Reimagining Auctions: Innovation, Grit, and the Power of a Growth Mindset with Kelly Bianchi

In this episode, special guest host Jamye Carpenter sits down with Kelly Bianchi, President of AuctionVCommerce, for a powerful and inspiring conversation about transforming one of the most traditional industries—auto auctions—through technology, entrepreneurship, and heart. Kelly shares her unconventional journey from catering to concierge to tech entrepreneur, her drive to modernize the auction experience, and how her platform has helped independent auctions evolve their digital presence and customer service capabilities.

Together, Kelly and Jamye explore the importance of mindset shifts in legacy industries, the impact of COVID on digital adoption, the role of virtual and augmented reality in future auction experiences, and how AI might shape the next chapter. They also discuss the founding of GROW, a mentorship network that supports women in the industry by lifting each other up through authentic stories and shared experiences.

Whether you're passionate about innovation, women in leadership, or finding opportunity where others see resistance, this episode is a must-listen.

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Transcript

Angela Simoes:

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Mile Marker podcast. My name is Angela Samos, your host, and I am here with a special guest host, Jamie Carpenter, VP of Customer Success at Privacy for Cars. Welcome, Jamie.

Jamye Carpenter:

Hi. So glad to be here.

Angela Simoes:

Thank you for joining. And today's guest is Kelly Bianchi, president of Auction v Commerce.

Kelly Bianchi:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Angela Simoes:

Thank you, Kelly, for joining us. So let's just start by having you tell our listeners a little bit about your background and then also a little bit about auction v commerce.

Kelly Bianchi:

Well, I got into the auction industry by way of the restaurant industry.

Angela Simoes:

Interesting. Unusual path.

Kelly Bianchi:

Yeah, I'm a serial entrepreneur, and when I had the opportunity to cater for an auction, I ended up forming a relationship and ended up becoming the marketing director for the auction.

Angela Simoes:

Wow,

Kelly Bianchi:

Okay. And so while there, I saw an opportunity to help them develop their technology direction, their strategy, because what I learned then was that technology wasn't very welcome in the auction industry. It's a very traditional industry, generational, and so we were working on building an online audience. And so I kind of took that as my challenge and trying to grow that side of the business. And that led to me working for the technology vendor, which led me into springing off onto my own to try and help independent auctions really develop their digital strategy and support their online growth. And that's where auction e-commerce was born.

Angela Simoes:

Wow. Gosh, you were right. So many questions, Jamie, that came out just out of that. So were you always interested in technology even though you started as a caterer? I mean natural? No. No. So what piqued your interest? I'm just curious because not only were you interested in it, but then you have this entrepreneurial spirit to then take it forward.

Kelly Bianchi:

And that's really the heart of it for me was that I was an entrepreneur and it just wreaked of opportunity and how much it could have been developed in this space and saw this aversion towards technology where it was like, oh my gosh, the lights went off for me. But people who had been in the industry for a long time couldn't see that being the path because you couldn't kick tires. And that was often what I heard. So to me it's like, how do you align this? How do you align that traditional format with the opportunity online? And so I looked for how you can make this a parallel instead of an enemy of the system. And so that's what I did. And I ended up, when I started auction v commerce, one of the first things I did was I hired a group of gaming developers and created the first online training simulator.

And the thing was engagement for me, it was like, how do you engage that online customer and give them the same feeling they would have if they were to physically attend the sale? And that was the direction. When I trained clerks and things like that, I would tell them, your objective is to make that person online feel as if they were a physical customer. So how do you do that? And so I started laying the groundwork for all of that. And I had great support from auctions I had already worked with. They knew I was on their side. I wanted to see, my objective was to see them succeed online. And so they didn't really understand all of the components of what I was doing, but they knew that I was out for them. So I got a lot of support. And now I was recently purchased by America's Auto Auction Group, and so now we're at level three. Wow.

Angela Simoes:

So we're definitely going to talk about auctions. We'll go down that path. But I want to ask you, where did you get this entrepreneurial spirit? Is that just something that you, is kind of innate? Did you come from a family of entrepreneurs or have a mentor? Where did that come from? I was going to be a

Kelly Bianchi:

Cop. That was

Jamye Carpenter:

My thing. I told you it only gets better, and I don't know if you can say this on the podcast so you can edit it out, if not, but she's a badass.

Kelly Bianchi:

Well, ditto. Well, I was going to become a police officer, and I was actually to the point of taking the physical exam. Well, at this point, I was a concierge that worked in the Bausch and Lam world headquarter building. And I would write, writing is my first language, and I used to scribe for people, so somebody would hire me to do some writing for them and poetry, and I would do all of that. And so I decided to come up with this line of relationship cards, like greeting cards, but four relationship issues. And I knew everybody in the building at this FALO building on the 15th floor was the marketing team. And on the second floor was the person who ran the fitness center, could do artwork. We had a print shop in the building. So I just utilized all the resources around me to create a line of cards, get the artwork for them, have them printed. And then the 15th floor of Shalam saw this and said, well, we need to send out a press release. And then before you know it, I was in the paper, I was on the radio and the president of the Latin America division for Bausch and Lam came to my desk. I was the concierge. He walks up to my desk, shakes my hand, and said, great job on that article. Do you need investors?

Oh my God. And I was an entrepreneur, so I was like, okay, I guess I'm not going to become a police officer. And I thought, I was like, oh, I'm going to be an overnight success. That didn't happen. But I did raise over a hundred thousand dollars to start my first business.

Angela Simoes:

Fantastic.

Kelly Bianchi:

And it turned into a hundred thousand dollars lesson in how to run a business. The best lessons are learned that

Angela Simoes:

Way, right? Yeah. I But wow,

Jamye Carpenter:

I told you it gets even better. I don't know if we have enough time for it, but this

Angela Simoes:

Could be a two part podcast.

Kelly Bianchi:

Why not have to be a two part? Why not? Well, and this whole experience, what it taught me was putting those pieces together of a business. And it's kind of like any recipe. Everybody can follow the instructions on the box,

But there's people who are gourmets and people who can put their heart into it. And that's what I saw in business was I loved it, and it didn't matter what kind of business. And that's why I started in restaurant, well card industry, then restaurant, and then the auction industry. And I really fell in love with the auction industry. Once I went on the road and started visiting with these auctions, the character, these people were just, they'd roll out the red carpet, and I just fell in love with every business that I visited, and my heart was in it. And so it was like, how do we make you more successful by using this tool.

That at this point, it wasn't something that the auctions welcomed so much, but it was more, consignors saw this as an opportunity and would make that a requirement that auctions needed to be online in order to get their inventory. So auctions would fill that obligation, but they weren't making money out of it. So my objective when I went to work for the technology vendor was how do we leverage what you have? I don't just want to set this up, bring this to your company, set it up and tell you to have at it, teach you how to push the button and then walk away. Yeah. I want you to get the most out of this. So I started developing the business model, and then when the opportunity arose, there was a point where I started writing a business plan, and then I just said, you know what? Our company isn't doing enough for our customers. We need to do more in helping them develop a better business model for their online. So that's what I did.

Jamye Carpenter:

And part of that came from all of those visits you made too. You were listening and you were watching, and you were hearing and seeing what could make the auction's life better. And I don't know if you really understand what Kelly's tool does auction?

Angela Simoes:

No, I haven't seen it. No.

Jamye Carpenter:

Yeah, so I'll let you share that. But it was definitely something where her heart saw, because she is a people person, and she saw, oh my gosh, these people are struggling with these things and vehicles are getting lost, and the dealer can't log in with auction access to get signed in to even bid on a vehicle. So she was able to create an application that could be used to basically solve every customer service need at the auction. And so that doesn't happen unless you're listening to what you ask. If you could have anything to make work better, what would it be? It would be auction commerce.

Angela Simoes:

Okay. So when we often talk about digitization or digital transformation, which is kind of what you were helping these auction houses do with your new company, and we talk about mindset. There has to be a change in mindset. And you even said there's a lot of resistance. So I guess what was the path? Or maybe how long did it take, or what did it take for people to have that aha moment and say, okay, I can see where there's value in that and let's give it a try?

Kelly Bianchi:

Well, I'll tell you what was determining at first that there wasn't value in the online side was the numbers. And why would the numbers be low? Well, because if you're not promoting your product, if you're not encouraging the use of your product, if you're not advocating for your own product, your customers definitely aren't going to jump on it. And the mindset was that nobody really wanted online. And so it's a self-fulfilled prophecy at that point. Well, for me, it was like unrealized potential, and how were we going to get to see the auctions to see that potential? And I think Covid was a great, because we went many years just to sustaining ourselves and doing business with minimal number of auctions. But Covid was an eyeopener that, Hey, the world can shut down and you have nothing to do, but go online and you can still stay in business because of it.

Exactly. And so the thing was, regardless of coming back into the physical environment entirely, a lot of people still stayed online. So all of those numbers went up. So as that went up, the priority I think increased for online and it led to more opportunities. But I had to be creative throughout and try and how do IT this in different ways to try and show? And part of that strategy was let's go directly to the dealers and say, Hey, here's a tool. So we created an app. So it's a customer service app where you go in there and you can actually request your arbitration or transportation or all these services, because the alternative is you just bought all these cars online and now you have to call every auction that you worked with because the online lets you visit how many auctions you want. So if bought five cars, if I bought from five different auctions, now I have to call every auction and follow up with their transportation department with their inspections. It's a lot of legwork. It's a lot of legwork. So we wanted to bring everybody, aggregate all the auctions into a single app and say, just go to this app and you can request your services, and then you can track them all the communication through there. So just looking at where the gaps were and how we could build bridges and alleviate the burden that was on the customer and on the staff. I mean, the biggest way, and Amazon is always, I read Jeff Bezos book, be Omics, plug there for Jeff Bezos. He needed that.

But customer experience was at the center of the Amazon success. And I mean, if there's anyone you want to look to for success, look at Amazon. And they did it right. And keeping the customer at the center of your philosophy is I think, the best win. And there's a trend too, where people in Amazon, I mean they opened up to all these sellers. Amazon could have said, well, we'll have every product in the world. That's not what they did. They said, we're going to give everybody the opportunity to sell. That's not what we're in it for. We're in it to create this marketplace.

And so I just looked at all of that, at all these different levels that the industry really wasn't looking into and saying, how can we bring that to the auction industry? And so that was the goal.

Jamye Carpenter:

I can remember hearing Kelly speak at a conference probably maybe even over 10 years ago now, but you actually said at that time, it's like eBay. And you gave their reference, people give five stars or three stars if they want to do business with this company or this seller. And I remember you saying that if we want to be successful in online business or businesses, then we should think about how would they rate us. And so that was way before Amazon, but it was the same concept.

Kelly Bianchi:

Right. And the thing was, I was just talking about, this is funny because before I came up here, I was talking about the first time that I spoke and how nerve wracking that was, but it was the passion and it was relaying the auction industry to that format and saying there is a rating system. But I remember it was about the fact that they let customers rate each other and they had to change that model and how they learned from their own mistakes online.

Kelly Bianchi:

The impact that all of that stuff had, I mean, we weren't even doing that kind of testing and we weren't even factoring in anything to do with online, like customer ratings and reviews and all that stuff. That's very prominent in our personal lives, right? Because we're all users of different systems. What really triggered me too was walking into the mall one day, and the Burger King that was in the food court now had computers all at the counter. And I went, what happened to the people? What? The people? 

Angela Simoes:

So what you described in what you created makes so much sense, right? Was it surprising to you that no one had thought of it before? Because one of those really, this doesn't exist. This makes so much sense. And I'm wondering, did people in the industry look at that and then realize, damn, we should have done it?

Kelly Bianchi:

No. Just as the online, because I would've thought I was looking through a different lens, and that was the biggest part of it. And people who are in this industry have been in this industry for a long time, for the most part.

Angela Simoes:

So status quo we're good with it.

Kelly Bianchi:

And in fact, it was the preferred way because people fell in love with the industry. The same reason I fell in love with the industry. I loved the physical aspect of it, I did, but I wasn't married to it because I didn't grow up in it or anything like that. And seeing other opportunities, it wasn't in the proximity of the goal of the auction. So if auction people could have it their way, there would never be any change to it. And for good reason. I mean, it's auction events and gearing up for that auction every and that momentum and all of that. I'm like, why would you want to live any other way? Think of a mundane job where you go and do the same thing every day. So I'm like, how do I stay in this industry? So in technology was the way in because I'm always looking for that next kind of a growth idea, I'll say, because I didn't necessarily have to be an entrepreneur because you can be an entrepreneur in somebody else's business, and that's ideal because you're not spending money. You're giving ideas and you're trying to create something different. And I think that's really where my passion was and how do we make something better, or how do we build something that people can use and satisfy needs and all of that. So that was what drove me. But auctions were not quick to doing that. They felt more like, yeah, this is something we're doing because we have to do it. We're meeting the requirement. And there were some auctions who were still, and this is 10 years ago, auctions that were still telling their staff that they didn't need to answer the phone on sale day because whoever needed to be at the auction was at the

Angela Simoes:

Auction. Was that the auction?

Kelly Bianchi:

So I always thought, wow, that's amazing to me. But I think that, like I said, COVID was an eyeopener, and then things kind went back. And so I mean, it's gotten a lot better and people are starting to look at their online and starting to say, how do we, but they're still not applying some of the things that there's no, I'm trying to think of the best way to say this. And I think the best way is that there, you don't go to an auction and there's a technology department that's focused on driving the online growth.

Angela Simoes:

Interesting.

Kelly Bianchi:

And the reason for auction B Commerce was every time I went to an auction and I had built a three day seminar on what you needed to do to foster growth of the online, I would get the same reaction. This is good stuff. Can you come and stay here for six months and get us off? So I said, well, I think this is where the business plan, I started rating the business plan because it was, well, if everybody's asking for the same thing and everybody needs the same type of resources, then so I'm like, well, why don't I just bring the resources and we can do a collective thing and we can get all the auction on the same page and lift everyone together. Because really it's the industry that needs to thrive, not just one or two auctions, because I could have taken a job at a single auction and built it there and done that, but for me it was like, this needs to be industry wide. And I would read up on stories of disruption in different ways. Blockbuster, let's take that. You had one angry customer and that was it. We have Netflix, right? Game over. And so the threat of disruption to me was a real threat. And I think that everyone was really comfortable with not believing that disruption was something that could happen to this industry because they were so well rooted. But honestly, it's always a threat. And just like we saw that through covid, we saw that through covid. So a little bit of reality mixed with a little bit of growth because of that reality. Now it's driving a different, I think, view.

Angela Simoes:

So I'm definitely going to be asking you about ai, but first I want to ask you about another big trend that's been on just the global stage for quite a few years, which is virtual reality,

Because we talk about the auction being an experience. And Jamie, you described it as theater in another episode, and AR and VR is all about trying to replicate that experience, but then offering it to more people. And again, my ignorance, I don't even know if that exists in the auction world today. Do you think that there's potential for that, or do you think that's still too much of a leap for people to, what does the virtual reality experience look like? Because we've been talking about the metaverse and all of that, and how does that exist? So I'm curious what you have

Kelly Bianchi:

Thought about that. Oh, I've been saying for years, kicking the tires and all of that, I'm like, when that becomes a virtual reality game, and this was when Oculus I think was at, and now it's meta, but I think that it's going to be a very real consideration because sound audio aspects, I think right now you do a condition report and you put everything up an electronic file so that you can have your condition report. That's your online version of kicking the tires and all of that. But I think there's going to be a real, there's going to be more to that. There's going to be the audio, there's going to be the glasses that you can put on, walk around the vehicle and see every aspect. It's funny that you're asking me this question because just today I sent a text to, I don't know if you're familiar with Grow, and

Jamie probably told about Grow. So I sent Shelly Frank this text, and I said, this is what you got to do on your next thing. And it was a whole VR game where everybody's involved in the game and you had a bunch of people with the VR glasses on, and you're all in the same room. And I was talking about, I did this years ago with my daughter's friend. We were both in the same game together, and it was so lifelike, and all I could think about was the auction industry in doing that, because I was like, how are we not doing this now? Do

Jamye Carpenter:

You think though, that it will be generational as more younger people come up? I was talking to Chad Bailey today, and he was so excited about his kids now coming to work at the auction. And I say kids, I think 19 and 24 my girls' age. But it feels like right now, the auction industry, the guys that are in the lanes are still a lot older.

Angela Simoes:

So as you get more digital natives, they don't know what life is like without technology.

Jamye Carpenter:

And so I feel like our generation is a weird generation because we literally have watched everything.

Angela Simoes:

We remember rotary phones.

Jamye Carpenter:

Yes. And so when I tell my kids I didn't have a cell phone until my senior year in high school, they didn’t exist. 

Yeah, I did have a bag phone before when I was 16, but that doesn't count. I mean, you barely had any service for it. But anyway, I do think that that is going to make a big difference once the younger generation are the ones that are in the lane.

I think they're going to demand that kind of thing.

Kelly Bianchi:

Well, one of the things that I always said in my spiels was that my daughter has a right hand and a phone. She no longer has, she no longer has a left hand. That's funny, because she can't, you hand her two bags and she's like, my hands are full. And I keep reminding her of the other hand, but I think even now, even with this next generation, the dependency on technology from even that, our generation, the generation even before us, I mean, because even my mom is very active on her phone. If you look out into the audience, if you stand at a block at any auction and you look out into the audience, almost every single person is staring at their phone. And whether it's to get their book values or the research, because we talk about being an online customer or being an in lane customer, but there really is this hybrid too, because most of those people who are standing there in the lanes did their research online. So I mean, the comfort level is growing I think, throughout every generation. But to your point, Jamie, that definitely you're going to have this generation who is more comfortable with being online than they are in person. That's all they know. That's all they know. And

Jamye Carpenter:

They trust it. They trust TikTok. They trust what they see on Instagram,

Angela Simoes:

And it's a game experience, even if it's not a game, that's where they get their news, they believe in it, and they do research on it. So yeah, putting on some glasses though, I mean, it kind of freaked me out. I'm not going to lie. And I'm not easily freaked out by technology. I love technology, but that it takes them getting used to so real, it's scary

For me. It was the whole balance thing kind of made me, yeah, me too. That was a little awkward. But I mean, the technology's getting better, so I can imagine. So one of these days you may not see everybody looking on their phone. They're all going to be wearing Google glasses and heads might be up, but they're all going to be looking at things on their glasses. So let's talk about AI or other things that really excite you right now about the industry. We've talked about the evolution, but what's happening now that you find most exciting, and where do you think things will be in about five years?

Kelly Bianchi:

Well, I'm excited about the fact that people are becoming more open to the online opportunity. Like I said, it's been a long time in trying to move that point forward. And I think that, I don't want to say Covid was a good thing. It just accelerated

Angela Simoes:

Quite the double-edged sword, wasn't it? Right. Yeah.

Kelly Bianchi:

Yes. It accelerated where I think everybody needed to be. And I think that I'm just excited because now in my new role as I'm still president of Auction e-commerce, but now as an America's company with the resources and everything that they bring to the table, that we're going to be able to awaken a lot of sleeping ideas that've had to sit there and dream about for a long time. And now I'm just in a position where we're going to be able to realize some of these things. So I'm excited for that. And I think in five years from now, we're going to see the benefit of what we're doing today. And obviously I can't. I was going to say, can you share

Kelly Bianchi:

We're going to see the benefit of the efforts that we put in today.

Jamye Carpenter:

And Kelly is also a co-chair, I mean a co-founder of Grow.

Angela Simoes:

Yes. Well, I was going to ask you actually, I was going to say, I hope you're a mentor because your entrepreneurial spirit, your innate desire to solve a challenge or even seek out a challenge, I mean, I would say a common trait in people generally, not just women. So yeah, let's talk just a few minutes about Grow and what you've been doing there and how important mentorship is really, especially from someone like you.

Kelly Bianchi:

And I just before coming in here, I was meeting with our panel. We're going to be doing a panel tomorrow at 3:45 PM and I forgot what the room is, but it's important because I feel like especially women have a lower perception of their possibilities and potential because they don't really see, we don't really see a lot of representation in a lot of areas. And it's not just about the success story. It's not just about saying this person achieved or that person achieved. It's hearing the stories behind the success

Because of the fact that me looking at somebody who achieved so much is me telling myself, I'm incapable of doing that because that person's different than me. That person's better than me, that person. We don't have a sense of self that helps us to achieve just by having the example that she achieved. I want to know her story. I want to know the background of that. And that's where Jamie was my, when we did the Comfort Zone Beyond the Comfort Zone, was a webinar that I did. And Jamie was my helper on that. And I said, well, I need to expose myself here. I need to really tell the behind the scenes story of anxiety of all these different, the challenges that I face, public speaking.

Jamye Carpenter

You imagine. Because how well she speaks and how she would get so anxious. And I would be like, you are amazing. Amazing.

Kelly Bianchi:

Why are you nervous? And that doesn't penetrate when somebody tells you in the moment. Absolutely. And I was a Toastmaster. I was the president of Toastmasters. My greatest strength is overcoming my weaknesses or even presenting my weaknesses to myself and not feeling imposter syndrome. This was one that we were talking about upstairs, and it was understanding that we're our own worst enemy, and that before we can stand up for ourselves, we have to stand up to ourselves and getting women to start to believe that just because I haven't before doesn't mean I can't. And so there's so many things, and there's people like this network, this family that you create in the industry. And the beautiful thing about grow is that we're the instant family. So the minute you come to a conference, you can latch,

Angela Simoes:

Grow, you know, have a network,

Kelly Bianchi:

And there's this network of women who are saying, Hey, we want to see you succeed. We need more of us to succeed. We need to highlight. And it's not because we're trying to lift up unqualified people. We're trying to lift people who are perfectly qualified, but don't feel that they have a voice. And that's the key thing is because there's a lot of negative connotation, I think historically when you're in male dominated industries, is that there's a perception of your voice. There's a perception of your emotional status. So there's all these different things that you need somebody else to say, no, you're good the way you are, Jamie, she's always been that for me. And I'm like, if I need honesty, I'm coming to Janie. If I need,

Jamye Carpenter:

I do it with love.

Kelly Bianchi:

She definitely does it with love.

Kelly Bianchi:

Yes. But I mean, you need those people that surround you. It's very important. And I've always had male mentors because I didn't find enough women mentors because I would've loved that. And so we're all being who we needed when we were younger. And so we have a whole group of women who said, I want to be that too. I want someone to know I'm there for them. And so I'm just excited to be a part. I did step down this year because the biggest mentor I need to be is to my daughter who's a senior in high school.

Angela Simoes:

Absolutely.

Kelly Bianchi:

And so I scaled back from my role with Grow right now because that's the important thing too. And so you got to know when to do things. Absolutely. That was important.

Jamye Carpenter:

And I do think too, that for a long time, it was really a small group, so was for me, it was Kelly, Michelle Pirogue that and then Shelly Frank, those were kind of like my core people. But now to have GROW where you still have that intimate relationship with your core that's now expanded, so you're able to be mentored too constantly. We all look up to Jane Morgan, who's going to be on the podcast later, but most of us have been in the industry almost 30 years. Oh my gosh. That is telling our age. But for a long time, we just had each other and we thought we didn't really have that mentorship. We didn't have that group of women to lift us up. And so that is what GROW does. It gives you that instant family to say, you're not alone. What do you need? Who are you looking for at the auction? Oh, I know them. I'll go introduce you. Because we are not competing against each other. We're lifting each other up.

Kelly Bianchi:

And there was always a sense of, is there enough opportunity up there? And so I think that there was this perception that you had to, it was every woman for herself. And so we're getting rid of that perception too, and saying, there's enough opportunity for everybody because we're going to lift those barriers. It's not going to be only the survival of the fittest. It's going to be go through, this is how you do it, and we're here to support you. And I think we're accomplishing that by the responses. I love the feedback from people who have been touched by some of the things that we've done, and that's just the best testament. 

Angela Simoes:

I love the saying, A rising tide lifts all boats. And I wish more people, I love that kind of adopted that philosophy in life, whether it's workwise or just in your personal life. I mean, like you said, there's enough opportunity. It's a big world. There's enough room for everybody. And even if there is a little competition, that's what drives innovation and creativity and makes the industry better and makes us better. So yeah, I am a hundred percent there with you.

Jamye Carpenter:

But the competition can still be competition if everybody's on the same playing field. Right? True. And so I think that that is one thing that Grow has done is to say, okay, maybe you're losing because you haven't met the right people. So then it's okay, now it's a level playing field, and the other person has to make the decision. But you've got to sell yourself. You've got to,

Angela Simoes:

Right?

Jamye Carpenter:

Yeah.

Angela Simoes:

So who inspired you as you were, and maybe there was multiple people from the time you were the concierge to the restaurant, to the technology, to now. I mean, was there your first person that kind of inspired you to now, I don't know.

Kelly Bianchi:

Honestly, I think because of the fact that nobody comes to mind, I'm not going to create a role model. When I was a kid, I grew up, how and when I grew up and all of that. I think my inspiration was being different than the life I was raised in. When you're that person in your family who can achieve the most, because everybody, I grew up poor family, that whole story. And so it was about, you can change your stars. I saw a movie where that was the theme, changing your stars. And I loved that saying, and I was just like, you can make a different life. Because if you become somebody, if you become somebody else, or you can take all that out, okay, if you can lift yourself and create a new life for the next generation, I feel like that's every generation's responsibility is to just create this better world for the next generation. And it was for my family, and I did that.

Angela Simoes:

Well, it's that sense of controlling your destiny, right? Yes, exactly. Which is also the theme of many movies, many of which are kind of based on true stories. But no matter what situation you're in, you don't have to just accept the cards that life has dealt you.

Jamye Carpenter:

She could be a movie. Her life and entrepreneurship.

Angela Simoes:

Let's do it. Let's write a screenplay. Let's do it.

Jamye Carpenter:

Why not? Definitely. It would be amazing.

Angela Simoes:

Absolutely. I mean,

Jamye Carpenter:

Her daughter is just as amazing. So she has proud.

Angela Simoes:

Well, you must be raised. She's got me beat. She's so got me beat. That's an hard thing to do. So maybe we should have your daughter on

Kelly Bianchi:

The podcast because she and she would do

Angela Simoes:

It too. Sounds amazing. Well, this has been not only a fun conversation, but inspirational. So thank you very much, and thank you, Jamie, for inviting. Thank you so much, Kelly, to be on the show. I hope you have a wonderful event here and keep us posted on everything. And I can't wait to see the VR auction application from your company. That sounds amazing.

Kelly Bianchi:

Just to be clear, I am not inventing yet.

Angela Simoes:

I know, but I can see it happening. I can see it happening. Me too. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Yes,

Kelly Bianchi:

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.