Lynchburg Business

Lynchburg True Value Hardware and Just Ask Rental: Putting The Right Tools In People’s Hands

Issue: July 2010 by Maureen Cholewka in Business Profiles, Inside The Magazine

There’s a place that you can go where not only will everybody learn your name, but they’re glad you came—even if you are looking for a snow shovel in the summer, or a fan in the winter. You can count on a warm welcome and a staff member eager to help you look for that hard-to-find widget and gadget down one of several huge and fully-stocked aisles of shelves.

Like a wondrous candy store full of all sizes of confections, specialized ingredients and exotic items, True Value Hardware of Lynchburg on Route 221 has a vast array of equipment, hardware items and rental wares. Owner Chuck Overstreet says he has customized their inventory to the needs of this region, and prides himself on excellent customer service, with a full range of 50,000 hardware items in stock at any given time.

Spanning a family’s interest in and success with the hardware business since the 1940s in the Roanoke Valley, the True Value brand helped build the path for Overstreet to learn the business and open a store of his own. His first place was a 4,000 square-foot retail store in the Fort Hill Shopping Center in Lynchburg, which opened in 1980. After 11 years at that location, Overstreet’s father retired from the business in 1991 and that’s when the Lynchburg location then moved to an empty grocery store building in Timberlake Plaza. Just 3½ years later, Overstreet had outgrown that space and acquired the 10,000 square-foot property on 221, which opened in the spring of 1996.

If you think that 10,000 square feet is a lot, you’d be wrong. Right now, the Overstreets are in the process of remodeling and adding an additional 8,000 square feet, and a storage warehouse behind the main store.

“We’re open seven days a week. We concentrate on the homeowner, the Do-It-Yourselfers,” Overstreet said over the sounds of bulldozers on their lot next door. “We provide old-fashioned customer service—it’s what we are built upon. People walk in and they are greeted by a staff member in a red shirt and then asked if they need help finding something.”

With that in mind, Overstreet makes sure to stock hard-to-find items, both specialized to a project and regionalized to the up-to-date popular items being used by customers in this area.

“In ‘big box’ stores, if there are not enough turns on an item, they don’t stock it,” he said.

Overstreet says his father once had an auto parts store, and his relatives had their True Value hardware store in Roanoke (Northwest True Value). It was there that he worked and learned the business.

“It’s fun helping people, it still is. It’s very rewarding, whether it’s a plumbing project or a bug eating someone’s garden,” he explained.

Though he sells just about everything under the sun, Overstreet says what he enjoys selling most are Weber grills and various Weber accessories and then later following up with a customer about how they liked them.

“Sometimes, they’ll tell me about something unusual they cooked on their grill,” he laughed.

Though the Lynchburg store currently has about 20 people on its payroll, two of the staff members have been working there for over 22 years.

“People come in asking for them,” Overstreet said.

Overstreet’s wife, Kathryn, whom he met and married in 1984, used to help with the True Value Hardware payroll while raising three children. Though Overstreet grew up in this area, Kathryn relocated here to attend college in Lynchburg.

“It becomes very personal,” she said. “You help people, and over the years, you get to know people very well. We have even attended customers’ funerals.”

The Overstreets begin to smile when they share about how the whole staff looks forward to a particular customer’s abundant and delicious homemade pound-cake every Christmastime. It’s one of an untold number of stories the couple has about running their local business over the past 30 years.

“We’ve survived fires, lease issues, a car hitting a propane tank, even break-ins in the past,” they said.

All three of their children have worked for the store. Their daughter was a cashier, one son worked several summers for them and their 15-year-old son is just getting started helping out at True Value. As for their father, he has worked plenty of overtime, explaining to college student customers via telephone how to operate plungers to unclog backed-up pipes.

These days, Kathryn runs the Just Ask Rental business that comprises a vital component of the couple’s thriving business.

“It’s a whole different animal,” she said.

She recalls going to a trade show in New Orleans with Chuck when they first began the rental business, and their ensuing hesitation before committing to purchasing 250 white folding chairs.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever need thousands of those chairs!” she exclaimed.

These days, Just Ask Rental supplies all the chairs, tables and other wares needed for local college graduations, including Randolph College in Lynchburg. They handle weddings and events rentals at venues from Charlottesville to the Smith Mountain Lake area, and from Sutherlin to Daleville, a suburb of Roanoke.

“We are a full-service, one-stop rental company, with everything a customer wants including glassware and tables. We have two crews running with our boxtrucks to multiple events every day,” Kathryn said. “We have done multiple weddings for families, but we haven’t done another wedding for the same bride yet.”

As for the secret to their success, the Overstreets both say it comes down to customer service.  

“Even if it is a 10-cent screw that we need to find, we take pride in helping the customer,” Chuck said.

This philosophy goes back to why True Value even offers hardware rental items, such as larger, contractor-grade equipment from jackhammers to drills, and landscaping machines like bed-edgers and de-thatchers that people may use just once a year. For the Overstreets, it is all about pleasing the first-time customer, so that they become repeat customers.

 “I believe that word of mouth is the best advertisement. We have great customers who are happy to recommend us!” Kathryn said.

She mentions that getting endorsements from important people was key when they first began the rental business.

“Lynchburg is very accustomed to local businesses and the importance of supporting them,” she said.

“We have worked hard to tailor our product mix to our area. We have had several weather-related events in which we have really made a difference,” Chuck added, explaining that he once drove to Allentown, Pennsylvania to get more snow shovels during a blizzard in the late 80s, which covered Lynchburg in 24 inches of snow.

These days, he thinks ahead when it comes to the weather, from stocking fans in the winter for computer server rooms which need constant ventilation, to space-heaters in the summer to accommodate elderly customers whose air-conditioning is too cold.

“It takes a real mix of the service, the help staff, the inventory and the location. If you miss one of those, your business is like a three-legged table!” he said.

So far, the Overstreets say their customer base has been understanding about their present renovation of the store and re-arrangement of wares and services.

“In the fall, we will have a Grand Re-Opening Store Celebration. For now, we have a sale on back-saver shovels. Come get it while it’s hot!” Chuck laughed as he rolls up a tablecloth-sized blueprint that outlines the store’s expansion and redesign.

As he walks away down the aisle, he makes sure to stop, greet and ask a customer about the very thing that has helped keep True Hardware in business for so long—“Are you finding the right item there, sir?”