Latest / Small Biz Florida / Ep 434 | Streamlining SBA Loan Signings with Devin Cobb of White Glove Notary Network

Transcript

Ep 434 | Streamlining SBA Loan Signings with Devin Cobb of White Glove Notary Network · Small Biz Florida

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  Welcome to Small Biz Florida, your go-to podcast for all things small business in the sunshine
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  state. This podcast is sponsored by Florida First Capital, your trusted partner for financing and
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  support. Here, you'll discover the latest news, trends, and invaluable resources to help you grow
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  and succeed. From startup strategies to scaling your business, we've got you covered. Join us as
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  we explore the vibrant Florida small business ecosystem and connect you with the experts who
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  can make a real difference. And now, please welcome your host, Tom Kindred, Regional Director of the
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  Small Business Development Center at Indian River State College. This is Small Biz Florida, the
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  podcast and broadcast that's all things business across the state of Florida. And Small Biz Florida
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  is at the 2026 Flagle Conference, all taking place at the beautiful JW Marriott here in Orlando. Flagle
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  stands for Florida Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders. The room is chock-a-block
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  full of SBA lenders, bankers, fintech organizations, all here to support small business capital access.
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  And as we've had many conversations before on Small Biz Florida, it is so important that small
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  business owners and operators get access to capital because that's what they need to grow, expand,
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  and scale that business. And we have one of those very innovative services, assistance,
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  tools, and resources with us right now. We've got Devin Cobb, who is the owner, founder, operator,
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  all the above of White Glove Notary Network. Devin, welcome to Small Biz Florida.
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  Thanks, Tom. Thanks for having me.
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  Absolutely. So Devin, let's start as we always do, just a little bit of your background, a little bit
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  of your pathway, uh, to your current role as founder, owner, and operator of White Glove
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  Notary Network. Sure. So I started White Glove Notary Network in 2022. I became a notary in
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  2022. My background, um, at, from a real estate broker being, uh, sorry, can I just take these
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  off? Yeah. All right. It's like going in and out. Yeah. All right. So I started White Glove
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  Notary Network in 2022 and, uh, started it kind of just with the idea of offering a higher
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  end service for notarizations, professionally executing documents, uh, across the country
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  for law firms and lenders. Okay. But, and let's talk about notary in general. What, what, why
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  do we need a notary? What purpose do they serve? When do we need them? Uh, kind of go through
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  that with us. Sure. Yeah. So a notary is there to make sure that the doc, the documents are being
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  signed by the person who's supposed to be signed. They verify your ID, verify that the person sitting
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  in front of them signing those documents is the person that should be signing, right? Legally.
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  Uh, we are not attorneys, uh, offer legal advice. We don't interpret or explain any of the documents
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  by law. We're not allowed to. Uh, so in our case, in SBA space, what we're doing is, uh,
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  taking these documents, we're streamlining the process of getting documents professionally
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  executed when they're not necessarily in the law firm's office or in the bank, um, or wherever
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  in the title company office. So we're getting them signed at a different place outside of
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  the office, right? And so our service will get the document, download them, print them, signing
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  location, get them executed properly and send them back to the title company or the law firm.
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  So what you've done is create, I think you kind of likened it to, to the Uber technology.
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  You can help connect, uh, law firms, uh, lending institutions, and certainly the small business
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  owner who may be accessing capital and looking to close on a loan. You can connect those entities
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  with a notary anywhere in the country. Anywhere in the country. Yes, sir. We have a network of
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  over 50,000 notaries. Wow. And I guess, you know, those of us who just are in our little small
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  communities, I never thought about, uh, you know, having an issue finding a notary, but I guess in
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  this country, there are places that notaries aren't just around the corner. Yeah, sure. And it's not
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  necessarily just always, you know, the notary at the bank doing one or two affidavits are familiar,
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  you know, with these SBA loans, you know, they're pretty substantial document packages and most times
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  you can't just walk into a UPS or, um, or a bank and they do those, uh, loan signings. And we're
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  dealing with complicated document packages. So these are professional experienced notaries who
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  go through this package and make sure that it gets properly executed and then they can get funded on
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  the time. Yeah. And again, um, like you say, it's not just, it's not just a simple closing going down
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  to the bank. Cause if you do, they probably have, they probably have that personnel in the bank.
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  Well, actually banks are our clients also. So a lot of times we'll have banks that hire us,
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  even in this room, I have bank clients that are here at the conference, but, uh, but yeah, so you
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  can't just always go down to the bank, but even if, even if your bank offers a service, sometimes they
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  necessarily exit their, that's a document, but whatever the reason is that people service.
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  How does a small business owner potentially access your service? Do you have a platform dashboard?
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  They can go on request, uh, notary services. Yeah. So they can go on the website, um, white
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  glove, notary network.com. And, you know, see all of our information and contact us through website.
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  Most of our institutional clients like law firm and lenders, they have allowed a login and they are
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  able to go in and order similar to the platform mentioned earlier, like platform and provide us
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  the document and the notary take it from you. So I have to ask too, Devin, you're, you know,
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  you're, you're kind of entrepreneurial. Uh, this was an idea that you came up with. I have to ask,
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  how did you sort of connect to this idea of, you know what, we've got to, we've got to try to come
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  up with a network of, of notaries. How did, how did you come up with this idea?
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  Sure. So I started out, um, prior to this career was in real estate. So I'm a real estate broker
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  in Florida. Also, you know, just like you said, pre-entrepreneur. So I like to solve problems.
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  So I was at a closing during the pandemic and I realized that the notary didn't work for the
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  title company. So I just got curious, curiosity got better of me and helped me come up with it.
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  So I became a notary star, a mobile notary signings of Florida. And then this, I didn't really start
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  out with the idea of having a thousand person network, uh, growing to what we did grow to,
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  but it kind of happened organically. So, you know, I started out locally in Palm beach. As a matter of
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  fact, the name of the company was localized. I rebranded it too, but throughout that first
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  year, I had clients that had some outside of South Florida and they would ask, do you know a notary
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  and your forever. So I realized in that how tedious this process was to find enough notary outside of
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  their area. So I figured out a way to streamline it, make it easy. And so instead of them needing a
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  Rolodex of notaries around the country, they just need to know one notary or one company, me, right?
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  Right. Like glove network, they go on the website, order a notary, and they don't have to think about
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  it. Wow. How does one find a white glove notary network, Devin? Come again. How does one find
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  your company, white glove? On the website, whiteglovenotarynetwork.com. Nice. It is Devin
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  Cobb, who is the founder, owner, operator of a very innovative platform that obviously offers support
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  to small business owners and operators across the country by making sure that when it's time to
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  close and time to sign documents, they can find a notary. All right. Thank you, Devin. This is
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  Small Biz Florida. I am Tom Kindred, your host. It is all about small business and capital access here
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  at the 2026 Flagle Conference. It is the Florida Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders.
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  Stay tuned. More to come. This is Small Biz Florida.
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  That's all for this episode of Small Biz Florida. We hope you found valuable insights and inspiration
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  to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. Don't forget to subscribe to Small Biz Florida on your favorite
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  Small Biz Florida. So follow us for exclusive content and connect with fellow Florida small
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  business owners. And for even more resources and support, visit our website at floridasbdc.org
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  forward slash podcast. That's floridasbdc.org forward slash podcast. Until then, keep innovating
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  and keep growing. Thanks for listening.