How did I close on a property in a Hooters? Phil Hogan's mobile notary empire!

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In this episode of the AMI podcast, I talk with Philip Hogan, who is the CEO of Signing Services of America.

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Philip details his entrepreneurial journey, which was influenced by his family's background and his start with a nonprofit for formerly incarcerated men.

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Transitioning to entrepreneurship, phil was inspired by a mobile notary encounter, which led him to become a notary himself and eventually start his own nationwide notary service.

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He emphasizes the importance of not taking wealth for granted, vetting notaries, thoroughly leveraging scheduling software, and the significance of sales and marketing knowledge for scaling a new business when we provide real estate investors with the tools to achieve generational wealth.

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Let's aim high.

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This is episode 78.

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Hello and welcome to the Aim High podcast.

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I am your host, bud Evans, and today I'm here with Philip Hogan.

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He's the founder and CEO of Signing Services of America.

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How are you, phil?

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I'm your host, bud Evans, and today I'm here with Philip Hogan.

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He's the founder and CEO of Signing Services of America.

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How are you, phil?

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I'm great Bud and hope that you are too.

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Oh yeah, absolutely.

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It's a great day Anytime I get to talk to someone.

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I love doing podcasts specifically because I get to meet very interesting people who talk about all different kinds of topics.

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Subject matter experts are always intriguing to me, but would you do me a favor and give me a quick introduction?

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Sure, and again thanks for having me.

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And as Philip Hogan being the CEO of Signing Services of America.

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We're a nationwide notary signing service that has a database of over 65,000 notaries.

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That gives us the ability to meet the needs of our real estate investors, mortgage lenders, as well as title insurance companies, to get those certified, experienced notaries in front of the signers to get documents signed, notarized and returned back to our client.

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So you basically have an entire database of people all over the United States that can go in and help real estate investors, attorneys, auto dealers, anywhere correct, that's correct, all right, and I'm just going to put this out there, cause I know you and I had some conversations offline.

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But, um, one of my favorite things about mobile notaries is that you can literally close anywhere.

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My, my partner and I, in a multifamily commercial space, closed at a Hooters.

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We were celebrating and the notary was ultra professional and did his job effectively.

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So, uh, you know that was.

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Notaries are extremely important because you guys keep everything in order.

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Right, it is your, your certifying documents.

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Is that pretty true and correct?

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Yes, it is, and you know there was a um a.

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Someone once said to me that no matter who comes to the closing, if the notary isn't there, the documents are just not going to get signed.

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And they're absolutely correct that you know we're there.

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We hire notaries to validate the authenticity of the signatures for all signers and ensure that the documents are being not only signed correctly but also that each party, each signing party, understands the contents of the documents.

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And if there's any questions or concerns, then of course they will reach out to us to either bring clarity or reach out to our clients and help to resolve the matter.

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So the documents signing can proceed.

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And you're CFPB certified.

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Yes, we are.

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Well, yes, we are.

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And our clients sorry, our notaries are, because of the credentials that they are required to have.

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We store those credentials, a PDF of those credentials, in our database and can readily pull them whenever someone requests of them.

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Yeah, consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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Sorry, I'm an acronyms guy.

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Yes, right, so it's a military thing.

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So how did you get into this?

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Let's talk about you and how you got into this.

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Let's talk about your background.

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Sure, sure.

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So I have a background of entrepreneurs.

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My family, both my parental and maternal side of the families, were entrepreneurs.

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My grandparents migrated to this country from a small island in the Caribbean named Montserrat.

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They came here and began to build their businesses, and then my maternal grandmother is a well, may she rest in peace was a bishop of her church, and both families grew up in Harlem, and Harlem was a time when family businesses were very, very popular, and so my dad became a entrepreneur, my uncle became an entrepreneur and then, of course, my uncles on my mother's side were entrepreneurs.

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So I was destined to become an entrepreneur, unbeknown to me.

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And then my father, when he retired from New York City Police Department, got his first business in Harlem, was a candy store.

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And guess what?

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We had to work in a candy store.

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And you know as being a New Yorker, you know the biggest day of the week in the candy store business was the Sundays, because people were coming from church, they bought in the Daily News, they bought in the New York Times, et cetera.

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So on Saturdays the cousins and I would get together and put together the Daily News and the New York Times newspapers.

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So that was our exposure to the entrepreneurial side of our families, and then, of course, it was my turn to become an entrepreneur.

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So my first business was a nonprofit named Housing Matters of New York.

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I started a nonprofit in 2000 named Housing Matters of New York.

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That was a transitional living community for adult men who were formerly incarcerated.

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That was a program where I purchased a building out of foreclosure, converted it into the living community, created the nonprofit and began providing the services.

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So from 2000 to 2005, that's what I was doing as my first official business.

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Well, things didn't work out well.

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I got it kind of burnt out and so we closed down the program, transferred all the residents to another program and then in 2007, I relocated to Atlanta, georgia.

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I continued working, but then, in 2014, I still got the bug to want to be an entrepreneur.

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It just wouldn't let me go, and so I brought a car and a mobile notary came to have the document signed and the car was out of state.

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I said, okay, well, this is really interesting.

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I had never met anybody who was a mobile notary, had never heard about it.

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So we quickly signed the document and I just was like listen, how did you do this, where do I go and what I need to do, and he was kind enough to explain to me all the things I needed to know, and, literally the next day, I went and got my notary commission and began advertising on various notary websites that I was available, and my phone started ringing and then, before you know it, I'm now a mobile notary.

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Well, that's fine.

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And so in 2015, there was a title company in Clearwater, florida, that was sending us a lot of business and they wanted to send us more business, but they needed to have I needed the resources.

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So the next thing for me to do was start a signing service.

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So in 2016, I started Signing Services of America with the understanding that I had this title company's business.

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So we literally opened the door with, you know, a whole bunch of orders ready to go, and we just hit the ground running and we never stopped since.

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You're in high demand.

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Everybody needs a notary.

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Yes.

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I got to ask you, though, what about electronic signing, and how does that?

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I mean you're always going to need physical paper, but how does that impact your company?

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Well, it impacts us in a great way because we have notaries who are trained and connected with remote online notarization services.

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Right, so it doesn't affect us where we still we won't be able to meet the needs of our client.

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It's just we have to, so like, move the needle in a different direction, turn the needle in a different direction to actually facilitate what the needs of the clients are.

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So the way it will work is that the order will still come through our company.

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We would then dispatch it specifically to a RON certified notary in our database, and then that RON certified notary would reach out to the signers to arrange for the signing to be conducted electronically.

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And that basically just saves a lot of time and for for, especially like attorneys and people like that.

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Just when we're hiring a notary, Um, and look, I, I know that you are definitely credible, Um, but if you're hiring a notary and we're not you, what should we be looking for?

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What are the red flags?

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Um?

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The red flags are one do they have the credentials Right?

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That's obviously very important.

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Many people hire a notary because they get them from these websites but they don't really ask to see.

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You know, can I see your E&O insurance?

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Can I see your background check report?

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Can I see your notary commission?

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Or, depending you know, if you're in Maryland or Indiana, there's a title producer license that a notary should have.

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So those are one of the things that I would advise people to always ask.

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And then, during the telephone call, you want to find out hey, listen, what kind of experience do you have in signing and notarizing mortgage documents?

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How many deals have you done?

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If you are an experienced, savvy realtor and you understand the content of the documents, we sometimes will ask the notary well, tell us what's on a closing disclosure, right, you know.

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Tell us what's on the loan application.

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You know how do you fill out a Patriot Gap form.

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Those are the questions.

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Those are the type of questions that we'll ask a notary to really understand how savvy they are.

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And then, of course, you know we ask the number one question if you have any issues at the signing table, what do you do?

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Do you try to figure it out yourself, or do you reach out for support by contacting?

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Would you contact?

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That's what we ask.

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So if it's one of your members of your audience, you might want to ask listen, if you really don't know something about these documents, do you generally call someone to get clarity or do we just proceed and kind of do what we think is best?

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Yeah, I've been in a position where the notary that came out not just going to put it out there that it's not your company, but this notary that came out that was sent by a title company had no idea what the document.

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We were doing a refinance on a rental property.

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We had rehabbed it and we rented it out.

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Now we're refinancing it.

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In addition to that, we're doing a quit claim deed and she never had looked at that before, had no idea what that document was.

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Uh, and it really costs us a lot of havoc.

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Uh, we wound up having to re-sign documents twice, which is time consuming, especially when your partner lives an hour and 40 minutes away.

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Um, with traffic, you know, uh, it makes it a little difficult to do so.

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Um, and we like to sign our documents together as opposed to.

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I know we can do mobile here, mobile there, but in order to keep things simple, we want to sign together.

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So, yeah, how do you ensure that your notaries have all the specific criteria?

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How do you do the background?

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Good question, thank you for asking.

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And so it all starts with vetting the notary right.

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We don't.

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We in our database is, as I mentioned, 65,000 notaries, so we have a number of and, as a result, we can just plug in notaries if we want, and.

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But that's not how we operate and that's what sets us different from our competition.

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We actually will engage the notary Once we find out a notary is available, then a phone call is made and then that's where the vetting conversation occurs.

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We want to know what is your level of experience.

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We want to ask you some situational questions.

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We want to ask you if you have the temperament for this type of work.

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We want to ask you how many deals like this have you done?

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And based upon the feedback from those questions, we'll determine if this is the notary we want to hire for this particular signing.

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And there are many notaries that we have said no, this is not the deal for you.

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We appreciate the opportunity to work with you, but we think that your skill level doesn't meet what this particular client or what this particular signing requires.

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So I'd rather salvage the relationship by not having you do this deal, but keep you on the sidelines.

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When we have another deal, we'll call you and we've learned that that has been very beneficial is extremely important because that voice-to-voice interaction is far more beneficial than just pushing a button and sending a notary to someplace that we have never talked to.

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And there are different types of notaries.

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Right, you guys, do you specialize?

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When you say different type of notaries.

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Well, not different, not different types.

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What I'm asking is you have to have special notaries for wills, trusts, foreign exchange, students and stuff like that, right?

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Yes, yes, we do have.

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Most of our notaries are experienced in the real estate space.

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So we do a ton of various mortgage products, hecms, finals, loan applications, etc.

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And in different states, and so, you know, depending upon the state will determine the level of skills that we need.

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But that's where the vending comes in right.

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And if we get a will, if we get a trusted will signing, well, what's your experience like?

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Well, in this, okay, well, no, this is not the one for you, and you know, some of my competitors may hire the notary, hoping that the notary would do a good job, and we don't want to put your future and your potential financial matters into a state of hope.

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We want to have a hundred percent of certainty and you're expecting us to have a hundred percent of certain certainty.

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So, therefore, we vet and we will talk, and then sometimes, sometimes, we have hired notaries who had no experience, but yet, because of the desire for them to learn, I said, okay, well, listen, let's set up a training session and let's go through these documents and let's help you to understand what the documents are, where they need to be executed and how they need to be executed, and based upon that test, we'll determine if this notary is indeed able to go fulfill that order.

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Okay.

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It sounds like an incredible time saver too.

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It's looking at attorney's offices, title companies, insurance companies, auto tag dealerships.

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I can't imagine if you can outsource to a company like that.

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There's a pretty big impact to a company like yours impact to a company like yours?

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Yeah, it does.

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It certainly saves the bottom line.

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One of the things we like to say is that we reallocate time back to our clients.

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Instead of you having to search for a notary, vet a notary, monitor the notary and then follow with the notary.

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You just throw the ball to us and then we will do all the heavy lifting for you while you go on and do your primary duties.

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And that's where the saving of time is important.

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Sometimes notaries may have questions, sometimes there may be issues, and we've seen in the title world, the title production business can be very filled with multiple different things and multiple different files that are coming through the pipeline, and so the last thing a title agent wants to do is be bogged down on the telephone or emails dealing with the issues with the notary.

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Well, we will deal with the issues with the notary, so then you could focus on the primary things that you have to do, and that has been a selling point for many of our marketing approaches, and it's been very beneficial, because sometimes people don't look at it like that.

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Yeah, notice you work with several CRMs as well.

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Yes, we are integrated with Salesforce and we also are integrated with Quire Quire oh gosh, quire.

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Res, resware, ramquest, softpro 360 are the CRMs that we are integrating, the title production software, and we really encourage that integration because one it saves time and, you know, for title agents listening.

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Once you are working in Resware and your order is ready to be sent to a signing service, then literally you go into maybe the closing market, find Signing Services of America and then send the order to us.

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It will show up in our dashboard and then we can take care of it and you've never come out of Resware to find a notary.

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That's one benefit.

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The other benefit is that when it comes time for document security, the documents could be pushed bilaterally through the integration and, of course, prevent any kind of invasion of privacy in those documents.

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So it's extremely beneficial if everybody understands the purpose, the benefits and the way to use it.

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Yeah, that's great.

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There's a lot of personally identifiable information in the documents that you guys handle.

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Oh my gosh Ton there's always the one story that sticks out right, what, what was the nightmare story that you had?

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Give me the most difficult time you've had, uh, as a mobile notary.

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As a mobile notary.

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It was um, as a mobile notary that's been been meaning before I started signing services of America, so it would probably have to be when I first started in 2015,.

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I was inexperienced and and, as a result, made a lot of America.

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So it would probably have to be when I first started in 2015,.

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I was inexperienced and and, as a result, made a lot of mistakes.

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I quickly learned, but I made mistakes and so the nightmare is um gosh.

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I had to travel from uh up nearly nearly to uh yeah, okay, here it was.

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So I live in Atlanta area and the signing was possibly like in, you know, up in oh shoot, woodstock, and so I didn't realize that there was a husband and wife that had to sign right.

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So when I called and made the confirmation, I spoke to the husband.

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He said, yeah, okay, you know I'll be here at such as time, such as date, and this is the address.

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And boom.

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So I'm packed up, ready to go.

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You know I'll be here at such as time, such as date, and this is the address.

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And boom.

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So I packed up, ready to go, you know, polish my shoes and really look really professional, and had the documents and was going.

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And then we sat down and began signing.

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And then that's when I realized that his wife was on the loan.

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I mean, she wasn't on loan but she was on the mortgage, right.

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So I said, holy crap, I didn't say it like that, so I had to get this deal done, right.

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So then he said, well, my wife is a nurse and she's not going to get.

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She works a 12 hour shift and as soon as she gets home we're traveling up to the North Carolina mountains, to the North Carolina Georgia mountains, to enjoy our weekend.

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And I said, oh, my goodness, so I had to drive.

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So I literally had to drive to the North Carolina Georgia borderline to meet with the wife in their trailer to get her to sign the documents.

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Now, mind you, had I had the mindset and experience to know and ask the husband during the confirmation call will your wife be present?

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Then he would have been able to tell me, yes, she will, at this particular hour, this particular time, whatever.

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But I didn't.

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So the nightmare was that I had to make a extra trip, way out of my way, to make sure that the wife's signature was on the document, Right?

00:18:51.898 --> 00:18:57.353
But now you're a CEO and now you help people not make the mistakes that you made when you were younger.

00:18:57.353 --> 00:18:58.717
That's great.

00:19:00.365 --> 00:19:02.029
Yes, and we do a training.

00:19:02.029 --> 00:19:11.476
We do a Tuesday night Zoom call with all of our notaries and these are the type of situations that we present, so hopefully it will prevent other notaries from making the same type of mistake.

00:19:13.385 --> 00:19:16.473
Awesome, listen, I know we have a short period of time.

00:19:16.473 --> 00:19:22.535
I'm going to ask you, very simply put, as your wealth increased, what is one thing that you learned?

00:19:22.535 --> 00:19:24.097
One takeaway.

00:19:27.048 --> 00:19:28.270
Ooh, as my wealth increased.

00:19:28.270 --> 00:19:29.373
What is one thing I learned?

00:19:29.373 --> 00:19:31.424
Don't assume that it's always going to stay.

00:19:31.424 --> 00:19:34.211
Say that one more time.

00:19:34.211 --> 00:19:36.195
Don't assume that it's always going to stay.

00:19:36.195 --> 00:19:42.296
Don't assume that the conditions that you have right now will always be in the future that is perfect.

00:19:42.576 --> 00:19:43.345
Thank you very much.

00:19:43.345 --> 00:19:56.929
I, you know, I how many, how many millionaires that I've spoken to who had major, major losses, like you know.

00:19:56.929 --> 00:20:04.544
They're up here and then all of a sudden, they're back down to square one, zero, you know, and then the one thing that you get to keep is all the knowledge.

00:20:04.544 --> 00:20:07.373
Right, you don't get to keep all the money, but you get to keep all the knowledge.

00:20:07.373 --> 00:20:08.355
So it just makes it easier.

00:20:08.355 --> 00:20:09.910
So, a great point.

00:20:09.910 --> 00:20:13.652
All right, let's go into the soaring forward.

00:20:13.652 --> 00:20:19.319
These are the same four questions that I ask every guest that can help someone who is just starting out achieve new heights.

00:20:19.319 --> 00:20:22.012
What do you use to keep you motivated?

00:20:23.207 --> 00:20:24.090
We have our scaling.

00:20:24.090 --> 00:20:26.594
So, uh, keeps me motivated is my goals.

00:20:26.594 --> 00:20:38.012
You know I have the vision board and on my vision board are the things that I aspire to achieve and that helps me stay really locked into what it is that I want and, more importantly, how to go about getting it.

00:20:40.145 --> 00:20:40.567
That's great.

00:20:40.567 --> 00:20:41.412
I love vision boards.

00:20:41.412 --> 00:20:43.993
I have a cruise on the Amalfi Coast.

00:20:43.993 --> 00:20:46.190
We're taking the family.

00:20:46.190 --> 00:20:47.808
We're going to go on a cruise on the Amalfi Coast.

00:20:47.808 --> 00:20:48.711
That's on the vision board.

00:20:48.711 --> 00:20:50.976
I haven't booked it, yet we're going to try to get there.

00:20:50.976 --> 00:20:51.897
That's on the vision board.

00:20:51.897 --> 00:20:58.086
There you go, right Threw it on there.

00:20:58.105 --> 00:20:59.926
What is one thing that you learned that completely changed your mindset?

00:20:59.926 --> 00:21:00.688
Don't take notaries for granted.

00:21:00.688 --> 00:21:02.868
Don't push the buttons when it comes to hiring notaries.

00:21:02.868 --> 00:21:03.470
Start vetting the notaries.

00:21:03.470 --> 00:21:08.413
The pivotal moment in our career at Signing Service America is when I began to vet notaries, the whole.

00:21:08.413 --> 00:21:16.298
It was a game changer, because notaries are not accustomed to having that type of interaction from the signing service and we weren't accustomed to reaching out to the notaries.

00:21:16.298 --> 00:21:29.788
But as a result, we were able to learn more about the notary and then they learned more about us and then they would buy into our way of doing business and then we can make the decision.

00:21:29.807 --> 00:21:31.971
If you don't want to buy into it, then no love lost, we'll move on.

00:21:31.971 --> 00:21:32.471
It goes to that cliche.

00:21:32.471 --> 00:21:34.295
Take long to hire and quick to fire.

00:21:34.295 --> 00:21:35.957
Yes, yeah.

00:21:35.957 --> 00:21:38.967
What tools do you use to keep yourself on track?

00:21:40.329 --> 00:21:40.851
What tools.

00:21:40.851 --> 00:21:44.018
So we have a scheduling platform, and that really helps us to.

00:21:44.018 --> 00:21:54.724
Everyone in the company has the ability to see this platform and, as a result, we know what's going on with every order, where it is in progress, and then, of course, my calendar.

00:21:54.724 --> 00:22:03.751
That is the most important tool that can keep me focused, because when I first started, I didn't think I needed a calendar, and I quickly learned that this is bull.

00:22:03.751 --> 00:22:06.070
You need a calendar, phillip, and so that helps me stay on track.

00:22:07.946 --> 00:22:11.873
I live by my calendar Time block every minute of every day.

00:22:11.873 --> 00:22:13.352
It's crazy.

00:22:13.352 --> 00:22:16.208
I block off fun time.

00:22:16.208 --> 00:22:21.215
I block off naps.

00:22:21.215 --> 00:22:23.358
I'm over 55.

00:22:23.358 --> 00:22:23.819
It happened.

00:22:25.086 --> 00:22:25.587
Forget about it.

00:22:25.587 --> 00:22:26.170
I'm 66.

00:22:26.170 --> 00:22:26.952
What are you talking about?

00:22:28.067 --> 00:22:29.432
You don't love it, thank you.

00:22:29.432 --> 00:22:33.094
But what is one thing you'd change if you had to start over?

00:22:34.806 --> 00:22:37.836
I would learn sales and marketing right.

00:22:37.836 --> 00:22:41.311
I started Signing Service America with a client, so I didn't have to worry about it.

00:22:41.311 --> 00:22:43.432
Finding clients wasn't my problem.

00:22:43.432 --> 00:22:47.070
My problem was being able to manage the work that the clients were sending us.

00:22:47.070 --> 00:22:53.134
But things shifted and now it's like well, how do I scale this business?

00:22:53.134 --> 00:22:55.152
And then I had to learn how to sell.

00:22:55.152 --> 00:22:55.949
I had to learn how to sell.

00:22:55.949 --> 00:22:56.489
I had to learn how to market.

00:22:56.489 --> 00:22:58.251
I had to learn about social media.

00:22:58.251 --> 00:23:04.838
I had to really learn how to establish a presence in the internet and be able to attract those that want to use our services.

00:23:04.838 --> 00:23:11.596
So if I had to start all over, it would certainly be spend more time with sales and marketing, learning about how to sell and learn how to market.

00:23:12.278 --> 00:23:15.871
Yeah, scaling is some nasty business.

00:23:15.871 --> 00:23:17.674
Yes, I mean it's really tough.

00:23:17.674 --> 00:23:23.184
But look, I've said it before and I'll say it again Um, you're always in sales.

00:23:23.184 --> 00:23:26.932
You're either selling yourself or you're selling a product right or a service.

00:23:26.932 --> 00:23:31.290
Um, so yeah, hey, philip, I appreciate your time.

00:23:31.290 --> 00:23:32.145
Thank you very much.

00:23:32.145 --> 00:23:36.313
I know you're busy and you took time out of your very busy day to be on the podcast.

00:23:36.334 --> 00:23:39.057
So thank you for that, oh bud my pleasure.

00:23:39.057 --> 00:23:39.880
Thank you for having us.