From Auction Lanes to Leadership: Jane Morgan’s Legacy in the Auto Industry

In this episode, special guest host Jamye Carpenter, VP of Customer Success at Privacy4Cars, joins the Mile Marker podcast for a compelling conversation with Jane Morgan, Chief Client Officer at Pyle Family Auctions and a respected pioneer in the automotive remarketing space. Jane shares her incredible 36-year journey through the auction industry—from her early days as one of the few women in leadership to becoming a mentor and trailblazer for the next generation. She reflects on the evolution of the industry, the increasing presence of women in key roles, and the rise of mentorship and training programs that are shaping the future. The conversation also dives into current trends in commercial vehicle sales, labor force challenges, the impact of AI, and how professionals are adapting to career pivots and consulting roles. This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating change in the automotive world.

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Transcript

Angela Simoes:

Welcome everyone to the Mile Marker podcast. I am Angela Samos, your host, and I'm here with a special guest co-host Jamie Carpenter of VP of Customer Success with Privacy for Cars. Welcome, Jamie.

Jamye Carpenter:

Thank you. So glad to be here.

Angela Simoes:

And our guest today is Jane Morgan, chief client Officer for the PY Family Auctions. So welcome Jane

Jane Morgan:

Glad to be here.

Angela Simoes:

So, give our listeners a little bit of your background. I think you're a well-known celebrity in this industry, but for those who don’t know, you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into this work and then about Pyle Family Auctions.

Jane Morgan:

I had just come back from North Yemen. I had been overseas with Honeywell company and frankly I promised my dad I'd send 50 resumes out like January one. I came home in an October and I just wanted to take a break and enjoy my kids. I was a single mom

And so I said, daddy I promise come January one, I'll send 'em out. Well, I sent out resumes and one of them was a blind ad, so I didn't know what company it was for. And actually it was for what is now Manheim Dallas. It was a DT Dallas at the time. And the first interview was even in office building, so I still didn't know what I was interviewing for. And so on the second interview when I made it through, it was sale day at a very large auction. And in fact there were no parking spots and they rented the right of way to the highway. So I actually in a suit because keep in mind I didn't know where I was going. I mean high heels a suit because I'm an auditor, I'm a CPA firm anyway, and so I have to park on the highway and then walk across,

Angela Simoes:

Oh my gosh.

Jane Morgan:

Not looking like the way I'd want to on an interview. Right, sure. And this is really the true story and I used to get introduced this way at Odessa. I walk in and there are 3000 men in this arena and I'm a single mom and I'm taking a look and I thought, man, if I get offered this job, I am so taking, there's got to be one nice guy in this crack. And Jim told that story for years. But anyway, so I did get offered the job and was there a year and then I went to work and worked for Odessa for 31 years. They were opening up an auction, actually an independent auction. They got bought by Odessa. And so I was a controller to start with and then an assistant general manager. And then in 1997 offered me my own auction in Charlotte, North Carolina. So moved the family to North Carolina and was there as a GM and then as a regional vice president of the East Coast. And then the last 12 years I was president of the specialty division for Odessa. And then I knew I wasn't going to really retire, but after 31 years left Odessa and started consulting and the pile family auctions, which I'm chief client for, they were the first ones to call me

And offer me a job. And I actually had a one year no compete, so I said, I promise that I will call you when that one year's up. I'm not going to try to fight it because being blunt, I owned a lot of things and I thought I think I need to sell a few things. Got it. So it took me a year to get rid of houses and anyway, so went to work for the piles as the chief client officer. I've been doing that since 21, so four years coming up on four years with them and doing some other things, but largely, and so that means commercial sales basically as a chief client officer, I'm responsible on a national level, all of the commercial business out there. I don't do much with the dealers. I would if they needed me to, but more for commercial sales.

Angela Simoes:

What has been the most, I guess, exciting change that you've witnessed?

Jane Morgan:

I’d say because it's been 36 years and before that was oil and gas. So a lot of what I talk about in auto is going to be the same as it was in oil and gas. But when I was a general manager, there were very few. When I was a regional vice president, there were no women. I mean there were many times I was in a meeting and I was definitely the female. And then when I became president of specialty division in that meeting, there was for sure no other one.

So the one thing that I notice very much so now in our industry is there are so many more women and welcomed, that's good. You know what I'm saying? And even we have the organization, global remarketing Opportunities for Women. And that came about because there are so many more women in the industry and I can tell you no one ever tried to help me in terms of coming up. So they weren't being mean or anything, it just didn't occur to them. It didn't happen. And so not only that, but then there are multiple mentoring programs for men and women out there. And I was lucky enough to be a part of one many years ago where they were doing that somebody's first time at a convention. And so I had three people that could go to my meetings with me, they could do whatever. And they were even competitors at times, but they were given a choice to be shown around. But now it's really, people almost fight for getting those spots. And then even the education, when you look at Auction Academy, all the things and the certifications, car Certification Act, I mean all those things, they did not exist. I mean back then you would help write manuals and things so that there would be some access online for educational. I did a few of those, but now it is so readily available and I think a lot of people probably still don't know all that's available. I told somebody, I said, do you ever even log in to the organizations? Like N AAA has great stuff out there. A RA has great stuff out there. If you're a member, you need to be a member. I mean that's fair. That's fair. It costs 'em to do these things. So I think that part is so more women in the industry and then the education and training and the opportunities for mentorship, those are huge and weren't available.

Angela Simoes:

And it's actually so important because otherwise to your point that there was nothing before how things could have just taken a lot longer to progress. And now that you have these educational resources and training resources, I guess people are learning the ropes more quickly.

Jane Morgan:

Everybody complains honestly, when you get a new job, think if they go, yeah, there's no training here. I mean how many times you hear that over your career? And that's so the truth. You sit with 'em that first day and the reality is you have to get back to your own job. So there is very little, so it's really learning all on your own. But now the modules alone with car, you feel for that accounts payable person or you feel for that arbitration person because you've seen what they deal with every day. That's not your world. And when there's time, I used to make mine sit in those different jobs as a general manager if they could just to appreciate what they were doing.

Jamye Carpenter:

And I'll say even for car certification, I never worked at an auction. So to take the certification and to be tested on those things, it taught me a lot that I thought I knew and some things I did, some things I didn't. But I also just want to say that Jane has always been kind of the mentor for all of the women who have been in the industry for the last 30 years because again, it was a small handful of us. And so I just thank you. Thank

Jane Morgan:

You. You're so welcome.

Jamye Carpenter:

Just being you and when you were having to fight for a spot at the table with all those men, you reached down to those of us who were young and green and didn't know what we were doing. Thank you. You're very

Jane Morgan:

Welcome. Really that's the most fun thing. If I were being honest my, I've done it through my church mentoring people right out of school because just because you get a degree doesn't mean you're going to get a job right away.

Angela Simoes:

A hundred percent.

Jane Morgan:

And I got approached one time, it was probably some of the first mentoring, would you talk about what their options might be? And one thing I do love about this industry is yes, I picked the auction side, but we all rely heavily on vendors

To make us successful with auction. If we didn't have people to detail the cars, because not everybody can hire those people. I was lucky enough to be an auction where it was my own employees, but thank goodness companies were created that wash cars, deto cars, pop dents. You can't have all those employees all the time. So thank goodness those companies exist. Well, that's another avenue. Maybe some of 'em doesn't take consider it. So this is such a wonderful industry to be a part of. I will always be grateful. It was fun every day. I mean never boring.

Angela Simoes:

Well, I think it's a testament to your character as well though, because not everybody would see that need and fill it as well as you have far as mentoring and helping to lift others up. So kudos to you. So thank you for doing that.

Jane Morgan:

It's a nice way to tail end the

Angela Simoes:

Sure.

Jane Morgan:

I will always be, I could have just stopped working. I was 64 at the time I was leaving Odessa, whereas I'll be 70 this year. I would say that out loud. That's painful. That is. But I'm not 98 like Joe Miller said yesterday on the panel. But to get to do that as you go out to me is big rewarding for me to be able to help. So that something maybe that I had to go through, they don't go through.

Jamye Carpenter:

And on the commercial side with what you're doing, what are some of the trends that you've seen there? Maybe not throughout your career, but we'll just say since you've been doing this for the pile family.

Jane Morgan:

It's interesting. As a general manager back then there weren't the wonderful sales directors that all the big companies have, right? There was maybe one or two or just a manager. And so I had to call on all those myself. And I can say that maybe other than Linda Silverstein, there was never a female that you were calling on.

I can remember being really nervous even going to Toyota where I remember having to take my shoes off because they were actually from Japan, you know what I mean? And of course no women and I thought, okay, I've just come back from Yemen and so I'm going to know how to make sure I'm be polite. Just I was really nervous. Whereas today, when you call on, I would say I have as many remarketing directors at the commercial level. I would say I bet I have almost as many women that I'm talking to as men. That's great. And then the reps that come to the auction, there are a lot of women. And so all of that's changing so much. I mean we're still behind, but it's a testament and are accepted and worked well with, I mean the auctions. And it's a really good job. I mean the people who fight for those jobs, they're great jobs to have. You get to travel some, you get to see a different environment. And for me it was always important not to be bored. So I kind of change and difference and I'm not one of those that likes to maintain

My customers really hate they wish. I would love to just have it maintained, but I'm always asking, isn't there one more zip code I can have?

Jamye Carpenter:

Well, I read an article yesterday, sorry, I'm not trying to take that. No, no, go ahead. But I read an article yesterday where auctions had sold more vehicles this year than they had since Covid. And so we're kind of getting back up from the loss of those numbers during Covid. Do you see that when you're asking for cars?

Jane Morgan:

It's really a strange, so you'll be with a client that is now up over, I had a meeting this morning, they're now up over 2019. Wow. But I met with two yesterday that are still not back.

Jamye Carpenter:

Interesting.

Jane Morgan:

And so I think part of it, there's different criteria on how they loan, obviously prime versus subprime versus right. So if you're talking for example, repossessions, it probably has to do with the type of portfolio they have first off and what the mix was to begin with. And if they were going to make a change, if they'd been largely subprime versus, so I think part of that has an influence. And then everything changed in terms of being a remote employee. There was no such thing. You had to be at that desk and no one believed that it would be possible that would ever work. And now they've discovered, and more importantly, not only they discovered you didn't have to go to the office. In some cases they discovered you didn't have to go to the auction to wreck your cars. Now I think that you need to check on your property. I think they still know they need to touch them every so often, but they now know that if there are very few cars being sold, let's just say 25, maybe they don't have to go right, they have 50 to a hundred. Yeah. They want walk on should be on site and all that kind of thing. So yes, I think that it's on the way up, but I have been surprised at several that are still really low on.

Jamye Carpenter:

So that's what I'm hearing from folks. Even with privacy for cars, we want them to delete the privacy and it's like we've noticed your volumes down and it was like, yeah, we just were struggling. And then you read those statistics from yesterday and you're like, is that dealer consignment then that's so high.

Jane Morgan:

Do you know what somebody said? And I forget about this. Sometimes the relationship is they get to be bought before they get to auction depending. And so the article I think is true when they say, for example, repossessions are up. But that's not to say that we get to see them at the auction through remarketing. And so if 25% disappear or even 50% if it's a prime and they have some kind of offering or it's upstream and therefore it's not. Anyway. So there are all kinds of ways. So I think that's probably accurate. I read a similar

Jamye Carpenter:

Article. It was probably the same one.

Jane Morgan:

Yeah, remarketing accurate. I sent it to Joe at piles and I said, and he was like, yes. And I said, well, I'm going to talk to a few people. That doesn't mean they're going to see more, but I think some do, some don't. And if you're lucky enough to have that account or they get bought. When something gets bought, if you didn't have that account or it's getting sucked into one you didn't have, you may lose those. So it's still that very competitive. Very competitive, but people are performing very well. So I've heard that numerous times. I'm open to giving you business, Jane. The problem is I don't have a problem auction right now. I mean I've heard that and I like that when I was a general manager, I appreciated every loyal client I had. So unlike some that might just, Joe probably wishes I'd keep on maybe. But I mean I'll stay in touch. But I like that they're loyal to where they're selling and if they're doing well, I hated it when I'd say they'd say We're going to do a champion challenge. I'm like, I was number one. Why are we doing a champion challenge? I'm your number one auction. And there was never really a good answer that I liked out of that, but I couldn't understand it. So you keep plugging away, of course for everybody's my theory.

Angela Simoes:

So before we started recording, we were chatting a little bit about the labor force and how there's some challenges there. So talk a little bit about what you're seeing and then we can get into how people can move forward

Jane Morgan:

When you're in a large metropolitan area, I was always lucky being in Charlotte, I'd have a job fair and I'd almost have more people apply than I could possibly hire. And so true of big cities somewhat. But one thing that changed with Covid, a lot of people didn't want to work anymore. So they might come the first day. I mean I lost receptionist on the lunch hour. It was busy phone and so she would never come back,

But you at least have people applying. But in some of these more rural areas, they're struggling even getting people to apply for jobs. So that's at the hourly level, but let's get real. They're the ones that make the world go round at your auction. I'm so grateful for, I always made fun of me. I'd cry when I'd thank them for doing the job, but I was grateful because they would apply, get a dollar. Yeah, I told 'em yesterday they would wave a dollar in the air that I would cry as I was thanking my employees at the monthly meeting. But the thing is it worked the reverse of what they thought. When I saw those dollars, I'd swallow those tears. I was not going to give in so bad enough. The hourly force. Right. Okay. So now,

Angela Simoes:

And the hourly force would be required to be on site. We're not talking about remote. They're the ones who do basically every job at the auction.

Except for repping a car.

Jane Morgan:

Your managers are salaried obviously, and those aren't as hard to find quite because that pay is better. But the hourly, it got pretty tough drivers, especially we depend on the retirement group after Covid and they maybe didn't want to be around so many people as before because they didn't want to get sick, that kind of thing. So that force was really, but then what's happened, whether it's because companies have bought other companies, they're streamlining, they're becoming more efficient. We have quite a few people out there in that 50 to 60-year-old range and maybe even 45 that obviously want to work at least another 10 to 20 years, let's just say. And they were making a very good living. It is very hard to find those jobs today.

Angela Simoes:

And so some jobs have been eliminated because of consolidation. They're not

Jane Morgan:

Things like that. I think that what has been discovered, and this is from a recent one that I was trying to fill, I think I'm going to lower the salary by 75,000 and I'm going to see what I get and I might make due with what I can get for 75,000 less. Well, you say that to someone who has a large mortgage, two kids in college and another one waiting to go and one's gotten engaged and going to have a wedding. That's a lot to adjust. And especially if that person is the breadwinner and that's male or female because it works both ways. I mean, most of my career I was the breadwinner. So if Eddie had come home for example and had a price cut, it wouldn't be as devastating as myself having a price cut or salary cut. So I'm worried about, because I think more is to come of changes like that where I think we're going to see with some things going on in our industry, I think we're going to see more of those that find themselves through no fault of their own being without one of their good paying jobs.

Angela Simoes:

And that's a tough spot too, because then you think, okay, do I just try and find another job that's similar or do I pivot and do something slightly different, but in the same industry, do that second career and open a bakery. I mean there's so many or do I go out on my own? But all of it has some level of risk. Right.

Jane Morgan:

Well, and that's actually the kind of conversation you have. Okay. First off, give me your dream. What is your dream retirement now and your dream salary? What pays the bills? Tell me, I'm not going to tell everybody this, but I need to know so that I pursue properly for you. But then do you have any hobbies that you wished could have been your living? And then I get a lot of phone calls because I'm not sure why. I must have really done a good fake job because most people realize I'm now self-employed and I've always worked for big companies. So I'll get calls going, you appear to be successful in this self employment. How'd you do that? And the funny thing is, I can't tell you. I mean,

Jamye Carpenter:

She's talking about me

Jane Morgan:

And I tell 'em everything I did because I'm only going to do this a little bit longer, so to speak. And I even tell somebody, I've told one recently, I said, look, I'll even give you my main source of income and whatever. But I said, there's so many ways, and I didn't go after any of the clients that I have. I never made a phone call to do that. But what's awesome about this business is a need comes up and maybe they know one person in the industry and they call that person and that person's like, no, I'm not interested in that, but let me check real quick. And they'll text me real fast, may I please give your phone number? And it turns into a relationship. I'm a trial expert on the auction side. So if there's a lawsuit and it involves a vehicle that was at an auction, for example, most people don't know how an auction works if you're not in our industry. So I read depositions, I do depositions, I do expert reports, and then I testify at trial and I didn't even know that existed. That could be a thing, which is crazy. My dad was an expert witness, he was an engineer for Exxon and the last 10 years of his career. Oh wow.

That's what he did. So how I didn't know there would need to be. And so there's so many ways to make a living that people don't realize. And we have a lot of experts in our industry that could choose to do that. There would be a need, just like I do quite a few investment calls where for a while there England was fascinated with what we do over here. And I bet I did a call from involving an English company once a week for weeks on end where they were just pick your brain kind of thing from anywhere from, frankly, even what Jamie does now for privacy, for cars to what's a good detail shop. It could be anything that they wanted to learn about

Angela Simoes:

At that time.

So it sounds like there's a couple of key things there. So one strong network, which is why coming to conferences like this, we're here at the car conference in San Diego. So coming to conferences like this, getting out there, meeting people, establishing relationships, so the strong network is a thing, really important. And then really identifying what's your area of expertise and then start touting that and even building on that, because like you said, you don't necessarily have to go out and seek it, but if you even just tell a few people, Hey, listen, I'm thinking about doing this and I want to focus on this area pretty soon the calls will probably start to come in. Right?

Jane Morgan:

Well, and it can even be if somebody has a new company, for example, and they're kind of trying to find their way, maybe it's a competitive world,

And frankly, you're just sitting at the dinner at one of the conferences and I've struggled charging for my services because I like helping people. And I always had a salary with Odessa, and so be honest with you, never thought about it. So I would just, if they asked me my opinion or whatever. And so I really struggled going, oh, I forgot I do that for a little. But literally this happened. We're at a dinner table and they were struggling. And I said, well, I can find that out for you if you want me to. He goes, really? I said, sure. I said, I'm not going to tell you who tells me what. I said, the only way I'll probably get the answers if I'm anonymous with it, and if you're okay with that, I also won't tell 'em who you are. I'll just ask the questions in a survey form. And I used stick marks. I called 20 auctions, I asked their opinion, and I did stick marks. I didn't even keep up for myself who said what, because I was never going to tell anybody who said what. And I wrote this, I don't know, four or five page report on the analytics of it kind of type thing, what that meant that they could

Speaker 4:

Do.

Jane Morgan:

And I was a little bit nervous turning it in because I wasn't sure exactly what they wanted. I knew what they needed to know,

Speaker 4:

But

Jane Morgan:

I wasn't sure in a presentation. And I remember it made my day because he goes, this is exactly what we need.

Angela Simoes:

Nice.

Jane Morgan:

And it was a very definitive answer of the analytics.

Angela Simoes:

And then you sent your invoice.

Jane Morgan:

Yeah, actually, you know what, nowadays on a phone call, you're paid the minute you hang the phone down. That's how sophisticated the investment companies are.

Angela Simoes:

Wow.

Jane Morgan:

It's timed on the phone and literally when you hang down your aach H is already set up. It pays you. Wow. Yeah.

Jamye Carpenter:

Nice. It sounds like, did you get paid for the invoice? I mean for the report that you did? Yeah. Yes. Okay, good. I'm so proud

Angela Simoes:

Of you. I mean, it sounds like there could be a panel at the next conference about how to become a consultant, how to go out on your own. I think the thing to remember though too is that there is going to be some up and down. You're not a salary, so you don't have this consistent stream of income. Some months are going to be better than others. And even though you're not always pursuing business, you kind of always have to be networking to keep the pipeline full. So that's a bit of a risk as well. So you have to know that going into it.

Jane Morgan:

Right. Well, you have to be smart with how, I mean, in my case, my theory is when I have no more clients call, it's time for me to retire. Well, and I've already warned everybody, remember June, July, August I met the beach. So if you could have fewer problems during those three days, I'd really appreciate it. I'd really like to be on the beach in that office.

Angela Simoes:

And so as you're talking to people who are in this situation, what's their reaction or what's their feedback? Are you finding that they're open to the consultant role or are they really like, no, I just need to find another job? Or are they looking at the second career doing something totally different? What are you seeing in

Jane Morgan:

There? Honestly, I think the first thing I noticed is how scared they are. It is a scary thing, and I totally

Angela Simoes:

Understand

Jane Morgan:

That having been single most of my life, I mean not having someone to turn to, and in most cases, and they're men and women I'm talking about, but in most cases, they're either the breadwinner or the only income. So they're scared, got mortgages, and they're

Angela Simoes:

Scared.

Jane Morgan:

That's the first thing. Then after you get past that, and I usually will say to 'em, I said, if we could remove pride and I out, I said, because the first thing I did when I wasn't sure what I was going to do, I sold everything. I didn't care how that looked. I never even entered my head to be embarrassed or ashamed or anything. I just knew I owned three homes. I had a two bedroom boat, cabin cruiser, I had a 43 foot rv, two motorcycles and two golf carts. And I was like, okay, let's start with the ones that I get the most. You know what I'm saying? And so I never thought about it. And somebody who was helping did not want to sell their boat. And I said, they make boats still. I can always get another one. You can get another one. But if you owe something on that, you need to dump it. You need to have no payments kind of thing. And so I think if you can get 'em to just, everybody's been in this situation before, so nobody's talking about you behind your back. I promise. Everybody is sympathetic kind of thing. You can, and then you have to say, okay, look, let's talk about the things you hate to do and the things you like to do, things you love to do.

If you could be okay with, you may have to sell what you like. I don't recommend you go with something you hate because you're probably not going to be a good employee, and therefore you're probably not going to find success. Just the reality you aren't going to. And I said, and if you have to take less money, you got to still be happy about it. You have to because your performance is going to be based. But I've been there before where I had to take a pay cut

Speaker 4:

When

Jane Morgan:

I came back from Yemen, I took a pay cut, and I'm a single mom. But you know what? I love the job so much and I love the auction and after all the 3000 men. And so I never thought about it again after I walked, never thought about

Jamye Carpenter:

It. But I think that's the key to a lot of people who want to do consulting in this business. It's because they don't want to get out of our little niche industry. That's exactly right. And so for me, when I started my consulting business, I wanted to make sure that I already had clients lined

Angela Simoes:

Up, lined up

Jamye Carpenter:

Before making the

Angela Simoes:

Jump.

Jamye Carpenter:

Correct. And I think that if you can already kind of lay the path for what you want, it helps with that. And I think for me, I mean it was prideful, but I didn't want people to think that I had failed. Well,

Jane Morgan:

And that is your fear.

Jamye Carpenter:

So because the last thing you want is for people to be, oh, she failed. Therefore, do I want to do business

Angela Simoes:

With her?

Jamye Carpenter:

And so I don't think a person and Jane mentored me through this. I don't think anybody thought that.

Jane Morgan:

No.

Jamye Carpenter:

But it was me who,

Jane Morgan:

Oh, we're harder on ourselves,

Jamye Carpenter:

Pressure on. And so Jane was really a great mentor again for me when I was getting started, which I was doing consulting for privacy for cars. And that was great because we got to see how we worked together. And if they liked me, I liked them, which then turned into what I'm doing today with them as the VP of customer success. So I think there is definitely a lot that goes into it that you don't realize. But the one thing you can realize is this is a family industry and they want to support you. And I think that's what's so great about it.

Jane Morgan:

I agree. And networking. One of the reasons I come to the conferences is I've got to stay relevant to what's going on. As long as I'm going to be consulting or helping, and especially where I'm representing the piles, they aren't here. So I like going to the sessions because I want to make sure I'm very aware of what's going on. And some stuff won't apply completely to them, but I still listen. You never know. We don't have many EVs there, but I still listen, so I know what is being proposed or what is the way to handle, because they're a rural

Angela Simoes:

For when you do have the EVs,

Jane Morgan:

Because at some point it will happen that they will be more in the rural areas because there's no way to charge. You know what I'm saying? There's different reasons for it. But I still listen and the ai, which was so good yesterday, and that fascinates me a lot. And we have two really good IT eyes at our, so I know they're interested in that kind of thing. But I think there's all kinds of ways to do it. And I think it is, I don't blame people for being scary, but there are a lot of needs for people to be consultants because that makes you not have to hire somebody.

Angela Simoes:

I was just going to say, the person that wants to reduce that position salary by 75,000, that could be filled by a consultant. And so

Jamye Carpenter:

Then that consultant get a couple of

Angela Simoes:

Those. A

Jane Morgan:

Couple of those, exactly. Right. And they could be, usually you try to be respectful of the industry. So I could actually consult for other auctions if I wanted to, that weren't competitors. I've made the decision to help them. Now, if somebody asked me a question, I obviously would tell 'em what my thought was, but that's just something I've chosen to do. It's not something that, because I don't want to confuse clients to be honest with you. Hey, I'm going to talk about this one today

Jamye Carpenter:

And

Jane Morgan:

Tomorrow I'm going to talk. I don't want to do that. I want to represent one when,

Angela Simoes:

But that's a personal preference and someone could potentially go. And it exists.

Jane Morgan:

I mean, it exists. We have organizations that already that exist that are doing that, but it works well. And I'd rather have clients that are part of the industry but are different that I help.

Angela Simoes:

So I'm glad you mentioned AI because I think it was in our conversation with Kelly where we talked about there's some fear around AI that it will eliminate certain jobs. And while that may be the case, it also provides an opportunity to create new jobs that we actually don't even know what those would be yet. And so I know it's hard to anticipate what those things could be, whether it's specific to AI or maybe this expert role that you have discovered. As you look at the industry now and in the next few years, do you see certain areas of need where auction houses are really looking for somebody that knows how to do this or there's this kind of a service that is becoming more in demand? Are you seeing any that? What I'll

Jane Morgan:

Say, and keep in mind, having done this 36 years, I will upfront admit that I love the personal touch. Obviously as a general manager, if I didn't see a lot of people in my lanes, well, I was a pretty depressed person. And today you have to get over yourself because there are so many buyers online.

But that was just starting, really. And so I still wanted to see my seven, 800 guys in the lane because being a numbers person, I knew how I would be successful. I knew I'd have a two for one ratio. I knew that I had to have 50% of my people attending had to raise their hand at least once. I mean, I tracked to where I knew what was going to be a good sale. So I would struggle with having a hundred people during Covid. That's all the states. And a lot of states would let in a hundred people. So I admit I like all of that, but we might as well give up fighting what's going to happen. And it's just a reality. People like buying online, for example, they do. That's just yes, there's still some that are going to go walk the cars. They still want to touch 'em because they're counting on the CRS being good. But let's say they're not great, then they want to make sure they know whether they're frame damage or whatever. So they're going to be ones that go. But the more time passes, the more the online AI that is happening,

And it is going to, there's no doubt it's going to eliminate some things, but it is going to open up not only maybe other positions, but other things we've never been able to do before. We're now going to be able to do with a much clearer Now it's only as good as the data you put in. I mean, we all know that. So there's some things we'll have to work

Angela Simoes:

Out,

Jane Morgan:

Some kinks. It just keeps getting better. I mean, I ask questions all the time for them to answer, and I'll know the answer they're giving me is wrong. So I'll change one word in how I answer, and then I get, and it becomes a rabbit hole for me. I tease with it on purpose to see what it takes for me to say, to get the answer that I know to be true.

Angela Simoes:

True.

Jane Morgan:

So I definitely think you're going to see that, and I think you're going to see more online, more things happening online and not as much contact. And do I think that that will lose some of the appeal and fun? Yes. But like I said, I started with, I change, I like things to evolve and all that. So we have to, what's going to happen. And so there will be other things that come up because of that, though, there's not a doubt in my mind, something that we don't know about and we can't talk about because, but I think it will

Jamye Carpenter:

Happen as, that was one of the things we talked about yesterday was if you're not keeping up with it, then you're going to get left behind, right? And so the room was, I mean, it was sustaining room only yesterday because I think everybody wants to know what's

Jane Morgan:

Coming next, right?

Jamye Carpenter:

Yeah.

Jane Morgan:

And that's why at auctions, and I would say that there are probably some that it is been very successful to just stay the way they are, the area they're in or whatever. But I don't think you're going to get to do that going forward because the banks are sophisticated. The commercial accounts need you to have every avenue possible to get the most money for their vehicles because they've got to go back to their customer for that payment, for the loss. And so their expectation is become greater. Greater. And that's okay. That's good. Because that's their obligation to their bank and to their customer. So I think the dealer is not as hard about that, but the commercial accounts are, and rightly so. That's what their due diligence is. Their fiduciary responsibility is so can't fault them for trying to do their job. And so I think we have to in turn, make it available. And I do think you'll get left behind for sure. If they can provide it by going down the street. Exactly. It's a good

Angela Simoes:

Point. Well, this has been a very interesting conversation as far as things are certainly changing. There's lots of opportunity, some that we can see, some that we can't see yet, right down the road. It's the fun game. But it's been lovely having you. Thank you so much. Having such a fabulous, well-respected celebrity veteran of this industry, I feel like I'm

Jamye Carpenter:

That's perfect. Celebrity veteran.

Angela Simoes:

Yes. Yes. Instead of just saying old. No, no. It's an honor to have you here with us. So we really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Awesome.

Jane Morgan:

Thank you.

Angela Simoes:

Thank you.