A few days ago, I posted this on social media: "I built a notary fortune because I didn't know my worth." My message was simple: I built my business by saying yes to every opportunity. I worked hard, served clients well, gained experience, and built relationships. Instead of focusing on what I thought I deserved to earn, I focused on creating value. Over time, that commitment helped me build a strong reputation and a successful, profitable business. This has nothing to do with signing services offering low fees. If you know me, you know I strongly oppose companies taking advantage of notaries. That's not the point of this post. The reason I'm sharing this is because we recently assigned a signing to a notary we've worked with for years. This is someone we've consistently hired, trusted with all types of transactions, and helped keep busy in his area. The fee offered was $100. After reviewing the documents, the notary sent us the following message: "OK. The signer is available and this seem to be a very large package of 189 pages. Please add an extra $25 or find another Notary." There's another important detail. Over the years, we have paid this same notary $100 for seller packages that typically require printing only 20 to 30 pages. In other words, there were many transactions where the printing requirement was minimal, yet the fee remained exactly the same. That's why it's important to look at the full picture. Business relationships should not be evaluated one transaction at a time. Sometimes you make more on one assignment, sometimes you make less. The goal is to evaluate the relationship as a whole and understand the long-term value it provides. We explained that we could not adjust the fee. At that point, the notary told us to find someone else for the assignment. And that's exactly what we did. Not only did we find another notary, but we also made the decision that we will no longer do business with this notary moving forward. Not because he asked for more money.