Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Maxey.
Hi Peter, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My father was a welder by trade but it was messing with his eyesight so he started looking for something else to do and a friend of his was doing mobile car upholstery and asked him if he’d like to tag along. My dad is very clever and what typically takes people a year to be good at he figured out in a few months and started Mobile Auto Interiors in 1991. I was home schooled starting around 1993 and my dad had my younger brother and I work a couple days per week with him and do school work the rest of the time. When I was 19 I wanted to try other things so I finally got into car audio which I enjoyed and it still had some aspects of the upholstery that I got to do. After working and managing a few shops I was getting tired of working retail so I quit and asked my dad if I could help him for a short time while I figured out my next move. We worked together for a few years and he said he wanted to retire so I ended up taking over the business in full time in 2012. Since I have trained multiple people and have grown the business to 2 and a half times the gross sales we were doing prior to my taking over, even though there is something nice about keeping it small. I have had the pleasure of training one of my closest friends whom now owns his own shop and is doing well for his family. We have maintained a great customer base and get most of our business through word of mouth.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Covid nearly shut us down, I had a couple months where the business only did around 1000 in gross sales. And the PPP program didn’t help much, but we had recently sold our home and I was able to subsidies my pay for a few months.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a full service automotive upholstery business. We recover seats, headliners carpets, door panels, convertible tops, steering wheels and pretty much any surface in a vehicle as well as do custom car audio when we do full builds. I am most proud of our reputation, we take care of people even sometimes when it has to come out of my own pocket to make sure clients are happy.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: Mobile Auto interiors
