Ten Ways to Pivot & Enhance Your Notary Business Right Now

 

 

Vanessa Terry is the Founder of Notary2Notary, the nationwide notary training program, On-Time Notary, her nationwide signing service and iNotarize, her new Electronic Notary Platform. She loves training and provides resources in the notary industry across the country. She was also named 2021 Forbes Next 1000 Entrepreneur who is changing the way people work.

Visit her website to learn more about her training at www.notary2notary.com

Episode Description:

Are you feeling afraid of not making enough money as a loan signing agent with the rising interest rates? You're not alone! And where some Notaries are stressing, others are expanding. Many of our peers are finding opportunity everywhere! Listen to this conversation with Vanessa Terry about how she's expanding her own personal business, as well as coaching others to do the same. There are additional income streams AND ways to warm up your current network to get more business right now.

Episode Highlights:
1:06:54 The first thing I always tell new notaries to do is join a local chamber of commerce.

1:04:22 Attend five client-getting events every single year. This will radically change your business.

1:02:52 You've got to reduce the amount of time you spend with energy vampires. Those are the people that suck the life out of a conversation or a meeting. And you'll know these people because when you walk away you'll feel exhausted.

Full Raw Transcription Below

Bill Soroka (00:00:23):

Hey everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I am so excited to introduce you to my guest today. Vanessa Terry, founder of notary2notary and I Notarize. Hey Vanessa. Welcome.

Vanessa Terry (00:01:17):

Hi Bill. Thank you. Thank you for having me on this show. I'm really excited. This is going to be fun.

Bill Soroka (00:01:21):

I'm excited to have you here.

Vanessa Terry (00:01:23):

Thank you.

Bill Soroka (00:01:24):

I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks, maybe even a couple months now. I think when we initially started doing it, in fact, I think our collaboration talk may have started last October.

Vanessa Terry (00:01:34):

I think. So it was a while ago.

Bill Soroka (00:01:37):

It was a while ago.

Vanessa Terry (00:01:38):

It was at the NNA conference and I was like, hey, so okay, we got to get this done. We got to get this....

Bill Soroka (00:01:42):

Yeah, let's get it done. I think that's the super, super power of those types of live events. Exactly is it allows us to see each other in person after interacting online for so long and then just make, get some stuff done and some real collaboration. So I'm real excited about this guys.

Bill Soroka (00:02:00):

And what we're talking about is 10 ways to pivot or enhance your mobile notary and loan signing business right now. Where our industry is in a period of flux some people are nervous and worried about where things are going and then there's, and Vannessa, and I'm sure you've seen this too, cause you're one of them, there's this other side yeah, of the notary business that is booming right now. It's expanding; in fact, I talked to some notaries who have had their best months ever, like this month. It's happening right now and it's not necessarily real estate involved or related, but in some cases it actually is depending on the market city. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Guys, we've got 10 awesome ways to do that. Plus we actually have 13 awesome ways to do that. We got three bonuses for you too. And hopefully Vanessa or I who have a reputation for talking a lot,

Vanessa Terry (00:02:59):

We do.

Bill Soroka (00:03:00):

We can deliver this information quickly for you, but we want to make sure that we get this all out to you. First, Vanessa, as I just mentioned is one of those expanding notaries right now. So Vanessa we're going to share that story about what you're doing right now, but tell us how you even, what's your origin story as a notary. How did you find this business?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:03:20):

Google. So yeah, I Google everything, everything. And in 2014 I recently had my daughter and I wanted to find something that I could do that was like work from home or like flexible time so I could be with her and I found a bunch of things that I just dibbled dabbled in. And honestly I thought notary was going to be like a little side nothing like I had no idea it would become this huge thing. And you know, I did, my application started my Google business page right out the gate and it just kind of took off and you know, just grew like within a year I was already al loan signing agent and I was just killing it, killing it. And in 2016 I quit my job and I went full time, totally doing it. Cause I was doing general notary work and loan closing all day, all day. And I was like, so people say you now how they say you get addicted to it. I was addicted to it like......

 

Vanessa Terry (00:04:19):

It's like, especially when you're used to working, you know, like regular, you know, jobs and you know, with hourly pay it's different when you can set your own pay. And it's just like, oh I can go back out and get another hundred dollars. Okay. I'm going <laugh> so it's like, so it definitely became addicting to me. And so that was my journey, 2016 I went full. I started showing friends and family how I was doing it. Cause people would ask, oh, how are you doing this notary? Like how is notary making, how are you making money as a notary? It makes no sense. Doesn't your bank do it for free, right? <Laugh> and then I'll have to say, you know, no, let me show you. So I was teaching friends and family for the record. Every one of my family's in notary now.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:04:58):

And one of them told me like, you should do a course or do a training. And that's when Notary2Notary was born. That's when I said, okay. And it started off small. It was just like an online little group thing. And then I do like little in person trainings and then it just grew into this massively, you know, nationwide training program where we're training across the country now. And like just everywhere, all over the place. It was all over the place. And then came a different, a few other ventures; my signing service and then the new E Notary Platform, I Notarize came out of it and now the Notary Business Center. So I'm really excited about this and it's more yeah, yeah. This is like, and it kind of came, I don't even know, honestly get all my ideas in the shower. I was in the shower and at all, I do all in the shower.

 

Bill Soroka (00:05:50):

Me too.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:05:51):

Really?

 

Bill Soroka (00:05:52):

Oh my gosh.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:05:53):

Find that.

 

Bill Soroka (00:05:54):

Yeah. I had heard this. What's your science that you've heard.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:05:57):

The science is like, when you're in the shower, your brain is like, it's basically like, like your body is in a calm state and it's like we're, and especially in our environment now it's the only time where you're really allowed to not be thinking and like actively thinking. And so when you're not actively thinking and you brain is allowed to be creative, a lot of people get their, their best ideas in the shower because now your brain is just like free to maneuver and like, oh, let's see what's out there. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:06:26):

I love this so much. You know that I get my ideas in the shower because it does it frees up and there's no phones, there's no distractions.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:06:32):

And there's no phones

 

Vanessa Terry (00:06:33):

And there's no....

 

New Speaker (00:06:34):

Exactly. But one of the, one of the inventions I did and I'm just going to do a quick sidebar, we'll come back to this cause this is awesome. But one of my invention ideas and I've still got this, I still own the domain right before we get, we started recording I told you, OK. If I get an idea, I'm buying the domain right, right now. So I own showerpen.com because I was going to invent Bluetooth pen that you could write.....

 

Vanessa Terry (00:07:00):

That's Amazing.

 

Bill Soroka (00:07:01):

And it will Bluetooth record your strokes that you write on the wall of the shower or whatever. So it will record it to your computer. And then you can not forget. You don't have to forget your ideas. Cause....

 

Vanessa Terry (00:07:12):

That is an amazing idea. But now....

 

Bill Soroka (00:07:14):

I thought so too. You know, the engineer I hired to plan it out for me said this is a stupid idea and nobody's ever going to buy this. It won't work. So I kind of put it..... My engineer that I hired....

 

Vanessa Terry (00:07:27):

Tell him and get out of here. He's fired.

 

Bill Soroka (00:07:30):

Exactly

 

Vanessa Terry (00:07:31):

That's a great idea.

 

Bill Soroka (00:07:32):

I just put it on the back burner. But I, I, I love that. And I think a lot of people get their ideas in the shower. So we'll go back. Tell us your great idea. Okay. that you got in the shower.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:07:40):

That's a great idea. You should do that. I would buy it. Okay. All right. So I was thinking, cause a lot of notaries always ask, you know, can we come in in person and train? And then also they needed that virtual address situation. So I say, no, we need a brick and mortar. And then from that one idea, I said, okay, let's get an office space. And it literally was just to have like small trainings and to offer virtual addresses. But then I brought it to my team and my team was like, oh, we should do co-working and we should do this and we should offer this. And I was like, OK. And so from there, the Notary Business Center was born and we opened the beginning of this month of July And basically people come in, and it, you don't have to be just notaries that come in cause it's a co-working space, but typically notaries are going to come. And we have trainings here. We have space that they can work in, you know they can bring in the co-working spaces, private offices too. We have a podcast video recording room for all my social media notaries out there. Okay. You can go in there and do all your content in there too. And then we also do notary. So when people come in, you know, for long closings, they can come in here, you know, they need anything. So we have a wide array of services that we offer as notaries too, for the general public to come in and get documents notarized. So it's a lot and we're definitely expanding. That's the thing too. I'm excited.

 

Bill Soroka (00:09:00):

Yeah, I am. When you told me you were doing this, I got so excited because I've, this has been noodling around in my brain a little bit too. I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if we had this? And then I, I rented some co-working space and I'm like, this would be a lot more fun if it was notaries here. <Laugh> if we were doing that, right? And then I just never got around to it. I'm like, oh, the logistics of that. And I'm like, figuring it out and then you just take it and run with it. I can't, I'm going to be watching this closely. I love this idea. And so you're expanding your own business. You've expanded into the NBC, the Notary Business Center. Yeah. And even that is expanding. Is that what you were just alluded to? Yeah. So you mean you're going to have more than one location?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:09:43):

Yeah. So I'm, we're giving, I have to slow myself. So Kendra, just my marketing director, she always is like, when I bring ideas, Vanessa, stop, wait a minute. They're great. And it's, it's, I'm a very, like all over the place, high energy. And I have lots of ideas, but she's very organized. And so she takes those ideas and she puts them on a calendar. And so she's like, OK, those are great. But let's put on the calendar in, we do those things, but this, and so I'm thinking by the end of the year, I want to have the new location open, but you know, I kind of got to let Kendra do her thing because I do know organizations having those systems are super duper important and it's good to have a balance between the high energy idea person that's running crazy. And the organized person that has like meetings and tabs for everything, you know, you got to......

 

Bill Soroka (00:10:36):

That is a really great tandem relationship to have in your business partner. For sure.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:10:41):

Exactly.

 

Bill Soroka (00:10:42):

I, I think you lucked out on that one. I might need to get me one of those....

 

Vanessa Terry (00:10:48):

Helps in the, I will write it down.

 

Bill Soroka (00:10:56):

Yeah. She's she's like stop taking showers. Give, gimme a week off. <Laugh>

 

Vanessa Terry (00:11:01):

Right. I do. I got a lot of ideas, but I definitely, right now we're thinking either Northern Virginia next, Dallas or Atlanta. I'm leaning more towards Dallas. That's where I'm like, Ooh, that's a good place to go, but we'll see.

 

Bill Soroka (00:11:14):

Cause you like the heat.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:11:15):

I do like the heat. I like it hot. So...

 

Bill Soroka (00:11:18):

And I'm, I'm thinking I'm leaning towards Washington leaning towards, you need a west coast division.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:11:24):

i like the warmer weather. I'm like ninety, eighty five, eighty five and up I'm good. Eighty five to one hundred, perfect. I'm perfect. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:11:33):

Well this is so cool. I can't wait to see where you go with it and I'll probably have to invite you back after the end of this year when you have 10 more locations open up, right? <Laugh> Sorry, Kendra.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:11:45):

You're With me. You're with me. We need the 10. We need,

 

Bill Soroka (00:11:52):

She doesn't need to listen. Yeah. <Laugh> I'm curious. So as I hear you speak, I, I can tell I, I resonate with you really well, especially with your enthusiasm and your number of ideas. Are you familiar at all with the Enneagram?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:12:09):

The Enneagram?

 

Bill Soroka (00:12:10):

Yeah. Have you heard of the Enneagram yet? No. Do you like personality classification?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:12:15):

I do.

 

Bill Soroka (00:12:17):

All right. You got to check out the Enneagram, go to LindaFrezee.com. Okay. And then Jurat,st take a Gander at number seven.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:12:31):

I though reminds me I've done the disc assessment. Have you seen I've done that and it has me as a high D. Okay. So yeah, I know, I know. I know....

 

Bill Soroka (00:12:40):

I'm a little, I'm a high ID, so I'm like right on the line there.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:12:44):

So yeah. So, you know, you got that balance. I'm just out there. I'm just,...

 

Bill Soroka (00:12:51):

Alright, well we'll check that out guys. Thank you so much. I'm so glad that I got to introduce you to Vanessa. Now we've got a really important conversation that we're going to kick off here too, about the 10 ways to pivot or enhance your mobile notary and loan signing business right now. So Vanessa, I know this is a, a, a topic that you talk about a lot in your as you teach and as you travel the country speaking as well. So we're going to kick this off guys with five ways or that are basically some additional income streams that you can either blend into your notary business. Because remember under our notary umbrella guys, there's so many cool ways to add additional services and additional revenue. So we're going to talk about five ways to do that. And then we're going to talk about five ways to essentially cultivate your current network because I believe, and Vanessa, you tell me if you agree, but I believe that we probably already know exactly who we need to know to really blow our business out and make it whatever we dream it to be.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:13:55):

I agree.

 

Bill Soroka (00:13:56):

And if you don't necessarily know that person, I guarantee you, somebody in your network knows that person mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we're going to talk about growing relationships. So Vanessa, what's our first way to pivot the business.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:14:11):

It is a Apostille. That's the first one and that's, I think people have been seeing that word all over the place. When I first saw it, I had no idea what it was. I thought was like, what is that? Let's go over here. Like, I, I was so confused and it sounds really confusing, but it's not as confusing as it sounds. Have you, have you done Apostille?

 

Bill Soroka (00:14:30):

I have not done one yet. I took Judy Lawrence's training on.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:14:34):

Judy.

 

Bill Soroka (00:14:35):

To be the, yeah, I know to be the Apostille agent. In fact she's starting with our notary business builder program today. We're recording today in Ju,ly. I know we're super excited, but I was the same way. In fact, I tell Judy, I was like, Judy, you know, 18 months ago, nobody knew what an Apostille agent was until she, I mean, she went gangbusters with this and now there's multiple trainers across the country teaching the Apostille Agent Opportunity. So Vanessa, in your definition, what is an Apostille agent?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:15:05):

So it's basically, and it's, it's really cool because you actually don't have to be a notary to do this, but typically it's one of those things like typically notaries do. And really you are like the, for lack of better words, like basically the courier; you're taking that, so the Apostille, when you get something Apostille is basically verifying it for use in another country. So it could be like a birth certificate or a power attorney, whatever the case is, that was actually an American document. And you, it, some, typically it's notarized and then you get it Apostilled by your secretary of state or whoever the body is for your state. And then you ship it to that country or back to the client who then ships it to that country. So you're really the only thing that you have to do technically is notarize it, if it has to be notarized, which typically it does and then giving it to your Apostille body. So, for Virginia's secretary of state. And then they give it back to you, give back to the client. So it's really easy. It's really simple. And really the person that's requesting it could do it, but it's like, you could also, you know, do an oil change in your car, but you don't do that. You just get someone else to do it for you. And most people just don't want to know. They like don't want the hastle. Can you do it for me? Ok, yeah, we'll do it for you.

 

Bill Soroka (00:16:25):

Well that's the I think the beautiful opportunity that we have in the convenience economy. Like many of these states spell it right out to do your Apostille here's what you do, this, this and this. And then people are like, I can't, I just can't deal with this. I don't understand the, they use jargon that the layperson isn't going to know anyway. So that's what you are as an Apostille agent, is essentially a facilitator you're, you're taking the client by the hand and you're just going to guide them through the process or just do the process for them, communicate. I think it's real important to get training, good training on this because there are some variables and if you mess up on an Apostille it can really complicate somebody's life. Because nobody calls you, very rarely do you do I hear people saying, oh, I'm going to need Apostille in 12 months.

 

Bill Soroka (00:17:12):

Can you start getting ready for it, Right? It's usually like, oh crap, we're leaving next week. And we need these documents Apostilled, right? Yeah. So you've got to learn how to do it right. And then you have the Hague Countries and the non Hague Countries, intricacies intricacies. And that's why I highly value good training. And that's why I love Jurdy's. I learned so much from her book and from that course. But the the, the one point that Judy really drives home, I think it's probably her most common question. And, and you might hear this too, is I called my secretary of the state. They said I can't do Apostille. And I think that's really important for, if you're listening to this now to understand is that you don't do Apostilles mm-hmm <affirmative> the secretary of state is, or the governing body in your state is the only person who can actually do the Apostille. You are just facilitating the process for the customer.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:18:10):

Exactly. Exactly.

 

Bill Soroka (00:18:12):

All right. I love that opportunity. Oh, the other reason I love it is it's unregulated. So you, the market fees are the market.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:18:26):

Whatever's let's not do that. Okay.

 

Bill Soroka (00:18:28):

Yeah. And you can do some research and see what other Apostille agents are changing. There's companies that do this too. So you can get a feel for what people are used to paying in your market area and then charge appropriately for that.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:18:40):

Exactly. But I like Apostille. I think it's good

 

Bill Soroka (00:18:44):

Now. So you do this yourself in you're in Virginia mm-hmm

 

Vanessa Terry (00:18:47):

<Affirmative> yeah. Yeah. We do that.

 

Bill Soroka (00:18:48):

Excellent. Is this a a decent revenue stream for your business right now?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:18:53):

It, I can, to be honest I get so, like, like for example, Anastasia gets way more calls than I do right. I think I is market more to them, but I do get calls, but she gets calls like every week, like, nice. Oh, I need these need, these need these. I need them. But yeah. So if you can market, especially if you you're by a military base.

 

Bill Soroka (00:19:20):

Yeah. Definitely. Any, anywhere you have a congregation of people who are traveling internationally or living internationally on a regular basis. I think that's a gold mine, military. I've noticed some hospitals that hire international medical students or medical graduates. Oh

 

Vanessa Terry (00:19:35):

Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:19:36):

Universities, those international law attorneys, immigration attorneys and things like that.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:19:42):

There you go. That's a good one.

 

Bill Soroka (00:19:45):

Great, great topic. Okay. Let's take a look. Now let's move down the line to general or specialty notary work.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:19:50):

Yeah. And I like how everyone's saying now specialty notary work. I have to, I want to start changing my verbiage to that. I always say general notary work. What's OK. Specialty notary work. Yes.

 

Bill Soroka (00:20:01):

<Laugh> yes. Yeah. I remember when Laura Biewer first used that word specialty notary work, man. I think that was two or three years ago. Again, I bought the domain. I was like, Laura, that's brilliant. I'm specialty notary, I bought it. I have it.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:20:16):

Domains....<Laugh>.

 

Bill Soroka (00:20:18):

And it points, it points to Laura Biewer's, her training and replay library. Cause she's knowledge about this stuff and I'm like, who adopted general notary work, speialty notary work really in your business?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:20:31):

That's all I did when I first started. That's it? No kidding. That's it. Cause I didn't know about, and that's everyone always asked me, did I take a training? I honest I didn't, but it also took me a lot longer to learn. So yeah. I made a lot of mistakes, not taking training. But I just, I started off with, with general notary work. That was it. And then it took me like a year, almost a year to get into loan signing.

 

Bill Soroka (00:20:52):

Wow.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:20:52):

Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:20:53):

All Right.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:20:53):

I still love general notary work. That's still like one of my, my babies because you get paid the same day and it's really easy to do <laugh>

 

Bill Soroka (00:21:01):

I totally agree. You know, I've, I've really started getting into the estate planning documents. I love living trust appointments because there's a little less nonsense with signing companies and print, no printing, no printing kind of delivering peace of mind to them. Exactly. Knowing that they're affairs are in order. So I'm really enjoying those. And it's lucrative. Here in Arizona, I've been finding attorneys I'm really work, cultivating relationships with the higher end attorneys that cater to the deca-millionaires. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and they're, they're used to paying that $250 to $400 for trust, living trust presentations and signature gathering. So it's pretty lucrative.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:21:51):

I need to get into that space.

 

Bill Soroka (00:21:53):

<Laugh> So to do what's that?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:21:56):

I said, I need to put it on my to-do list.

 

Bill Soroka (00:21:58):

Oh yeah. If yours is anything like mine, it's about three legal pans worth.... <Laugh>

 

Vanessa Terry (00:22:04):

There's so much to do.

 

Bill Soroka (00:22:06):

What advice do you have for people who want to finally maybe, cause here's the reality. A lot of the new notaries came in in the last two years. Yeah. Cause business was booming. You roll out of bed and suddenly you're making 10 grand a month because there's the refinances are falling from the trees. Yeah. Now that, that it's shifted. Yeah. Now it's time to get serious. Now the real work begins and you know what it's like, because you were here with me before the pandemic mm-hmm <affirmative> when interest rates were going up and down one little tick and things would slow down and you're like, oh no. And then three months later, everything was fine again. But you had to fill in the gaps. So what advice do you have for somebody who's like, all right, I'm ready to embrace general notary work.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:22:50):

So like, I always say like general notary work is great. People call it filler. But I think you, I, know a lot of notaries who do that, just that, like, and just do general notary work. That's it like that they don't even want to do loan closings like you said, they don't want to print. So I love general notary work and I would tell anybody that wants to get into it. Yes. Google business page. I know you hear it all the time on social media, but it works. It works really well. Setting it up, making sure it's live, making sure you put all your pictures and you know, you put your information and if you're going to, oh my, if you're going to use a Google voice number, make sure it works, do that. <Laugh> you know,

 

Bill Soroka (00:23:26):

Step one.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:23:28):

Yes. And then I'm telling you what I know, helpful tips. If you're going to use a Google voice number, don't take off that intro prompt that says, I wouldn't say like thank you for using Google voice or wait while Google voice tries to connect you. Like people hate that. It sounds spammy and they're going to hang up, right? And that's, I think it's like a screening option. Just take that off, you know, and make sure your, your phone number works. Get a website built, put it on your, connect it to your Google business page. And if you say the next thing is people going to say, oh, I dunno how to build a website, go to Fiverr, F I V E R R, pay somebody 50 bucks. They'll do it for you. Excuse over. And we're done. OK. <Laugh> Yeah and then just set that up, get some business cards, you know, I network a lot and that's the thing too.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:24:12):

I think a lot of people think, and then it really drives me kind of mad because like I'm a very much a go getter. And if I'm not seeing results, I'm going to go like 10 times harder. And if you're seeing a, a slow period, okay, documents are always being notarized. If you are having a slow period, you need to get out there. You need to take your cards to nursing homes, hospitals, talk to the social workers. You need to, you know, get out there, get, get some traction move so people know what you're doing. You know, don't just sit back and say, no, one's calling. They're calling somebody. Just not you. <Laugh>. So we got to figure out how to get you the phone call. But yeah, I love it. I love it.

 

Bill Soroka (00:24:52):

That is excellent advice. This is not a passive business. It may have felt like a passive business the last two years, but this requires a super proactivity in generating those leads. And we'll talk a little more about this optimization and relationships a little later on too. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> But you know when I had that reality, like you're, you're saying like you push you 10X it.. If you're not getting the results you want, see I'm a, a evaluator, right? You're either going to take a look, you're going to step back and say, why am I not getting the results? It's because I'm half assing it or is it because my strategy isn't working. And when I make that determination, it's usually cause I'm half assing it. So then I, I ramp it up. I'm like, this is what I've got to do. And the affirmation that helped me do that was this.

 

Bill Soroka (00:25:39):

It was someone in this city needs my services. My job today is to find that person. And when I looked at it that way, I'm like there, I got to find one person that can pay me 400 bucks. cause that was my goal. Right. I was like, I had to make a hundred grand a year, which was $400 a day, five days a week, 50 weeks, a year in order to pull myself out of the hole I was in after having 26 business failures. And when I looked, when I broke it down like that, I'm like, that could be one transaction, but that could be two transactions. I Jurat,st got to find one person that needs my services like that. cause you are absolutely right. Somebody is getting their documents notarized. There's a Billion documents a year notarized they're estimating. Mm-hmm <affirmative> You just got to get your slice of the pie.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:26:22):

And when you said 10X, do you, you listen to Grant Cardone?

 

Bill Soroka (00:26:26):

I used to,

 

Vanessa Terry (00:26:27):

Oh I you'd say, Oh, Grant Cardone.

 

Bill Soroka (00:26:30):

OK. <Laugh> I did. Yeah. In fact, yeah, I read Obsessed. I think Obsessed was probably my favorite book of his. Mm-hmm <affirmative> And then I don't I don't follow him as much anymore, but yeah. He helped me get, he helped me me get through some stuff for sure.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:26:44):

Yeah. Yeah. I like Grant Cardone.

 

Bill Soroka (00:26:46):

How about you?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:26:46):

I read his, I'm actually in his training program. <Laugh>

 

Bill Soroka (00:26:50):

No kidding. All right.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:26:51):

His training program. And I read 10X, I read that one. Okay. I keep missing his conferences, but, and it's really, I just, I like being around people who like don't take no for an answer and it's like, no there's no, no. How do we keep, how do we get a yes. How do we get a yes. Keep going, get a yes. Get a yes. And then, you know, thinking when you say like 10Xing, you know, when we think about that, it's like, okay, I can make one call or I can make 10 calls or 50 calls or I can go to one nursing home or I can go to 10 nursing homes. And I always think too, when you say a thing that I think of is something that Mark Cuban said, he said work like there's someone working to take it all away from you.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:27:29):

And that is what I think about too. It's like, okay. And I think about when I'm working, you know, is there anyone working harder than me? You know, sometimes you have to remind yourself, but sometimes we can, you know, you know, get comfortable and we don't really put forth as much effort as we possibly can. And so like when you think kind of remind yourself, like there could be someone working harder than you, like where do you want to be? And having those goals and you know, it kind of makes you do that. One more rep that one more set that you know, that extra stop to another hospital, that extra email, that extra call just to say, okay, I really think I applied what I could today. <Laugh> yeah. End the day. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:28:05):

It helps you sleep so much better at night when you know you've done exactly what you were, what you told yourself, you would do. Number one, that's an integrity. Internal integrity, I think is important. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> But you know, and we do, we get comfortable when we sit on our haunches and you're like, oh, it's all right. Like the last idea, I keep going back to the last two years because there are so many of us feeling it right now. Like it was so easy to make money in this that we didn't do the back to basics the foundational pieces. And even though that may be the case, giving yourself some space and grace too, right space. And grace is my theme for the last couple of years, you don't have to shame yourself into activity. Just realize where you're at and then make a different decision.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:28:48):

I like it. I like.

 

Bill Soroka (00:28:50):

Number, number three, Vanessa

 

Vanessa Terry (00:28:52):

Field inspections.

 

Bill Soroka (00:28:55):

Awesome. Do you do this as well?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:28:57):

So I used to do them a lot. I stopped doing them, but as of recently, as we have this new field inspection training we've been doing, I have been getting back out there. Not, so field inspections in my opinion are a great way to make money. This is more like you can use it as filler or you can use it to fill your whole day. I know lots of notaries who love it. It's not my preference. I've done a few isn't that I, I don't do it all day, you know, but I think it's a great way if you need to, if you're not getting the work that you're looking to get, fill it with field inspections and it's, and like it's one of those things too. You do not be a notary to do, but typically notaries do them. And there's lots of companies out there who just pay you to go out and take pictures of buildings or cars or houses or, you know, record video of the building, you know, and then just submit it like insurance companies always want to make sure the building is actually closed.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:29:53):

Can you go take pictures? And it's so simple. It's taking pictures. Now, you want to make sure you have, you know, a good device. I was going to make my, I always talk about team apple. And I say, you know, if you have an Android, it'd be hard, but it's OK. <Laugh> gets all sensitive. Well, my apple people don't get sensitive, but just make sure you take really clear pictures and really clear videos take more than enough. So then I send you back out there and say, oh you missed something. And it's like I said, it's great. And it's a lot of times when you get these field inspection orders, it's flexible. So they'll say, oh, can you just get it done sometimes from today and tomorrow. It's not like a set time today too at, you know, two o'clock you have to be there. It's usually more flexible. So you can fit it in, fit it in around like your general notary work or your loan closings. So.....

 

Bill Soroka (00:30:39):

I like that's extremely valuable. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and then you mentioned that you're you recently took a training or do you offer a training on field?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:30:46):

We do. So we, we have a training, we just started called non notary work. And it's like different things that you can do that typically you don't have to be a notary for, but notary typically do them. Just to kind of, and we, we started doing that because of a lot, like we know the market and everything happening and everyone's like, oh my gosh, there's no, Hey, people started losing their mind, like running around like a crazy person. And it was like, OK, calm down. We're going to help you like calm down. So we started doing this and we talk about a lot of things that we're talking about today. The Apostille, you know, the generality work, the, you know, the field inspections and it's like, okay, use these things to fill in while you're waiting and, you know, waiting for loan closings to come. And cause it has to say it has been a little bit of a shift with that. So...

 

Bill Soroka (00:31:29):

Yeah, I love that you Jumped on that kind of training so quick on the curve and I think that's really valuable. So, and people can go to notary2notary.com to check that out. Right.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:31:41):

Notary.

 

Bill Soroka (00:31:41):

And that is with the numeral two. So notary2notary.com. Beautiful.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:31:48):

The other domain notary two with the word two. I need to go get you.

 

Bill Soroka (00:31:55):

I'll make you a good deal on it. Maybe I, you, I

 

Vanessa Terry (00:32:06):

You're fine. You're fine. I Just was thinking like, I need to get that putting in notary to notary, the word to...

 

Bill Soroka (00:32:13):

Yeah. Yeah. that's probably the case. Let's talk about number four. RON. Remote Online Notarization.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:32:23):

Yes. RON is my favorite, especially now. I think so RON, Remote Online Notarizations depending on your state. So prior to COVID I think only like six or seven states have the ability to do RON, but ever since COVID the majority of states have it now or, and are working on enacting it, if they don't currently have it. And for me, I love it because you can do it from home and or wherever you are. So I'm known for, for doing RON while I'm out and about like I could be driving and someone calls me. I was open my laptop. Okay. Hold on. Well, pull over first guys. Okay. <Laugh> pull over.

 

Bill Soroka (00:33:00):

Step one, pull over. Yeah.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:33:02):

And then I'll do like, I've done, I've done like two, when I was waiting for the movies to start like in I'm in the movie theater, like, okay, hold on. Let's get it set up like as long as I invest into a hotspot, so I have my phone hotspot and then I have another mobile hotspot. If, just cause you never know, you know, and I want to be able to always catch him when they come. And so RON, I, and I think that what I've seen a lot in the notary space, because this is just what I've seen, the average notaries between like 35 and 65 years old. And so RON is very tech heavy. And I think a lot of notaries that are, you know, maybe in a generation where technology was not like the main thing that it is like intimidating to them.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:33:48):

And it's like, wait, I don't understand any of this. What are you talking about? And I completely get that. And I'm trying, like for me, I feel like I personally think that RON's going to be the, it's going to be the thing. In next in the next, you know, several years, like it's going to transition to that space. And I always just tell, you know, notaries like to plan for that, like, what is your plan? You know, are you going to just go into like, you know, diversifying in different ways because eventually I will probably, most lenders are going to transition to RON because it's so much quicker. It's easier. You know, I, I don't know if you've seen a, a reduction, but I've seen reductions in loan applications themselves before I was going out and doing loan applications, but now they're getting them done electronically. So like, I don't know if you've seen them, but it's just like, where's all the loan applications, you know, it's all the closings are still here with the loan applications. I've seen a decrease already. And so I wholeheartedly see that transitioning, you know, eventually. So it's like, you just have to plan, you have to see where your market is going. Your industry is going, your plan accordingly. I love RON. That's my baby.

 

Bill Soroka (00:34:52):

Yeah. Well, and it's so much your baby you're working on a big project is that, oh yeah, too. Right.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:34:58):

So yeah, we are building an email re platform is called. I Notarized. I did get the domain. <Laugh>, it's called I Notarized and it launches this this fall. And so in order to do Remote Online Notarization, you do have to use an email E platform and there's a lot out there and more are being birthed every day. And so you just want to do your research. I have a book on Amazon too called do it yourself from online notarizations that gives you like a guide of, you know, how to figure out what platform to use, because it can be really, really confusing when it comes to like the fee structure and you know, what I can use in my state, what I can't use in my state, you know, and all the laws that go into doing it. So it's like, it's for me, I feel like notaries, who've been doing notary work for a while. Like that, that completely understand notarizations and loan closings. When you go into E notary, you just have to learn the tech side, just the tech, just the platform. But if you're brand new and you want to go on E Notary you have to learn everything about notarization first and the platforms and the tech, you know? And so it can be a little, what is the word?

 

Bill Soroka (00:36:05):

Overwhelming.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:36:06):

Yeah. It can be overwhelming with, if you're Jurat,st going into it brand new, but you can still do it. You absolutely can still do it. It's just, you know, taking the time to, to sit down and learn it.

 

Bill Soroka (00:36:16):

I'm so glad that you brought that up too though. I think it's so important to know how to be a good notary first mm-hmm before you get into that, because the tech support calls are the ones I hear the most about. They're like, oh my gosh, I couldn't get this person. KDB I'd like....

 

Vanessa Terry (00:36:33):

KBA,

 

Bill Soroka (00:36:34):

KBA. Thank you. And, and then they computer wouldn't work. They couldn't turn on their camera, trying to walk them through doing all that. And then on top of that, new notaries are like, oh, I don't even know if I, what that certificate is or mm-hmm, <affirmative> what that notorial act is. And if it's legal in my state, so you've got to know all that first. I'm so glad that you said that. Beautiful advice and good luck with, INotarized.com. I'm so happy for you that you beat me to that domain. <Laugh>

 

Vanessa Terry (00:37:01):

I'm glad I did.

 

Bill Soroka (00:37:08):

Have.....{undecipherable}

 

Vanessa Terry (00:37:14):

That {Unsecipherable}

 

Bill Soroka (00:37:17):

Anybody listening right now, you should own your name's domain. Mm-Hmm <affirmative That should be, whatever you go by. You never know and you want to control the narrative who knows what you're going to work, where you're going to work, what you're going to do with this business or your next one. So control that branding. I still don't have anything on it, but it's there.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:37:35):

Yeah, but you own it. And you just go to Godady for everyone doesn't know, go to goadady.com, buy your domain and yeah. Put a promo code on it. Retell me not. Get a promo, put it on there.

 

Bill Soroka (00:37:45):

It's I think you can pick up for 99 cents if you, if you're a new customer, I think, or yeah, they may have gone up to $2.99, I don't know.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:37:51):

Unless It's like a high ticket one. Like I Notorized.

 

Bill Soroka (00:37:59):

Little pricier, yeah. What's the other, the one I bought the most I've ever spent on a domain was gotary. I own gotary, gotary, G O T A R Y. cause. that was going to be an idea I had. I bought the domain. I paid the premium price for it, but who knows down the road? Something else might be...

 

Vanessa Terry (00:38:19):

Coming live.

 

Bill Soroka (00:38:20):

Yeah. <Laugh> All right. Let's take a look at number five. I love number five

 

Vanessa Terry (00:38:25):

Wedding Officiant. Yeah. So in, in some states as a notary, a few of them, you can actually conduct weddings, but if you're in a state that doesn't allow notaries to do it just by having your notary commission, then you would apply to be a wedding officiant. And this, the, the process is different in every state. Just depends on your state. Some, some states require you be ordained or take an ordination class or it just really depends on your state. But once you find out you can do it, then you can then conduct weddings, which is super cool. It's super awesome.

 

Bill Soroka (00:39:01):

It is. It's so cool to be a part of that level of special day. And guys, if you're wondering, if you can do it in your state, the best resource I found was universal life church. So you go to ulc.org and they have a nationwide chart and you can click on it and it'll tell you the state requirements for ordination in your state. So you can just see what the rules are. It's usually pretty easy. Some states are more particular. Is Virginia a little harder to do? One of the states over there?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:39:29):

I'm a little better. I think, I think it's a southern thing, but it used to be, they really wanted you to be under a church. Yeah. And you have, yeah. And now they're kind of, you know, branching out and letting more people come in, but it was very much church at first. You had to be either be a pastor or reverend or, you know, have that ordination underneath an established church. But now they've loosened up more. So you don't have to do all that.

 

Bill Soroka (00:39:56):

Awesome. Now I think there's a couple of different, there's a couple ways to run a business like this, right? Like there's I talked to Salicia recently down in Florida and she's real, she's got a physical location. She's she's she just created something called Married In A Minute. And she's, are you serious, Married In A Minute in Florida, cause there's a lot of people who just don't want the, the longer processional. They just want the minimum basics to get the get the marriage out of the way. So she has these different packages that fulfill all of that. And then there's some that prefer to do it. Like Mark Allen Grolow out of Canada, who does the Unboring Wedding Officiant. He teaches a system for being like a, a, an the an Officiant at bigger weddings. And he's got a whole format for it, how to do it and how to be an Unboring Wedding Officiant, which I love. And there's all these different ways to do it in between. It's an awesome adventure. And I think what the right personality and the right passion, it can be a very lucrative as well.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:41:01):

And then you get cake.

 

Bill Soroka (00:41:04):

<Laugh> then you get cake., Say no more. <Laugh>

 

Vanessa Terry (00:41:09):

That's the silver lining. That is the wedding cake.

 

Bill Soroka (00:41:12):

Or the main driver.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:41:15):

Right. We just want cake in parties. That's all I just wanted to be a wedding officiant so I could go to parties all day.

 

Bill Soroka (00:41:37):

That is actually gimme a minute here. Lemme pull up go. You trying to beat me to it.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:41:43):

Go quick. So you finish,

 

Bill Soroka (00:41:46):

We're going to drive the cost of that domain up right now. I know,

 

Vanessa Terry (00:41:48):

I know. I like that though.

 

Bill Soroka (00:41:52):

All right, guys, that was five ways that you could add additional service or revenue streams to your business model. Right now, remember under the notary umbrella, it's almost limitless what you can actually do, but these are five really popular ways to do that. And now we're going to kind of segue the conversation into five more ways that you can cultivate relationships and get just enhance your current business. Cause one thing I learned the hard way is that after meeting people in loan signing appointments or general or specialty notary appointments, if you're in this business, cause you love people, you're hitting it off with them really well. Like you're just connecting and then you might be saying, oh my gosh, we're going to stay in touch. This is so great. You almost have a friend at the end of the appointment, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and then what happens?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:42:42):

Life,

 

Bill Soroka (00:42:43):

Life happens. And then you move on, you get busy mm-hmm <affirmative> you forget to put them in a CRM, a customer relationship manager. You're like, oh, I've got their information in the journal. I'll find I'll never forget them. And then three months later you've seen 300 more people, maybe a thousand more people and you can't remember them and then the phones get quiet. They stop ringing and dinging. And you're like, oh my gosh, who was that attorney? Who was that investor that I swore I was going to stay in touch with? And then you go through your journal. I'm like, I have no idea. You're going to go through 3, 2, 3 journals. Yeah. Looking for those people. That's usually how these things go. Now you get a chance to fix that. You can implement that right away. And there's still people who are fresh in your mind. There's still people.

 

Bill Soroka (00:43:28):

Maybe you did keep your CRM. Maybe you have a spreadsheet. Maybe you have a shoebox full of business cards, whatever it is. Now we can continue the cultivate, the relationships. And this can be guys with your friends, family, associates, colleagues, everybody. I believe you already know everybody. You need to know to make this business exactly what you want. So number six and ways to enhance your business is to first identify your ideal customer mm-hmm <affirmative>. So Vanessa just gave us five different revenue streams. Plus we have loan signing. Some, some of us actually love our loan signing appointments. If you're looking at specialty notary work, maybe you like the living trust appointments. Maybe you want to be a wedding officiant. You've got to identify who your ideal customer is. And here I, this can get super deep when you're identifying your ideal customer. But think about which appointments bring you the most joy or which appointments bring you the most revenue. And that's your starting point. That's how you can help identify who your ideal customer is right now.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:44:39):

I like it. Do you have a system for how you manage people that you meet? Like yeah. What some of like rules of thumb that you always do.

 

Bill Soroka (00:44:48):

Yeah, good question. So I did things manually when I was first starting out and figuring all this out.j I like to have things out in front of me. It, it seems like every time I, I, if I create a computer file, I have to have that tab open on my computer or it's it's out of my out of sight out of mind. I forget about it. Right. I recreate 10 of the same thing cause I'm like, oh, I guess I already did that. I have to have front. So I'll have legal pads. And I did this. I ha, I wrote everybody I know on legal pads. And that's how I started tracking who I was connecting with. Not very efficient, not very scalable. So then I started tinkering with some of the CRM tools that are out there. And ultimately we created our own. We have TOM the simple CRM for notaries that's involved are included in NBB. And that works really efficiently. But you had to, it has to work well on the fly when you're on the road. And that's what I was struggling with. That's why we created TOM. So that's what we're at. We're at there. Now I use Kajabi. That's my course platform form that helps me communicate with all my students and stuff now. But you've got to have some kind of system that makes it easy to stay in touch and keep yourself top of mind with your ideal customers.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:46:04):

Do you think it's possible to like, cause I feel like when you say that, do you feel like it's possible? Like, I feel like this is my opinion. Then you tell me what you think in my world. I feel like I know it's going to be almost impossible for me to stay connect with everybody. But like you just do your best to try. Do you feel like it's, it's a fool proof way to make sure that you never miss a person? Like you're like...

 

Bill Soroka (00:46:29):

No, no way. There's no way all you can do is do your best. Right? And so there's different. There's different ways to do this, right? There's email sequences that you can send out and deliver value that allows your ideal customers to get to know you, like you and trust you cause you deliver value and that can just trickle out. Then you can send broadcast emails. That's like, Hey, I had this idea. Let me just send this out or you have events or trainings and you can send that out or networking meetings like for attorneys and stuff, you can do all this stuff, no matter what market sector, if it's a wedding planners, you can do this. If it's state planning attorneys, you can do this. If you're marketing two notaries because you want to start a training class, you can do this kind of stuff. But then there's something more too, right? There's a way to make it more personal. And we're going to get to that here in just a second. In fact, why don't we do that right now?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:47:23):

Yay.

 

Bill Soroka (00:47:24):

And this is cultivating relationships with your current network, right? Cause you've got to there's no, I mean we're human beings. So there's no way that, especially if you got a huge audience, which you do, I do. And a lot of people who are in this, this relationship based people business have, it's really difficult to manage on a deeper level, a lot of these relationships, but still you can reach out and connect personally. And that's kind of the key to this and let's take this down to even Jurat,st the, the notary level let's and I love the estate planning attorney. Let's just say that you're, I'm trying to build a business around estate planning and you've, you've identified them as your ideal customer. You get in their orbit, you know, you start following them on LinkedIn, you start connecting via email. Maybe you're doing some pop-ins. You've got them in your network or a friend of a friend's your mom's attorney.

 

Bill Soroka (00:48:17):

You know, whatever it is, you start getting them there. Then you can start reaching out. And every day, if you, if you Jurat,st reached out to one person and again, like you said, you can 10 X this when I was at my bottom worst and I had to dig myself out, I was 10 Xing this stuff. I didn't talk to Jurat,st one person. I talked to 10 every single day. I sent 10 handwritten notes. Every single day I had to dig myself out. So whatever situation you're in, you can scale it back to whatever level you can take on. But let's just say you reach out to one person. I can be a friend, family, cousin, colleague, ideal customer, prospect, past customer, whatever it is and just reach out and don't overthink it, send a text message, send an email that just says, Hey, I was thinking about you. How are things I'd love to catch up, got time for a call, a coffee or cocktail? The three Cs.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:49:10):

Call, copy cocktail.

 

Bill Soroka (00:49:12):

Yeah,

 

Vanessa Terry (00:49:12):

I like it.

 

Bill Soroka (00:49:13):

It's super simple. We don't have to overthink it. Right? And then sometimes a conversation happens and sometimes it doesn't. It's okay. You don't have to get down on it. But if you did that every single day, you start building a pipeline of people that you can stay in touch with and keep yourself top of mind and show genuine care for. And who knows what will come up. If you ask them how they, you can support them in their business, they're probably going to ask how they can support you in your business. And that's how this dynamic happens. On that same note I think you can send a handwritten note every single day. If you did that, just a thank you note to somebody in your life. Congratulations. Or just like that text message. Hey, I've been thinking about you. How are you? I would love to catch up. Call me, text me with your phone number.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:49:58):

Yeah, yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:49:59):

And then just sign it Vanessa, the notary, Bill the notary.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:50:04):

Give....

 

Bill Soroka (00:50:08):

For this.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:50:09):

When I have a stack of cards, like right here. I do the handwritten notes. I have a stack that I address to people that I'm going to write to. And I started that. I think I, I do the cards anyway, but I'm like, I didn't, I started that ING like last week and it's like, but send those cards out. Like, like yes, do it. I want to do it. Here we go. <Laugh> but one thing I do too, when I think about what you just said I don't know if your phone is like my phone, but I have like a million contacts on my phone. Yeah. And sometimes I go through and I just scroll them. Like who are these people? I don't know. But one thing I do, like when I'm driving, if I'm not listening to like podcasts or whatever, I'll just scroll through a random number and I got to just call hi. And that, that's how I'm like, I try to make sure I'm going through my phone. So I'm not like, you know, still

 

Bill Soroka (00:50:59):

I love that actually that's random and terrifying for me as an introvert, but that's, I love that.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:51:06):

What you doing? It's one, you know, however we met and you know, usually when I put somebody, if I'm networking, I'll put like their name, did I put where I met them? Or like, you know, so I remember who they are like, like, oh yeah. From miss. Got it.

 

Bill Soroka (00:51:18):

You got some notes in there. Yeah. That's and that's what I love about the CRM. cause you can do those, you know, oh this is Cathy met here and talked about this and then you're like, okay, there's no way we can remember all that stuff.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:51:30):

Exactly. That's

 

Bill Soroka (00:51:32):

Way. I love that strategy. All right. Let's look at, I think we're number eight now. And you mention this earlier, so it's dialing in your search engine optimization.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:51:42):

Oh,

 

Bill Soroka (00:51:43):

And I'm so glad that you mentioned Google Business Profile. It's so important. It's free on Google. And I know we did a survey Vanessa just recently asking people if they had a Google Business Profile. Yes, no. Or I have no idea. And I was there's a lot of, I have no idea answers and then there's there's a lot of people who do have it. But there was a lot of notaries that don't have Google Business Profile yet. And then when we asked why technology overwhelm was the number one answer.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:52:19):

Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:52:20):

So do you goes

 

Vanessa Terry (00:52:21):

Back to that age? The age thing?

 

Bill Soroka (00:52:24):

The generation thing. Yeah. Yeah. That very well could be cool thing about Google Business Profile though, is that you've got to, you've got to have it. Number one, if you're going to make it in this business, if you want a business, that's going to last, you have to have it. Would you agree?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:52:39):

Yeah. And I think that's any business, I think any business right now and it's Google business, unless it's like a predominantly, I mean, I could see a couple things that probably wouldn't and plus Google doesn't let every single business be on there, but yeah, most businesses, yes. You need one, especially now, because most people there are looking for something they're going on Google, and they're going to put something near me. Like that's how we find stuff now, you know, we, yes, you have word of mouth and stuff, but typically it's Google or social media. <Laugh> so

 

Bill Soroka (00:53:05):

It's so true. It's so true. That's how they're searching for you. And then the other one, when 93% of consumers use reviews to make buying decisions or hiring decisions, that means hiring service companies like you notaries that's that's us. We are service companies. Then you've got to have reviews. They're making those decisions on that. If you have zero notary with zero reviews or a notary with 500 reviews, guess who's getting hired as long as they're five star or four star reviews, right? Yeah.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:53:38):

Like when you want to go to a restaurant, if you've been, you look at the reviews, so we do it for everything before you buy anything on Amazon, you look at the stars, right? And it's like, oh, hold on. What's this? Nope. Scroll down. Like everyone does that. Yeah. Everyone does that.

 

Bill Soroka (00:53:51):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I I'm notorious for it. And on the, on the reverse side too, I think we have to keep the win-win cycle going. Right? If you use reviews to make buying decisions, I think you should post reviews. I think that's just a, a courtesy that we can do as consumers. So I put, I make a note to always go back and review. If I've had a good experience, if I have a bad experience, I talk to the manager first, or I see if we can resolve it before I post a negative review, but positive reviews, I try to support those small businesses as much as possible.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:54:22):

I, I do too. It's definitely something to be consciously aware of. Cause you know, we, people usually just go for bad, like, oh, as soon as you go back. Oh my goodness. But she never, we have to constantly be aware to say, oh, but this was great. Let me just, you know, let them know. No, this was great. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:54:37):

I think we all need a little good news spread the joy. Now when it comes, when the the other thing I wanted to mention about this is that Search Engine Optimization doesn't have to stop with Google Business Profile. It can start there for sure. It should start there. I think. And then you can optimize your website. I'm so glad you brought the website in, connect it to your Google Business Profile. Find someone on five or even at notarycoach.com. We have some resources for you, whatever it takes to get it done, but then get this. Even your LinkedIn profile, even your signingagent.com profile 1, 2, 3 notary notary cafe, notary rotary, everywhere you have an online profile can be optimized with keywords. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that show your passion and your expertise for this business. When all those things link up, Google says, oh, this person definitely has the knowledge, the expertise, or the relevance to this customer. We have looking for those services and it's going to help boost your rankings.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:55:39):

Exactly. I agree. So we, I mean, we do a lot of SEO you know, that's I know a lot of it, but you know, there's whole companies that Jurat,st do SEO. So there's a whole, that's a whole, you know, force back there. It's

 

Bill Soroka (00:55:55):

A whole industry just by itself. It

 

Vanessa Terry (00:55:57):

Is, it's a whole industry all by itself. It definitely is. But there's some definitely like, if you like, okay, I want to get into it, but I don't really have the money to invest. You can learn a lot on YouTube about that engine optimization a lot. That's where I started. And Jurat,st like little small things. You'd be surprised that will just change, you know, your website and how it comes up on Google and things like that. Like a lot of small things you can do. And even if, you know, be like, oh, I'm tech savvy. Well, it's time to learn or pay somebody. Like we got to stop saying that I'm not tech savvy. Just, just baby steps. One thing at a time.

 

Bill Soroka (00:56:32):

That is so true. And my friend, Greg Reed, he says, work your strengths and hire your weaknesses. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so don't let it stop. You. Don't let it Jurat,st stop your dream business here. You're here for a reason you love this business. Find a way around it. Even if you're not the type that wants to figure out technology, there are thousands, millions of people who love that stuff and they're good at it. So you can like on fiber, you know, what is jamming you up could actually just be a, a quick little click in a box for the right person. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and it's not, it may not be as much as you think. All right, let's take a look then at number eight. And this is, or this will be number nine. Sorry we got out of order there. The elevating your network. So, oh, and eliminating some of the naysayers mm-hmm <affirmative> I think we need to talk about eliminating the naysayers first, because this is.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:57:26):

Facebook groups,

 

Bill Soroka (00:57:28):

Ah, well, say that again.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:57:29):

Be aware of Facebook groups. <Laugh>

 

Bill Soroka (00:57:33):

Yeah, there are some Facebook groups that it might be time to say farewell to.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:57:37):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>

 

Bill Soroka (00:57:38):

Because they will drag you down and like, Vanessa, I love how you were saying. Earlier it's like, just because one person's phone is not ringing doesn't mean the entire industry isn't ringing. It's definitely changed. It's flux. Nobody's denying that. Things have changed, but there are people out there thriving right now, finding different ways to, to work this business and make the dream thrive and survive. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> So, but the ones that get on Facebook are the ones who aren't doing that sometimes. Yeah. They got a little more time on their hands. So, and they're sharing it with the world and you got to be really careful. You have to protect your energy from that.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:58:17):

That's so true. Yeah. That's so true. And I think that like, when, when you go into these Facebook groups, you have people who are try to tell you like, oh, you can't do this cause they haven't figured it out yet. And one thing I always tell my students, if there is one successful person in your area, you can do it too. Yep. I need, then you can. Okay. It's working for them period. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (00:58:39):

There's I love that. Have you heard the Roger Banister story?

 

Vanessa Terry (00:58:44):

No.

 

Bill Soroka (00:58:45):

In like early fifties, Roger Banister was the first man to run the mile under four minutes. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And up until that moment medical doctor science said it was impossible to run the mile in under four minutes. He ran it and I think like milliseconds under a minute or, or under four minutes or something. But as soon as he did suddenly runners all over the world were breaking that record. I think he only held that record for like 30 days or 60 days or something. And then suddenly it was no big deal anymore. Everybody needs a run band, Roger Banister in their life just to show what's possible. And if they can do it, you can do it. That's I love that suggestion.

 

Vanessa Terry (00:59:26):

That is super key. And I think, I think that goes into like, you know, being mindful of your circle and who you're hanging around. But I want to share this too, that I thought when you said that, yeah, I, I fly a lot and you fly a lot, but I was in the airport, like not this last time, time before that, and I was walking through the terminal and I just, it just thought this came to me about the Wright brothers and whoever else was involved, the building of the airplane. And around that time, whoever was saying like, yeah, no, you're crazy. You can't do this. You can't build this like this insane. How you going to, you going to fly in this sky or a bird. Right. And I thought about that and I was like, these people who are not even here anymore have no idea.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:00:00):

But they built something that everyone said was impossible. And now's like this trillion dollar industry. And I'm just looking around the airport. I mean, all this stuff that had to like nail salons in this airport and it's like 30 planes outside. And it's like, people don't even question airplanes anymore. It's get on it. You know? And it's like, you can't listen to people who tell you can't do something because it's just like, it really just blew my mind, blew my mind if I'm sitting in the airport. So anything you want to do do it. Who cares? Just go for it. You shoot the shot.

 

Bill Soroka (01:00:29):

<Laugh> I, I love that you look at the world like that as well, I can, I can do it too. Every time I see a skyscraper. I'm like think of the idea, idea that like everything was born in idea, everything that you see around you was just, somebody's crazy idea at some point architecturally, all the businesses that fill those skyscrapers, the airplanes in the sky. Think about the technology that drives it. All of that was somebody's idea first.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:00:55):

Yeah. It's so, and I also, my friend side note, we're going to decide, but we're going to come back in it, my friend, wife to Dubai. And they was, I was looking at all these pictures and like Dubai has these huge, huge buildings. And I'm just like, and it makes me think like, why don't we have them here? We need people who want to build them here. We got to build buildings here. Why? You know, but it's also about exposure, which goes into like elevating your circle. Like putting people in that are around you that are doing these amazing and these great things, because then it's going to inspire you. If you're only talking to people who are like, oh, negative people naysayers, and you're not going to have that support. And that like, it's like a, it's like a fire when you're around people who are go-getters and who are like, oh, you can do this and do that. You know, so important.

 

Bill Soroka (01:01:39):

It is critically important. And I don't think it's fully appreciated until you reach a certain level of joy or success, whether it's in business or in life, then you start to realize it's like, oh, I've I, I need more of that. You meet it. Right. You meet people who are lit from the inside and you've got, have more of that. And that's what I think one of the cool things about that 10 X crowd that you were talking about with Grant mm-hmm <affirmative> is those, those guys and gals, everybody who's there they're lit. I mean, they are doing big things in their life. And that's one of the reasons I, I, I found that at a Toastmasters meeting here in Phoenix, a six in the morning Toastmasters,

 

Vanessa Terry (01:02:22):

I think it saw, is it a notary one?

 

Bill Soroka (01:02:24):

Well, we have a notary one that Dan over in Oregon started, but I'm talking even back before when I was just, I was just a, a signing agent by myself, but I knew I needed this. It was networking. It was a powerful networking group. And of course it taught me the skills I need to present documents and to be on video and stuff cause I was trying to build up for this. But the people in that group, they were lit. They came because they had big dreams and they knew they needed to learn those skills to make it happen. So they are all doing cool things, authors and speakers and business owners. It was really cool. You've got to surround yourself. And that's, that's exactly what we're talking about here and elevating your network. You've got to reduce the time that you spend with energy vampires. Those are the people that

 

Vanessa Terry (01:03:09):

Vampires. I like that.

 

Bill Soroka (01:03:11):

Well, those are the people that suck the life out of a conversation or out of a, a meeting. And you'll know these people because when you walk away, you are going to feel exhausted.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:03:21):

Oh

 

Bill Soroka (01:03:21):

My, or you're sitting in your mind thinking, what are we talking about? Or why am I here you want people that fill you? And don't drain you. And that's super important when you're on your way to doing big things.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:03:34):

I like it.

 

Bill Soroka (01:03:35):

Then. Remember your ideal customers in this, get involved with them guys. Your, your ideal customers are probably big dreamers and big doers. They're probably making some stuff happen, get in their orbit on LinkedIn or Facebook, whatever they've got get in that orbit. And then this is super important too. Is the client getting events Vanessa?

 

Vanessa Terry (01:03:57):

Oh yeah. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (01:03:58):

So sometimes for notaries I think, and you probably know this it's so comfortable. We've got such an awesome and loving community, but we, the note, so it attracts the notaries, but then if all you do is go to notary events all year. Yeah. And you don't do client getting events, you end up struggling. This ends up being harder than you need to be. Right? Yeah. We have to push past our comfort zones and actually do client getting events. So what I challenge people to do is just attend five client, getting events every single year and then we'll change their business.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:04:29):

I like that. Yeah. And I I'm, I'm always networking like this, this new store open is the only time I've ever been in one place this long. And it's just like, I want to get back into the out now, but it's okay. going to stay here. I gave myself at the end of July, but usually at least every day I'm going somewhere. I usually fill up my week. So every day there is a place that I'm going, whether it's a coworking space that I've joined or a membership I'm a part of, or I just find events all over the place. And like, I'll, I'll scroll on Facebook that I'm on a lot of like realtor groups and how company groups or like they'll if you just search like your city, like just put in your city in Facebook in groups, you'll see a bunch of different groups of all different types of things.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:05:12):

And I don't even just, and this is just me. I don't just attend events that are in my niche. I go out to different, cause you never know what's out there. If you don't go. You know? And one of my best stories is an event that I went like three months ago to a random dinner. It was like a women's luncheon type thing for, it was celebrating a individual woman that I had no idea who she was. And I went there, I bought a ticket. I went and everyone was like, oh, how do you know her? And I'm like, I don't know her <laugh> but I came and from that event I met a amazing ladies, but I did get a client from my, from my signing service. It was a corporate commercial title company. And she was there and you know, but I only met her because I went outside of where I would've normally went. So I'm like all, I'm always networking, always, always expanding anywhere I can. Yeah. Most definitely.

 

Bill Soroka (01:06:06):

I love that philosophy. And I think you just, I mean, you demonstrate what happens when you're out in the arena, when you get out in the arena and you start making things happen, right. That's where the intersections of the right people and opportunities collide with you. It doesn't happen when you're in the, in the grandstand or other sidelines. Right. In fact, I don't even think there are sidelines to life. You like to think there are, but that's not how it works. Get in there and start playing the game. I love that. Yeah. Do you have just in your experience, cause you, you know, you coach know theories all over the country too, so what are a couple of the best networking opportunities that you've heard of?

 

Vanessa Terry (01:06:53):

Okay. So I always tell notaries to join a local chamber of commerce. That's my first one. I think that's one that is, I honestly overlooked it for a while and I think I've been a member of our local one for now, like three years now. But it's so much good networking in your community. And one thing that I love about it is that there are other business owners in there and what, what you get from that is most businesses, if not all have the same operating pieces, we all have marketing, we all have sales, we all have CRMs. We all have website, you know, so you, and a lot of times, yes, you may have a bakery and I have a notary business, but we may both have problems getting on TikTok. Right. And there could be a social media person in there, you know?

 

Vanessa Terry (01:07:36):

So you, yes, you all have different products and services, but you all pretty much are still having the same issues of running a business. And so it allows you to collaborate with more people on top of networking, cause you know, a lot of times you'll see the lawyers in there and the realtors in there, you know, and different lenders and banks are typically in there. So yes, you can network like that. But it also, you can learn from other business owners, you know, cause you are a business owner. So now you can learn from business owners, you know that's absolutely. Yeah. Oh, OK. Think there's so many ways out there. I dunno.

 

Bill Soroka (01:08:11):

There really are. Yeah. Well I love that. You said so in every community, there's all kinds of different groups and Facebook, I love is a great resource for events. I love meetup.com for the same reason you can go in there and just search...

 

Vanessa Terry (01:08:24):

Get on there.

 

Bill Soroka (01:08:25):

Yeah. Check it out. cause you can find free networking meetings. You know, one of the most organized and structured networking groups I've ever seen is BNI, Business Networking International. Yeah. But you know, it's so strict. I mean, and it works in so many ways, obviously they're all over the, all over the world, but there's usually people that either love it or hate it. And the people who don't like it, they usually branch off and they start their own networking meetings that are a little more relaxed and a little less expensive. So you can find those on meetup.com. And then the only other one that I would suggest, and I got this from Cammie, Corvin one of our NBB members. She planted the seed with me and I love it is join. If, if your ideal customer is attorneys, whether it's estate planning or criminal attorneys, whatever it is consider joining the local bar association as a non-attorney member, see if that's an option in your community. She has just knocked it out the park in her area and she sponsored an event and she gets a year of exposure for sponsoring that event.

 

Bill Soroka (01:09:30):

I just think it's a really great idea.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:09:33):

I'm doing it..

 

Bill Soroka (01:09:35):

<Laugh> Check it out.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:09:37):

You know what I did join onto that effect too. Your title, your title association. So like in Virginia, it's the V LTA. But every state should have one. So in, in every state, your title offices have to be with that association underneath Alta. And so I joined the V LTA as not an not a title company, but I Jurat,st joined. So I get all their emails, I get all their updates. I get all their events. I'm on the, you know, but I'm at now I have a Rolodex of all the title companies <laugh> in my yes. And their contact. And now I'm not a cold contact. I'm a warm contact because I'm in your, I'm in your group. So now we're all friends already.

 

Bill Soroka (01:10:18):

Hey. Yeah. <Laugh>, that is such a great idea. And that's so true. In fact Alta American Land Title Association they have a group on LinkedIn. That's probably one of the most active that I've ever seen. Like people actually participate in it, but what's really cool about those LinkedIn groups, even the Facebook groups, but LinkedIn in particular, cause it's a little easier to contact them. You can just say, Hey, we're in this group together. I've got a question or I'd like to pick your mind or Hey, can I take you to coffee or something like that. That's something that you have in common. It gives you a talking point, love your strategy there. All right. Let's let's get to number 10.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:10:55):

Okay.

 

Bill Soroka (01:10:56):

Which is just increasing your customer service levels right now. And the value that you bring to the table. And guys, I think this is really important right now because over the past couple of years title companies were in a scramble to find notaries. You know, a lot of notaries just didn't work because of what was going on in the pandemic. And then some of the new notaries were new. So the customer service levels were, let's just call it what it is. They were mediocre at best, in some, in, in a lot of circles.

 

Bill Soroka (01:11:31):

But title companies and signing companies didn't have a choice. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> the volume was so strong that they just had to hire people. Yeah. That has the, it has changed now. Now you see title companies and signing companies taking back the reins, taking back control and they're putting in quality assurance strategies and rules. And if you don't, if you're not playing up to par, it's going to be really difficult for you in this business. cause I know some of the title companies in the background, I, I know what they're doing and they want to improve the quality. They're tired of mistakes. Yeah. They're tired of attitude from notaries about when they make a mistake, charging fees, holding documents, hostage, showing up tos in flip flops or jeans you have heard of that.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:12:18):

I've heard, but never seen it actually happen that people hold documents hostage, but I've heard of that. That's insane.

 

Bill Soroka (01:12:25):

And it is crazy. We had two of them one in Georgia that forgot the documents in the backseat for five days. And then one in California that demanded an extra $50 before he would drop the packages off.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:12:44):

What was his reasoning?

 

Bill Soroka (01:12:46):

No reason he just wanted a higher fee.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:12:47):

Oh my goodness. That's what we're doing really?

 

Bill Soroka (01:12:52):

That did not go very well

 

Vanessa Terry (01:12:55):

And got to think about it. If you do that enough, you're going to run out of clients because I'm sure you're not working with him anymore. Like you're....

 

Bill Soroka (01:13:00):

Definitely. Oh no. That was a, that's a, that's considered a deal breaker.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:13:03):

Yeah, absolutely. No, we're not doing that. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That's go ahead. I'm sorry.

 

Bill Soroka (01:13:09):

No, no. I was Jurat,st going to say like the knowing O other signing company owners, knowing title company VPs across the country, they're running into that same problem too. And the tide has shifted that power and control that notaries may have thought they once had. They don't have that. So now it comes back to customer service. I can thrive in MVP. They're Jurat,st amazing. Like these are not the, not that would be doing that. These are the open loving heart driven stories that want to they're here because they want to help people. Sure. Can they make some decent money? Yeah. At the same time. Great. But they're here because they love the people and these are the notaries that they're going to thrive right now. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and then bringing, bringing some extra

 

Vanessa Terry (01:13:50):

And it's the ones,

 

Bill Soroka (01:13:52):

Say it again. I'm sorry.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:13:54):

No, yeah, no. I was like, it's the ones that really like take the time to provide great customer service that are going to do well. And I think that's a piece that a lot of people are getting caught up on, you know, oh, learning the documents or learning how to complete the notarization, but you also need to learn like customer service and you know how to be responsible and on time and not no show, we can, we've been dealing with this nohow issue, but it's been getting better. It's gotten a lot better. We've been weeding people out. <Laugh> like, it's all you got to do is one time. And it's not, it's not to say that, you know, life doesn't happen. It's a difference between nohow and canceling calling to, to cancel. Oh totally. That's a difference. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's just, some people just have to work on that. Realize it's not just you, other people that are operating in this closing process.

 

Bill Soroka (01:14:44):

Absolutely. And I think having an awareness of that and awareness of yourself and how you show up and your personal levels of integrity, all of that really matters in this business. And I'm a big proponent of being aware of your emotional wake and that's knowing how people feel when you walk away or when you leave, are you pouring into them? Are you enhancing? Are you being that beacon of love and light? Are you sucking the energy out of those signers? cause that we can be that person too sometimes. If we're not 100% present, if we're thinking about our last appointment or our next appointment and we're not there with them, that can be really draining on the other side. And I always say flip the script, right? Flip it. If you think the attention should be 80% on the paper and 20% on the people flip that 20%, your sharpest 20% on the paper, 80% on the people and you will thrive in this business. The other thing about that is, you know, there's like Paula Abdul said, there's no traffic in the extra mile. So when you, if you're trying to do,

 

Vanessa Terry (01:15:50):

I Like that.

 

New Speaker (01:15:51):

If you're trying to do the same thing that all the other notaries are trying to do right now with the same levels of service, the same conversation. Whenever you send an email or you make a phone call, it's going to be hard. You've got to find ways to go the extra mile, find a creative way to bring more value into the relationship or the closing table, whatever it is. However, whoever your ideal customer is find way creative ways to bring more value. There is no traffic in that extra mile. There are not, there are people who just don't know how to go the extra mile. This is your gift. If you worked in any business before, right? There's some awesome people in this business, they were amazing in their previous careers. If they bring that forward into this business, they can get really creative with that stuff.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:16:38):

I like it.

 

Bill Soroka (01:16:39):

It. Vanessa, let's talk about the three bonuses.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:16:43):

Yay.

 

Bill Soroka (01:16:44):

I'm excited to learn about your first one here. Cause I'm curious about how you do this. The guys, the first, the next bonus opportunity here is monetizing your social media

 

Vanessa Terry (01:16:55):

And it's so fun. Okay. So I feel like social, media's like a game right now and it's really cool because it's always changing. And if they're like, so, and I follow so many, so many different social media like gurus and like when you're on social media, the algorithms are always changing and really social media can be a whole thing all by itself. You know, I'm always telling my kids like, get on TikTok, please get on TikTok. Like you're like telling their kids, get off. I'm talking my kids, can you please get on it? I need you to make content please. Cause, cause you can monetize it. And my kids like they, they like, oh, sometimes I'm like, and to the point where I am. So like it's mind blowing to me how, you know, 20 years ago, you know? So you were, you, you couldn't get paid from making a video talking about, I don't know shoes.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:17:52):

Right. But people are literally making so much money. I'm not even kidding Bill. Okay. This is guy I follow. And I, I only follow him because it, it motivates me to get up. Okay. He has a channel on TikTok and all he does is take raw eggs. Okay. So a raw egg. And he peels the, the, the shell off slowly. So, you know, underneath the egg shell, there's a membrane. And so people, whenever you go on his channel and he's peeling this egg off, he will have easily 20,000 people watching him peel egg. And they're sending him money because you can pay people on ticket. They're paying him money. And then once it gets close out, I'm not even kidding yesterday. I was honest. I just wanted to see, he got to the last little piece of the shell and he was like, all I'm going to take it off. But before take, he like making it really slow were sending a bunch of money. Come, come, come on. I'm like, he literally just went to his fridge, got a, a, and is peeling. It ands, making way more money can possibly imagine than people make. And like a month, a year from peeling an egg. Insane. He's only one people out there doing ridiculous things on social media and getting paid top dollar.

 

Bill Soroka (01:19:08):

Who has time to watch that?

 

Vanessa Terry (01:19:12):

Well in might advance. I didn't watch for like 20 minutes, but I watched it cause I was so boggle and it's always boggling to me about how much money they get from peeling an egg., And people just sit on there all across the world. And just...

 

Bill Soroka (01:19:26):

I wondered how they made money. I didn't realize they like the audience was sending it cause they don't have ads yet on TikTok. So I was like, how do they,

 

Vanessa Terry (01:19:34):

They don't have ads, but TikTok does pay you. They have a creator. So will pay you after you get like 10,000 followers in a certain amount of watch hours, they do pay you. But a lot of talkers make money from that. Or from people that send you money on lives or from sponsorship ads. So people are like, oh, do a video for me and I'll give you 500 bucks. Those. but I love social media. Because there are a lot of ways to monetize that go on TikTok on YouTube, on Instagram and on Facebook. You can make great money doing that. And it's one of those things, residual income. I, I don't know if you've noticed, I'm sure you have a lot of notaries. Now I have YouTube channels and they're putting out lots of condo, which is great. And after you get like a certain amount of followers and watch hours, YouTube pays you.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:20:20):

And this stuff that you've done one time, so you sit down, you make a video now it's not the easiest thing to do. I mean you can, but record a quick video on your phone. And there's like debates about high quality, low quality things like that. Should I Jurat,st do it on my phone? That's a whole nother conversation, but you make a video at least 10 minutes. Typically put it on YouTube when you get paid forever from it, you know, long people are watching it, you're getting paid for it, you know? And so I took another way to diversify your income. I think YouTube is an easy way. It could be a little bit more technical again, you know, learning to make the thumbnails and editing the video. And you know, those little pieces can be a little technical, which again, you can learn on YouTube.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:20:59):

But also I think Instagram and TikTok are a really good way to monetize and they're a lot easier cause they're shorter videos. So it's really quick, you know, and Instagram and TikTok, they want that more unpolished video. They don't want that clean cut. Youtube really wants that. Clean cut Instagram and, and TikTok just want you to get on there and just start talking, you know, and just, okay, cool. You know, but I love, you know, just got to check a few minutes. I saw my notification from YouTube every month, every month, YouTube just sends me a check for my kidding. And yeah. And the key I would say with YouTube is post at least once a day, there's this guy I follow and he makes no lie, $80,000 and up every month on YouTube. But he posts the video every day, but he doesn't record every day. That's the key. He records one day, cuts it all up. Really schedules it, you know, but that's a, that's a nice amount of money to make.

 

Bill Soroka (01:21:53):

<Laugh> it's not a bad living. Yeah. 80 grand barely, barely straight by.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:22:00):

And you're seeing that now lot of young people are getting on social media and they're making like, there's, they're saying right now it's the wave of the new wave millionaires are the 16, 17, 18, 1920s. You know, that's getting on social media. That's pretty amazing.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:22:16):

And they're just killing it.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:22:17):

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Bill Soroka (01:22:19):

What, what advice would you have for in the notary community about the type of content to post?

 

Vanessa Terry (01:22:27):

I think that what does really well, people like to see educational content. So because you do have to know your genre, you have to know your audience, what they want to see. And if you're, if you're creating notary content, you have to, you know, kind of make it for your audience. So our audience typically wants to see training or like information, like tell me how, or like the day in the life of the notary, you know, something that can inspire people to get into the space. And so, you know, quick little, two, three minute video, I just had a alone time. Here's how it went. Never tell personal information. So don't tell clients names, people just stop doing don't people I've seen no's posts like client documents and stuff and say, oh, I got paid off of this. No, don't post pictures of people's private information. If you do a an appointment and you take a picture with a client, always ask them first, can I post this on social media? Don't Jurat,st assume they're going to say it's okay. No, but yeah, that's what I think. I think you can. Absolutely.

 

Bill Soroka (01:23:25):

And I love that you said, know your audience and that's another key thing that we just talked about a few minutes ago, but know who your ideal customer is. Again, I think our notary community sometimes defaults to talking to notaries even if they don't have a training program or a book because it's comfortable and it's what's going on. But if you're trying to build a relationship with hospital administration staff or high end attorneys that cater to the ultra wealthy, they're not necessarily going to care about the process to become a notary or a loan signing agent or your Eno insurance or where you went to get your journals, right. They're going to have their own needs that's who you want to cater to. Like if you've got a notary program, if you want to help notaries. That's great. And I, I know some people have found a way to, to blend the two and I think that's even better, cause there's always a blend. You don't have to compartmentalize everything, but know who your ideal customer is. That's why it's so important to know who you're talking to and then talk to them. I love that great advice, monetize social media. You know I made the decision early on not to monetize my YouTube channel, but you've got me thinking that maybe.

 

Bill Soroka (01:24:42):

Well, lemme tell you why I made that decision though. And this is, you know, I think it's important is if you monetize, like if I allowed monetization on my YouTube channel, guess who advertises on my channel, my biggest competitors. So, so they'll watch my video and then a competitor's ad comes on that sells cause I don't sell anything in my, in my video so that I just deliver content and value. So I could either start selling in my videos or I could stop monetization. So I ultimately, I stopped monetization. But....

 

Vanessa Terry (01:25:17):

I heard, yeah, I've seen that. I think, you know, and I would say my only response to, cause I did see that and I was like, what am I having these ads? And so my response was not to not monetize. My response was, well, I'm going to do ads too. So I just made my own ads and I pushed them out. So hopefully when other people have, you know, they have my ads <laugh>

 

Bill Soroka (01:25:41):

I love it though. I love your philosophy on that. That is, that is a great way to do it and then it, and then it goes back and forth. Well you got me thinking about switching to monetization too. All right. Let's let's look at number two then, cause this kind of blends right into what we're talking about, cause notaries could offer mentorship in classes as well. What's your thoughts on that?

 

Vanessa Terry (01:26:08):

So I'm kind of like two sided with it in that I have a few of my students who've gone on to do trainings too. But I also ha, and I think that's great, but I also have heard like quote unquote horror stores if people like have, oh, I bought this training and I didn't learn anything or this happened this and, and third. And so I'm always, I'm skeptical on both. I'm not skeptical. I'm just, I always tell people my rule of thumb is to whenever I get anyone's training or coaching, I always say you can tell a tree by the fruit bears. So if you have the results that I want, then I'll take your training. I was going to, I'm very much results driven. And I, for me personally, this is my personal things. I have so many huge goals. I always look for the monster in the industry.

 

Vanessa Terry (01:26:51):

Like who's killing it. That's where I'm doing. <Laugh> Because I, I want to be a monster. I don't want to be like a little small fish. I want the monster. Cause I want you the little small fish. There's still learning. The monster has learned it all. And so I want the mon, it's going to cost more for the monster, but I'm going to shorten my learning curve and I'm going to get there faster with the monster. So that's what I do. But also I think that it's a great way to, you know, another revenue treat you can do, if you feel confident. If you let's say you, you you've been doing it for a while, you understand it, you know, you know, everything, you know, you want to start mentoring people. I think it's a great thing to do to help other notaries, you know, get established and you know, teaching them the ropes and things like that. So that's a great opportunity.

 

Bill Soroka (01:27:34):

Absolutely. I agree. And I love your perspective on that too. I have just three short pieces of advice for anybody who wants to do that first, nail it and scale it. And I love what you said about results. I think people try to scale it and start teaching before they've nailed it. You've got to nail it first, figure out this and find your own system too cause one of the reasons I think Sign And Thrive succeeded for me was that I gave a framework. You know, I had my five phases, you know, phase one was this 2, 3, 4, 5. So I had a framework for people to take the next step and succeed. And that's what you want to do. Plus I had all my little systems. I, I nailed it. First. I found out a way to make a couple hundred grand a year at this before I started teaching it.

 

Bill Soroka (01:28:17):

So then I could say, this is what worked for me. Here's shine the line back, light back. And here's what that, if you come at this without a desperation like, oh my God, I need to Jurat,st start making some money. I'm just going to start teaching a course. People are going to see through that and you might still have the expertise. And that's one of my pieces of advice is don't doubt your expertise. You just have to define your expertise, build the framework. Maybe you found a way to take a specialty notary work call that closes deals for you. And you can teach that that's teachable that's framework. You can give someone. Maybe you found a way to complete a loan signing efficiently with a journal system. That's a framework that you can build into a training. That's the stuff that people need. And that's my last piece of advice is no more fluff training, no more fluffy over. I saw what's that

 

Vanessa Terry (01:29:09):

I saw it.

 

Bill Soroka (01:29:09):

You just did that too. Cause I, I think right now, especially notaries are craving the, the, deeper stuff like we've got, we've got great experience after the last couple of years. Now we can start the refining process. Now we can start having a deeper conversation. And we're, I think we're also kind of tired of the fluff pieces, which leads us right into self-publishing books.

Bill Soroka (01:33:36):

Vanessa, this has a much longer conversation than I thought we would do. <laugh> But this has been packed full of, I I've learned so much from you and I love learning. I'm a lifelong learning. So thank you for sharing that with me and with the rest of our audience and thank you for making time for us.

Vanessa Terry (01:33:55):

Thank you for having me Bill. Of course, you know, I love you. You're amazing. I love all of your content and I just love your vibe. I'm like, I love us being able to connect plus you. I have a whole page of notes now wrote, wrote it down cake.

Bill Soroka (01:34:26):

I love your energy is amazing as well. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to well collaborating with you even more throughout the year. So thank you again and you have a great day.

Vanessa Terry (01:34:38):

You as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Bill

 

 

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