hello everyone
um my name is lashon jenkins with the
notre institution
thank you everyone for waiting um and
let me see
we have miss joanne trotter she was
first so i want to say thank you for
being here
but today we are here me
and samantha um samantha i will allow
you to introduce yourself
but go ahead yes ma'am thank you miss
lashon
my name is samantha smith owner of she
listens notary and business services
i am representing the great amazing
outstanding georgia notary nation
um i'm so glad to see so many uh georgia
notaries
online this morning thank y'all thank
everybody
for coming um i'm just gonna go just
just i'm gonna go through a few parking
lot
and um housekeeping issues or points
before we get started and bring our
guests out
um number one please remember
that we are here to talk about a very a
specific topic
so if you have outside questions that
you'd like to
ask and get answers or feedback to um
it's okay if you put it in the chat
we may not address it at this platform
but if you do have a question
include your email address so that way
we can um get that answer out to you
directly
so that we can keep um we can um honor
our guest time and everyone else's time
who is here
to hear about a specific topic uh number
two
always remember that everything that we
share from this notary institution
platform and through
signed and sealed with lashaun and
samantha that these are just suggestions
they are suggestions based on our
experiences based on things we hear
about in the field that other notaries
talk to us about
it is not unnecessarily something we're
saying go and do
make sure you vet and um interview your
own
processes and you do what works for you
and your business and always
under the guidance of your state laws
and
lastly our guest again is here today and
we're talking about a very specific
topic
let's just be mindful of the kinds of
questions we answer
just in case she may not be privy to
answer those questions
i'm sure she'd be more than willing to
but just let's be
um let's be mindful of how we utilize
this amazing resource that we have been
able to share with you on today
so that's all i got you got to miss
all right so everyone um here we're
going to welcome ms jackson um she's a
representative from the national notary
association
so i want to allow her to tell her story
and introduce
herself to us there we go hi good
morning
good morning thank you for having me
first of all
to lashawn and samantha i'm very excited
to be here
uh like the sean said i do work for the
national notary association i've been
with the organization for uh this is my
20th year
um i actually started as the
receptionist at the company
and i um was sitting at the front desk
at the headquarters in chatsworth
california
apparently i was looking a little too
bored because the current uh manager my
manager at the time his name is ozzy
stallworth
and if you recognize that name it's
because he's now the deputy secretary of
state for the notaries
in the notary division in uh north
carolina
he caught me reading a book and so he
was like oh you like to read and he
brought me a stack of every book that
nna
made and put it on my desk and that is
where my notary career began
um so that allowed me the opportunity to
become an instructor and travel
the united states when we taught live
courses
and starting in 2003 i was kind of in
the beginning stages of the n
a uh teaching their notary signing agent
course which of course prompted me to
become one because
i was telling teaching everybody how to
start their businesses and i wanted to
get on the action too
i also was part of the market when it
crashed in 2008
um and you know went back to teaching uh
notary classes just in california but
i've taught notary classes in 17
states um so i have a lot of notary
knowledge a lot of nsa knowledge
um i was uh telling lashon that
i also i'm a big believer in uh
mobile notary work and not uh just
downplaying that everything's all about
the uh signing agent life
so if you um also you know it's just as
important to have your notary skills
home to do that there's just as much
money there
um so uh but now i am the manager of the
training and education department so we
do
the seminars in california we do about
80 a month
which gets us to certify 30 000 notaries
a year here in california
and then i'm also the manager of the
notary hotline so you uh
call in ask a notary question you're
stuck in the middle
uh usually you know what the answer is
but having a person go you are right
is some uh really comforting uh so we
have that
um opportunity as well we take about 11
000 phone calls a month
uh from various notaries um and
uh you know the n a uh is just a great
place to work
their motto for the employees is they
want it to be everybody's best job ever
because if we're happy we take care of
our notaries and that's
you know what i love doing yes well
we love what you do and i know everyone
can speak but i love that hotline
that how long was the best thing of any
um
with the national notary association in
my opinion you know
um but we do have a few questions for
you
okay um the first question is
do you have to pay for n a membership or
are there services
and resources that can be accessed for
free
great question uh the answer is there's
a lot of
information on the n a's website
nationalnotary.org
with free information um so general
uh questions that you may need answers
to are available it's called the
knowledge center
those are accessed for free for by
anybody
um but also we have the like what we
call behind the member wall benefits
uh which are things like a lot of our
publications so i don't know if you've
noticed um
the complete how-to guide for notaries
is a book about
this thick um it's about 500 pages and
it basically starts from beginning to
end
of the notarial process and the general
rules so
specifically for people in states where
there's no training
reading this book is a really good um
tool to kind of just get the general uh
frame and it's not a state-specific book
it's general notary practices but
they're the ones that kind of hold true
across state lines so
the basic five steps of how you perform
a notarization
those weird circumstances when people
can't sign their name for whatever
reason just good guidelines to follow
in states where your laws don't address
well a lot
um there's also uh the notary
certificates that you can download for
free when you're a member
um so those are kind of the perks that
we have as well as there's a
book called the notary answer book that
has the most common
things that people request for
notarizations that we're not allowed to
do
so i always kind of joke it's the book
about when you want to put the no in
notary
um you kind of open it up and get that
answer of like
why you should tell this signer why you
can't do it um but the great thing and
it's almost
insulting but when you tell somebody i
can't do this because
um they don't want to believe you but
for some reason when you open a book up
and you point to words on a page
they're like okay um but you just said
what the book said
it doesn't matter they want that in
writing so it's kind of like
the backup for for your what you know to
be true
what was the name of that book again
it's called the notary answer book
and you can actually download it um from
your member portal
um so when you log into the nna's
website
uh it'll be on the left-hand side
they'll have a list of resources for
that
okay uh i'm just answering this question
for someone in chat box
okay um and here is
so here we had a question actually in
the chat someone i think you
kind of answered it in a way because you
said that book
but she had asked can the
book help with people in a attorney
state can the nna help
i'm a notary that lives in an attorney
state
as far as um
how so how how do you make money in an
attorney say my answer is that you
go and perfect your notary craft to be a
mobile
notary so forget about the signing agent
aspect obviously attorneys have to be
involved in the real estate closings
but there are tons of operations that
just be notaries on a regular basis so
i'll give you a couple of examples
a lot of banks have notaries in them but
they have exclusive agreements where
they're not allowed to notarize
documents
unless they relate to the bank's
business so when people walk in off the
street in search of a notary
um the bank employee sometimes has to
say no i can't do it
if you walk into the bank with your
business card and say hey if you ever
find yourself in that situation
give me a call i can be here in a couple
minutes um and you can go and perform
that notarization and a lot of times
they're so grateful for you for doing
that
they'll let you use a conference room um
if not
take them to the starbucks i know it's a
little bit different in the covid times
but i feel like there's a opportunity
there
same thing with the ups store a lot of
people are cutting their hours back
right now so their notary that they
usually have on staff
isn't available if you have one near
your house and you're sitting at home
offer to come down there if somebody
walks in so that that way you're helping
their customer
and they're not turning anybody away
they're still getting that business so
work out some kind of deal with that
and then just in general uh one of the
biggest things i would say is make sure
you have a yelp
page and every time that you have a
customer that you're getting them to
give you great reviews
because when people are searching for
things now when you google things a lot
of time yelp is the first website that
will come up
and if you've got notary services with
great reviews you're going to get a
higher listing on google
um so those are just some of the ways so
if you are in an attorney state i would
say you know
you can kind of get together with other
notaries and
you can talk to legislators and you can
ask them questions about why
i know two notaries one in michigan and
one in indiana who actually got their
laws changed
um to uh you know give notaries more
opportunities
so i would definitely work with your
fellow notaries to try because it's a
legislative issue
um it's nothing that you know the n a
single-handedly can solve
so uh definitely trying to find uh
uh what's the word opportunities
wherever they can be but i would just
say if you are an attorney state
don't forget about mobile notary work
and everyone that uses notaries
if you have the thought process oh well
they probably have one there
go ask them anyway be that backup notary
that they can call
um and if you are meeting notaries that
tell you what they're doing
you know offer to be there for them when
they call in sick or they're busy so
there's so many opportunities uh you
have to
you have to think outside the box a
little more
okay yeah awesome it's all about
networking um
in the state of georgia pretty much but
we have another question
uh let me know here it is so for new
notaries do you suggest we obtain
um errors and omissions insurance or
background screening or both so uh the
answer is all of the above
because the background screening is
going to be required for by the title
companies
because they you're going to go into
people's homes or you're going to be
closely interacting with people
so they want to make sure that you've
gone through that process but the eno
insurance is also something that the
title companies are going to require
but here's the big thing that a lot of
notaries and notary signing agents don't
know
specifically the signing agents that eno
insurance only covers you
for the notarial acts that you perform
so if you are a signing agent
you should also go talk to a business
uh strategist and get some general
insurance for your business because if
you make a mistake outside of your
notarial acts
the uh eno insurance is only going to
cover those notarial acts
so if you miss a signature on a document
that has nothing to do with notarization
you're still opening yourself up so any
kind of general business insurance
obviously i don't know what it's called
specifically but talk to an insurance
agent
and there's lots of notaries who are
insurance agents so again hit your
network up
who sells insurance and talk to them
about some kind of general liability
insurance to protect you
outside of just the notarizations um
because a lot of people think once they
have that eno insurance that they're set
oh wow that's that's a that's amazing
you know i received a question about
that last night
um what you had what you just answered
so here
um someone said once a person becomes a
member of the nna will that person have
lifetime
access to the n a resources or just for
a limited
amount of time so um
i want to say that you'll have access to
the resources as long as you're a member
so if you keep
uh renewing your membership you'll keep
having access to those resources
but we hope that once you become a
member that you're going to want to be a
lifetime member
yes ma'am okay so here i want to answer
this one i want to do this one
he said can you talk about ron notary
so the remote online notarization um
so certain states i think there are 20
states that have permanent
um remote online notarization uh
commissions available
um they are just like an opportunity for
uh to you know expand your services that
you offer
um my biggest suggestion would be to
do research on this first um the n a
does have like a nationwide remote
online notarization training
um available but a lot of it has to do
with the platforms that are available
um notarycam notarize.com and really do
your research because
most of the transaction takes place with
the service provider doing everything
for you
and you're going to pay them a fee to be
able to do that um so everything is done
kind of how you and i are talking right
now
essentially what happens is that um
you're going
to uh lashawn you're going to be my
notary in this instance you're going to
verify my identity
but the way that you're going to do that
is before i even get in front of you on
the camera
i'm going to have to have to answer some
knowledge based authentication questions
and you may have had questions like this
before where they put something up
in front of you and say out of these
four addresses which one did you live at
and you have to recall the information
within two minutes and then once you
answer a series of these questions
you and i will be face to face on the
camera like we are right now the
document will go up you'll do your
notary thing
and the service provider completes the
transaction and it all creates a
journal entry so my best advice for
people who are in states where this is
approved
is to first check your state's website
to see what the requirements are
sometimes you have to sign up for a
separate commission
sometimes you just have to tell them hey
i want to do this
then the next thing they want to know is
who's going to be your provider
so they should provide you with a list
of service providers you should research
each one of them
the cost what services they offer how
they're going to secure your
transactions are they going to keep them
are you going to keep them
depending on the um depending on the
state that you're in some states require
training um
and if they do uh chances are the nna
will offer that to you if not you may
have to go through the state directly
because a lot of times that will happen
as well
okay so someone someone said georgia has
restrictions on that
um with something so it's another
question
here it is did we ask that already okay
no okay so create can the nna create a
pathway
with attorneys for opportunities and
attorney states
essentially we can be signing agents but
have to
have direct relationships with attorneys
to be contacted
so the answer is
uh we i can certainly make that
suggestion about
creating uh more pathways but again it
goes back to
legislation and what the law says you're
allowed to do changing legislation comes
down to the people
and so if the only way to um
you know get work is to have direct
relationships with attorneys then my
advice to you is go form direct
relationships with those attorneys
so there are tons of bar associations
they have luncheons
um that they'll invite people to come to
and so i would say to find out where
events are
have a lot of attorneys and network
yourself to them and sometimes it may
just be a pounding the pavement
and kind of throwing yourself out there
and having to do you know that leg work
that is
time consuming and costly but i think
once you get your foot in the door and
they know you can do a good job
you know just like everything word
spreads when you're a person that knows
what's going on
oh i have a great notary let me give you
their information
so i think the it is an uphill battle in
those attorney states
but i know a notary in south carolina
that is doing
a ton of work um by forging those
relationships and working on that uh
general notary work
absolutely absolutely uh miss lashon can
i also say something because i believe
that alex was from georgia if i saw his
tag
correctly but being a georgia notary
unfortunately our handbook actually says
that we cannot
perform the duties of a loan signing
agent notary signing agent
is in the handbook so as you're creating
those relationships which is a huge it's
an investment
it's not a task it's literally an
investment in your business
if that's what you want to do but um
just make sure that you know no matter
what state you're in but again i can
only speak for georgia
that you forge those relationships on
your own
um in order to have those types of
assignments but again
always referring back to that handbook
and what it says that um
the the bounds that we are able to
operate under
okay so i we well
not i but we um the audience we
have a question about um the signing
agent listing
so you know when people become a member
you have um i've seen it's like
priority priority and it's different
levels of
the sign of agent listing so how does
that work in
in the aspects of like from the process
of how they receive the assignments
um are the title companies do they
specifically pick
certain people you know how does that
process actually work
um agent profile
as far well let me tell you about the
signing agent profile because i can't
speak to the process that the title
companies go about choosing
but i can tell you that the way to have
a priority listing
is to not just get your background
screening and
your certification exam through us but
to have also completed our training
um the reason for this is when the
training was created
we actually went to the signing
professionals work group the spw
which is made up of title companies
lenders notaries
and other people in the industry and we
got information from them about what
they wanted to make sure
that signing agents knew prior to taking
their training
and with that in mind we integrated a
lot of information that the title
companies wanted
so knowing that um they're gonna
if you're certified through the n a and
have taken training
that you're gonna know what they want
you to know uh we offer a priority
listing
but everything is still random so
there's the random part where you get
the top priority and then i think it
occupies a certain number of uh
listings and then the other people who
are certified through n a
also will come up and it comes up
randomly uh every time that you
um like somebody does a search for a
signing agent
so while we're on the topic though i
cannot stress enough the importance of
making sure your profile is
active that you have current information
on there because they really do use that
information to gauge
whether or not they're gonna hire
somebody so
um you know if you don't know how to
access it
uh you log into your uh nna
profile again on national.org and then
go to my
nna and it should be right there for you
so
um that is something that's really
important you have the opportunity to
add services you provide
languages that you speak if you speak
another language you should be telling
the whole world about it
because a lot of states restrict using
interpreters you have to have the notary
and the signer communicating
so that is something that you can offer
that is unique so make sure that you're
promoting that
oh wow i didn't know about the languages
part i never thought
to put that up there that that is
actually a good thing
um it was someone asked about
i don't know throw this question up
um is there an email list um that people
could sign up with to receive
updates about changes in their state
so that's actually a member benefit
through the nna whenever a law changes
in your state
uh as a member we actually will send you
a new law update
basically that outlines what was the way
it was and what's changing
um so that uh that is one of the member
benefits so i can give you two examples
recently
of how being an a member could uh help
people
both missouri and maryland change their
laws this year and
uh in um introduced
uh new notary certificates saying that
you have to use this language or
something similar to it
having an n a membership you wouldn't
have to buy one certificate you could go
to the website
click on missouri click on maryland and
you can download the certificates
now some people like the look of the
pads you know we saw the pads of a
hundred
because they are in color and you know
they're easier to tell that they are
uh original you're still able to
um you're still able to download those
certificates
if you want to but having those pads is
nice as well you can still purchase them
but you don't have to so and i usually
just have a stack of them with me print
out a few take a stack with me so just
in case
i made a mistake there's not enough room
for my stamp i've got those certificates
uh ready to go okay awesome awesome so
we have a
question but i think i might answer but
this correct me if i'm wrong but
um she said why do your certifications
only last a year
um you do have different um levels right
i believe it's one year
you could purchase an a membership oh
are she talking about the test
so the certifications last for a year
because of the background screening
so essentially because your um you know
status could change over it's because it
does
um it does a criminal background check
and this is the requirement of the
lenders
but it's also part of the patriot act
because you're dealing with people's
personal information
so for that reason they're doing a
background check every single year
um and that's more of the lender
requirements because of your exposure to
people's personal information
so it's the background check that has to
be done every year so we make the
certification go along with that
okay awesome awesome awesome so
um here in about five minutes we're
going to do the giveaway
um for the free membership um coming
from me
and samantha at 10 30
is when we're going to do it but um
samantha you can go ahead into the
comments and
i want to show this on the screen oh no
i'm sorry wrong button i'm sorry
um i think this is miss sharon and
so it says
is there a difference between the
georgia primer
and the georgia notary handbook and so
uh correct me if i'm wrong miss jackson
the primer i'm sure she's referring to
the primer that the nna
offers and so i'll i'll just say this
for those who have connected with me you
know i'm a big stickler about knowing
your state laws
and ms jackson has supported that just
throughout this entire
uh conversation we're having so at the
end of the day
your your state handbook is going to
trump everything because those are the
laws that apply to your state
we love the resources that are provided
through the nna and they are
truly resources to help our businesses
but they are supplemental
as it relates to what our handbook says
that we can
and cannot do so as far as the content
i cannot speak to the content ms jackson
i'll ask you to
kind of take that part as far as the
differences but at the end of the day
all notaries no matter what state you're
in you should always seek out the
resource of your state handbook
samantha i cannot agree with you the
handbook is always going to be your
number one resource
i'll talk to california for a second
because that's where i've been a notary
the longest our california
handbook is it got a lot of statutes in
it so a lot of times when they're giving
guidance or direction it's not easy to
understand
so the primers that we produce are kind
of what i call the english version
of state resources so the
handbook should always be on hand that
should be referenced first and the other
thing that the primers do is fill in the
gaps
where the law doesn't talk about how to
do certain things so
for example um if the georgia primer
doesn't say how to i'm sorry the georgia
handbook doesn't say what do you do if
the signer speaks a language you don't
speak or
what if the signer's not able to write
their names the n
a's materials are going to fill in the
gaps of general notary practice where
the handbook just doesn't address it
so it's uh i would say absolutely the
handbook is the first thing you go to
check your laws but when the laws do not
address it then you've got a backup
resource
as well as the notary public code of
professional responsibility
it's a resource that we have and i
believe anybody can download that
they put out a new version for 2020.
again it's on our website in the
knowledge center and it's called the
notary public code of professional
responsibility
and that was um authored by
one of the authors was michael claussen
who if anybody knows
he's an attorney who's like the biggest
notary advocate in the country
and him and uh bill anderson and malcolm
morris and a few others
they wrote it 20 years ago and they just
revised a new
um code and a lot of the the uh
states that adopted the uh reform
unified
rolona is what it's called laws of
notarial acts a lot of states are
adopting it and a lot of those
principles are based on this code
so if you haven't read it and you're
looking for a good time
it's definitely a lot of notary words
and
and uh stuff but it's certainly
interesting and the great thing about
that is it has comments about why they
made the decisions that they did
to make this guidance for notaries wow
okay so it was 10 29 so we are going to
start the giveaway
right i'm excited so sam
i want can you do the number can you
undo the announcement
i'm about to share the screen though
sure um so for everyone who is on this
uh this particular live we want to thank
you for your
participation and just for your support
as we work to support notaries
everywhere
and so uh due to the graciousness of the
national minority association and our
guest
on today we have been provided an
opportunity to just
to do a giveaway and the giveaway is
going to be
um correct me if i'm wrong the year-long
membership
to a free year-long membership for the
national notary
association for those who don't already
have one
um i'm not sure miss jackson if those
who currently have one
they might be able to hold it over to
the next one
so hey if you have a current membership
or you don't have a membership this will
be
a benefit to you so the way we're going
to do this
is this um we have a random
number generator so you don't have to
pay attention to that number right there
so everybody on the call
we want you to plug in a number in the
chat between
1 and 100 and when
uh when we see that we're getting enough
numbers to come across the screen
we'll hit generate and whatever google
tells us this random number
is the person the first person who has
chimed in with that number will receive
the gift
of the free one-year national notary
association membership so right now let
it fly
what number can you do because people
already put numbers in right now
that's fine okay
one and 100 what numbers
um let's see what we got we'll give it a
few seconds we'll give it a few seconds
and you share
this video or don't share everything is
time stamped everything is timestamped
and so we're going to give you about 30
more seconds
and you can only submit one number so i
want to see 12
names with i mean one name with 12
different numbers okay
all right and nine
eight seven six
five four three
two one all right so
starting at 11 30 the number started
coming in miss lashon do you want to go
ahead and hit generate
what number we get yes ma'am
boom 65 who was our first 65.
that's a did we have a 65
i'm going to know the numbers do we have
a 65 do we have a 65 i don't think
anybody even mention 60.
well i mean we got a 66 that's we got a
63. we'll hold it 63 because that will
be the closest
we'll hold this 63 from
miss sandy sweeney georgia notary nation
in the house yes ma'am
sandy sweeney you might you were the
first 63 to come through
nobody up to misha jackson at 11 31
sent us a 65. congratulations from this
is
looking at 11 31 am tamesha jackson was
the first number 65 to come through the
chat
so can i just point out that that is no
relation to me
that's okay congratulations and thank
you
yeah thank you for um coming on thank
everybody for coming on
but um but yeah thank you and and again
thank you to the national notary
association for allowing us to be able
to
um provide this uh prize to our
signing our signed and sealed uh
community
yeah so uh tamesha is there a way i'm
about to
put a link in the box can you fill out
that form
and then also if you want can you please
type in your email address so we can
get you started on your membership um
and are you already a
nna member or you know tell us on your
new notary
you know we want to know about you
because you you're our winner for today
so we would like to know about you um
but yeah let me put this in real quick
i love this all right
um so we are taking what time is it
more question someone said they had
actually more questions
um to ask so let's talk about the
conference
yes let's talk about the conference uh
nna 2021 will be in orlando florida
may 2nd through the 5th and um
i have to say that more than the
workshops
that you're gonna get it's about the
networking opportunities and my favorite
thing about the conference
is being in the same room with people
who all do the same thing
and it's such a um special group of
people
that you're gonna have in one place and
everybody learns so much from everybody
and i'll be honest
although i've taught you know so many
workshops at these conferences i always
learn more from the notaries in the
classes that i feel like they learn from
me
um just because you're hearing what
people are dealing with out there you're
healing hearing their solutions to
problems
uh that they're going through you hear
all these new ideas of stuff they're
doing
and you think why didn't i think of that
um
something as simple as a like tweak that
they've made to their business card
that's made them stand out okay um
so i would say there's gonna be uh some
workshops this year samantha smith
actually is doing a workshop this year
at the conference so i'm excited for
that
um and just different topics not as
so much about being a notary more so
than how to get your notary business off
the ground
um and so there's people who are there
that are doing the remote online
notarizations they're signing agents
there's people that are just doing
general work
and people do come from the attorney
only states to kind of hear from others
um and you can network with people and
get a nationwide network as well as
a local network and i cannot stress
enough the importance of forming those
networks to have
what i like to call like your backup
notary so that when you do have to turn
down those assignments
you have people that you know have the
same passion drive experience
education that you do so when you're
sending them to do a job you know that
it's gonna
be happening so the uh again it's in
orlando so you can also you know turn it
into a vacation and because this is for
your business i'd also like to point out
that this will be tax deductible
um as part of an investment for your
business
um and if i may also add it's a lot of
fun
um a group of notaries will be a good
time but we have a lot of fun um
and i just uh love it so uh okay
any questions about that um someone had
asked like the date again and it's may
2nd through
may 2nd to the 5th and it's at the rosen
center in orlando florida and it changes
every year
i need to come to florida i know it's
nice in may
someone actually had a question um she
someone asked about apple steel services
oh okay uh so
apple cities are not really like a
notary service per se but
again notaries and their wonderful
wisdom were like this is a service the
public needs how
how can i put myself in the process to
create an opportunity for myself
so essentially when notaries have
documents that are getting notarized
here in the states and then they're
going to go abroad somewhere
in order to prove that the notary holds
a valid commission
for the states that signed what's called
the hague convention treaty
they are allowed to have this one
authenticating certificate that will
come
from your state's government that says
yes this is a valid notary commission
and we recognize that this person is a
notary so what happens is you complete
your notarization
like you normally would and in theory
what happens is the signer takes the
document to whatever
agency usually the secretary of state or
whoever often
uh authorizes the notaries um
you uh take it to the agency
and they look over everything make sure
it's right and then they provide this
apple sd certificate
so there are opportunities there um
there is a book out there written by
daniel lewis and judith lawrence
my uh make your business our business
and they've got a whole section in there
um that is um about doing apple fees and
how to set that whole business up so how
you set it up i'll be honest i don't
know too much about
uh but also you know daniel lewis from
indiana if you guys do not know him
uh i would follow him on social media
because he's uh one of our
notary experts as well and he's just
like mr entrepreneur he will
you know tell you how to do everything
and he's one of my favorite people on
the planet
and if he sees this ha ha i said your
name
put this link i'll put the link in the
description
i know that there's a chapter in there
about it um that gives more detail but
there are a lot of
notaries that were innovative enough to
create this as a niche for notary so
definitely you know google
how to get involved in that process um
but yeah that's one of the
things i do not know a lot about how to
get involved with it but it is
available to do i will say any of you
that are out there that
are notarizing documents that go to
foreign countries you have to be on your
a
plus game because the number one way to
get found out
about not performing your notarizations
properly is it's literally getting
handed to the notary authority
to make sure you did it properly so
i can speak mostly that happens for
california but
if you are make sure you've dotted every
eye and crossed every t
if you are doing international documents
absolutely absolutely so
every we have everyone said thank you uh
we get a lot of thank yous
i know i had one more question because
some people wasn't able to attend
um samantha do you have any uh thing
that you wanted to
bring
[Music]
so um as we get ready to wrap up
i would just encourage everyone to uh
put in the chat what is the biggest
thing you took away from today's
session whether it's one word whether
it's a paragraph whether it's you know
just a statement
what's the biggest thing that you took
away from today's session
um and is there anything that uh you
think you might be interested in hearing
on future
sessions with uh signed and sealed with
lashawn and samantha
um and as always make sure you tell our
guests thank you
but that's all i got okay um so
we have this is gonna be the final
question that we have
um it's from i'm not gonna try
but uh once um miss lewis
or louise once i complete the nsa exam
and i'm supposed to receive a
certificate
aside from the results uh so that's a
good question
we actually do not give certificates
anymore
uh because we had a um what's the
counterfeit problem uh so now you get
your results directly
once you get them but what that means is
that your badge
saying that you're certified is on your
signing agent profile waiting for you to
go in there
and update that page uh the other thing
that i'd like to uh tell you is that the
uh
i just forgot what it is oh
about updating your signing oh that you
can use the
uh n a logo we have a section on the
website where you can download the logo
to put it on your website business cards
add it to your email that says you are a
member
and same thing with the nsa
certification if you're certified
through n
a you can download a badge that says you
are certified
uh to add that to your publications and
various social media
um to uh basically promote
the organization because uh it does
carry the fact that you've gone through
you know training that you do care about
being a notary that you have studied
your state laws
um and that you know what you're doing
and that's the number one thing that
people are looking for
is people that have really took taken
the time to know
what this notary thing is beyond just
you know you stamp stuff
all right awesome awesome awesome um
do y'all want to take one more yep it's
up to you
i'm good okay
so any suggestions on specifics for
your business card uh i would say
something that makes you
uh stand out okay uh because
uh you guys are both smiling
i don't know i'm gonna find these
questions these questions
somebody somebody else is looking at
your sweater like i was looking at your
sweater oh
okay yes um yes my sweater i do like it
i have many varieties
um and you fed on the website yes you
know that
that is something that you should ask
the nna for it's a notary apparel
because i know i would rock from notary
apparel
so i uh i forgot what the question was
oh business cards do something that
makes you stand out
uh have the mma badge on there but i
would definitely recommend that you get
your
uh business cards from your own unique
place so they don't look like anybody
else's
um i will say i've seen some interesting
shaped ones and i love that idea
but when i get conference that's when i
uh connect a lot of
collect a lot of business cards then
those ones with the funky shapes stand
out the most
but i can't put them away where i put
the rest of them so
uh i would say definitely find something
you know
um there's a lot of people that because
you're dealing with the real estate
industry
and a lot of real estate agents have
their pictures on everything a lot of
people recommend that
um i i'm not a big fan of that because i
don't like looking at pictures of myself
everywhere
but i mean
by all means
okay um so let me see someone asked um
this is a great question so he said i
would like to know
a strategic direction on turning
networking into money
oh my goodness so my thing would be to
get with as many notaries as you
possibly can
and just start asking questions now if
you do it in a facebook forum
you're going to feel the wrath because
for whatever reason those facebook
notaries
i love y'all but you are brutal
people come in so what i'm going to say
to the new people is don't go in and say
i'm a
new notary how do i get business go in
there and read
the um the posts that have already been
made
where people have asked for suggestions
you can search
the facebook live search notary signing
agent
um there's a lot of group good groups to
follow
uh there's a gentleman i hope he doesn't
get mad because i don't even really know
him but it's the best book i think his
name is memphis notary
tim gatewood and he wrote this oh
notary tim gatewood yes he wrote this
book it cost four dollars
and he's basically taken everything on
the
facebook blogs and kind of compiled
everything together
that i would recommend to every new
notary to have
uh that basically outlines step by step
how you can uh start your business but
miss harris's question was about turning
networking into it and i would say that
knowing other notaries and what they're
doing is where you're going to get that
opportunity
and if you're encountering notaries that
don't want to help because they see you
as competition
you're talking to the wrong notaries
because there's enough work for
everybody um and anyone who doesn't
think that
that's not you're in the wrong direction
find the notaries that want to help
um because they're out there they are
everywhere they're all over social media
there's two sitting in front of you
right now um so
ask the right people absolutely
absolutely
um um miss um miss latron i'm sorry
but you know every time i see a georgia
notary asks a question it just
could do something to me so i wanted to
respond to his parents
um i try to encourage georgia notaries
to remember their skill sets
so if you or your skill sets in your
work experience so if you have certain
work experiences
that allowed you to be around people you
can transfer those same skill sets into
the notary business
you don't not necessarily learning
anything new so when it comes to that
networking
if you're already familiar with talking
to people keep talking to people
you're just now talking about a new
thing because you never know where that
next networking opportunity will come
from
that will turn into dollars because at
the end of the day
it's your networking that's going to
make that transition it's not going to
be necessarily anything anybody else
does
because either you're going to connect
with that person or you're not going to
connect with that person and that's
really kind of
what it is somebody told me this morning
there are no secrets to this
everything is on the internet all the
books that have been written
there is no uh magic steps or potions or
there is no secret we just got to be
willing to
uh put feet to pavement do some reading
and research
and then execute what we got going on
absolutely that's a
excellent closing statement there um
that's an excellent statement um but um
thank you uh miss jackson for
the presentation answering questions um
we can't guys i'm sorry but we can't
answer
every single question but um you're more
than welcome to forward your questions
um you can either forward them to me
at the notre institution at gmail.com
you can connect with samantha as she's
listens um let me i'll put her links in
here
and then also um you can actually you
want email miss jackson
um you want to give them uh how they can
actually reach out and contact
um yeah yeah if you have like specific
uh
questions you can uh email me at n
jackson
at nationalnotary.org
okay i type that in the um chat too but
as you know just wanted you to say it
and i'll put
everyone's contact information in here
and everyone says thank you well we are
we are very grateful for this i'm
actually we're really i know everyone's
excited right now just to see you here
connecting with us and the whole in our
homes you know
i it means a lot to everyone on this um
that's watching right now
to me and samantha so thank you very
much um we're going to log off everyone
but guys tonight tune in i'm going live
um i want to say about 5 30 p.m
hopefully
but i am going live because i want to do
another giveaway so
just turn your notifications on or just
page watch me because i will have
another giveaway today um for y'all
but thank you everyone and you have a
great day
thank you so much thank you