"Good or bad, you become personally responsible for everything the company represents."
As the third-generation owner of Chesterfield Auto Parts, Troy Webber is originally from the Richmond, Virginia Area. Having literally grown up in the business, he was offered the tools and education to become a successful business owner by his father. It was not a mandatory career path, but one he loved and chose for himself after college.
He graduated from Benedictine Military institute in 1998, before taking business classes at J. Sargent Reynolds and Stratford University. He also trained and practiced as an Advanced Life Support provider at a Volunteer Rescue Squad, which provided invaluable communication skills.
His hobbies include skiing, boating, and travel. He lives with his wife and family of three young kids, four dogs, four goats, and a cat!
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Let’s start with a brief introduction first. Introduce yourself to our readers.
Troy Webber: I am the third-generation owner of Chesterfield Auto Parts, a company of three self-service auto junkyards that employ over 120 people in the Richmond Metro area of Virginia.
Our audience is interested to know about how you got started in the first place. Did you always want to become a CEO or was it something you were led to? Our readers would love to know your story!
Troy Webber: I always knew that I wanted to be the owner! I am extremely proud to be the third-generation owner of my family’s business. My Grandfather bought Chesterfield Auto Parts in 1947 where it still operates today. My Father bought it from him in 1977 and turned it into a self-service yard in the late 1980s and opened the second location in the early 1990s. I bought the two stores from my Father in 2008 at age 28 and opened a third store in Midlothian in 2013.
“Selfmade” is a myth. We all received help, no doubt you love to show appreciation to those who supported you when the going got tough, who has been your most important professional inspiration?
Troy Webber: My father taught me everything I needed to know about how to be a good boss. I am very lucky to have been born with the opportunity to run my family’s business.
However, my dad always made sure I knew that I didn’t HAVE to take the family business. If I wanted to be a doctor or lawyer he would have been proud to support me in that endeavor as well. When I told him I wanted to become an EMT, he allowed me to take the time I needed to serve in the Rescue Squad while I was still managing the stores.
How did your journey lead you to become a CEO? What difficulties did you face along the way and what did you learn from them?
Troy Webber: I have always loved cars and I knew from a young age that I wanted to follow in my Dad and Grandfather’s footsteps. But it was not always easy being the boss’s son. Everyone knew that one day this little snot-nosed kid would be running the show. It became especially tough as the time came for me to start transitioning into the owner’s role.
I was now going to be the boss of people that had been working for the company longer than I have been alive. These people saw me grow up and now they were answering to me!
Tell us about your company. What does your business do and what are your responsibilities as a CEO?
Troy Webber: I manage the operations and management of our three self-service auto junkyards in the Richmond, Virginia area. Chesterfield Auto Parts purchases End-of-life vehicles from individuals, tow companies, and auctions. We remove contaminants from the vehicles and make them available for retail customers to pull their own parts off the cars to purchase.
We then strip the cars of valuable commodities and recycle them. These days it’s a big business especially for custom or rare parts for vintage cars.
What does CEO stand for? Beyond the dictionary definition, how would you define it?
Troy Webber: You are the face of the company. Everything that the company stands for and represents becomes you individually because perception is reality. Good or bad, you become personally responsible for everything the company represents.
When you first became a CEO, how was it different from what you expected? What surprised you?
Troy Webber: I was surprised by how busy I was. I thought my dad just sat around trying to look busy. The truth was that I was busier with longer-term more in-depth and serious projects.
No longer was I doing transactional business on day-to-day operations, I was worrying about long-term issues like the supply of junk cars, banking relationships, deciding on what health insurance we would offer, how we should be investing our retirement plan, etc.
There are many schools of thought as to what a CEO’s core roles and responsibilities are. Based on your experience, what are the main things a CEO should focus on? Explain and please share examples or stories to illustrate your vision.
Troy Webber: Growing the business. A CEO should not be doing the day-to-day operational management of the business. They should be focused on what’s next. Planning the next big idea or working on how to expand what they have. An owner or CEO should be working on the business, not for the business.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Troy Webber: We went from out-sourcing the towing of vehicles, to towing the vehicles into the facility ourselves. For a long time, we were able to pay a third party to bring us every vehicle we needed. However, over time it became more and more expensive. The cost of fuel and other opportunities drove the cost of towing up. It became cheaper to buy and operate our own tow trucks.
We had to buy expensive new trucks, hire special new employees, get new insurance and learn how to operate a tow company. After the initial expenses, we saved over $50 per vehicle and cut our COG by %15.
How would you define success? Does it mean generating a certain amount of wealth, gaining a certain level of popularity, or helping a certain number of people?
Troy Webber: Success means achieving your goals. It has nothing to do with money or popularity.
I was a very successful volunteer EMT who saved a lot of people but didn’t make any money. I am a very successful auto recycler, but I am not popular.
I set goals that I can achieve and find success when I see them completed.
Some leadership skills are innate while others can be learned. What leadership skills do you possess innately and what skills have you cultivated over the years as a CEO?
Troy Webber: I have always been a good communicator. I learned at a young age to be polite and show respect to everyone. I have learned as a CEO and an EMT that listening is the most important part of commutating. It doesn’t matter if you are talking to a customer, an employee, or anyone else. Pay attention and listen when someone is talking to you. Sometimes you need to be quiet to hear the most important part.
How did your role as a CEO help your business overcome challenges caused by the pandemic? Explain with practical examples.
Troy Webber: I like to think that I am pragmatic and err on the side of caution. I try to make decisions based on conclusions that leave as little in question as possible. I objectively look at the issue and considered the quantifiable facts. I make decisions based on logical conclusions that I can justify as legal, moral, and ethical.
During the height of the initial pandemic, I made the decision to stop allowing retail customers into the store and waived all labor charges so that we could still sell parts. After about 6 weeks, I felt like we had taken enough appropriate actions that we could allow customers back in. We were all in masks and gloves and were checking the temperatures of employees etc. We installed plexiglass barriers, limited the number of customers in the showroom, kept a 6-foot distance, etc.
Do you have any advice for aspiring CEOs and future leaders? What advice would you give a CEO that is just starting out on their journey?
Troy Webber: You can’t do it all yourself. You need to have a good team of people working for you so that you can be working ON the business, not FOR the business.
Try to manage as few people as possible so that you can be ready when you need to make the tough decisions and be able to focus on what’s next.
Thank you for sharing some of your knowledge with our readers! They would also like to know, what is one skill that you’ve always wanted to acquire but never really could?
Troy Webber: I would like to become fluent in a foreign language.
Before we finish things off, we have one final question for you. If you wrote a book about your life today, what would the title be?
Troy Webber: “Troy Webber; The Luckiest Guy on Earth (In His Opinion)”
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Troy Webber for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Troy Webber or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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