The New Mobile Office

As times change and mobile notaries look towards a new hybrid model, what does the new mobile office look like? Mobile notaries already know how to do business on the go, so what is needed to maximize efficiency in the online era?

How do we do so under the new notary model?

Much Stays the Same

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Alphonse Karr – French Novelist

We still want to do business on the go, if possible. We all want to maximize our business efficiency, as well as profit. And we all would like to do so with the least amount of hassle.

So where do we start?

We all want to still maximize our gas efficiency by taking several simple steps. And we’d like to keep some semblance of a mobile office.

What’s in the New Mobile Office?

You may not have much of a change at all.

Most of us already have our laptops. Some of us already have vehicles with internet, though you don’t have to have a vehicle with internet as long as you have a recent smart phone. The fact is, most of us already have everything we need.

If your vehicle does not have wi-fi (mine does not), you can set your phone up as a mobile hot spot and connect directly to it. Of course, if it does, you can just connect directly to it.

Keep it Quiet

The biggest issue we may run into if we want to do a remote signing on the go is noise. It won’t do you any good if you are drowned out by traffic, trains, parades or just loud areas.

So the big question will be how you track down quiet areas within the route(s) you would normally take for your business. Hopefully a quiet place you won’t get interrupted in during your signing, be it a security guard or anyone else.

This may even be a place that is only quiet part of the day, but we may be looking at places like:

• Parks where you have an out of the way area.
• A quiet portion of a large parking lot, or maybe one at night where security won’t be there to interrupt.
• A rest area.
• Where your current mobile signing is. People are used to contractors doing computer work before or after a job.
• A friend or family’s home.
• Or anywhere else you can find that is nice and quiet.

New Equipment

With any new venture comes new equipment. A mobile office for online signings may not require much, but there are a few things you may want to look at.

1. Drop Cloth or Background – If we are in a vehicle, we may not want to advertise it. So we may want to use a drop cloth, or maybe a background that is a little prettier, behind us. Make it look like we are in a closed office, or maybe a beach in Hawaii.
2. New Light – If you end up doing a signing in the evening, or you surround yourself with a drop cloth, you are probably going to want to look into a light. Vehicle or laptop lights are great, but they tend to not provide that nice bright and even light you would have in an office. With LEDs, lights don’t use up much energy, so you can easily get one or two that will make the mobile office look like a static one.
3. Noise Cancelling Microphone or Headset – Let’s face it. This goes beyond mobile. Have we ever met any kind of office that is perfectly quiet all the time? Client communication is key. Ideally, we’d like them to understand us, and vice versa, just as well as if we were in person. Even a face to face at Starbucks. So a noise cancelling microphone or headset may be the best way to keep out unwanted noise. Just realize if you are twenty feet from the train tracks it won’t do much help.

Recently we were asked if we really should go mobile for online signings. And the answer was simple.

I may prefer to do a signing in the office, but I prefer money more than that.

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