Flash Quick Copy
Where: 2572 Shiloh Springs Road, Trotwood
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday
Phone: (937) 854-5648
TROTWOOD — The tide of modern business is about cost and speed: the customer wants a product at the lowest cost in the shortest time.
Betty Thompson has been swimming against that tide for 30 years. Her one-woman print shop offers customers more: service and respect.
“Respect for my fellow man, that’s the most important thing I’ve learned in 30 years. Yeah, it sounds like a cliche, but it’s the truth,” said Betty, who turns 78 this month.
A customer wandered into Flash Quick Copy one day with a small request for copies of church materials, Betty recalled. While Betty was filling the order, the customer told of her recent trip to a franchise copy shop. She felt she had been treated rudely. As the customer was leaving, she asked if it would be all right to refer other church members to Betty’s shop.
“I guess they’ve become one of my biggest customers,” she said with a smile. “I love my customers and most love me. I get much of business through referrals.”
Some referrals come from other businesses. Binding, laminating, quick turnaround on business cards, really small jobs? “Go see Betty” seems to be the mantra.
“I hope she never retires,” said Sue Cummings of the Randolph Twp. Historical Society. “She gives us much more personal service than you find in the big boxes. And with a quick turn around.”
It’s not as if Flash Quick Copy is a secret. In 2006, the Trotwood Chamber of Commerce honored Betty’s business as the small business of the year. “I told them you don’t get any smaller than me,” Betty said.
What she doesn’t advertise is her work with the community. Marie Battle of the chamber said Betty was nominated by customers and local businesses not only for her business but also for her help to community groups and schools. “She does a lot for our community. She helps out where ever needed,” Battle said.
Widowed for 33 years — “I never took it upon myself to raise another man” — Betty dotes on her daughter and two grandchildren, one who is a nurse serving in Iraq. The granddaughter’s picture in full combat gear has a place of honor, hung on a filing cabinet behind the cash register.
Betty had worked as a bookkeeper for a retail chain until it pulled up stakes and left Dayton. Looking for something to do — “I didn’t want to work nights or weekends” — she investigated numerous opportunities before settling on the print business.
“I was just a ‘little lady’ in a business dominated by males. They said I wouldn’t last a year. They’re all gone now, and I’m still here,” she said with a sly grin. “And I love it. I absolutely love it.”
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