How JJ Built a Notary Test Prep and Certification Business in California Called EZ Notary Class

JJ describes how he turned his years of in-person notary teaching into an online learning platform by leveraging WordPress and LifterLMS to create EZ Notary Class, a California-based online notary training and certification company.

Customer experience and experiential learning are key components of JJ’s methodology. His training shows how to correctly notarize papers, confirm identity, finish paperwork, and use notary supplies rather than just imparting knowledge from government manuals. Students can retake the course for a period of two years, and they are given sample documents to print and fill out while following along with the courses. According to JJ, this strategy has contributed to the program’s 97.5% exam success record. Additionally, he established the company as a one-stop shop for aspiring notaries, including insurance, supplies, training, and individualized customer service.

From the things they receive to the emails they receive, he stresses that every customer connection should seem purposeful and beneficial. JJ also describes how he employed customer-focused growth and cautious marketing to expand the company. He started off with a modest budget for Google Ads and only increased it when the ads produced successful sales.

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Episode Transcript:

You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Chris Badgett: Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. It’s JJ Jones. Or JJ actually. It’s JJ. 

JJ: It’s fine, yeah. 

Chris Badgett: JJ. 

JJ: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: From easynotaryclass.com. JJ has built an exceptional notary training platform for their certification in California and with over 30,000 students, so it’s pretty awesome.

And I can’t wait to get into it with you and learn about your story and what you built. Sure. And welcome to the show. 

JJ: Thank you very much. Happy to be here. 

Chris Badgett: Let’s start with the journey. I know you worked in fast food. I think you were a notary for 20 years, or you’ve been in this industry for 20 years, a long time.

JJ: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And- 

JJ: A long time ago when we start- I started this journey, yeah … 

Chris Badgett: and now you’ve built an education company in your niche in the space of notary. Tell us about- … the journey of how you got to here. 

JJ: It was… It did start with me becoming a notary, which was the best thing I ever did yeah, because I was, working in fast food and different, jobs and that kind of thing.

I, not to disparage the, the jobs or people who work in the jobs, but it definitely… I definitely wanted to make a little bit more money. And and I found out about becoming a notary through a family friend, and it was just like okay, that sounds like it’s pretty easy to do, and it doesn’t cost much to get a license.”

In California, the demand is… The de- demand’s always really high in California for notaries. So I said why not give it a shot?” And then I did, and I wound up doing that for several years. I was doing notarizations for home loans, and I was doing notarizations for other types of real estate documents and that kind of thing.

And it worked out really well. And the thing about being a notary is… Look, here, I don’t know how to say this. Nobody wakes up one day or nobody dreams one day, “One day, I’m gonna become a notary,” it’s not… even when I tell people, that what I do, or it’s just it sounds a little bit boring on the surface.

But I’m okay with that because it’s an essential need, and those essential needs can make a lot of money because it- it’s something that people… Everybody needs to get something notarized at some point. And especially in California with all the property, there’s always demand. It’s something that wor- that it was easy to do and was easy to scale, and I was able to build up a good clientele.

And I was just doing that for a long time. And I had also been, Had a, a little bit of a foray into teaching. Not like anything like this, but I was teaching like these, these other kind of classes, and found out about teaching classes and got into that and started to, ’cause I thought it’d be really fun to teach the notary stuff. And then so I started actually teaching notary classes, and I did that for a very long time. And I taught a lot of people. And then in 2020, actually it was right around during COVID, is when I decided to take what I had been doing for all that time with teaching classes and do it in, under my own company.

And that’s when I created easynotaryclass.com because I wanted to create… I knew what the ind- I knew what notaries needed I knew where I was when I first got a license. I knew that there are a lot of companies, there’s a really big brand, they’re like the number one in the nation, and they were just way too expensive.

And I thought there were other resources out there that were just trying to take money from notaries is really was my point of view. And I also knew that they weren’t really providing notaries with the skills necessary to actually turn it into a career. And so I thought, “I can do that,” like I know how to do that.

I know how to teach that. I know how to teach people not just how to become a notary, but how to turn being a California notary into either a side gig or a full-time career, ’cause I got a lot of people who took my program, and, they’re now notaries f- and they just do it on the side, on the weekend.

And then some notaries, they do it full time. And and I knew how to teach that. What I didn’t know was necessarily the technical aspect of it. I didn’t know really how to cr- create a website, actually. I didn’t really understand how to host the videos. I didn’t understand… I knew I could make a video, but I didn’t know how to host them.

I didn’t know how to, check lessons or anything like that. And so when I was first putting it all together, I was just kinda, this is before ChatGPT, so I was just like on YouTube trying to figure this out. And then through the research, eventually I found LifterLMS, and I was like, “Okay, this is good,” because now I don’t really have to worry about that part.

I can just make the videos and post them, and then let LifterLMS handle all the stuff that I don’t… to this day, I still don’t know how you guys do what you do. I don’t know how it works. So I just know that somebody watches a lesson, and they get the credit, and they get their certificate, and that’s what matters to me.

And that’s good, ’cause then I can focus on the other aspects of my business, which is helping my customer turn their dream of turn, becoming a notary into reality. 

Chris Badgett: So what’s the the training? Is it is it kinda two things from my understanding, you help somebody initially become a notary, and then you keep them certified, which is called a commission in your case.

Is that right? Is- Yeah … so what’s on offer exactly? 

JJ: So to become a notary in California, you really have to do two things. You gotta take the class. It’s a six-hour class. And and then you have to take a test. So we don’t handle the test. The state does the test. We handle the class, and that was the part that I had always done.

I had always taught notary classes in person, and then when I went online and made easynotaryclass.com, I said, “Okay, I’m gonna turn it into a video course. You can watch at your own pace.” And then, 

Chris Badgett: So that’s like test prep, is that right? Like it’s preparing- It’s sort 

JJ: of- … 

Chris Badgett: for the exam? 

JJ: Test prep is part of it, right?

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

JJ: Because that’s the end of the course. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

JJ: The, the bulk of the course is really everything about being a notary. So it’s how, what is a notary? How do you actually notarize documents? How do when you have your stamp, how do you stamp a document correctly?

All the different… what do the documents mean? How to fill the documents out, that kind of stuff. And it’s really how to actually be a notary and perform your notary duties. And then from that you’ll be tested. But n- now there’s a second, there’s a second part at the end where we like go through, okay, now you know this information, now you’re gonna take a test.

That’s where a lot of people get scared. So I have a special test prep focus on how to get through this test. But the test really covers all that, like notary procedure information. So in a sense, yes, my class teaches them how to be a notary and then preps them for the test so that then they go and take the state exam and they pass.

We have a 97.5% pass rate, so I’m, I feel really good about that. And and then they be- they get their notary license. Yeah. And then there’s more things too, like for instance th- there’s a couple other things like you wanna actually buy your stamp, and your book, and your, and insurance and stuff like that.

And we sell all of that too. But the initial offering is, yeah, the $79 for the class. And we have a bonus class, which is how to then notarize loan documents specifically. And what I like about that is we are the only notary class that offers that for free. Every other notary class, they charge a couple hundred bucks or whatever.

All of our competitors do. And I can tell you that I go into way more detail in our class than they do. And our class is it’s included for 79. So we try to, I try to keep everything as absolutely cost-effective as possible. ‘Cause that was the goal, the mission from day one was to make the most affordable notary class possible for what you’re getting.

Chris Badgett: I think I saw on your website somewhere you said something like you took every online California notary class so that- 

JJ: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: your customer doesn’t have to. And then when you say 97% completion rate, what was the gap or the, the optimization you put in to have such high success rates? Well- And you also mentioned earlier a lot of notary things online felt like a money grab of some sort 

JJ: they are.

I can tell you what my, a lot of my competitors do. A lot of my competitors are, what they’ll do is there’s a book, there’s a… I don’t have it with me, but the, the state, they have this little booklet, and it’s the notary, like a book of notary law, okay? And it reads about as exciting as you would imagine.

It’s, like, all government code, and it’s… if you can’t fall asleep, that’s all the melatonin you need. Just read your notary book from the state. And what some of my competitors have done is they just take the text from that course- And they put it on the website, and they charge people whatever they charge, 20, 30 bucks.

And then you open up the course, and it’s really just text from the handbook with a timer, a six-hour countdown timer, and then you’re supposed to read that in six hours. So to me, that’s a money grab. That’s… You’re not teaching anything. I wanted something where we… I really teach you how to do it.

I really wanted to teach you how to put your stamp on a document, how to fill… We show you the documents. We show you how to fill it out. We show you how to actually take ID. It’s not as simple as you think because there are certain parts of the ID that you have to be aware of that you can only know if you see about, if we show you in, in the picture.

And and the other part-and-part is out- physically filling the documents out. So I have, as part of the program, I give you all the sample documents so you can print those out and follow along with the program. So you’re filling the, the documents out while you’re watching us do it, me do it in the class.

And that’s really important because you don’t just get some vague academic, explanation, from a government handbook. You’re actually getting an e- an experiential, learning activity so that you can really cement this. So you’re not just understanding notary law for the sake of notary law, you’re understanding how to actually be a notary and how to actually notarize things.

And, sure, my competitors will sell a course for 20 bucks. And I can’t possibly compete with $20. I try to price it as much as I can, so mine is $79. But the difference is you’re actually learning, and you’re actually gonna get prepared for the test, and that’s why we have such a high pass rate.

I say we guarantee you pass the test or get your money back, and I stand by that. And I think this year I’ve only refunded two people that’s not bad. And so I think the thing about… that makes what we do different, it’s one of the reasons why we consistently have only five-star reviews on Trustpilot.

If you look at the review, it’s just five-star, five-star, five-star, five-star. And it’s because of the amount of care that we put into it. And then there’s the customer service aspect of it, like I said, I have a really large competitor. They’re the national brand. And I’ve had people call me and they say, “Look I’ve, I went o- I called them and I was on the phone for, I was on hold for an hour.

When I call you guys, you pick up the phone.” And that’s part of being a small family business where we can give that kind of an attention to our customers so that they can really, be a partner with you as you’re moving forward in your, in your notary your notary goals.

Achieving your notary goals. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I love the focus on experience, not just information and practice. Yeah. Getting people taking action and stuff like that. That’s awesome. But- 

JJ: It’s a big deal because, it’s y- we all been in… let’s just take college, for example. We’ve all been in a college course where, you’ve got a teacher that drones on and you’re just, y- and then you walk out of there and you don’t remember it.

Or book reading, yeah. For instance, I’m one of those kinds of people that I don’t retain a lot from what I read. So if I if I’m reading something like, whether it’s like a, a self-help kind of a book or e- or if, especially if it’s like a technical, manual or whatever.

If I’m reading it, my retention is gonna be pretty low, but if I’m… And if you’re just watching it too, right? Your retention is higher. But if you’re watching it and you’re experiencing it- Doing it … at the same time- Yeah … your retention’s really solid. And that’s what I mean by I knew I could do this.

I knew I could create the most superior product on the market. Nobody beats me. The national brand, I get so many people that come to my class and they chase, they say, “I took the n- the big national course. It’s $200, and it was so boring I was falling asleep, and I learned nothing.” So I get that question.

I get that a lot, too. Nobody can beat our course. It is the best notary course on the internet. And I’m very proud of it. It, not just on the internet, a- anywhere. And I even think it’s better than the w- courses I was teaching online. I m- I’m sorry, the courses I was teaching in person.

Because when I was teaching classes in person, here’s the other part of it. Is that when you teach a class in person, once the instructor says something once, that’s it’s gone forever. You never get to hear it again. But we give access to our class, to our students for a long enough ti- two years actually.

So you can go back and re-watch it and and re- go through the information again. Some of my students, they’ll watch the class a couple of times before they take their test to really get that information, cemented in there. So yeah, all those kinds of things. There was a lot of forethought that was put into the class.

It took almost a year to make the whole thing. And and but then here was the problem. I knew I could make the… This is going back to what we were just saying with you guys. I knew I could make the class and make the videos, which took forever, but then when those videos were done and I had that six-hour-long course, I was like, “Okay, now what?”

How do I put this online, and how do I turn this into a course that records student progress and everything else? And that, s- brings me back to LifterLMS. 

Chris Badgett: On the technology front, had you already had experience with WordPress, or was this your first thing? ‘Cause it I think in the history, you bought a $1 demo site from us in 2020 or something like that to try it out.

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JJ: Did I? I didn’t know that. It’s funny. 

Chris Badgett: And then, … pretty quickly I think- Sounds 

JJ: like something I would do. Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: in 12 hours, you bought the Infinity Bundle, which was our top plan, and you moved forward. But, like, when you’re starting to set this up, and you’re doing WordPress, and you’re doing LifterLMS, and you’re figuring out video hosting, was this all new to you at that time, or had you had some experience in some of those things?

JJ: Yeah, it was mostly new to me. I knew a little bit about WordPress because I had helped somebody create a website before, but it was really archaic, and it was just basic posts, that kind of thing. I really didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about WooCommerce. I didn’t know anything about integrations.

I… The other thing is, to me, graphic design’s really important, so I’m really involved in the look of everything, and I didn’t really know how to do that at first until I found Elementor, which worked out great at the time, and I wound up making everything in Elementor. I’ve sw- I’ve since actually switched to Gutenberg, but it’s the same.

Because Gutenberg wasn’t out at that time. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

JJ: So Gutenberg gives me a little bit more control than Elementor did, but at that time, Elementor was really good because I can control the look of everything. But again, I know, to answer your larger question, I really didn’t know. I had no actual idea what I was doing.

I actually had no idea what I was doing. That’s the truth. So 

Chris Badgett: how’d you do it? How’d you figure it out? And I’m just saying, I, I’ve done a lot of these- 

JJ: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: and this is a common pattern I see, is people will, they just refuse to not try and keep going and learn and try to get help. 

JJ: Yeah. I think that’s that’s something that my fiancée makes fun of me for it sometimes.

I think it’s one of those things where there’s a book about entrepreneurship, and I think the book, the title of the book is Ready, Fire, Aim. Ready, Fire, 

Chris Badgett: Aim. Yeah. 

JJ: Yeah, Ready, Fire, Aim. Yeah. And I think that’s pretty much how I operate. Or there was someb- someone else that talked about a true entrepreneur is Somebody who jumps off of a cliff and figures out how to make an airplane on the way down.

And I was like, that kind of exactly exemplifies how it is. And I just knew that I would figure it out. And so with this course, it was, I di- I didn’t know what I was doing at all. And then I started going into YouTube and just re- watching everything that I could reading everything I could. Just I didn’t really outsource.

I got, I hired a couple of people that helped me put a few things together. But for the most part, I try to do everything on my own. And I don’t know, I just, I did it. But I’m still doing that. There’s stuff that we’re doing right now with the course that, you know, stuff that I wanna do that I have no idea how we’re gonna do it, but we’ll just figure it out.

I don’t know. I, the knowledge is out there. I, I know I can find the knowledge, and it’s one of those things where I feel like if you don’t try, if you just wait until you’re ready, it, I found that was more of an excuse to procrastinate because of fear. And I’ve always been more afraid I’ve always been more afraid of not trying than of failing.

Failing is never really been something I’ve been really afraid of. Not trying has been something I’ve been really afraid of. So I think that’s the balance, right? I’m more driven by, than s- saying I didn’t give it a shot. 

Chris Badgett: You’re an entrepreneur through and through. Yeah. That’s that’s awesome.

You also introduce some complexity in the sense that you’re like a one-stop shop. You have training seals, journals, kits. One of your students said that they passed the exam, received their package from the secreta- Secretary of State, and ordered their bond and supplies from you, and they didn’t have to worry about getting scammed.

So not only are you- Yeah … doing training, you have retail and shipping, which is, I’m assuming, why you’re using WooCommerce. So tell us about- 

JJ: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: that. 

JJ: I think I I started using WooCommerce actually from the beginning. That was just what was available to me. And then but I needed to… Oh, no, actually you’re right.

That’s why, I think that’s why I started to do it, ’cause I wasn’t using WooCommerce at first. I was using some other gateway, but it doesn’t matter. So yeah, I wanted to start selling physical products, so that’s when we really, I really ramped up on the WooCommerce. There’s another thing I didn’t know to do.

I didn’t know anything about physical products. I didn’t know about fulfillment. I didn’t know how to make a label and pay shipping and, I have no clue about that stuff. I didn’t even know where I was gonna get the stamps, and then, but I knew I wanted to make something really superior, so so I made everything custom in-house.

Like the book that we sell which, it’s over there. But the book that we sell, yeah, I don’t have it here, but it’s okay. The, we have this notary journal and I knew it was out there, because I had a notary journal because I was a notary, and I knew what was wrong with them. I knew what could’ve been better.

So I designed my own journal. Had no idea what I was doing. I just designed it in Illustrator, and then found a company to, print them and ordered 500 and just gonna, kinda cross my finger, hope that people would buy it. And then and then I found a stamp manufacturer, whi- which was a little bit easier, because I knew who made the best stamps, and then was able to work that out.

But I didn’t know how to make a stamp. You have to p- just so you know, like there’s this big machine that you have to purchase, and then you get blank stamps, and then you create each stamp individually. It’s a really laborious process, and then create each stamp, and it flashes this laser.

It’s a whole thing. And I didn’t know any of that. But I knew that w- we could figure it out. That’s, was the whole end thing about WooCommerce integration, and then that was a whole thing, and then shipping, and then collecting sales tax, and then paying the sales tax. And so all that was totally brand new to me.

But it wound up being a little bit easier than I thought it was gonna be. I still have, there’s still It’s still not that easy. Like fulfillment is its own thing. Actually, just an hour ago, we were talking about somebody who their package was lost in the mail, and it’s just a, it’s a headache.

And obviously you want to make sure every customer gets their, their deliverables. So you want to, and, but it’s okay. We’re going to send another package. It’s not a big deal, but unfortunately I got to eat that cost. But for the most part, we have a pretty streamlined system. People order the supply, they, or they get the class, they’ll order their supplies.

And then we’ll put in those fulfillments for them and send them out. The other aspect is the insurance. I wanted to offer that because I knew that insurance was really expensive. A lot of our, a lot of our competitors sold insurance, but really high prices. I knew that I wasn’t able to legally sell insurance because I was not an insurance broker or, or anything like that.

So I just started researching. I called pretty much all around the country looking for insurance companies that would partner with me to make for the cheapest price. And I found a company and they’re great. They’re Swift Bonds and I, they’re great people, but I mostly chose them because they also have the cheapest notary insurance possible.

It’s like $38. So I said, okay, great. That’s perfect. So then we set up a partnership program where we sell their insurance through our website. And then that way I know that my customers are getting the best insurance at the cheapest price. So I’ve always tried to, that’s what I mean. Like between the insurance and like the book and all those little touch points for our customer, I, my goal has always been making each of those touch points as premium as possible, because you can, Even an e-, as even as something as simple as an email.

You can, what we my fiancée and I work together. We’re, she’s actually doing emails right now. And, when the email comes in, we are very intentional with the way that we are communicating with our customers, y- you will not find a very cut-and-paste customer support style answer, if, Mary sends us an email, that response is gonna, starting with “Hi, Mary!” Exclamation mark. “How you been?” We are trying to create every single touchpoint we have with a customer, whether it’s through a product or through a communication, is trying to enhance that customer’s experience.

Because every single one of those touchpoints creates an overall picture of their opinion of our customer. And then hopefully that gets passed down through word of mouth. And, and then of course the customer’s average, lifetime value as they, stay retained with us and renew their notary license with us.

So we’re always trying to create the best experience possible for everybody that comes through our program. 

Chris Badgett: That’s amazing. I have this saying that you wanna put your customer at the center of your business, not your product. And you obviously do that, ’cause you’re like- Yes … “Oh they need training, but they also need the stamps, and the journal, and insurance, and to feel well taken care of in their experience.”

So it totally makes sense to me why this is working well. And in terms of the business model they pay once, but then they need to come back to renew or get more supplies. So- 

JJ: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: how does it work in notary? Do they have to recertify every year, every three years, or how does that work?

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JJ: So they recertify every four years.

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

JJ: And, we try to make that really easy for them. It’s not like- with our particular product, it’s not I don’t know, like a hand cream or something that you order once a month. You know what I mean? So we’re not getting… And we don’t have a subscription. That’s the other thing.

A lot of our other cust- a lot of our other competitors, they’ll have some sort of a subscription model that, you know, $20 a month for something. And I’ve always really been hesitant to do that because I don’t really… I only offer things that I know are gonna add a tremendous amount of value.

We’ve talked about it, like some sort of a subscription model for support or whatever, but I… And we might do in the future, but I, only if I know that we can provide the most value for the dollar. So as far as a business model we’re, primarily focused on, new people who wanna become notaries.

And then when they get their license, we put them through our program and give them all the tools they need, whether it’s supplies, insurance, whatever. And then, we probably more than likely won’t see you again for another four years, unless you need something, just give me an e- an email and I’ll help you out with something.

But more than likely, you should be good for the next four years, and then we’ll see you then 

Chris Badgett: If there’s somebody in another industry, like I’ve seen this movie many times before where you were a practicing notary, and you got into education, and then you got into- Yeah … scaling education online.

But then there’s all these state requirements and things like that. Do you like, when you think about ex- expansion, do you think about getting more of the California share, trying to figure out how to get into other states? ‘Cause there’s notaries in all 50 states in the US 

JJ: yeah. So- 

Chris Badgett: But they all have different rules, right?

So how do you even think about that? They do. Yeah. 

JJ: Yeah, they do. Part of it is a balance between wanting to expand and really being able to capture the market at affordable price, right? So the, the customer acquisition cost is really, that’s really what it comes down to. So I can expand, for instance, into, Nevada, but if it costs me more to acquire a customer than the cost of afford- than I would charge for an affordable class, I’m not gonna go into a state and start charging $200 to acquire, for a class.

That being, so I o- right now we’re focusing on, if I focus mainly on California and how we can reach as many people as we can for, the best price. And the reality is, as far as the metrics I’ve seen, we’re number two in California next to the national brand. As far as the amount of customers that are signing up and the amount of c- we’re capturing something like, from what I understood when the, the numbers are shown to me, we’re capturing 25% of all of California’s notaries every month.

That’s pretty exceptional when our largest competitor is a giant mul- multimillion-dollar company that, spans all 50 states. And, we’re a team of three. So I’m pretty, pretty proud of that. Now that being said, we have tested going into the state of Texas. Texas is a different animal though, because like you said, that every state is different.

So for interest for for instance, in Texas there’s no state requirement to take the kind of class we’re teaching. Whereas like in California, in order to become a notary, you actually have to take a class legally a state-certified class like ours. If you want to become a notary in Texas, that’s not a requirement.

So it’s a different, sell. In, in Texas, I have to say, when I, when we’re advertising, I have to say, “Hey, if you wanna be a notary, I can teach you how best to become a notary and how best to notarize documents. But you’re not compelled to purchase this course in order to be a notary.”

And so just based on that alone, it’s gonna cost more to acquire that customer. And so be- because of that it’s going into each state is a little bit more difficult and requires very precise calculation on cost per acquisition and, how we can scale. So our plan definitely is to go into the Texas expansion again 100%.

We have the, the Texas books all ready to go, but I wanna make sure we do that without spending too much money on advertising. Speaking of getting clients I would imagine there’s a lot of different things. I’m sure you have some SEO and articles and content and pages and Google search. There’s paid acquisition through ads.

Chris Badgett: I imagine with a business like yours with 97% success rates and just a top-shelf customer experience, word of mouth and referrals is a big part of it, ’cause notaries talk to other notaries, I’m guessing. But like- Yeah … how do you how do you get clients? Like- What’s the, How do we get 

JJ: clients? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, like what’s the method that seems to work?

‘Cause I think it’s a really inspiring story if you’re going up against a national brand and you’ve got 25% of the market. The somebody would wonder “Hey I’m in this other medical niche or legal niche, there’s a big national brand or another trade.” Like, how, what would you advise them to do to, get clients starting from zero?

I guess you were already teaching in person, so you already had a reputation and there, but- 

JJ: Yeah, but that reputation didn’t translate. It didn’t scale- Okay … to this at all. Because when I did it all on my own, on a brand-new company with a company that nobody had ever heard of before. I designed the logo, at home on my computer.

And and so any reputation I had didn’t matter because, the random person who wants to become a notary on a Thursday doesn’t know who I am, that they were taking my course. So they’re just gonna Google how to become a notary. They’re gonna Google notary class. Yeah. I knew… What the one advantage I div- I did have was that I knew- I knew how big the market was, and I knew how much I could acquire.

I knew what success looked like. So I was able to set a metric for myself in terms of okay, this is how many customers on average I think we can acquire a day and in order to be profitable. And so I knew I had that North Star. And so going into, It kinda goes back to the customer, ’cause I- everything’s focused back on the customer, and that is trying to understand their psychology.

So if somebody wants to become a notary, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna go on Google, and especially, five years ago, they’re gonna go on Google. Now they might go to ChatGPT, which is not bad, ’cause we show up in ChatGPT every day. But I knew they were gonna go to Google. So I knew I had to have a very well-optimized site for SEO.

And I I didn’t know how to do that, by the way. And I knew I had to run Google Ads and I didn’t know how to do that either. But somehow I got a Google Ads account set up, and I figured, okay, if my price was $79, if I, What was my metric? I think I put $100 in on the first day. So if I spend $100 today, and I get two sales, then I’ll spend $100 and f- $150 the next day.

And that’s actually exactly what happened. And so I started- I was always… Like I never went into this saying, “Oh, I’m just gonna invest a bunch of money, go into debt, and then hopefully make it up at the end.” I wanted to stay net positive the entire step. I wasn’t ready to, risk it.

So maybe that’s, maybe another entrepreneur would, and they’d, throw in $200,000 into it and whatever, but I wasn’t ready to do that. I wanted to step this in very carefully. So we started with a very small ad budget and then just stepped it up, and stepped it up, and stepped it up. And always making sure, were we, by the day, the week month, quarter, year, were we profitable from in, going from the Google Ads?

Chris Badgett: Very cool. 

JJ: Yeah. And that’s, eventually that scales over time, and it scaled pretty quickly, by the way ’cause Google Ads will love to spend your money. So it scales pretty quickly. 

Chris Badgett: That’s like product market fit. You just see it. If the ad works on the first try for 100, a hun- 100 in, 150 out that’s awesome.

JJ: Yeah. That worked. That worked really well. That, now here’s the thing, though. That’s one aspect of it. The other aspect of it, like the Google Ads aspect is really important. Then the next part of it that’s re-

Really important is cut-off rule. And if you don’t ha- Hang on, give me one second here. We are about to lose charge. Shoot

Okay, one second. If you’re there- Sorry about this, Chris. 

Chris Badgett: It’s okay. 

JJ: Cut this part

Chris Badgett: My internet went down yesterday, so I know it- 

JJ: Sorry … 

Chris Badgett: it happens. Yeah. 

JJ: All right. All right. Yeah, sorry. I just didn’t realize what my charge was. My

Chris Badgett: All good 

JJ: Anyway yeah. With Google Bus Step, the other part of it was customer referrals. Yeah. So the thing about customer referrals is they only exist because you’re creating a great customer experience. So I knew that from day one that we just had to create the best customer experience possible in order to get those referrals And now here’s the thing though, I will say ‘Cause you’re at in a different industry.

And I think it was identifying the types of customers that you have available to you. Because the customer that I just talked about, which is the customer who is googling becoming a notary that’s a warm lead. That’s somebody who wants to become a notary, and so they go on Google and they like, “I wanna become a notary,” and they’re ready to go.

They’re a higher intent purchase. They wanna become a notary, and that’s why they found you. So the other customer is the kind of person who doesn’t know much about being a notary. They’ve never really researched being a notary. And that’s a completely different customer because i- in some of the cases, they don’t even know what a notary is.

And those customers we’ve been finding on social media. Oh … I started to post TikTok and Instagram videos. And to be honest, I didn’t think it was gonna do very well. I’m like, “Who’s gonna watch a video of this bald guy talking about being a notary?” And we’ve got, like n- like 900,000 views, a million views, 800,000 views.

Wow. Some of our views I just looked the other one. I pulled up TikTok before this call, and this one is almost at a million views, and I just posted it not that long ago. The interest is there. And that really changed the game for us because now we’re targeting people who, again, let’s face it, nobody, you know, wakes up in the morning and says they wanna become a notary.

The reason why you w- wanna become a notary is because you can make extra money. And so we’re advertising this message of look, you can actually, like what I did, you can go from fast food and start to be a notary, start to notarize documents and, make money. And that is really resonating on social media.

And I it doesn’t surprise me because the thing about being a notary is you’re starting your own business. And I don’t know any business in the world that you can start for $79. Yeah. So giving people that option of… ‘Cause I have a lot of people who are, they don’t necessarily have the same opportunities as other people.

I have a lot of people that are under-educated. I have a lot of people that are coming from all kinds of different financial situations. And, they don’t necessarily have a master’s degree or, I don’t have a master’s degree, but they don’t have the credentials it would take that, it would take somebody that they would normally traditionally think to get a high-paying job or just even to make extra money.

But they don’t necessarily wanna work fast food. They don’t wanna drive for Uber Eats. They don’t wanna drive for Postmates. If this is an option to them that they may not have thought about, they’re already searching for different side hustles or whatever. Here’s something different that not everybody’s doing.

And so when I started posting on social media, I was very surprised. When our first video got like 150,000 views, I was like, “No.” And then we got 500,000 views, and I’m like, “Okay.” And then we’ve just been going up from there. And that’s been really great because we’ve been able to, like I said, we’ve been able to capture the attention of a completely different customer than we’ve ever have captured before.

Because there, it’s always been warm leads on Google, people that already knew they wanted to be a notary. And so now we’re capturing a whole different avatar, and we have some more expansion ideas on that whole department because it’s worked so well, so we’re really excited about that. 

Chris Badgett: I love that.

That’s awesome. The the idea of the top of the funnel where it’s not just people who are already looking for your solution. The, creating marketing for people that aren’t even aware. They’re problem aware. Like they want- … a different job or side income or more flexibility or whatever.

But just exposing them to the notary option that’s awesome, and that’s a huge top of funnel play, which is very cool. I’m really excited for you that it really hit- Thanks … on social media. And the power of TikTok- Yeah … and the way the algorithm works there where it gives everybody an equal chance to get eyeballs, and you happen to be talking about something that, is in the mind of people looking for different career paths and things.

It’s awesome. And the other thing I gotta say is it’s really fulfilling when I get… I just got this message yesterday, an email, and it was a really long email. I was like, w- I was like, “Oh, my God, is this a customer complaint? What is it?” And then I read it, and it turns out, no, it was a customer talking about how this course changed their life.

JJ: And and that she actually signed up with our course years ago. And just completely turned things around for her, and she’s now a full-time notary. And she really just wrote an email to say thank you, and that really, that really means a lot. It tells you that what we’re doing is the right thing because- Like I said, I knew that there was a better way.

I knew that there, that other companies were more interested in taking money from prospective notaries than actually helping people become notaries. And I knew that we could really help people in that situation. A lot of my customers are in a tough financial situation. That’s why they wanna become notaries.

They say, “I want to do something to make extra money, but I don’t know what that is.” And we present this solution to them, and the best part that makes me feel good is that we present them this solution for the best price possible. It’s a… See that it really ha- does have an impact for people means a lot to me.

Chris Badgett: JJ, thank you for being a shining example of a education entrepreneur, and you’re not just, selling training and supplies, you’re actually creating a transformation. You’re helping people find a new career and become a better version of themselves or get in a better financial position, like that long email that you got where you literally changed somebody’s life at an affordable pri- price, $79- Right

while caring a lot about their experience throughout their entire journey. It’s, that’s awesome. So my hat’s off to you. 

JJ: Thank you very much. 

Chris Badgett: So that’s JJ at eznotaryclass.com. Check it out. And again, JJ, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for sharing your story, and keep up the amazing work. 

JJ: Thank you, Chris.

Appreciate it.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode