We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Janessa West a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Janessa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

There is a big difference between solopreneur and entrepreneur and it has taken me the last twenty years of being in business for myself to figure out the difference.

A solopreneur is someone that starts a business and then gets stuck working in the business and isn’t able to create the systems and put people into place to grow the business to the next level to be able to step away from the day to day processes of the business it’s self.

An entrepreneur on the other hand is someone that starts a business then at some point is able to create systems and put other people in place do handle the business to take it to the next level so that the enterpreneur can then move on to create more business or start a new business while the other one continues to grow.

I have finally reached the level of being a true enterpreneur in my business. However, it wasn’t without struggles and learning curves along the way.

Allowing myself to take a step away, make less income for a time being and allow someone else to do the work that I felt I was so good at that no one else could do it as well as me – was hard! But in the process of letting go of that control, I learned that my time is the one asset that I cannot duplicate. My time is more valuable and better spent on doing what I do best and allowing others to do the rest.

Taking a good look at my business process, systems and self evaluation had to take place. This wasn’t easy to do while I was in the thick of it all, both running my business and working in my business. I had to take a break. A month long vacation away from my business, which also meant feeling the loss of income for a month because without me – there was no business.

That month-long break allowed me to get clear on the vision I truly want for myself and the business. The time to think cleared the path towards success and bridged the gap from solopreneurship to enterpreneurship.

Janessa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Having started out as an solopreneur in 2003, I lived on a shoe string budget and used to joke about it. I thought that was how small business owners lived. Struggle to success. Thankfully I had the tenacity to not give up through the struggle all those years! Looking back, I would have done things very differently knowing what I know now. I would like to think those changes would lead to much less struggle and a quicker road to success.

At any rate, it has all taken me to where I am now. Recently nominated as ‘2023 Notary of the Year’ by the National Notary Association, having a live interview about my business featured on Fox 2 News, having a strong team that supports me in this business which allows it to grow and realizing that this little business venture I started back in 2017 has grown to be something more than what I thought it would ever be!

Most customers or people that I talk to about my business are amazed that it is actually a business! Their reactions are often things like, ‘I never knew there was such a thing as mobile notary services that come to you’ or ‘I always thought a Notary was only at a bank’, and my favorite, ‘I never knew you could make a living as a Notary’.

Truth be told – all those things are true, to some degree! Up until about 10 years ago, Notaries were only typically found in banks or at a business establishment. And most people, even most Notaries don’t understand that they can make a living as a Notary!

Providing mobile notary services is a business model that came about from the real estate industry. When someone would buy or sell a home and not be able to get to the bank or title company to sign the closing documents, a Notary would go to their location with the documents to have them signed and Notarized. This is where it all started. I wish I could say I had come up with this idea. I did not. I did however capitalize on the idea.

Knowing there is a need for convenience of more than just real estate documents to be signed at a persons location, led me to the idea of creating a business around offering Mobile Notary services to people anywhere for any type of documents. A busy executive that can’t leave the office, a mom with kids at soccer practice, a grandparent at a nursing home, a family member in the hospital. It was clear to me there was a need beyond convenience for mobile notary services.

Starting out, I was able to handle the business myself. From marketing to website design, invoicing & bookkeeping, customer service, social media, booking appointments, etc. It wasn’t until year two that things started to get so busy that I realized I couldn’t possibly take every single appointment, drive all over town, give my best to each customer, and still work on building the business. This is when I started to add a team of other Notaries to take some of those appointments off my hands. This made it easier to step back and manage the business. I then also added an assistant to assist with marketing, projects, social media and customer relations. This gave me more time to work on growing the business, which is what I tend to do best.

In just two and a half years of business and the business has had substantial growth. From starting out just offering mobile notary services to adding multiple services and a well rounded team of Notaries,

In addition to offering mobile notary services, we now also offer other mobile services:

Apostille services, which is a service to assist our clients with the process of officiating US originated documents that need to go to a foreign country.

I-9 Employment Verification for remote hire employees that need their I-9 form completed by an Authorized Representative.

Wedding Officiant services for basic wedding vows at any location or just an official signing of a marriage certificate.

And our latest addition to services are two big ones – the first one:
Electronic and Ink Fingerprinting for many purposes including background checks, FIDL, FBI clearance, conceal carry, employment requirements, licensing and other clearances – we provide fingerprinting both as a mobile service and at our location in St Louis City.
And our second newest service:
Remote Online Notary Services which allows our Notaries to notarize any type of documents remotely online for clients anywhere in the United States or world wide as long as they have an internet connection and the ability to video chat through our Remote Online Notary platform.

To add these services to our company greatly expands our customer service base in not only who our typical client is but also where our typical client is located – which can be anywhere in the world!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that one has to work hard and give up their personal to be successful as a business owner.

The truth is that work should not be hard. Building a business isn’t hard. However it takes time, dedication and most important – consistency. When one works for themselves it is a different mindset that has to be had. Learning self discipline and time management are extremely important in being able to hyper focus on the business, especially in building and growth stages. These are the parts that many may find hard and therefore never succeed in being an entrepreneur.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Learning to create and cultivate authentic relationships in my community with other people and business owners. Taking on an attitude of ‘what can I do to help you’ has been extremely beneficial to the growth of my business. In fact I often see that it takes people by surprise and they don’t know how to respond because they haven’t been asked by a local business owner how they can help them.

I will say it isn’t often that people actually ask for help in return. If it’s a local business, after we are done with the services I provided, I leave and post a 5 star review on their Google profile for them and I feature the business on my blog which reaches thousands of local people each week. This is my little silent ‘give back’. It’s something I like to do to help other small businesses to be noticed and grow in my community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MobileNotaryStLouis.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mobilenotarystlouis

Image Credits
Janessa West