Certified by another agency?
To get certified or not, that is the question!? As of late I get many questions regarding certification. Many of you have been certified by another company before you came to 123 and you feel that that should be sufficient and you wonder what the benefits would be in obtaining our certifiaction or any other certification for that matter. And as most of you come to find out just about every site that you list your services on offers some sort of certification.
Certification is NOT a necessity
Now I will be the first to say that while I do feel certification is very useful and has its advantages (which I will go into to depth later) I want it to be clear that it is not a necessity or mandatory for any notary to be certified to do a closing. Keep in mind that this is is not to be confused with training because you can recieve training in many ways without being certified. Jeremy can tell you that in my early signing days before I began my work here at 123 although I received adiquite training it was not until he gave me the oral exam that I became ‘certified’ with 123 and I had done several hundred closings prior to him giving me the test. In fact, he gave me the test orally via my cell phone while I was traveling to a signing. LOL Many new notaries are of the mind set that they HAVE to be certified in order to be a ‘closing agent’ or conduct a closing. They feel it has some official capacity or is a mandatory requirement of their particular state. Let’s be very clear: It does not. It is purely elective and a personal choice. All that is technically reguired to conduct a closing is that you are a commissioned notary in your state in good standing and have some knowledge of what is reguired of you to facilitate the closing of a loan. There has been many a notary that have never been as they call it “certified’ by anyone and they do an exceptional job. They were fortunate enough to have mentors and/or material that provided them the necessary information they needed. And in the early days before such training existed they had to ‘wing it’. It was the doing, hands on (and mistakes) that really made them great signing agents. Then there are others that are so called ‘certified’ and have no clue as to what they are required to do. Can anybody say NNA newbies!? So my point is that although certification can be quite useful for educational and marketing purposes it is not pre requiste for a signing agent.
Certification; Its critical for marketing
IMO, certification IS however a necessity for marketing yourself. Lets face it the whole objective is to stand out from your competition. With most sites offering certification testing and have certification icons which rest next to your name it is my firm opinion that it is imperative that you get certified with whomever you advertise with. It says to your potential clients that you took some extra steps toward excellence in your field. The marketing benefits can be staggering. Here at 123 we have ran the statistical data and find that the notaries that have the certification logo next to their name get 78% more clicks on their profiles than those that don’t. That is impressive data. And so it behoves all of you to get certified sooner than later. It only takes a few minutes of your time and the benefits can be enormous. Many notaries have reported back to me that their business has doubled even trippled due to the certification. And with the economy being what it is, this can only help give your business a boost. And it could make all the difference in the world in the successes or failure of your business. So come on guys and gals…don’t delay, GET CERTIFIED!!!! You have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose!!
Until next time…
Carmen
‘that notary gal’
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