfortable with taking cash money directly from a customer.
So lets clear it up. Service work is not the same as labor work. In service and in business you don't charge for level of difficulty of the work performed or materials or time, you charge based on the VALUE you bring and the service you provide. Things like knowledge, education, resources, investment, access, convenience, etc, these all factor in. When you show up to notarize a document you invisibly carry all of that value with you and that is what we charge for.
Inevitably you have invested your energy, time, strategy and money into becoming the Notary on the other end of the request; you got the license, the education, the certificate, the insurance, you set up the website and email and bought the business cards, you drove your car and put the gas in it. Those are all part of the value you provide in your business and for the customer and in this business convenience is part of the service. It may not seem like much to get in your car and drive a few blocks to stamp a paper but you have invested a lot to get to that point and that is WORTH everything. Even the fact that you got up and got dressed and ready for the call is part of your value and investment. Its like the saying, its simple but not easy.
A good comparison might be lawyers, when you call a lawyer for advice and ask them for five minutes of their time they will surely help you and then they'll send the bill for $400. They may not have even moved from their desk in order to get you the answer! It is not based on how difficult it was for them in that moment, it is the culmination of all the work it took to become the person who has the answer. Not to mention the wood paneled office, the leather chair and the BMW in the parking lot....”
“...One last thing: All this still leaves room for working with our clients on a case by case basis, that is also a benefit of being our own boss, at any moment of the day we can make our own choices and save the day if needed and nobody to answer to! If there is a general notary client in a bind financially or any other circumstance I absolutely think we can work with them in whatever way seems fit.
In general, as Notaries-a very noble profession-, we bring a great value and a great service to our clients that we can be so proud of! “
With that said, Yes, I’m proud of being a notary and to serve my community as such along side of my peers who work independently or for different institutions. We help prevent fraud and theft and all play an important role in the big picture! 🙂 i’m looking for many more interesting experiences, continuing to learn and meeting great people! 🌸
