Entrepreneur’s priorities: First, care about your community

Describe your business.

Fingerprinting Express offers fingerprint background checks for employment, adoption, volunteering and licensing. Our FBI Express system allows people to see their own FBI criminal history report within 24 hours, as well as passport, visa and photos for licensing and secure document shredding. We also always have a notary public available.

Who are your customers?

Accounting, legal, real estate and medical professionals, as well as state employees for various departments. We also work with adoptive parents, elderly care employees, foster parents, social workers, taxicab drivers, teachers and volunteers.

Do you have a background in law enforcement?

Fingerprinting Express

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I do not have a background in law enforcement, however, my family does. My mother worked at the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office in Reno. We started Fingerprinting Express together in 2003.

What is your business philosophy?

I created our “Culture to Care” when we opened. We have discounted our fingerprinting fees for nonprofits and volunteers since our inception. In 2012, we expanded the discounts to include public schoolteachers. We discounted over $20,000 in fingerprinting fees in 2016.

Another part of our culture is to care about our process. People rely on us to get a new job or career, or to adopt a child. There are aspects of our business where mistakes can delay that process for an applicant, which we find unacceptable. We also care about protecting personal information. In this day and age, we cannot be too careful with personal data, which is why I instituted a shred-all policy. Even if a piece of scratch paper only has a first name, it is to be shredded and not thrown in the trash.

What’s the best business advice you’ve received?

K.I.S.S. — Keep It Simple, Silly. I tend to get paralysis by analysis. I can run through so many scenarios that I tend to overcomplicate things. This advice has helped me to pull back and try to look from the outside in — what is the problem, and what is the easiest solution?

What is the hardest part about doing business in Las Vegas?

There’s a lot of noise in the marketplace and the cost of advertising is almost impossible for return on investment in my business. It has been challenging to break into Las Vegas because a lot of people demand discounts on already low prices. We don’t encounter that demand as much in Northern Nevada.

What is the best part about doing business here?

Brand loyalty is important in Las Vegas because this is a customer service-based area. If you’re authentic and actually care about your customers, you can gain market share by word of mouth.

What obstacles has your business overcome?

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry, which I know is overly said and unfortunately true. To hear the voice on the phone turn condescending upon hearing a female on the line was upsetting to me at first. I have developed thick skin over the years and I have learned not to take anything personally. I try to use ignorance to my advantage.