Is my career deviation hurting me and how can i help it?

I have spent most of my life in automotive related fields. From tech to management I have done it all.
7 years ago I went to a concrete repair company as a fabricator and worked my way up to fab shop manager, eventually taking on the added role of fleet manager also. I thrived at this work place and added leadership to my list there.
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Seven years at one company with increasing responsibility? That shows reliability, loyalty and growth to me, and I'd imagine most prospective employers would see it that way as well. As far as "step down" work goes, do not worry about it. This is a rough job market for everyone. You're not going to be judged for temporarily taking on a "lesser" role out of necessity.

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It was a sole proprietorship and sold to a corperation 2 years ago. New ownership decided they no longer needed a fab shop and could pay my assistant less and up train him ( I was at 100k). Inspite of upper management's best efforts I was let go, but asked to stay on as a 1099 with the promise to get me back full time as they would be able to show they needed me. I did this for a year with no movement and went into sales with the same company. I did $800k in B2C sales in 8 months . Due to internal marketing issues, constantly moving goal posts and it being pre election our leads were cut by more then 50% and being pre election they cut the bottom 5 sales people. Out of 10, I was ranked #6.

Disgusted with corperate life, I went into restoring and customizing muscle cars again, looking for more job satisfaction again. The pay was about 30% less, but I enjoyed it. I was there for 8 months. The shop was a very bad fit and i decided it was not a career path I wanted to go back down again.

I am better suited to be in management where I can train/mentor my team and drive the success of the business.

Is this going back to the labor end of a business, perceived as a step down? Is that hurting my job search to get back into management? How can I rectify that? I can be honest if I get into an interview and explain why I deviated, but I am having trouble getting to that point.

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