Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott La Polla.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
During the recession of 2008 I was a carpenter and couldn’t find work. I ended up getting in trouble and went to prison. Prison gave me the opportunity to attend Automotive Technology through the Florida Board of Education. When I was released from prison I went and took my ASE Exams. My first job was at a used car lot down in Pompano Beach, Florida . I worked there for about a year driving 4 hours a day to get to and from work. I ended up moving home to Port St. Lucie and worked for Goodyear. The drive was too much. I met my wife on eHarmony. She was an accountant. I was in college at the time for my associate’s degree in business in the evening and while I was in class one evening and the teacher was saying to find a niche that people want that a niche was easy to grow. I was already a mechanic and said to myself mobile auto repair . I owned a pickup truck and I had all my tools already, to be a mechanic you have thousands of dollars worth of tools. So I started posting everyday on Craigslist and before I knew it I had two vehicles on the road. I was going to college at night at the same time and I decided to take out secured loans and unsecured loans and use them to fund the business after paying for my books and my classes. My wife was my business partner about 2 years after we started the company we had our daughter and 2 weeks later she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, she passed away 2 years later. During that period that my wife was sick, I received a phone call from Enterprise Fleet, the City of Fort Pierce was looking for a mobile vendor and I was the only mobile company that answered the phone and they asked me if I would like to be a vendor and I told them 100%. Over the next several years I spent all my time trying to consume all of the fleets that were Enterprise, Holman, Element, Fleetio or any other Fleet leasing company. I now have nine employees and we’re doing several million in sales a year. We do nothing but third party work and we only do work for other businesses or entities with large fleets.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There is no business model for what I’m doing so there’s been a lot of trial and error along the way. One of them was my wife passing away. I lost my mother and my father also a year later. There has been a lot of hurdles along the way and a lot of life-changing events.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We are an on-site Fleet Management company. We repair fleet vehicles on site as a third party vendor for Fleet leasing companies. What sets us apart from other companies. We actually manage these fleets we link them to our management software and our software flags us whenever there is a problem with their vehicles or when they need services completed based on manufacturer’s recommendations. We are a One-Stop shop for businesses. We specialize in automotive repair, we do on-site programming, we do lift gates, we do wheelchair lifts, we do hydraulic systems, anything and everything that is needed on a vehicle for a fleet to run properly we repair.
What makes you happy?
I love to see my business grow. That’s what makes me happy. To be able to grow something from nothing with All odds against you and you still succeed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fleetrepairflorida.com
