Originally posted 6/24/22

We all witnessed the heartbreaking aftermath of the pandemic. Small businesses were closing their doors left and right, forever. Those who couldn’t pivot to accommodate the quarantines and the lack of foot traffic to their brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants couldn’t keep their heads above water. It's sad, and it's telling the importance of both being able to pivot to social and economic changes that can and will happen and diversifying your business.

Perhaps you had a coffee shop. A cute store and you had the makings of a cult following. Awesome. While life is good, it's a good time to start spreading out and setting up new avenues of income. For the coffee shop, pre covid, a way to possibly diversify would be to get your hands on a food truck. Brand it, and set it up to provide coffee at events, on-site, away from the shop. Imagine what kind of heroes you could have been if you had diversified that way, pre-pandemic. Daily coffee runs to your ideal demographic neighborhoods.

For a professional service-based company like mine, diversifying my income streams doesn’t require a mobile coffee truck. Still, it requires a solid footing in multiple revenue streams. Let me explain. 2020 and 2021 had some of the lowest real estate interest rates, and it started a two-year mad run on home refinances, purchases, sales, and more. For a notary, that is good news. You could do nothing else other than real estate closing signings. And tons of Notaries did just that.

Interest rates have jumped up, and refinances are all but gone. The buyer vs. seller race is reversing, and those closings are not coming as fast and furious as they were the last two years. So I ask, how can your mobile notary business survive when your one area of income, your cash cow, has left the barn? Weird analogy? Yea, sorry.

Before I explain how I started my business by diversifying, let's look at an article from Forbes.com. DJ Vallauri wrote it in 2017, Titled; “Importance of Business Diversification.”

Vallauri’s story is not exactly like the notary story I am sharing, but it speaks to the importance of not putting all your eggs in one basket (more farm analogies). He writes of how he was launched into entrepreneurship after he was fired from a position. And once up and running with his new business, he landed a whale of a client. A new and growing client that allowed Vallauri’s company to grow with them. At some point, Vallauri realized that the one client was 90% of his revenue, and if that company went bankrupt, so would Vallauri’s business.

His article focuses on two things to do to diversify his business. These two actions are the same for almost every type of business.

1. Create New Products and Services: This is a big one. You need to have your fingers in as many revenue-earning service areas as possible. And this will look different for every single business. That means I couldn’t JUST be a loan signing agent for my business and had to build a clientele base in different areas. If you take the time and hang out on my website, click on services. There are six various services I provide. They all require a notary, some more directly than others, and they are all very different.

2. Get More Customers: You can’t do one without the other; in the author's example, that was his biggest problem. Literally, one, albeit great, client. I haven’t yet found a business that doesn’t need customers. Your business is going to need them as much as mine. How do you get more customers? That journey will be different for everyone. How you go about it that's your journey to carve out.

I need a great marketing strategy for my business that can change if and when required to get more customers. It includes social media, a robust and working Client Relationship Management (CRM) platform, and hitting the streets and going door to door. A lot goes into it, and I spend some time working towards that goal every day.

When planning to launch my new career, I knew I didn’t want to just focus on loan closings. I am old enough to remember the bubble bursting and going into a major recession. I knew the real estate market could rise and fall, and I wanted my business to have longevity and survive any economic downturn. So, from the beginning, I invested in training, education, and networking within my industry with industry titans. I can’t say it enough, though I try to; diversifying your business will make it more bulletproof.

The bottom line is that no successful business is a one-trick pony. That doesn’t mean you need to wear a half dozen hats; your one hat can go with many different outfits.

I hope this information was helpful to you as you consider starting a business or if you are already in it. Thanks for stopping by.

Till Next Time,

Jennifer Cooper- JKC Mobile Notary