Melissa, my husband and I are fabulously happy!!  Yes, we've had a few companies that wanted us to lower our fees and yes, two have stiffed us, BUT we paid out more money last year in wages to our employees than he and we EVER collectively made having a JOB.  Meaning, we are doing fantastic. 

Here are my suggestions:

Taking the class isn't going to prepare you to be INDEPENDENT.  You REALLY need to work for someone for several months (6 mos to a year) before striking out on your own. 

Also, without 2-3 years experience as an abstractor, you will find it very difficult to get insurance, much less a decent rate.  That requirement in itself should tell you something---the insurance companies know what we know---you can't just take a course or spend a few days being trained and imagine you know how to do a title search.  Case in point, I had an employee who came to me from a paralegal program.  She had in fact already taken the abstracting course and yes, she also went to the courthouse.  After 8 months, I had to let her go because I could NEVER break her of the bad habits and wrong info she had acquired in that class.  Taught, BTW, by a retired attorney.  Most folks think that just because they have passed the bar, that all attorneys know real estate.  Not true, unless they have chosen to pursue that area of law as a career or gone to a good general education law school, they have only 2-3 semesters of Real Estate Law.  Unless they choose to specialize in their final few semesters, they only get an overview of wetlands and coastal law which I deal with here in SC daily.  My point, forget the class. 

Now, I don't want to discourage you, because quite frankly, I was impressed with your post.  Unlike some who have posted here over the last two years that I have been here, you actually sound like you want to do this for love of the work--not because you saw some book about the 101 Best Ways to Make Money from Home with a Computer.  So I will offer some suggestions on what to do if you DO decide to pursue it.

Rule # 1:  NEVER, ever, even on threat of death do you lower your fees!  ONLY offer incentives to clients who have proved themselves WORTHY (i.e. steady work, reasonable expectations, and timely payments).  Example, I have a wonderful client who thinks I walk on water :)  I do!  She sends me work everyday, always in the same county.  So when I hired a full time abstractor to service just that county and I wasn't personally driving there, I called her up and lowered my trip fee to that county (just for HER and just for that county).  Other good clients don't always get charged for document retrievals if I'm there anyway or I don't charge THEM the trip fee if I'm going anyway for someone else.  In that way, I practice good customer service, but only to those who value my work.

Have a decent turn-around time, but don't except unreasonable expectations forced on you by clients.  They only get it when it's RIGHT.  If they'd rather have it QUICK--send them on down the road.

Use EMAIL, don't fax reports.  First, you need to scan them anyway no matter what method you use, but if they don't receive it correctly (which 9 out of 10 of them will claim), you have to take your valuable time to re-fax it.  Emailing is wonderful.  Even if they call and "didn't get it", you can resend with the click of a button.  Plus, there aren't any added charges for long-distance.

DON'T give out your cell phone number until they become good clients.  If they won't give you work unless they can contact you--that means they frequently cancel orders, will call you asking status until your head explodes or they always need everything "super-rush"ed. 

DON'T hand write your reports.  I have seen many, many a hand-written report and they always look unprofessional.  Type them!  Or create a database form on your computer. 

If a company contacts you and they 1) have ridiculously low fees, 2) want you to do a complimentary sample search first before they will use you, 3) want YOU to pay for the "leads" they are giving you, 4) want you to fill out THEIR forms, 5) want it in 2 hours, 6) have as their only hiring criteria price and turn-around time, and 7) want unreasonable add-ons to simple searches (i.e. a current owner search that you have to check the grantors, which makes it a two-owner search)--send them packing!  Yes, you WANT work, and yes, some areas of the country are slow right now, but I'd much rather spend the slow times getting my name out there, then running around doing searches I'm going to make $5.00 on and be stuck with these bozos when the market picks back up.  Those good, valuable clients out there that DON'T know about me and WON'T  know about me unless I tell them will be using someone else when the market picks up---I needs to be me. (in the case, you).

Keep CLOSE track of who owes you money!  Giving a discount for volume work that you have to spend hours getting paid for means you aren't making a damn nickel. 

The easiest way to keep from being owed money is to, first, choose good clients.  I always market to attorneys first, THEN title companies.  Attorneys are usually a better bet since they have to balance their trust accounts and have to abide by professional ethics.  When title companies contact you, vet them here on SOT.  Also, if they send you ALOT of work right away without seeing whether you are a good abstractor or not, take a breath--that always makes me question who they were last using.  Was that person so inept that using a brand new abstractor is better?   Probably not, unless you KNOW who they were using and you ARE better.  Most likely, they ran up a bill with the other person and got cut off.

You need to begin your business knowing it IS a business, not a hobby and not something you do from home.  In that way, you START by valuing your work, while competitively, a least commiserate with your professionalism.  All work is not good work or even profitable work.  If you undercut just to get work, the only person you are really undercutting is yourself, because when the county increases copy fees or they start charging for parking or the price of gas goes up, or (more likely) that company finds someone even cheaper than you, you don't have a profit margin to cover it. 

Finally, YOU have to decide which clients you want to work for.  Yes, you WANT to get new clients, but no matter how nice they are or what they promise you in return for some consideration, only YOU have to live, clothe, feed and shelter yourself on their fees, so if it isn't satisfactory or the expectations are too unreasonable, dump them.  I'd much rather spend an afternoon marketing than going to the courthouse to do a search for someone who thinks a monkey could do my job just as well as I can, who calls me every hour to "check status" and who stiffs me on copies after I "rush" that search right back to them.

Yes, we grumble on here sometimes.  Thankfully, we have this place where others understand our gripes so we can vent.  But we all love what we do and if you watch the board really close, most often you will find that when someone is crying foul about the things you listed in your post--they generally brought it on themselves by not valuing themselves high enough and not running their businesses with a business mindset.

And last but absolutely not least, when you go independent, get a one page website with a professional domain name, so your email address is melissa@melissascompany.com, then immediately join NALTEA and list your business here.

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