In this concise interview, Professor Pete Alexander hosts Scott Roberts, a serial entrepreneur who runs auto dealerships in Northeast Oklahoma alongside real‑estate, insurance, reinsurance, and vending ventures. Roberts explains why the automotive sector keeps him engaged—its blend of parts, service, sales, finance, and body‑shop operations offers daily variety. He shares his core business mantra: be referable by showing up on time, finishing what you start, keeping promises, and staying humble. Roberts also emphasizes negotiating win‑win deals with vendors to foster mutual success and referrals. He acknowledges two peers—Neil Schultz of Career Upgrader (resume and executive coaching) and David O'Brien of Marcom (phone training for car businesses)—as valuable contacts. A brief anecdote recounts his first job at age 12 on a farm, learning to drive a 1963 Chevy pickup. The episode closes with Roberts’ preferred contact channels: LinkedIn and his dealership website, RobertsAutoCenter.com.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
I'm Scott Roberts. I own auto dealerships in Northeast Oklahoma. I have a couple real estate companies, an insurance company, 6 reinsurance companies, vending companies, just do various stuff. But my main thing is the auto business.
Scott, it's great to have you on the show. And I don't know how you find the time to do all those things, but you, you must have a ton of energy.
Surrounded by good people, I'll tell you that.
I love that. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
Probably in the automotive business, every day is a new day. You learn a lot about a lot of things. It's really 5 or 6 businesses under one roof. You've got a parts business, service business, obviously sales, finance business, you have an accounting department, a lot of times you have body shops. So there's a lot of differing businesses under one roof. So you're exposed to a lot of things.
Keeps you really engaged in different things. I love that. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
Be Referable. I've got a coach and a mentor that he talks about this all the time, the 4 things to be referable, and they're real simple things, but they're easier said than done. Show up on time, finish what you start, do what you say you're going to do, and be humble. Say please and thank you. And if you do those 4 things, you become very referable in the marketplace. But like I said, it sounds very simple. It's stuff that, you know, our mom taught us when we were kids. But it's harder to pull that off when you get in the throes of business and all the things coming at you.
I love the simplicity of that, that just those 4 things. So thank you for sharing that. It's great.
You're welcome.
Question number 4. Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
I would say one thing I've learned, I haven't always done this. Younger, when I was getting started in my career, But I would say negotiate win-win when you're dealing with vendors, when you're dealing with, you know, you know, people on business deals. I've learned this, if you try to get their perspective on things, figure out how they can win and how you can win as well. And it seems like things go better. And I found that the more you do that, it's like deals fall in your lap because you get You know, I know a lot of times people want to be known as a tough negotiator, and that's good. But I think if you set it up to win-win on both sides, you'll have a lot more deals come to you because you've done that with honor.
I love that. And it's true because, you know, you don't have to have one winner and one loser. If you have two winners, they're more likely to refer you to others that you can make deals with. Am I right?
That's correct. I mean, in my opinion, a good deal is both sides win.
I couldn't agree more. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Um, boy, I've got a few. I would say first off would be Neil Schultz, and the other one would be David O'Brien.
Great. Well, thank you. And what do those two people do?
Neil Schultz, he has a business called Career Upgrader. He does a lot of resume writing, coaching, executive coaching, that kind of stuff. He's really helped me out with the whole LinkedIn world. You know, I knew a little bit about it, but he's, he's kind of coached me up on that. So Career Upgrader is the name of his company.
Great.
And the other person, his name is David O'Brien, and he is the head of Marcom. They do a lot of phone training for car businesses and other businesses. They do it all remote, and he's out of Phoenix, Arizona.
Excellent. I'll reach out to both of them. Thank you for that referral. And our final question, question number 6: please tell me about your first job.
Oh boy, um, I guess I was 12 years old and I worked for a guy named Jake Hoover. He had probably 15 acres, uh, of land. He had horses. So we did a lot of mowing, cleaning out the stalls. That's what happened. I learned how to drive, learned how to drive. He had a '63 Chevy pickup that we drove around. It was 3 on the tree. I'm showing my age here, but funny story about that is it was myself and another teenage boy, Jimmy Millerborg, and he ended up about 15 years later buying that same truck and he fixed it up and entered it in car shows and all that kind of stuff. I think he still has that. That '63 Chevy. So anyway, that, that's, that was my first job.
Oh, I love it. And I know the stick as well, the 3-speed, love it.
If you can drive one of those, you can drive anything.
I agree. So Scott, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
You can find me, I'm on LinkedIn, RobertsAutoCenter.com, that's where our dealerships are, Facebook, I'm trying to get better at social media. So, but I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
