Linda Cottin is Lawrence’s “Fix It Chick.” She and her husband, Tom, own and operate Cottin’s Hardware and Linda writes the Fix It Chick column for the Lawrence Journal World.
The Cottins’ focus at the store is customer service. “Tom and I both grew up in the hardware business,” she told Central Rotarians on February 18, “and we aimed at other careers for awhile but then went into what we knew.” And what they knew is that many hardware store customers need help.
“The customers are not always right,” Cottin said “in that they may think they know what is necessary for a project, but that’s not always the case.”
When helping a customer the Cottins don’t say “What do you need?” because people often don’t know what they need. Instead they find out what they’re working on and then, based on years of experience, provide help.
“Customer service supersedes everything,” Cottin said. “And interaction with people is most important.”
The Cottins are good marketers. They know they have about 20 seconds with a customer in the beginning so they put items that they think will be interesting by the door and then, in the next few seconds, greet the customer. Once they’ve solved a problem, they walk the customer to the cash register and finish the sale there.
Cottin has written over 350 Fix It Chick articles for the local paper. She researches everything she writes. One reader complained about her columns because, he said, “using your articles my wife thinks I can fix everything.” Another reader took her advice on the best way to get rid of poison ivy: get a goat.
The Cottins also sponsor a farmers’ market in the store’s back parking lot, starting in 2010 and growing ever since. They volunteer their time at the market and said their rewards from it are community involvement “and fun.”
