The information in this book is designed to provide helpful insight into topics discussed. The authors and publishers are not lawyers, do not claim to be lawyers and nothing in this book should be construed as legal advice.
The authors have made every effort to ensure information was accurate at time of publication. The authors and publishers disclaim any liability to any party for any loss caused by errors or omissions.
There is no guarantee that employing techniques and ideas discussed will produce the same results for you. Your earning potential is entirely dependent on you and your respective markets.
The authors do offer more extensive courses (Notary Prosperity Academy) and full coaching/mentorship sessions 1:1 via zoom for those interested in getting started or increasing revenue as a Notary Signing Agent. This coaching 1
A Golden Pen
and mentorship process is backed by 100% money-back guarantee if the information and resources implemented doesn’t pay for the cost of coaching within 90 days of implementation.
A Golden Pen
The Notary Signing Agents Guide To Multiple Streams Of Income:
Learn The Best 6-Figure Side Hustles & Start Today Copyright © 2022 Noble Notary & Legal Document Preparers - Al Rights Reserved.
G & M Sias
Companies, LLC
Al rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written consent.
Mark Sias / Grace Sias
Noble Notary & Legal Document Preparers LegalDocPrepNotary.Com
Port Orange, Fl 32128
2
A Golden Pen
3
A Golden Pen
The Notary Signing Agents Guide
To Multiple Streams Of Income:
Learn The Best 6-Figure Side
Hustles And Start Today
C ontents
Preface
Dedication
Introduction
Why Multiple Streams Of Income?
The Daily Half Dozen: Keystone Habits Our business model & why is it so good?
The World of Credit Repair
The
World
of
Fingerprinting
The World of Legal Services
4
A Golden Pen
The World of Taxes The World of Coaching
The Lesser Known World of Notary The World of Insurances & Financial Services The World of Appraisals Final Thoughts
Recommended Reading
Copyright © 2022 Noble Notary & Legal Document Preparers - All Rights Reserved.
G & M Sias
5
A Golden Pen
Preface
We are just like many of you. The same daily struggles & challenges. The same hopes and dreams of a brighter future
We've stumbled our way through
many network marketing opportunities with no significant results to brag about. We don't have a huge social media following. . we aren't gurus at advertising or any other significant expertise. This didn't make us failures and if you find yourself in the same set of circumstances, it doesn't make you a failure either. You just haven't found the right vehicle yet for your ultimate success.
What we've discovered through those failures, and trials and errors are the businesses that seemed to give us the 6
A Golden Pen
best chances for success. When we first started our mobile notary business we really had no idea how big of a hit i t w a s going to be. It just seemed like a good idea worth trying, with very little to lose. So we did, and along the way, we realized they were very specific reasons why this works so well.
It's safe to say that most of us are not born with a silver spoon in our mouth or with a "golden pen" in our hands.
But, the skills that are required to achieve business success are just that; skills that you can develop through practice. In practicem as they say, makes perfect! Some of the ideas laid out might even seem odd or peculiar, but give them the do-diligence they deserve and I can assure you they are quite lucrative.
We will dispel the myth that it takes 7
A Golden Pen
money to make money. This is simply just not the case! It takes ideas, action, goals, and perseverance. The idea of having to leverage other people to make money is outdated. In 2022 you can l e verage technology and ideas. If you will put those ideas into action and commit to learning the skills you need, your bank account will increase!
We wrote this book to open your eyes and pique your curiosity. But most importantly, to give you hope!
8
A Golden Pen
Dedication
This book is dedicated in loving memory to a couple of great fathers.
We lost them in
recent years to Heaven.
Those great men were
Thomas Harold Sias
and James Kay
Noffsinger. You never
really know how much
you needed someone
until they are gone.
Hearing the words,
“great job, I’m proud of
your accomplishments”
was something that we
both heard often.
Thomas H. Sias
06/02/48-02-21-
22 we can do
them justice in
this life.
They set the bar high as examples of how to live life. Kindness, generosity, gentleness, forgiving and loving. We 9
A Golden Pen
are both truly grateful for the income and time freedom our business has given us to be able to invest as much time as we did into making lasting memories with them! We hope to carry on the torch. Until we meet again, you are both forever in our minds and hearts.
Our fathers made sure that we knew we were loved and doing theright things in our lives. We miss hearing those words out of their mouths, you do not realize how important it is to have that affirmation until it is no longer there. Our dads were kind and strong men, always there to give us advice or help out in any situation. We thank them for living righteously and we hope that.
10
A Golden Pen
Our Pastor, Michael Modica, always says tomorrow is a day on a fools calendar. Our hope and prayer is that the ideas, concepts and underlying philosophy of this book will motivate and inspire you to be able to live life on your own terms. Not be bound to a job, fixed schedule and limited income.
James Noffsinger
10/07/51-06/30/20
“To everything
there is a season, A
time for every
purpose under
heaven:
11
A Golden Pen
A time to be born, And a time to
die, time to kill, And a time to
heal, A time to break down, And a
time to build up, A time to weep,
And a time to laugh, A time to
mourn, And a time to dance.”
-
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
12
A Golden Pen
Every time we do a notary
appointment, we am amazed. We get paid well for a seal & signature. It is like our signature is GOLD! How can this be? Well it is true. You know what? It’s not the only business that works like that either. There are plenty of opportunities like this simple signature authentication business that offer the same or similar lucrative rewards. Our aim isn’t to lay out exhaustive information, but rather give you enough to make informed
decisions about your next additional service, or side hustle as the kids call it.
Once you’ve learned the necessary steps to get one business going, trust us, the next one will be easier. It is the same basic process. T he one after that will be even easier yet again!
Plus, you’ll have a larger customer base to cross sell to. That’s right, cross sell. In most cases, just letting your client know what all you offer is all the 13
A Golden Pen
cross selling you need. But, as our good friend & mentor, Ruth Tick says to always ask, “Would you like fries with that?!” Don’t leave money on the table!
So, if you are doing loan signings and don’t offer additional services (you are just a notary) you are absolutely leaving money on the table!
We want to open your mind to
possibilities. We don’t want you to get comfortable in just one niche. Tim Ferriss says, “The riches are in the niches.” That is plural. As in more than one. We want you to have a clear understanding of the kind of
opportunities you should be looking for. You can then take them for what they are worth and run with it.
Curiosity is a wonderful thing. Good ideas beget more, better, & newer ideas! They always do. The next book we read on the shelf might even be yours.
14
A Golden Pen
"I have no special talent. I am only
passionately curious."
-Albert Einstein
This book is the culmination of the past several years of observing
numerous notaries in groups and
forums concerned with low volume of appointments. How many side hustles should you have? Well, we guess as many as it takes to reach your goals.
You don’t want to spread yourself thin.
But on the other hand, many of these services are easy to scale up with ancillary staff. You can outsource ad campaigns. You can hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) to screen calls and schedule appointments. You could even start doing this with your mobile notary services.
Ours has flourished. We had a growth mindset right from the beginning. The idea is to use the easy income and time freedom from this magnificent business model to springboard yourself into even 15
A Golden Pen
more business and opportunities.
Level up!
Let me briefly tell our story so you know a little bit more about who Mark
& Grace are. We own and operate a small legal services & signing services business in Port Orange, Florida called Noble Notary & Legal Document Preparers.
In 2019 I, Mark, walked away from my career as a critical care registered nurse. Burned out and frustrated with what the healthcare system had
become. Sadly, for many nurses, covid has made it even worse. We started a mobile notary business that has been a smashing success. Compared to
nursing, I feel like I am semi-retired.
I, Grace, was a stay-at-home mom for 13 years to our four beautiful children.
We chose to live a sort of 1950’s lifestyle where Mark worked and I took care of all things related to the kids and home (cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, running kids 16
A Golden Pen
to activities, church, sleepovers, the list goes on and on as all stay at home moms know). I had dabbled in several
‘work from home’ opportunities
because I was ready to be, ‘more than just a mother’. I wanted to contribute financially as well (as if being just a mom isn’t enough as it is, haha.) P.S., a MAJOR shout out to the moms who work a full-time career and keep up with their mommy duties, HATS OFF!!
However, none of these career paths worked for me. When God led us to the notary world, I was ready to jump in headfirst with Mark.
We started this business literally on a shoestring budget. Nothing more than notary commissions, a laptop
computer and a laser printer. As profits rolled in, we were committed to reinvesting in the business and
reinvesting in new ideas. They have paid off big-time!
We each only work about 15-20
hours a week. Each subsequent year, it seems we not only work a little less, 17
A Golden Pen
and our income manages to increase, but, we have added additional services that have also been lucrative. We tell you this not to impress you, but to impress upon you what can be
achieved in the right business models with the right connections & teaching.
We’ve learned to systematize & streamline many aspects of our
business & we intend to teach you many tactics to do the same!
We want to close this intro with this: You must commit to getting better everyday, not getting comfortable. You must listen to your audience, customer
& client base. They will tell you what problems you can help solve. You must learn to create leverage. Leverage technology, leverage time, money, other peoples ingenuity, skill & labor.
Leverage ideas & knowledge.
Making a living as a Notary Public can be a great way to build multiple streams of income and reach your 18
A Golden Pen
financial goals. By following these steps, you can create a plan that will help you succeed. Reinvest in your business. Let profits drive future growth.
Let’s discuss more on multiple streams of income…
“I’d rather have 1% of a hundred
people, than 100% of one
person.”-J. Paul Getty
19
A Golden Pen
Why Multiple streams of
income?
Multiple streams of income is a term that refers
to the idea
of earning
money
from more
than one
source. It is
a strategy
that can be
used to increase financial stability and reduce the risk of losing everything if one source of income dries up. Which, in most cases, it will. Being a notary, real estate ebbs and flows, multiple ways to make money will be key.
The idea behind this strategy is that if you have more than one stream of income, then you will not be as affected 20
A Golden Pen
by any single event or change in your life. For example, if you are self-21
A Golden Pen
employed and your business goes under, then you will still have your salary from your day job to fall back on.
Notary publics have a varied and exciting career -they can secure signatures on important documents like affidavits, deeds, and wills. In addition to witnessing hand-written wills, notaries may even be able to use their skills for a variety of things that we will delve into in the coming chapters.
The mobile notary business is great. It does have its limitations and
weaknesses. Here are a couple realities you need accept: For starters, it is extremely easy entry. Basically, anyone without a criminal record can be commissioned. Word quickly gets
around of the well-paying loan signings and that attracts many more wanna-be NSA’s to grab the low hanging fruit.
This leads to market saturation.
Market saturation leads to less volume for those of us ‘professional closers’. It also lowers the industry pay standards.
The wanna-be closers will take
22
A Golden Pen
insultingly low offers we wouldn’t dream of. If we don’t have other high-ticket, high revenue generating sources, we will in turn end up contributing to the low-ball offers because we need to fill our calendar. In short, you need measures in place to hedge the bet!
There are many benefits to having multiple streams of income, especially if you are a Notary Public. Having multiple streams of income can help you to:
1. Make a living: If you have multiple sources of income, you are more likely to make a decent living than if you rely on just one source. This is especially true if you are self-employed.
2. Its easier for you to weather tough times.
3. Achieve financial goals: Having multiple streams of income can help you to achieve financial goals sooner than if you rely on just one source of income. This is because you will have 23
A Golden Pen
more money coming in, which means you can invest it and grow it faster.
4. Enjoy greater financial security: Having multiple sources of income can give you a sense of security and peace of mind.
5. Have a recession proof career: Notary work will never dry up, but, may slow down. Offering other services secures your income.
The market caps & the market shifts.
The area you choose to serve has a market cap. Only so much work
volume can be had. Unless, you offer other services that in turn have a different market cap. Low interest rates will always create an influx of business for everyone. But, then it happens…rates climb and the
refinance market dries up. Now what do you do? Worse yet, what if the surrounding communities you serve suffer a population collapse? Save money: Having multiple streams of income can help you to save money.
24
A Golden Pen
This is because you will have more money coming in, which means you can put more away into savings.
6. Insulate yourself from financial shocks: If one of your sources of income dries up, you will still have others to fall back on. This can help to insulate you from financial shocks and collapse. You either expand your driving time & coverage area (work more), move to an area of higher population density or deal with a reduced income. But, not if you add multiple high demand, fast
turnaround, low overhead services that compliment what you are already doing!
What about reaching your income goals? We could do $2500/week
working part-time from home. Don’t get me wrong, that was great compared to being a nurse by a long-shot.. but, we knew we could do more! We set a goal that
25
A Golden Pen
was double that! Consistently making $5000/week part-time from home was in our minds ‘ living the American Dream’! We could afford the 4000+/sq ft house we always wanted and the fancy cars to match. We set out to do just that.
Lastly, what about generating some residual income? You know, the gift that keeps on giving? We know what you’re thinking.. network marketing.
I’m outta here! Unfortunately, MLM’s have become tantamount to the
concept of residual income, but this isn’t the case here. Reoccurring royalties can be earned from things you can do that pertain to everyday life and even your notary business. We can also learn to shift gears in our services business slowly and carefully from a position of “self-employed” to that of leveraging other labor to make you more money than you are capable of on your own 24 hour timeline.
A few basic, baby steps...
26
A Golden Pen
Step 1: Determine your target income.
The first step to building an income plan is to determine how much money you need to make each month to reach your financial goals. To do this, you'll need to consider your current expenses and debts, as well as your long-term financial goals.
Step 2: Find ways to generate multiple streams of income.
Once you know how much money you need to make each month, you can start looking for ways to generate multiple streams of income. There are a number of ways to do this, but some of the most common include; starting a side business, investing in real estate, and many more that aren’t nearly as difficult or costly to break into as you may have previously thought.
Step 3: Create a budget and stick to it.
Once you have your income streams set up, it's important to create a 27
A Golden Pen
budget and stick to it. This will help you ensure that you're making the most of your money and reaching your financial goals. We will mention this more than once on these pages,
delayed gratification. Putting in the work now so that you can enjoy the perks later!
28
A Golden Pen
The Daily Half-Dozen: Keystone Habits
“If you want more, you have to
become more.”- Jim Rohn
The ability to develop keystone habits is a critical skill for anyone looking to improve their life. A keystone habit is a behavior that has a ripple effect, leading to positive change in other areas of your life as well. Once you’ve identified your keystone habit, focus on building it into your daily routine.
Some helpful strategies include using triggers to remind yourself to do the 29
A Golden Pen
habit, finding a supportive community, and making it fun.
Let’s talk about what research & personal experience has deemed the most important ones:
The Keystone of Gratitude
Did you
wake up
today
and say,
“Good
morning,
Lord” or
was it
more
like, “Oh, Lord, another morning”? The former we hope. Being grateful sets your attitude and mindset right for a successful business and life.
Innumerable books from ancient times like the Bible all the way to, like, 5
minutes ago have ascribed to the benefits of gratitude. Yet still, the simple act of walking it out in daily life escapes most people.
30
A Golden Pen
A quick scroll through your Facebook feed, and you will see it is littered with all kinds of complainers and negativity.
Even in the forums that should be more positive. We see the nay-sayers in notary groups telling people they’ll never make it as an NSA. That is not the input you need in your life. Our advice is to start filtering those kinds of friends out. Your mind & psyche operate the same way your body does.
Garbage in = garbage out.
So, wake up each day, look around you and inventory what you have to be thankful for. Thank the good Lord for another day. Thank Him for a roof over your head, food on your table, breath in your lungs. It doesn’t stop there.
Thank everyone for everything all throughout your day. You see,
gratitude is also an attractive trait, just as a lack of gratitude is an ugly trait.
Your clients and customers will look forward to being around you in
general.
31
A Golden Pen
Send thank you emails to your clients, customers, vendors and so forth. Trust us on this, cultivating an attitude of gratitude will change your world in the shortest amount of time possible.
Conversely, an ungrateful heart will keep you in the same set of
circumstances much longer than you need to be.
A grateful heart will always shine bright through you. Your family, friends, and clients will recognize this in you. So, live it, breathe it, and fill yourself with gratefulness.
“Rejoice always, pray
continually, give thanks in all
circumstances; for this is God’s
will for you in Christ Jesus.”
-
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
The Keystone of Reading
Stop and think about this, if you can read through your Facebook feed for 32
A Golden Pen
more than an hour a day, then please do not tell me that you do not have time to read something to invest in your future. The same with gratitude, garbage in, garbage out. If only you filled your mind with knowledge and skill that you need to develop your business and improve your
relationships...image how quickly your world could change.
Therefore, it is imperative to dedicate a portion of daily time to the habit of reading. Be committed to making
yourself better at anything that is important to your life goals. Be committed to lifelong learning. How else can you spend a few hours of time and learn things that took someone else years to uncover?
“If you are the smartest person
in the room, you’re in the
wrong room.” -Grace Sias
It is important to stress that while learning in a variety of ways is certainly beneficial, we are specifically 33
A Golden Pen
talking about reading. Don’t substitute 10 minutes of reading for 10 minutes of Youtube. The reason is because it will engage your mind in ways that videos and audio just can’t. Ideas will formulate. The knowledge you gain will have a solid foundation in your mind.
“An investment in knowledge
pays the best interest.” -Ben
Franklin
The Keystone of Exercise
To have an optimally functioning life, business & mind, you need a healthy body. What’s more, discipline begets more discipline. This is essentially the backbone of keystone habits.
Seriously. Most high performers are physically, mentally, and socially fit.
People who you would consider having a poor quality of life are typically overweight, cigarette smoking, fast food eating, broke and all around lazy.
Sorry it seems as if we are harsh.
34
A Golden Pen
The good news is, you don’t have to train for the Olympics. Our suggestion is to find activities that you enjoy doing and make those your exercise. If you like to swim, go swimming. If you like to roller skate, go to the rink.
Actually, our younger sister/sister-in-law, who is a mother of four stays in great shape hitting the roller-skating rink on a regular basis. On several occasions she visits us here in Florida and we join her at the rink. Fun and healthy. We are reminded of just how vigorous seemingly fun activities can be!
Our younger brother/brother-in-law loves to go kayaking. Talk about an awesome way to build upper body
strength while enjoying our beautiful nature.
Tim Ferris talks about it in his book
“The Four Hour Body”, the minimum effective dose. To summarize his book, you can make drastic changes in your body’s performance, appearance, and overall health with far less exercise than most people think is needed.
35
A Golden Pen
In short, get out there and move because this will spill over into all areas of your life including your professional life. If this is something you have been putting off, it is time to get serious. Our advice is just to start small, a few minutes a day. As you get more enthusiastic and motivated, you will gradually increase the time, intensity and duration of said work outs.
“You will get all you want in life if
you help enough people get what
they want.”
-Zig
Ziglar
T he Keystone of Journaling
Journaling will help you crystallize your thoughts, ideas and goals. You will also be able to track your progress, strengthen your memory, improve
36
A Golden Pen
concentration and gain motivation as you are able to reflect back and how far you progressed. Journaling, we believe, will give you insight in the same way an outside observer would. Like having your own personal coach. There’s a self-accountability factor here as well.
This writing will also help you figure out your next move.
Just the
crystallizing in
writing down of
your goals and
tracking them
should be all the
discussion needed
on the benefits of
journaling,
however, we feel
there are a few
other fringe
benefits worth mentioning. .
37
A Golden Pen
In Richard Poe's book "The Einstein Factor" he discusses a method of increasing intelligence called ‘image streaming’ which is comparable to journaling. Imagine if just writing down stuff is actually making you smarter?
Journaling is apparently very
therapeutic as well.
Research has indicated t h a t
j o u r a l i n g c a n relieve stress and anxiety, help you process negative emotions, improve communication & problem solve.
Our mother/mother-in-law, Rebecca Noffsinger, has always been a big advocate for journaling.
Any time an issue, a stressor, a major life event occurred, it was always encouraged to write it down. In
addition to journaling being
therapeutic, it serves as a great tool to keep your mind clear, focused and decluttered. WRITE IT DOWN!!
38
A Golden Pen
Again, as with exercise, start with taking baby steps. Take a few notes every night before you go to bed. Put some ideas on paper, maybe throw a few emotions or discussions you had throughout the day as well on paper.
Try waking up and writing down your dreams (you never know when God will give you an amazing idea in the middle of the night!) It will grow from there!
“Absorb what is useful, discard
what is not, add what is
uniquely your own.” -Bruce Lee
The Keystone of Visualization
When we say visualization, we’re not referring to some weird esoteric meditation thing, we know this is the 39
A Golden Pen
new fad. We are referring to visualization as more of an active form of goal setting rather than passive goal setting. In essence, you have got to have a vision of where you want to be in three months, 6 months, in a year.
You h a v e g o t to have a vision in mind and on paper of the action steps (plan) needed to get there. You also have to have a vision of what it's going to look like for you when you hit those goals!
One of our favorite things to do as a married couple is to reevaluate our goals every couple of months. We will get our children to bed, pull out our
‘Big Plans’ notebook and visualize our new dreams and revise our old ones.
This keeps us in a state of ‘seeing’ our goals come to fruition and writing them down allows us to have a game plan.
40
A Golden Pen
“You’re Never Too Old To Set Another Goal, Or To Dream A New Dream” -C.S. Lewis
Your vision of the future and your ability to visualize serves two main purposes. One of them is motivation.
The desires for your future life will give you the drive you're looking for during tough times to keep you moving
forward. Secondly, your vision will keep you focused. Focus will keep you on task doing the things that are important to get the results that you are after. Let's face it, it's easy to get distracted with trivial, meaningless things that ultimately don't benefit your life any. But, with focus, you can let distractions fall by the wayside and just do what is truly the most useful practice of your precious time!
41
A Golden Pen
Now, some of the mentors that we work with that are high performers
recommend utilizing something called
‘ a vision board’. This is essentially just a cork board that has pictures of various things you would like to see that are part of your future lifestyle. It could be a house you want to live in, a car you want to drive, your ideal physique, etc., etc. Well, we think it's definitely a good idea to keep those things in your view. . like, say your office, as this is no doubt a useful adjunct to driving your motivation and focus.
While some may claim that vision boards elicit some "Law of Attraction"
phenomenon, we don't particularly ascribe to that. There is no ‘Mother Earth’ out there delivering gifts and sending vibes into the universe will not make anything manifest into your life.
God created it all and He alone can bless you. We firmly believe in the law of sowing and reaping.
42
A Golden Pen
Now, that comes straight from the Bible. We wouldn’t want anybody
getting deceived into thinking that once you have pictures of stuff you want floating around, you can just sit back and do nothing while ‘the universe’
draws these things into your life.
The Delayed Gratification Keystone
In this present day ‘I want it now’
culture, we feel like delayed
gratification is becoming a lost concept.
Think about it for a moment, anyone with a credit card balance that is more than just emergency use or a business card, suffers the inability to properly utilize delayed gratification. In all reality, delayed gratification is the single most important and effective Keystone Habit to having an ultimately successful life.
Our suggestion here is to give yourself small rewards for small victories. If you 43
A Golden Pen
hit a new weekly revenue goal, celebrate with a fancy dinner. This is basically what bodybuilders do when they have what they call a "cheat" day.
Most of those types of athletes take one day a week to binge! They can't eat that clean all the time. .they look forward to the next one. This concept will keep you motivated to pressing forward to larger accomplishments and
subsequently larger rewards!
We hope it goes without saying that the reward should be commensurate to the level of achievement that was reached.
If you generated your first $1,000 a week in a new side- hustle, you probably shouldn't go out and buy a Porsche just yet. It would seem it's much more appropriate to do that celebratory dinner instead.
44
A Golden Pen
“You can’t take your same old crappy
self into a bright new future.” -Mark
Sias
A Final Thought On Keystones
As a final thought, we just want to remind you to guard your associations.
Jim Rohn has several notable sayings like: "show me your friends and I'll show you your future." It's no secret that your friends influence you, oh, and their friends influence you. On some level, you can't pick people that you're forced to associate with, but you can be more intentional about making new and better connections with people who have bigger visions and who are going places.
Also, challenge the validity of what people say. Judge the tree by the fruit it bears. So, for example, if your broke friend just keeps telling you how this 45
A Golden Pen
business or that business won't work, you’re going to ask yourself, “what does he really know?” Many a time have we seen in any Facebook notary group someone say something like, “I've been a notary for 30 plus years and never heard of anyone making six figures”.
This is so discouraging to all the would-be signing agents out there. Tell them don't quit your day job…
We don't have time to engage in a ridiculous argument with someone. .
but, we’re just sitting back here shaking our heads thinking this person obviously has no idea what they're talking about. And we hope that nobody is really listening to them. But then again, they are right, if you just get a notary commission and never go tell the world what you do, or acquire more skills, or be curious about what other opportunities are out there. .you probably never will.
So that's it, just be careful who you listen to and who you associate with.
46
A Golden Pen
Don't let the messed-up lives of messed-up people mess you
up!
“You become like the five people
you spend the most time with.
Choose carefully.” Jim Rohn
47
A Golden Pen
Our business model & why is it so good?
There's a lot of things we really love about our mobile notary business.
There’s not a lot of businesses out there that you can start up for less than $1,000 and make the kind of money that we do. Not only that, but, there's a lot of satisfaction you get by servicing the general public with something that is in pretty high demand. This book is the culmination of our never-ending search for similar business models to the mobile notary business that offer many of those same benefits. Let's briefly take a look at each of those things that make this such an ideal business model.
Low Start Up
Get yourself a simple notary
commission, a vehicle (you probably already have), a laptop and a printer.
48
A Golden Pen
Just like that, you're in business! Now that is what we call low start-up. Of the top 10 reasons small businesses fail, one of them is lack of adequate startup capital. This won’t be an issue with any of the business models that we are going to lay out.
Not only is the start-up cost and capital requirements extremely low, but the getting started process is rather quick and easy. For the notary signing agent, essentially you need a notary commission that can usually be done with just a few hours training, an application to the state of residence, and a lack of criminal record.
Prerequisites we'd like to think most people can easily possess. Once you are taking the notary signing agent courses and credentials, you get a few vendor contracts under your belt, and you are ‘off to the races’ as they say!
Low Overhead & Inventory
As we've discussed, the start-up costs 49
A Golden Pen
are incredibly low, it also stands to reason that the operating overhead is extremely affordable as well. You don't have any employees that you have to payout or have reserve funds for payroll to make. Really, your overhead and inventory consist mostly of vehicle fuel, printer paper and printer ink.
Even as you expand and grow, you really don't necessarily have that much more inventory or overhead to deal with. Maybe, you get back up PCs, printers & vehicles (we did) and in-car printing capabilities. But that's about it.
50
A Golden Pen
The low inventory demands also frees up a lot of time, you don't have to hire a supply clerk or assistant to keep track of the supplies that you need because they are very limited. You also can keep an ample supply of the
materials you do use often on hand without breaking the bank.
Low ad spend/High Demand
Yet another common reason small
businesses fail is due to poor or flat-out ineffective advertising methods. Or, similarly, not enough advertising budget available for advertising required. Most businesses require an exorbitant amount of branding
expenditure to get the business
properly launched and running and don't even really plan on making a profit in the first couple of years.
But what if you are in a business that is just simply in high demand? What if 51
A Golden Pen
the general public really requires your services on a regular basis? Well, you certainly don't need to focus as much effort on promotional gimmicks and expenses as you are being actively sought out for what you can provide.
We are very fortunate that we are in a business niche that has an ample supply of third-party vendors that are constantly seeking us out for contract jobs. We are also very fortunate that we generate a lot of repeat customers (title companies and the end client) because of the relational nature of our service industry. Quite simply, if people like you they will use you repeatedly and no real need to advertise to them. As the saying goes "you're preaching to the choir".
Interesting enough, of the various common reasons that small businesses 52
A Golden Pen
fail in the first few years just hardly seem to apply to our unique niches. We have an adequate repeat customer base. Our services are affordable. Our services are generally in high demand.
Low Time Expenditure & Fast Turn Around
This is probably by far the coolest feature of our mobile notary business niche (and the others that we will soon be discussing). We just have a very fast turnaround time for the amount of money we can get paid per transaction.
When I, Mark, was working as a nurse, a friend convinced me to take a per-diem job in home care. This is basically where you go deliver simple wound care and such to patients at their houses. Unfortunately, they typically only pay about $50 for 30 to 45
minutes’ worth of your work. That 53
A Golden Pen
didn't include the charting that you would have to do after the fact either.
I don't know about you, but my
signing agent transactions are paying me in a range between $75 up to $225.
Many of them I turn around in 15
minutes. My average time is about 30
minutes per closing. It's extremely rare for a closing to take a full hour, and if it does, I'm usually getting paid in the upper pay range for it!
Plus, these signings are completely no stress, especially when you compare it to the field of Nursing.
Even the general mobile notary work that we do is substantially lucrative.
We travel to a hospital to stamp some POA papers for a client. Charge no less than $75 and we are gone in 10
minutes!
These unique benefits will allow you to use the money & time saved for more important things, like using 54
A Golden Pen
your notary business to springboard yourself to bigger & better things.
The next few chapters are those
bigger things!
"If you are not willing to risk the
usual, you will have to settle for the
ordinary." -Jim Rohn
55
A Golden Pen
The World of Credit Repair The marketing potential is incredible.
There is close to 20% of the population that have subprime credit scores. They are in need of these services and simply do not have the time, effort or know-how to adequately address them.
As we have mentioned at other times, attorneys have a knack for finding lucrative opportunities. This is one such service that you will find attorneys offering to help people with because it's lucrative and not that complicated. To the general public and 56
A Golden Pen
uninitiated, it seems like a difficult task to tackle.
Aside from marketing yourself to the general public, you can make your services known and available to all of the various lenders, loan officers, and mortgage brokers you are in regular contact with (there’s that cross selling again!) If they've had a deal that goes sour because of poor credit scores, they'll be glad to refer their clients to you because it inevitably means a commission for them when you solve the problem!
Any other industries that require a solid credit score may also be viable places to market your services. For example, solar panel sales companies offer their products to people with an ideal interest rate for clients who have a credit score of 650+. If one of their clients falls below that score, they may offer to pay for credit repair services on their behalf if they sign a purchase 57
A Golden Pen
agreement and agree to comply with the credit counseling services
recommendations. You see the
potential here?
With a credit repair certification course, you’ll learn the basic principles and practices of credit repair like:
What to dispute.
The credit bureaus’ stall tactics.
Practical tactics for going up against them.
Important differences between business models like the reoccuring fee companies vs. charge per
services.
The Credit repair laws in your state & the federal laws.
Document “Boiler Plates” that you send to agencies that work very well.
A credit repair certification course can also help you understand less technical components of the industry like how to teach credit repair to others, and how to broadcast your services to others so they can achieve financial freedom.
58
A Golden Pen
If you do decide to get a certification, consider earning your credit repair training from a reputable source, like The Credit Consultant Association (CCA). For as little as $60-$100 you can be a Board-Certified Credit
Consultant And Certified Credit Score Consultant.
You can charge a flat fee for initiation of services up to $300 and a flat fee of $50/ deletion of faulty reporting items.
You can also charge fees for general advice and get monthly recurring fees for enrolling them into software that uses too many mechanisms to mention here to help with maintaining credit scores.
The CCA also has a directory that your services will be listed in as a recommended provider in your
service area.
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.You can steer
yourself any direction you choose”. -Dr. Seuss
59
A Golden Pen
In some ways we sort of accidentally stumbled onto the world of
fingerprinting. You see I, Mark, hold a license as a registered nurse in the state of Florida as well as multiple insurance licenses. All of those credentials require fingerprinting. You see, on every occasion that I had to have fingerprinting done I experienced these things.
The scheduling was inconvenient. The service was rather poor. .meaning that the staff wasn't at all personable. It was also rather pricey, which in turn means it was probably pretty lucrative for the service provider. The service also wasn't very complicated which means that it didn't need to be time-consuming on my end. It seemed to me that the service provider was making 60
A Golden Pen
me wait simply to convenience themselves.
When we reflected on this unusual series of events, a light bulb went on!
Winner, winner, chicken dinner! So we did some investigating which
eventually lead to our business adding fingerprinting services. We figured if we offer fast, friendly, and mobile fingerprinting, the competition doesn't stand a chance.
You have several reasons & accrediting bodies for fingerprints. Most people are getting them as part of pre-employment background screening. Those are
typically going to be channeled through the FBI. Whoever the background
service is will have the cards returned to them. This is a real simple process.
People who work in financial services require fingerprints channeled through their accrediting body called FINRA.
61
A Golden Pen
But, the largest agency to use fingerprinting for background is the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement. All they require is that they certify the device that you're using which must be a Live Scan equipment.
You heard that correct, FDLE does not use any ink cards. Only live scans sent directly to them; however, they are a very large and well-established
organization that will keep you busy with fingerprinting. They also require no special credentialing other than the initial contract set up with them.
Basically, you can charge $50-150 for your fingerprinting services depending on several factors that we will be discussing. .like, what the market will bear, and the nature of the transaction. Specifically, is this going to be mobile fingerprinting and is it going to require Live Scan equipment or just ink cards?
62
A Golden Pen
In Florida, and for that matter, most states there's no credentialing required to roll fingerprints. You just simply need to have the equipment and the know-how or skill. So, how do you acquire the skill and know-how? Well, we did pay for it and took some
extensive training, however, it's not necessary.
Let us preface that if you are doing these wrong, they will get rejected and your clients will probably not be repeat clients and may demand a refund. So, it's sound advice to practice and know what you're doing.
You'll also want to know how to fill out the card and the proper abbreviations to use for demographics. You can visit the NCIC U.S. Dept of Justice Guidelines for fingerprinting
instructions.
63
A Golden Pen
FBI Ink Cards
First, go-to Amazon and order some FD-258 FBI ink fingerprinting cards.
You can order a whole kit, and even mobile kits which will come with some other essentials. Most come with rolling ink, the cards, and card placement holders. Believe it or not, instructions for how to fill out the fingerprint card and roll the prints are actually on the back of the card.
You want to
practice on a few
of your friends to
make sure you
have the
technique down.
You can simply
watch several
FBI FD-258 Ink Card
instructional videos on YouTube or other internet sources to
64
A Golden Pen
get the general idea of how to roll prints. After you practice that a dozen times, you'll have the hang of it.
We charge $50 for two sets of ink fingerprints. They only need one set but we give them a backup set just in case. Now if they're requesting mobile fingerprinting (often the case) the fee is $100 so long as they are within a 15-mile radius of our office.
Once you are proficient, you can roll a couple sets of fingerprints within 10 to 15 minutes. Not a bad way to make a hundred bucks.
Couple of tips:
65
A Golden Pen
With regards to ink fingerprinting cards, we recommend using the newer inkless ink that is less mess and easier cleanup. We also recommend getting something called ‘re-tabs’ which are basically a type of sticker you can put over one of the cards if you accidentally smudge it or goof up a print. You are only allowed to use one free tab per card so if you mess up more than once you have got to start over on another card. Fortunately, the cards are extremely inexpensive.
If someone has a missing finger, you will want to write in that space on the card ‘finger missing’.
You will sign the card as the person performing the fingerprints and on the back of the card you can impress your notary seal, if that is required in your municipality.
On our website
LegalDocPrepNotary.Com we have a 66
A Golden Pen
series of useful PDF files that pertain to fingerprint instructions or ryan dossier codes as well as the acceptable FBI abbreviations. Basically, just about everything you need to know to get up and started.
Live Scan
Live Scan is really just taking digital fingerprints using specialized hardware and software. What you need to know is that their fingerprints are directly uploaded or sent to the requesting agency, be it FDLE, FINRA, or FBI.
This software and hardware do come with the ability to be portable. Mobile prices range anywhere from 2,000 to $5,000. While this may seem like a hefty investment, it does have its advantages.
67
A Golden Pen
For example, with Live Scan equipment that has been certified by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, you will be listed as a direct vendor with them. Now, this does mean that you are responsible for collecting the ORI fee in advance for the fingerprinting. But also, you are able to charge more for Live Scan fingerprinting because special equipment is involved. There aren't a lot of places that are doing Live Scans so you won't have a lot of competition.
Another nice thing about Live Scan is that it's pretty much error-proof. The equipment will tell you if you've done the prints wrong and they're going to be rejected.
The supplier and software vendor that we have contracted with is a company called Certifix. All I can say is we’ve priced out a lot of companies and software equipment and they seem to be the best deal around for what we needed. They loaded all the software 68
A Golden Pen
and had the equipment ready to go for $2,500. Complete turnkey. I had a complete mobile kit that I could use.
They provide all the servicing and updates and assisted with on-boarding with the FDLE. Another perk we really liked about Certifix is they also work like a vendor on your behalf (think signing company) as they will refer business to you as well.
You will make more money per
fingerprinting, do them faster and have a higher demand for Live Scan. We will make a few suggestions before going forward with that large purchase. .
The advice is simple, start with using ink cards as it costs practically nothing and list your fingerprinting services on your website & Google listings. When you notice you are getting a lot of calls and request for Live Scan and having to turn them down, you'll know it's time to get the device. We’d say if you're turning down 5 Live Scan
69
A Golden Pen
requests a week then it's time to get a device.
Clientele
You can market your fingerprinting services to school systems and colleges, as many teachers and students as well are required to have fingerprints. You can also let your local police
departments know that you provide them. A s many people come to the police department looking to get fingerprinting done. The police simply don't have time for this. They will gladly refer them to you.
You can market your services to
hospitals, as nearly every person working in the healthcare profession is required to have fingerprints. You may want to reach out to the HR
departments as they will be no doubt be recruiting nursing staff from other states and even countries. They will 70
A Golden Pen
need fingerprinting done to get their license in the state that they operate in. You can offer to come in and do the fingerprinting in one session doing numerous fingerprints at a time.
It's just as easy to simply list your services in addition to your notary services on your web pages and Google listings. Your phone will ring, I'm certain of it. There is enough of the general public looking to have this kind of stuff done and willing to pay you for it.
While the list is exhaustive, let me give you some examples of clientele:
teachers, child daycare centers, church volunteers, anyone working in the public-school systems pretty much, chiropractors, but as I said before just about anybody working in any health care capacity. Lastly, a nice thing about offering fingerprinting services is there just aren't that many out there.
71
A Golden Pen
Not a lot of competition. Which means more business for you!
“Life Is Like Riding A Bicycle,
To Keep Your Balance, You
Must Keep Moving.” -Albert
Einstein
72
A Golden Pen
The world of legal services Attorneys have a knack for positioning themselves in markets where they can make a good income in return for services rendered. Many times, these aren't even services that they are offering that are exclusive to an attorney. Attorneys have ways of finding good deals and finding out where the money is. One tactic you can employ is looking up several attorneys in your area and examining what
various services they offer. They aren't offering those services if there is no money involved, let's just say that.
The next step would be to find out if those services even require them to have any sort of law degree to
participate in. Many services that can be deemed legal services or are under the umbrella of such don't require any sort of legal degree or attorney to get involved. That doesn't mean the
attorney isn't going to do a good job at 73
A Golden Pen
that or that it isn't a good fit for their business model by any means. But, it does mean there's probably some
decent money to be made! So, let's examine a few such instances that are worth adding to your existing services.
74
A Golden Pen
Legal Document Preparation Services
As the name of our business is Notary
& Legal Document Preparers, you no doubt can imply that we prepare legal documents.
In four states in the U.S. (California, Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina) non-lawyers can prepare certain legal documents under what is known as the “scrivener” exception. This allows for not only preparing the forms but also proving legal information. Note, that they cannot provide direct legal advice. The remaining 46 states of the U.S. recognize the scrivener exception but only allow it on a case-by-case basis. For example, Nevada allows for simplified divorce filings.
This type of service can go under a variety of names, including:
Legal document preparer
75
A Golden Pen
Legal document assistant Online legal document provider
Legal document clerk
Legal Forms Preparation
Certified Legal Document Preparer In California they have CALDA. The California Association of Legal
Document Assistants.
In Florida we have a training & certification body called FALDP.
That stands for the Florida
Association of Legal Document Preparers. They offer valuable training and membership which also includes listings in their directory.
They hold annual membership
meetings as well as regular Zoom 76
A Golden Pen
conferences to share ideas, marketing concepts and what's new.
They place a special emphasis on their document preparers
understanding the concept of
unauthorized practice of law. That is UPL for short. They make sure that document preparers have a thorough understanding of what's acceptable and what is unacceptable so that you don't end up running into issues with the Florida State Bar
Association.
Unlike a paralegal, legal
document assistants do not work
under the supervision of an
attorney.
Why are these legal document
preparation services so essential?
For people without ready access
to the legal system
77
A Golden Pen
(and the requisite costs), legal document preparation businesses
offer several valuable services, including:
Greater, more affordable access
to the law.
Reduced caseload on attorneys
and court systems. Fulfilling a pressing need.
78
A Golden Pen
There are times when people need simple, straightforward help with family matters, filing forms with a court, or forming a living trust.
Both online legal document
preparation and in-person legal
document preparation services
are a more affordable option for these types of cases.
As you might be realizing, there's a lot of opportunity here in several ways.
For starters, if you are a remote online notary, that is an easy upsell for documents that you prepared for
somebody who is in another part of the state. Your client can literally get the documents they need in the notary service they need without ever leaving their home.
The other opportunity exists in that the fees that they would be charged by an 79
A Golden Pen
attorney are drastically different than what you would charge, as you are not giving legal advice, only providing the forms required. Let me give you an example of what we do:
A customer comes to us looking to have a last will and testament, power of attorney, or some other type of the state document put together.
Typically, this bundle would cost them over $2,000 at an estate law firm. They know this, and we know this. That's why they have called us. For us to produce these documents with the information they requested on them can be done in an hour's time. The fee could be $300 to $500.
They could just purchase the
boilerplate documents from a site that offers them and prepare them
themselves, however, for most people they are too wordy and confusing.
80
A Golden Pen
Either way, they will need to find a notary to notarize these forms as well.
But, for those of us who work in the notary world and see legal documents and real estate documents of all kinds all day long, it's no task to sort through the clutter. Herein lies the opportunity!
Another example is divorce filings in Florida. The majority of these will end up in mediation, and the court systems would rather try to come to a quick settlement rather than a drawn-out suit. All the steps and procedures for e-filing dissolution of marriage is available on the Florida Courts
website. The average person will look at these instructions and requirements and quickly give up. We can charge them $350, and it will take about two hours of our time to get everything done the way the courts need it. This is a good deal for them because the average retainer in divorce filing in Florida is about $5,000.
81
A Golden Pen
While we could provide many more examples of how the field of Legal Document Preparation is a virtual gold mine, it's ultimately up to you to decide if it's an industry you are interested in or is even applicable based on the governing laws where you are located.
We just so happen to operate out of the great state of Florida where this is a great opportunity to take advantage of!
It's also up to you to find out if there's a specific field that you are most passionate about. For example, the founder of FALDP only likes to do probation cases and record
expungement assistance. Whereas we are more passionate about helping people with setting up wills and matters of estate. We highly
recommend training and professional membership with FALDP. The
credentialing will improve marketing ability, and the training they provide is 82
A Golden Pen
invaluable. Not to mention all members are listed in FALDP’s directory.
We don't just limit our services to preparing the documents, we also have set up our site to allow customers to just simply download the template forms as well. Don't leave money on the table!
Mediation & Arbitration
Mediation and arbitration are forms of dispute resolution where litigating parties meet in confidentiality with a neutral third party to try to come to some solution. Many court systems are backlogged with litigations of all kinds, and this is one such method of reducing the burden.
Most often what happens is the court orders mediation and appoints or rather designates one from the list of 83
A Golden Pen
mediators they have on their roster. In some instances, people may seek to hire a mediator themselves before even going before a court or judicial system.
Either way, the average billable hour for a mediator is approximately $200. The average mediation session is about three hours. If a judge is ordering mediation, the mediator's fee is wrapped into the court cost. It's worth mentioning that whether the parties come to an agreement has no effect on your fee or pay. You show up and do the job you're supposed to and still get paid.
To be a mediator typically doesn't require any formal education, just very little formal education. The
requirements really depend on the locale. Here in Florida, certified mediator training is done in less than a week and in many cases done virtually (from home). Of the several courses that I've looked at, the average cost is 84
A Golden Pen
about $500. In the State of Florida, they literally have a 'how to get started as a mediator' packet that explains every step needed.
You can also get appointed to multiple courts, and multiple municipalities if so desired. Mediators are used in everything from family court to small-claims court all the way to Supreme Court.
The same general concept applies to court-appointed arbitrators. But we want to talk about FINRA arbitrators because it pays better, costs nothing, and is easier to get started in. The Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority (FINRA), the same one that requires fingerprinting for financial advisors (see where curiosity will line your pocket?) handles all dispute resolution internally. They contract with their own appointed arbitrators to settle disputes.
85
A Golden Pen
They provide all the training online right through their own portal as well as application and designating locations near you where you would be contacted to assist with settling disputes. No real special requirements are needed to be a FINRA arbitrator.
They typically pay between $600 to $800 per day! With such easy entry, this is a good idea for anyone with a flexible schedule to get on their roster as an arbitrator.
“There Are Three Ways To Success, the First Is To be Kind. The Second Is To Be Kind. The Third Is Also To Be Kind.” -Mister Rodgers
86
A Golden Pen
Taxes
Most people cringe when they here tax preparation. This is where the opportunity lies though, you see nobody likes to do taxes, that's why they put them off and pay somebody else to do them. But here's the secret, the software that's available in 2022
does practically all the work for you!
Your job at the entry level is just data entry into that software from
questionnaires that you give your clients.
There are several levels of tax services you can offer. Basically, the higher up in credentialing you , the more money you can make. We will go into the breakdown of them. The first step is to 87
A Golden Pen
become a tax preparer. This will require you to get a PTIN (Preparer Tax Identification Number). We will go into more about a little in a little bit.
Also, we need to mention here that the tax filing that is done electronically knows no bounds. That means that while I'm sitting here in Port Orange Florida, I can be doing the taxes for a family in Ohio. That is correct! They even have web applications our clients can download to plug in their W2s, 1099, or whatever tax forms they have.
When we get the information back, we go to work. We’re recording their taxes; we’re going to show them the final proposal and they e-sign it. Then we E-file the taxes!
This deal gets even sweeter. . they don't have to pay me upfront. If they have a tax return coming, which the majority of families that file simple 1040 forum do, we can arrange it to where we get paid on the back end.
88
A Golden Pen
How easy is it to offer and sell a service that the payment is
guaranteed, without any worry?
Many Americans qualify for what is known as earned income credit. This demographic of clientele is excited for a tax return. They are ready to file as soon as they get W-2s. Here's what you can do for them:
With the software service providers that you connect with, you can offer cash advances and print them a check right in your office or give them a debit card with an advance balance on it!
These people will love you and they will come back to you year-in and year-out.
We’re still not done yet with just the basic PTIN tax filing. Check this out..
the software allows you to hire
assistance to do data entry for you for a small charge. If they are also a PTIN
filer they can go ahead and do the 89
A Golden Pen
whole return for you, basically as a subcontractor. Remotely! Just barter a cut of the filing fee you will pay them.
You can have somebody working for you that you never actually meet.
Now you may be thinking, ‘what if I botch the tax forms?’ Well, then we need to tell you that the service that you are partnering with will be able to issue the checks and e-file also double check your filings. That's just another reason why they're charging a
percentage of the fee you take. They are paying CPAs on the back end
double-check your work.
PTIN
To become a tax preparer, you simply go to the IRS website and request what is called a PTIN number.
A Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) is a number issued by the IRS to paid tax return preparers. It 90
A Golden Pen
is used as the tax return preparer's identification number and, when
applicable, must be placed in the Paid Preparer section of a tax return that the tax return preparer prepared for compensation.
This will cost you a whopping $40. The next step is simply to partner with one of the many software companies who will take a percentage of your fee for allowing you to use their systems and get your business listing on Google or shared by word of mouth.
We charge $200 and up for simple individual tax returns that can be prepared remotely with the information supplied and electronically filed, pretty much all done remotely in 15 to 20
minutes.
You can build up a clientele during the tax filing season over time. Some of these software firms will even help you market your services and get the word 91
A Golden Pen
out! It's well known that a tax preparer can work just a part-time season and make an annual income! With a decent amount of clientele and marketing anywhere from 20k-50k is not
uncommon just in the January to April season.
As a PTIN holder you can get your contact info listed in IRS database to be searched in your area of residence.
Nothing like free listings!
EFIN
The next level is an Electronic Filing Identification Number (EFIN).
An EFIN is a number issued by the IRS
to individuals or firms that have been approved as Authorized IRS e-file providers. After providers complete their e-File applications, the IRS sends 92
A Golden Pen
an acceptance letter with the EFIN
included.
Once you have submitted your
application to become an Authorized e- File Provider, you will need to send a fingerprint set to the IRS so they can administer a suitability check. This may include a credit check, a criminal background check, a tax compliance check, and a check for any previous non-compliance with IRS e-File
requirements.
Now, many tax preparation software providers will let you use their EFIN, so it's not incredibly urgent that you get one to start making money with this.
You will also need to submit
fingerprints to the IRS...
Enrolled agent
93
A Golden Pen
At the apex of the tax world is what is known as an IRS Enrolled Agent (EA).
An enrolled agent is a person who has earned the privilege of representing taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service by either passing a three-part comprehensive IRS test covering
individual and business tax returns or through experience as a former IRS
employee.
An EA is also technically a tax advisor, who is a federally-authorized tax practitioner empowered by the U.S.
Department of Treasury. Enrolled Agents represent taxpayers before the IRS for tax issues that include audits, collections, and appeals. Enrolled Agent status is the highest credential awarded by the IRS.
Enrolled agents advise, represent, and prepare tax returns for individuals, partnerships, corporations, estates, trusts, and any entities with tax-94
A Golden Pen
reporting requirements. Enrolled agent’s expertise in the continually changing field of taxation enables them to effectively represent taxpayers at all administrative levels within the IRS.
Did you get that last part? The IRS & Federal law recognizes no difference between an EA and a Tax Attorney with a law degree & bar card! The EA credential is also recognized across all states in the USA.
Enrolled Agents are also exempt from many of the state fees, registration and testing requirements imposed on Tax Return Preparers.
As weird as this may seem, becoming an enrolled agent training only cost between $400-$650, and training and a thorough understanding of IRS tax code and regulations with a good program can be learned in a month if you are dedicated.
95
A Golden Pen
As a Tax Advisor that can advise corporations and prepare taxes on all levels there's really no limit to what you can charge! Get a few high-end clientele under your belt and you will be off to a very good start. I have a friend who is a self-employed EA and makes over $500,0000 per year!
As an EA will also have your contact info listed in IRS database to be searched in your area of residence!
“Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone. You
Can Only Grow If You Are Willing To
Feel Awkward Trying To Do
Something New.”
-Brian Tracy
96
A Golden Pen
The World of Coaching
Coaching & Mentoring Services
Coaching is a relatively new endeavor for us. We should say it's new at the purposefully marketable level. We kind of stumbled into this like some of the other great
income
opportunities
that we have
laid out. Don't
get me wrong,
some of them
we were
actively searching for adjacent
business models to expand. Coaching and some of the others we just kind of fell into.
In our travels conducting real estate closings and other notary work, we get to meet a lot of people. Some people expand your horizons and show
97
A Golden Pen
you a w h o l e n e w world. Some people want you to expand their horizons and we them a whole new world! For a while, we had many requests from people to teach them exactly what it was we did and how we were able to break into the market.
Almost everyone we met was
fascinated that we started this business, and it became successful. For longer than we really should have, we just brushed them off. Talk about leaving money on the table…
For a solid year, we would meet people.
Sit down with them and tell them exactly how we started our business and gave them our vast list of
vendors/title companies. We are STILL
in touch with these people, we have become friends with them and love them like family. We continue to pray for their business. Most of these sit 98
A Golden Pen
downs and talks lasted hours. You can imagine that our time spent doing this hit us like lightning on what we were to do next!!
After lots of prayer and thoughtful planning, we decided to systematize and streamline the process. We put down a concrete coaching program in place with a design, a curriculum and a structured schedule. We decided to tell the world about it!
What we decided to do initially w a s a one-on-one Zoom Consulting Session
where we teach a turnkey process for starting a mobile notary business. We charge $997 (as of this writing) per session with legitimate follow-up calls to monitor progress. We designed our program this way because we felt this was exactly what other programs were lacking that were on the market. We start people off with a free s trategy call 99
A Golden Pen
to determine if they are a good fit. No sense in wasting everyone’s time or money. Right?
People may want you to mentor them for free, but the truth is, nothing in this world that is o f value is free.
Anything of value cost. As you can see throughout this book, all the different opportunities we layout and how
lucrative they are, this means that our time simply has a value to it. We are worth an average of $200 to $400 an hour with the existing services we provide in the marketplace.
Despite the people that would like a discounted or free coaching session, the reality is, there is no shortage of people who are serious about
retaining our services and paying our fees. This has been an extremely viable endeavor for us to get into! My only regret is that we didn't do it
sooner...but, as it says in Ecclesiastes
"There is a time and a season to every 100
A Golden Pen
heaven". We take comfort in that. This is our season.
This market is something new and different. It's going to require new skills, but I promise you, it's worth it.
We got started with word of mouth, basic referrals, Craig’s list ads, & Facebook posts. We reinvested those profits into our coaching & c ourse
business to expand and increase.
You see, to take this to a Nationwide level, doing virtual marketing and virtual coaching isn't the same as our typical business model. Most of what we've done up until now is based on very little advertising required, and just market demand in your general locale.
Google my business will do most of the work for you if you know what I mean.
101
A Golden Pen
But, this requires something more, expensive ad copy, landing pages, click-funnels, webinars, and follow-up email sequences on
automation...followed by phone call sessions to close the deal. Stuff that is outside of our normal realm of
marketing. We in turn have also had to hire coaches that operate at the next level it gets us performing and a higher level.
Is it all worth it? Yes! It's totally worth it... you may be thinking that you don't have any coaching expertise at this moment but it's entirely likely that you 102
A Golden Pen
will soon. So, we want you to be thinking about what you can offer when you have the expertise available at your disposal. Now, if you're already running a small and successful business like our mobile notary
business then you don't necessarily have to offer the six-figure coaching like we do, you can start small as you can with anything.
If you are already a skilled mobile closer, you can offer new notaries to tag along with you to closings to witness how it goes down in real-time and charge them a small fee for riding along with you. Or maybe there's something else that you are really good at it or another niche that you discovered that you can capitalize on through this same process. The sky is the limit!
Here's a quick breakdown of how the market works: If you are offering a mid- ticket priced coaching service, the 103
A Golden Pen
price is going to be somewhere between $600 -$3,000 and your clients can expect to generate a six-figure income.
This is where we operate. If you are looking to go from six figures to half a million and upwards, you are going to need to retain a coach that can teach you at that level expect the training to cost you $10,000 +.
Once you start this process, there are all kinds of side streams of income that you will be able to capitalize on as well.
For example, if you generate a decent social media following through
whatever platform you are on, you will be able to offer affiliate products to your target market. This will be relatively easily and generate additional streams of income completely
effortlessly. You can link with sites like Amazon affiliates and Click-Bank that have all kinds of links, descriptions, feeds and blogs that you are putting out there.
104
A Golden Pen
individual and I’ll show you
someone who had real positive
influences in his or her life. I don’t
care what you do for a living—if
you do it well I’m sure there was
someone cheering you on or
showing the way. A mentor.”
– Denzel Washington
105
A Golden Pen
The Lesser known world of notary
Apostille Services
Apostille services are a great addition to any mobile notary service. There's not much competition, and it's a quick turnaround. You can fully charge what you do for loan signing services or more and have an apostille done in about 10 to 15 minutes. And it is a 106
A Golden Pen
good service to provide! We avoided offering apostille services for too long, simply because we did not want to do the homework necessary job in the service. Quite frankly, the whole process was confusing to us.
But, you know what happened? Our phones would randomly ring with
people asking if we provided apostille services. Now, I knew what the going rates for these were, and finally turned down enough calls that we realized we were just simply missing an
opportunity.
Apostilles authenticate the seals and signatures of officials on public documents such as birth certificates, court orders, or any other document issued by a federal agency or certified by an American or foreign consul. An apostille certifies the document(s), so the document can be recognized in foreign countries that are members of the Hague Treaty.
107
A Golden Pen
Countries that are participants of the Apostille Convention are approximately 121.
In Florida, we must send these
documents into the Secretary of State for such authentication. Also, the following requirements need to be met: Notarize each document in front of a notary public:
For a notary public commissioned through the state, documents must only be certified by the secretary of state in the state where the document was notarized.
If you do not have the correct notarization(s) before you submit your documents, we will not be able to process your request.
108
A Golden Pen
All seals and signatures must be originals. Copies cannot be accepted unless they are “true certified copies”
from a notary public. Please note that birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, divorce decrees, court documents, and federally-issued documents cannot be certified by a notary public as “true copies.” These documents must be certified by the secretary of state.
All documents in a foreign language must be translated into English by a certified translator and notarized as a true translation. Getting documents to the Secretary of State requires some turn-around time. It helps significantly to have a courier hand deliver them.
This is where apostille services come in.
109
A Golden Pen
For a four-day turnaround, my fee is $225. Cutting through the confusion and being a One-Stop shop for
someone's apostille needs is what you are offering. Judy Lawrence and Matt Miller have a great book available on Kindle called "The Apostille Agents Survival Guide" it will go into far more details than I'm inclined to if this is something you want to take a serious look at. So I'm going to give you our abridged version. .
It goes like this:
Properly determine if the item in question is a candidate for being an apostille as I laid out
previously.
Properly notarize the document.
Fill out the adjacent apostille request forms.
Expedite the documents to the
Secretary of State.
110
A Golden Pen
This is mostly what your client is after.
They are paying for the expediency.
For this, we offer two levels of service depending on the urgency. For a 1- 2
week turnaround, my fee is $125. For a four-day turnaround, the fee is $225.
Our profit is still basically the same.
Which is $100 for a few minutes of work. The courier services are included in the cost.
For the first option, we’re basically performing the notary assisting with the apostille request form and sending a priority mail with a return priority mail envelope to the Secretary of State.
The client doing this by snail mail would most definitely take a month. If the form was in properly notarized it would get sent back and not done it all.
By offering priority to and from the Secretary of State, guaranteeing the documents are done right and the fact that the secretary of state is familiar 111
A Golden Pen
with our business name and handy work, we can cut the turnaround time down to less than 2 weeks.
For the second option, we are hiring a courier off of Craig’s list who lives in Tallahassee where the Secretary of State's office is. We are sending documents by FedEx to the courier's address. Paying them to hand deliver them to the Secretary of State's office and personally FedEx them back to us that same day!
That's apostilles in a nutshell! But, if you seriously want to launch this service, get the book, it'll give you a lot of clarity on the market.
Wedding Officiant
Offering wedding officiants services absolutely makes good sense if you are in a desirable locale. For example, we live close to the beach. A plethora of 112
A Golden Pen
people come to Florida to get married on the beach! As a matter of fact, the majority of the weddings that I have officiated have been on the beach.
These people are happy, excited, nervous, friendly but extremely grateful and generous. They will pay your fee and almost always heavily tip you!
For some, this may be out of your scope, and that’s ok too. I, Mark, enjoy speaking in front of groups of people.
However, Grace does not. So, this chapter will reference my experience and the joy I take in joining two people in wedded bliss. Although, Grace has joined me on several occasions and has witnessed that this service is not only rewarding, but, simple and fun.
There are actually many notaries I know who make a full-time living doing only wedding officiant services! Now, 113
A Golden Pen
they have heavily branded themselves, but still, that gives you an idea of the kind of cheddar we're talking about here! Every state is probably going to be different as far as what they require for being able to perform marriages, here in Florida, any notary public can perform the ceremony. In case you don't already know this, you do have to sign the marriage certificate and place your seal on it, so don't forget your stamp!
You really don't need much else. . a couple of good solid Bible verses, a joke or two, or an inspiring anecdote, some nice clothes, a smile, and your notary commission! I'd recommend getting a wireless microphone that Bluetooth connects to a speaker if you are doing them on the beach or in an otherwise louder than normal location. These are priced rather affordably on Amazon.
114
A Golden Pen
We charge anywhere from $150 to $350 for the service. And like I said before, they usually give me a
handsome tip on top of that. Some of you may be thinking, wait a minute, Florida law says you can only charge $20. Yes, that's right, if you are just taking the vow and signing the paper..
but, if you are traveling and performing a full ceremony, this is just simply not the case. You are welcome to charge whatever the market will bear. These usually go down on a Saturday
afternoon, but we have done them on a Monday morning before. You are
usually paid and gone in less than an hour(unless you are invited to stay for dinner, which happens more often than not)! Your signature on this marriage certificate is pure gold!
Here’s is the state of Florida’s sample wedding script that I rarely only ever so slightly change up:
115
A Golden Pen
First, I open with a blessing & prayer: Notary states, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today (tonight) to join this man and this woman in (holy) matrimony."
Exchange of Vows: Notary asks the man, "(his name), do you take this woman to be your wife, to live together in (holy) matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"
Man answers, "I do."
Notary asks the woman, "(her name), do you take this man to be your
husband, to live together in (holy) matrimony, to love him, to honor him, 116
A Golden Pen
to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"
Woman answers, "I do."
Notary states, "Repeat after me." To the man: "I, (his name), take you (her name), to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."
To the woman: "I, (her name), take you (his name), to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."
Exchange of Rings: Notary asks the man to place the ring on the woman's finger and to repeat the following, "I give you this ring as a token and 117
A Golden Pen
pledge of our constant faith and abiding love." (Repeat the same for the woman).
Notary: What God has joined together let no man separate.
Pronouncement: Notary asks the couple to join hands, then declares,
"By virtue of the authority vested in me under the laws of the State of Florida, and in the name of the father, son & holy ghost.. I now pronounce you husband and wife."
To the man: "You may kiss the bride."
Quick side notes: if this is a last-
minute "shotgun-style" wedding
bring a friend with a good camera.
More than likely they will get paid
well for taking photos as these people
118
A Golden Pen
usually didn't arrange a cameraman
either.
Remote Online Notarization
We have a love-hate relationship with RON. In fact, whenever it is discussed in FB groups we rarely comment on the discussions. To be perfectly clear, and give full disclosure I, Mark, do have an active remote online notary
Commission in the state of Florida. You do need more than just the RON
Commission.
You also need something called a digital certificate, which is something I don't fully understand. It's blockchain technology that is used in the
authentication process. Your digital certificate typically needs to be renewed every year and re-uploaded to whatever portal you are using. They typically cost around $60 per year for the RON digital certificate.
119
A Golden Pen
Several notary vendors are promising to go to remote online closings, and theoretically this will be a good thing for notary signing agents that are RON
certified. As of this writing, the bulk of my RON closings are done through Nexus Clear Sign. Not going to lie, it's a pretty sweet gig. I get to do closings for Amrock that usually take me 15
minutes right in the comfort of my own home and pay an easy $65. It's a sweet deal indeed. I've done too many to count, but those Rocket Mortgage closings go quick!
I'm patiently waiting for some of the other vendors who have stated they are gearing up to do remote online closings. Mortgage Connect and Solidifi have reached out and asked about our willingness to contract with them when they are ready. We've been ready.
Per Florida law we can theoretically notarize anything anywhere else in the 120
A Golden Pen
country, this is in-part the kind of leveraging of technology we were talking about at the beginning of this book. That is a good thing, but what contributes to my love-hate
relationship is that most of the other platforms available are either very clunky to use or downright expensive and leave a very small profit margin for the notary public. That goes entirely against my motto.
We were very fortunate to connect with a small mortgage brokerage firm here in Central Florida that uses me
exclusively to do e-closings for them across the country. And they are willing to pay me my full signing fees to conduct them.
My hope is that what the future holds is a lot more remote notary work and e-closings that make the whole thing even more lucrative for myself and for our fellow notaries. My fear is that the 121
A Golden Pen
motive behind the effort is to eliminate the need for mobile notaries and signing agents in general. Thi s further cements the idea that additional lucrative side hustles are needed. If the notary signing agent well ever dries up, we’ll barely notice. We remain hopeful, though, for what the future holds.
Permit pulling/running
Cynthia Alexander offers a very
comprehensive course & certification on notary permit running. This whole niche was her brainchild. For $50 you can do the deep- dive on her site CYNANOTARY.
Cynthia, much like us is an expert at generating multiple streams of income for notary publics. she is a P & C
insurance agent as well and runs a notary signing service as we do with 122
A Golden Pen
our business Noble Notary & Legal Document Preparers.
So, what a notary permit
Runner/puller does is connect with local contractors of any sort and offer to go pull the permit for them at an upcharge. This is an oversimplification, but that is essentially it!
There's no limit to the number of municipalities you can serve, keep in mind that each one may have its own unique procedure or process for getting the permits pulled and you will want to be familiar with them.
Most permits require someone with a set of wheels, a familiarity with the process, and a notary commission. It is essentially just as fast at the turnaround and profitable as
conducting loan signings.
123
A Golden Pen
This service meshes well with our Legal Document Preparation as small-time contractors may need assistance with notice of commencement documents as well as filing for contractor leans if they get stiffed by a client.
Also, when the work is done the end client may need your assistance with filing a notice of termination form to get the commencement off of their title.
Notary Signing Service Company
In the beginning, when we first
started our mobile notary business we sought to contract with dozens and dozens of signing service companies to get revenue generated. Today, we are a small, but efficient signing company as well. These are third-party
headhunters for notaries. Basically, they contract with the title company, attorneys, and so forth to fill in the 124
A Golden Pen
need for the notary in a designated area seamlessly.
At some point with your mobile notary business, you may find you have an abundance of contracts and title companies directly working with you. If you find that you are turning down business because your schedule is already full, it's time to consider taking your mobile notary business to the next level. And at this next level, you actually create leverage as you are able to generate income for appointments outside of the time that you really desire to work or locations that you aren't necessarily inclined to travel to.
You simply split whatever your fee is with notaries you hire as contractors.
Finding notaries to work for you is as simple as posting a job offer on LinkedIn, Facebook (on your business page), Craig’s list, or even just communicating with notaries in
125
A Golden Pen
various Facebook notary groups. If you are already a mobile notary you should have a basic understanding of this process. Have your vendors sign a contract similar to the ones you signed and request similar credentials from the notaries Contracting under you.
You will also want to obtain a million dollars in general liability insurance and get a feel for how much of an increase in Errors and Omission
Insurance the title companies you are already working with would require you to have for utilizing subcontractors. Then viola, you are in business!
“A Full Belly Is Of Little Worth, Where The Mind Is Starved.”
-
Mark Twain
126
A Golden Pen
& Financial Services
One day while I, Mark, was a busy nurse driving back and forth to long 12-hour shifts, an old friend of mine from high school reached out. He told me he was making 3000 + a week
selling health insurance and loving it.
Here I was, busting my hump 36 hours a week on night shifts to make about 1,600 a week and this guy was making way more than that with way less effort. Honestly, I thought he was lying to me.
I decided to investigate this myself which invariably led to me getting multiple insurance licenses. He wasn't lying at all, if done right, there's plenty of money to be had in the world of insurances.
127
A Golden Pen
While the financial services and insurance Industries require licenses that are a little more difficult to get, let me assure you that the industry pays very well! It's also relatively inexpensive to acquire these Insurance licenses and most can be learned within a couple of weeks at home online. In addition to the lucrative pay many insurance companies also pay what we call renewals. Basically, this is a residual income that you get continually as long as the policy is in effect.
Insurances, like other things that tend to be a lucrative field can draw that MLM or network marketing crowd,
unfortunately. These leads would-be insurance agents from other industries like the notary world to steer clear, as they feel like that might be a scam or illegitimate. This is simply not the case.
Good thing is some of those MLM's might even pay for your licensing & training.
128
A Golden Pen
The selling of insurance is a bit more difficult than the high demand notary, tax preparation and fingerprinting, however, there are still plenty of people looking for your consultation. Yes, there are people that we say in the insurance world have "a check on their forehead". They are ready to buy and need no sales tactics. Like the other business models, we learned about, a similar basic concept can apply. That is if you put up your Google Map listing people are bound to call and purchase your services. As we go into the individual breakdown of the ones that I feel best suit our existing business I'll discuss simple cross-selling methods you can easily apply
In the world of insurance, there are what is called captive agents and independent agents. .f or the purposes 129
A Golden Pen
of additional side hustles, your attention is most likely going to be directed towards being an
independent agent. Captive agents are bound to one insurance carrier that usually comes with an exorbitant amount of branding, but you can only sell their product line. In my mind, it's always made good sense to be able to offer a variety in the abundance of products from a variety of insurance carriers to meet the need of your clients, whatever they might be!
It's important to remember, virtually everyone you ever encounter has some problem that needs to be solved. The better equipped and more resourceful you are to handle these needs, the more money you're going to make. That's what this book is all about, showing you an abundance of resources you can have and make available to people you will come across in your everyday life, consequently making more money 130
A Golden Pen
without having to worry about inventory products or any other hefty expenses.
Life Insurances
Life insurance is a great product to sell. But it is selling, and many people can be very difficult or unpleasant when they are soliciting. It takes a special kind of person to sell life insurance professionally daily. But I promise you, those people who do, earn a very decent living. It's my opinion that people really must have the personality for it to operate at that level, but I could be wrong.
That doesn't mean for us ordinary folk there isn't an opportunity to be had in this industry. Allow me to explain. .
you see, life insurance offers a lot of variables. They are really great 131
A Golden Pen
products that make a lot of sense for most people, especially if you identify the right fit for your client. There are policies that can offer an overwhelming number of benefits to the right audience. This is where an opportunity lies. The place that opportunity will present itself is in just grabbing the low-hanging fruit. So, let's talk about this a little bit more. I'll explain some of this in a little bit.
To start, life insurance pays very well!
Most agents are compensated at a level of 80% to 100% of the annual premium of the life insurance policy for the first year. If the product is what is considered a whole life insurance policy, they will typically get about around a 5% annual renewal
commission. Think of renewal
commissions as residual income.
Residual income adds up over time.
There's nothing like making money but you didn't do anything else for.
132
A Golden Pen
So, here's how the compensation works: Let's say your client is paying $100 a month for their life insurance policy. Basic math tells us that's $1,200 a year for what in the
insurance world they would call a $1,200 annual premium. If the
insurance carrier you are appointed with is paying at 100% commission (which is the norm) that money is all yours! Keep in mind, some people's annual premium policies are twice as much, or half as much, it all just depends on what they're willing to spend.
So, can you see how doing something as simple as writing one policy a month, two policies a month, or even more ideal, a policy a week can
drastically improve your income level?
As I said, there are many different policies for many different people so let 133
A Golden Pen
me give you the story of what I did.. and what I am doing now!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this book, I am an inactive registered nurse. Being that I am a registered nurse, I knew that RNs are always worried about getting injured on the job and losing their income. RNs like to carry disability insurance; however, disability insurance is notoriously expensive. I found some life insurance carriers that offered policies that had built-in disability riders and accelerated death benefit riders.
Basically, you don’t have to die to get a life insurance policy to pay out!
I had got my 2-15 Florida insurance license (life, health & annuities) before I retired from nursing, or rather, switched careers to being an
entrepreneur. I went around the
134
A Golden Pen
hospital telling every nurse I knew and didn't know about these policies. I could write them up a policy right there on my tablet while on shift. It only takes about 20 minutes to write one up. I cleaned up well!
Nowadays, I don't do active life insurance sales anymore. I have a more passive approach. What I do is have a Google Business listing as a life insurance agent that is separate from my other businesses. Invariably, once a month or so someone will call & literally want to purchase a life insurance policy. No selling involved at all; they have a check on their head! I’ll help them out. Totally worth
maintaining the license.
Yet another niche within a niche is something called final expense whole life insurance. These are small life 135
A Golden Pen
insurance policies for the senior citizen population who don't want to turf their burial expenses on to their family members. So, there's no shortage of specialty insurance products that you could offer clientele. My advice is to find something that you really like or that you know is an easy sell for you to zero in on then go to work. Or at least have it at your disposal.
Medicare
In Florida, a 2-15 insurance license gives you the ability to sell life insurance, health insurance, and annuities. Selling regular health insurance is too much of a bother in my opinion for too little commissions.
But, Medicare on the other hand.. is an easy sell that pays renewals. Sooner or later everyone who's an American citizen is going to be a Medicare recipient. Basic Medicare A & B leave 136
A Golden Pen
little to be desired. But, that is not the case with insurance products like Medicare Advantage plans.
Medicare Advantage is great! Senior citizens love their Medicare Advantage, and we get paid well for helping them enroll in a plan. How it works is like this, the insurance carrier gets paid by the federal government to take over the Medicare recipient's health insurance.
The health insurance provider is better at managing their money than the government is, so they can be profitable with the money the federal government gives them. They also fill in all the gaps that traditional Medicare doesn't cover.
Where it gets crazy is that many of these Medicare plans are no-cost to the Medicare recipient, and in some cases even better than that. Everyone over 65 who is enrolled in Medicare Part B, has their Part B premium automatically taken out of Social Security. This is just a fact of life, they're actually 137
A Golden Pen
penalized if they don't take their Part B
premium, so everyone does. So, some of these insurance companies will offer a Part B premium reduction or buyback as they call it.
So, how that works is they will see anywhere from $80-$120 show up
back on their social security check as a Part B premium reduction. What this looks like on their end is you come in and sell them an insurance policy that gives them more benefits than they already have and puts a hundred
bucks every month back in their
pocket. How hard does that sound to sell?
So here is how Medicare pays:
138
A Golden Pen
If the client is turning 65 and new to Medicare and enrolling in part B, the insurance company will give you $500
for finding a new client for them. If they are already a client and they switch to a different insurance carrier at your convincing, they will pay you $125. Helping someone enroll in one of these plans takes as little as 15 to 20
minutes. Either way, after that they'll give you about 20 to $25 a month for the next seven to eight years as long as the client stays on their plan. That's the renewal I was talking about. It's like subscription money, and it adds up.
Also, if they are your existing client and you contract with multiple
insurance carriers and you switch them from one plan to another carrier, if you are the agent of record the 8-year time clock resets. If you accumulated 1000 Medicare clients which could be done over the course of 139
A Golden Pen
a couple of years, if you're aggressive, that would result in a six-figure passive income!
I was sold on it after learning that you can make $125 in about 30 minutes of work, never mind the renewals. Added bonus! With modern technology,
many of the managing General agents now have websites pre-made that you can more or less auto enroll your clientele through without actually having to physically be present. This makes the process much easier. The question is, do you know a handful of older people who will enroll in a Medicare plan because they know you?
Of course y ou do!
140
A Golden Pen
I want to quickly talk about a niche within a niche and then we'll move on to the next topic. Within the Medicare Advantage program are special policies called DSNP and SNP.
These special programs will vary from location to location, however, they are a combination of Medicaid and Medicare.
DSNP means dual-eligible. They will get even more benefits and their full Part B premium waived. Many people are unaware that they qualify for DSNP
or Medicaid based on their low income from Social Security.
Assisting in filing for low-income subsidies takes about 20 minutes.
When they are approved, they qualify for a change in Medicare plans
immediately.
141
A Golden Pen
You will have simultaneously saved them money and increased their health insurance benefits and decreased their cost of pharmaceuticals. They will be a customer for life and tell everyone else about the services you offered!
You could run simple ads on Craig’s list for next to nothing offering to assist seniors in applying for Medicaid. When you target this audience correctly, it's an easy audience to m arket to and your commission is pretty much
guaranteed!
Property & Casualty
P & C insurances are going to, in a lot of ways, work just like life and health insurance. Meaning that getting the licensure is basically the same process.
Getting contracted with the carriers has the same process as well as learning to use quoting tools is all very similar.
142
A Golden Pen
Where Property and Casualty Insurance has an advantage in that they are pretty much a requirement for anybody with a home or vehicle or operating a business that needs general liability insurance. These are all products and services that a P &C
license insurance agent has at their disposal.
Many of us already know a decent network of people who would be willing to purchase an auto insurance policy through you especially if there are any money savings involved! Those Auto policies renew every 6 months and P & C agents get roughly a 10%- 20%
commission on that policy. The more policies you accrue over time, the more renewal income you will have generated. Not too shabby huh?
As a loan signing agent, we find it hard to believe that you haven't run across 143
A Golden Pen
several dozen homeowners complaining about their insurance policy. Well, it would be awfully convenient if you could recommend a good agent that would be glad to run them a quote and see if they could save money on that policy, wouldn't it? Since we know that homeowner’s insurance is paid in escrow, there's little in the way of chargeback or cancellations you have to worry about in dealing with this product line!
Claims Adjuster
If selling insurance isn't for you, you can still capitalize on the opportunities in the lucrative world of insurance.
Getting a license as a claims adjuster can be just as financially rewarding.
Independent claims adjusters can work from home and process simple claims right on the computer, and you can also be a field
144
A Golden Pen
adjuster going out and examining rooftops. As with the other insurance licenses, there is not a whole lot to get into this field. I acquired a 6-20 all-lines claims adjuster's license in less than three weeks with home study courses.
As an independent claims adjuster, you can also contract and connect with numerous vendors (independent
adjusting firms) in much the same way notaries contract with signing services for work. Some will even pay for the additional training credentials that you will need to be a success in this field.
The top hiring firms out there that I am familiar with are Alacrity Solutions, Eberl, Nomad Adjusting and Coastal C laims. But trust me, there are a lot of these hiring firms in the same way we have signing services for the notary world.
145
A Golden Pen
If you really found that you liked being an insurance claims adjuster, you could take the next step and become a Public Adjuster. This will require some shadowing with an existing public adjuster, then when you are licensed you can go out on your own. Think of this as going title direct versus working for a signing service. The pay is typically way better. Public Adjusters charge the client 10% of whatever the claim is to put forth a claim. This works in a similar fashion to how personal injury attorneys operate; except they take an even higher
percentage. There's no limit to the number of claims or the size or type of claim that you can assist with, basically the bigger the claim the bigger your cut. Remember what we said earlier about attorneys having the ability to sniff out a lucrative opportunity!
146
A Golden Pen
Annuities are insurance products that work like investments. Basically, they offer a guaranteed rate of return as opposed to where most people put their money and financial markets that are subject to an unlimited amount of fees in dramatic shifts in the market. This pertains to 401k, 403b, Roth IRA, mutual funds, and investing in the stock market altogether.
The main drawback of an annuity is that the money is definitely put away for a period of time and the rate of return is generally less than the potential rate of gain that you could get through other riskier markets. All one really needs to do is identify a group of people that has taken a severe loss or 147
A Golden Pen
lack of any real gain in those previously mentioned markets and offer them the practical solution of a guaranteed rate of return that annuities can deliver. If you convince them to roll their money into an annuity, you will be well compensated.
I'm not going to talk very much about annuities because while I am licensed to broker them, I have not done a whole lot of writing of annuity policies.
But, I will tell you this, they are very very lucrative. Here's why; most annuity insurance companies will only pay you 5% commission for
transferring a balance into an annuity account. If you find someone who is near retirement and wants to move their 401k account into a tax-sheltered annuity for payout to continue to grow without taxation, etc. they will be happy, and you will be rewarded.
148
A Golden Pen
Just do some simple math. Your uncle retires with 500,000 in his 401k and put it into an annuity that you
recommend, and you get paid $25,000
just like that. That's exactly how they work. They can rest at night knowing that their money has a guaranteed rate of return. He cannot possibly lose money; it is a contract. And just like the other insurance, as we have
discussed, there is a wide variety. In fact, almost unlimited number of different annuities that can be tailored to a client's specific needs. Including additional riders like long-term care to protect them from spend-down
Medicaid that would seize assets.
In Brett Kitchens's book "Wealth Beyond Wall Street", which I encourage you to read if you are serious about getting into these markets, he lays out how powerful of a financial asset these 149
A Golden Pen
can be. He also exposes some of the alleged gurus (Ex: Suze Orman & Dave Ramsey) out there who actually go as far as to denounce the benefits of owning annuities yet they themselves actually invest heavily in them. Brett himself also offers Turn-Key training to launching a successful annuity Sales Machine.
As of this writing Cryptocurrencies (all the rage) and the stock markets have been in a free-fall. We are at peace with my 5% dividend earning insurance policy. So are many of our clients!
Title Insurance producer
Title agents get a healthy commission for issuing a title insurance policy they receive roughly 80 to 90% of the title policy. This could amount to easily 150
A Golden Pen
between 500 to $1,500 per transaction. Be it that every lender requires title insurance, selling is not the issue. It's a requirement. As for sellers of real property, they are signing warranty deeds. To warranty the title of the property they also need Title Insurance to ensure there's no defect. Again, basically a necessity. A necessity is easy to sell.
Title agents and title companies for that matter thrive on having real estate agents for clientele. Realtors refer their clients to them to close out their transactions. Next in line would be mortgage lenders, who also select title companies that they like to facilitate real property transactions. If you have established solid relationships with 151
A Golden Pen
Realtors and mortgage lenders, then it stands to reason they would use you as a title insurance producer to close out their transactions.
Now here's what's cool, if you are an NSA most of those vendors that you deal with also contract with licensed title agents for the same thing:
Amrock
Solidifi
Service Link
Single Source
The name of the game for Nationwide title companies and Nationwide lenders is turning over these closings as fast as possible. They will give you healthy title commissions just to do the abstracting, municipal lien search, and issue a title insurance policy.
152
A Golden
Pen
Most of the work related to title and escrow can be outsourced. In the end, if you structure it correctly, all you must do is write the title policy, do the e-recording with the municipality where the property is situated and collect your commissions!
While I realize this may be an
oversimplification, the reality is it is not as complicated as it seems. The compensation for the job is far better than the work required. With the kind of commissions that title agents get paid, ask yourself how many
transactions you really need to close out in a week to make a good living at it or make it worth your while.
With our business that we run, Noble N otary and Legal Document Preparers, we have assisted several cash buyers and sellers that simply wanted to save money by not using conventional title companies and real estate agents to 153
A Golden Pen
avoid paying unnecessary commissions. Our clients were aware of the potential risks involved, but they ended up saving piles of money and my business on the same note, made
healthy compensation & revenue by helping them facilitate this transaction!
154
A Golden Pen
The World of Appraisals A certified real estate appraiser is the second level of Florida state licensing for the appraisal of real property. With this credential you can appraise all types of family residential properties without regard to the transaction value and other types of real property having 155
A Golden Pen
a transaction value of less than $250,000.
Just like as a
licensed real
estate
appraiser, you
may find
yourself
working for
an appraisal
firm or for
yourself as a
fee based
appraiser.
Your clients
may be local,
such as
individuals,
Appraisal Sample Fee Schedule lawyers,
accountant,
title & escrow, even from large appraisal management companies,
156
A Golden Pen
In Florida, for example, you now meet the requirements of many lenders and financial institutions which hire only certified appraisers for their
transactions. Likewise, as a field appraiser, your day will consist of property inspections and completing research online and at local court houses and/or assessor’s offices. For the most part, you will be completing appraisals for home purchases,
refinancing, divorces, and estates.
Many of these are Notary Signing Agents (NSA’s) and already familiar with:
Amrock
Reltco
Mortgage Connect
Service Link
As an NSA who cross trains as an appraiser, you’ll be off to the races in no 157
A Golden Pen
time as you will be well connected to thrive in this field!
Having the state certification meets one of the basic requirements set by many employers, vendors and makes you more qualified than if you only have a license. Here’s some of the general requirements:
*Must complete the National
Residential Exam and the Florida Supplemental Exam.
*Must be 18 years or older, submit a completed application and fingerprint background check (there it is again!)
*2,500 hours, at least 150 reports, of experience in no fewer than 24
months.
*Must hold a bachelor’s degree or higher; 200 classroom hours of board approved courses required by the FREAM or if you do not have a 158
A Golden Pen
bachelor’s degree, you have other options…
Associate degree, or higher, in specified fields of study identified in rule.
Successful completion of 30
semester hours of college-level
courses in each of the specific
topic areas identified in rule.
Successful completion of at least 30 hours of College Level
Examination Program (CLEP)
examinations that cover each of
the specific topic areas in Option
#3 as identified in rule.
As you can see from the appraiser’s fee schedule, these guys can get paid well.
There is much logging and work that goes into the job behind the scenes but as skill increases, so should efficiency.
As technology increases, so does the 159
A Golden Pen
ability to leverage it. The only reluctance I have to this field is the preliminary required hours of
apprenticeship. Not as easy as say becoming an apostille agent, but as with most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it.
160
A Golden Pen
Final Thoughts Throughout the book, you can see that we lay out some general concepts. One of the things about the mobile notary that makes it so appealing is the obvious fact that it is mobile. Having a business that operates mobile or remote, it's just simply a convenience that you offer clients that helps you stand apart from your competition.
The number of things that you could apply a mobile service to is nearly infinite.
When looking at a business model for expanding your current model ideas, this is something that is important to consider. A ‘unique selling proposition’
is what the pros call it. It's really just as simple as looking at what
competitive edge you can gain in whatever service it is you are
passionate about providing.
161
A Golden Pen
This unique proposition automatically sets you ahead of the pack so even if you find yourself in a relatively saturated market, you now have
advantages over the competition.
We didn't discuss marketing tactics in this book, as it wasn't really the central theme. There are plenty of good books on all manners of marketing. If you are already running a small or home-based business that is in high demand, you probably have a good handle on viable marketing methods. It is as simple as applying those methods to new
162
A Golden Pen
business models or services that you add.
One of the many benefits of high-demand services is they aren't
advertising intensive. Meaning, very little advertisement is needed to thrive.
We employ all manner of advertising methods and modalities. Some work better than others, some are more complicated. I can tell you that the better marketing skill you develop, the higher your income will be and the more you will save by not wasting money on ineffective measures.
Even if you decide to employ
advertising agencies, it's a good idea to have some education and insight into how it all works. Unfortunately, there are a lot of hucksters in
businesses such as ad agencies and 163
A Golden Pen
busines marketing that routinely promise big returns and, unfortunately, delivered very little.
Having a little bit of marketing savvy will help you to avoid these hucksters and employ your own methods until you can find legitimate help.
You MUST get out of your own way. We have too many people come to us, telling us how incredibly blessed we are. .which we ARE. But, it took prayer and determination and a constant idea to never settle.
We love what we do. We love the
experiences we have gained through trial and error; we love the people that we meet and so many connections we have made. You just put yourself out there. No one else is paying your bills but YOU, so who cares what anyone else thinks.
Stay true and honest. Always be noble and do the right things. It really is 164
A Golden Pen
important in this type of endeavor to put others above yourself. Be kind to others in all situations, because we have been through some doozies. Not everyone is thankful and grateful, remain kind and giving anyways.
Remember, you can do this! Pray for wisdom and do your diligence.
Wishing You The Best Life Has To Offer,
Mark Sias
Grace Sias
165
A Golden Pen
The 4-Hour Workweek By Tim Ferriss The Magic Of Thinking Big By David J. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad By Robert T.
Kiyosaki
You Are Not So Smart By David
Mcranrey
Poor Richards Almanac By
BenFranklin
Eat That Frog By Brian Tracy
Zero To One By Peter Thiel
Grace’s
Battlefield Of The Mind By Joyce Meyer It’s Not Supposed To Be This Ways By Lysa Terkeurst
The Great Gatsby By F. Scott
Fitzgerald
166
A Golden Pen
https://legaldocprepnotary.com/
h
ttps://www . faldp. o rg/
https://certifixlivescan.com/
https://dos.myflorida.com/
h
ttps://www . c ynanotary .c om/
h
ttps://www . fiverr. c om/
https://notaries.dos.state.fl.us/education/
https://ccasite.org
h
ttps://www . finra. o rg/arbitration -
mediation/information-arbitrators 167
A Golden Pen
