Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Maddox.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I first started five years ago, cliche as it is, out of my dad’s garage. Immediately after graduating high school, I had a bit of graduation money to spend and spent it all on detailing products for my car at the time. My neighbor took notice, offered to pay me to detail her truck & that is when I recognized my opportunity. I had already been watching youtube videos of detailing high-end cars but I never thought I would have my own videos up!
Originally my high-school friend and I started the business together, but I ended up taking it on all myself and running the business side alone with him as help. Soon we made a name for ourselves in the DFW area and began utilizing my dream Paint Protection company, Ceramic Pro. We exploded after coming on with Ceramic Pro, booking jobs left and right, eventually leasing space out of a wrap shop in Carrolton TX.
That wrap business owner was not doing all too well, however, I was extremely hungry and we sold out every bit of space in that shop as we could. I knew that shop wouldn’t be profitable for long, however, and quickly formulated a plan to find our own space. After weeks and weeks of looking, knowing my deadline was coming soon I finally found the shop for us to move to. We moved into that shop two days before the wrap shop owner had to be out of her space.
During our time in Carrolton, we got our golden ticket, Tesla. We completed a Ceramic Coating job for a Tesla Model S Performance model, little did we know the owner was the founder of DFW Tesla club. We became popular with Tesla very quickly, and our newer, larger shop was packed with Tesla all the time. To date, we have worked on almost 200 Teslas! (One tesla every four days since then)
This was an exciting time, Tesla was a rare car at the time to see in detailing shops, and since we generally had 2-3 on hand at all times, we actually earned more business just for being the Tesla shop. Soon we had Porsches, Corvettes, Vipers, all kinds of beautiful exotic and sports cars, as well as our bread & butter Tesla. I began hiring, eventually capping out at five people working for me!
Once again, I knew it was time to take a leap of faith, increase our space and workflow, and that’s how we came into the warehouse we have now. 4,000 SQFT of dedicated high end detailing space, a great team and we stay constantly booked with Jobs. It’s still incredible to me that when I turn the key on my own building door, walk in and see beautiful cars daily. When I first started, I dreamed, literally, of the day I’d have my own shop space and brand. Today, it still feels like a dream that I just get to live in!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely not. I’ve had so, so, so many bumps in the road. No road to success is smoothly paved.
Anything from depression, lack of capital, employees stealing business & products, so on and so forth. We face our challenges head-on and make the best of any insane situation we may have.
One for example, December 2017, 2 months after signing the lease on my new shop. We never had an issue being busy during the winter, and this was no different time. We had, yet again, another Tesla Model S in the shop. Receiving a full-body wrap, Ceramic Coating inside & out, wheels off. The whole 9 yards. Totaling almost $8,000 of work. The day before delivery, we were putting the wheels back on, and one of the plastic jack pads on the Tesla failed, cracked and the Tesla dropped on one side.
Thankfully the repair wasn’t terribly expensive, but all in all, it was a very shocking moment to have a $100,000 Telsa Model S P100D to drop without wheels on.
Please tell us about DEFCON Detailing.
We are a specialty, High-End Auto Detailing & Paint Protection Business. We deal only in large ticket, paint protection Ceramic Coatings, paint protection films & concourse detailing.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Being completely honest, I wouldn’t change things. I’ve learned so many valuable lessons from my experiences that I would be less prepared to deal with running a business mentally if I did not suffer through some things.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1943 Golden heights Road #208 Fort Worth, Texas 76177
- Website: www.defcondetailingllc.com
- Phone: 817-995-1780
- Email: defcondetails@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/defcondetailing
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/defcondetailing
Image Credit:
PTRSN Photography
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