Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, powered by NetAlly. This is the show that if you are an IT professional, managed service provider, and you support businesses, well, we're here for you. Our job is to help you do yours better, smarter, and faster.

This is an audio show presented by Super Ops, the future ready, all-in-one PSA RMM platform that streamlines your IT management. They help you work smarter, not harder. Experience the future of IT at superops.com today. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you know that I have been working hard to find people in the industry to interview that are awesome people. And there are times where announcements are made and I try my best to get them on the show, try to get exclusive interviews, and I'm able to do that. And I'm sure you have heard the news that Brook Lee has left PIA and is now at ScalePad.

She kind of snuck that announcement in at Vegas, at the Casea Connect. And I said, oh, I got to get her on the show. I reached out.

She said, yes. So here she is. Brook, how are you doing?

[Brook Lee]
I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

It's been a little bit since we've chatted before, but super happy to be here.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. And well, thank you for saying yes, first of all. I know that the first 30 to 90 days are hectic and you've made the time to sit down with me.

I appreciate that.

[Brook Lee]
Yes, sir. Always.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So, of course, let's get the obvious questions out of the way. I'm sure you've answered them over and over.

Some people probably haven't asked you because, you know, they're respectful. But I'm going to ask, what happened?

[Brook Lee]
There was an absolutely wonderful opportunity at ScalePad for me. I was working at PIA as their channel development manager, and there was a director of channel position that was available at ScalePad. And it was just one of those, there was no way I could turn this down.

The leadership here, the platform, the software, all of the people, the team, this was just something that was a really good fit for me, and I decided to make the leap.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So now the title changed from manager to director. Doesn't sound much but sounds like it comes with a lot more responsibilities, a lot more goals.

What do you think so far?

[Brook Lee]
Well, I'm week two into this thing, so we will kind of see how this plays out. But director of channel, a couple of things. First of all, I get to work under a couple of people that are pretty epic in our space.

The first one is the VP of channel, which is Eric Torres. Being able to work and learn under him is going to be something that's just, I mean, you're not going to be able to get that experience other places. His time in this space is, he's done some revolutionary things.

So being able to learn from him is going to be pretty awesome. And then I also get to work underneath Luis. He is our chief experience officer.

He also does community here at ScalePad. So being able to work directly with those two gentlemen is really going to help my career. And again, I am super excited to be able to learn all things from them.

So channel development manager, that particular title is fairly common in our space. And it basically just means kind of somebody that works in the channel, may speak from time to time. You're, you know, working in the booth, doing all those types of things.

You might do some logistics things as well. So director of channel definitely means more responsibility. I'm going to do everything I can to sort of be Eric's right hand, be able to help them with some reporting, some analytics, also be able to help Luis with community.

So I'll be able to do some cool things there. And then I'm also helping our RevOps team as well, because we're doing some pretty cool things here already on a project that kind of started actually at the end of last week. So working on that to bring some new software and things to the channel team, and I'm pretty excited about that.

Also be able to help Torres and Luis as well with the events that we're going to do, be able to help them with some ROI, different things like that, some different ways to look at things, because I haven't been in the space a long time. So I kind of have that, I'm not sure why we have to do it that way, if there's a better way. This space, there's a lot of this is the way that it's always been done.

And because I haven't been here very long, it's probably a fresh set of eyes. So just sort of a different way of looking at things, whether it's an event or data or people or software, and just hoping that I can bring some of those different ways of thinking to the table at a scale pad.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So before we get too far along, I want to go back. You mentioned Eric Torres, I met him down here in Fort Lauderdale in 2014.

And ever since he's been dodging me, can you put a word into him to say, hey, stop, stop dodging Uncle Marvin?

[Brook Lee]
Actually, we are going to be on a long flight to Copenhagen on Monday. So there's literally nowhere for him to duck and dodge to. So I will harass him the entire flight if I have to, between Detroit and Amsterdam.

So he has nowhere to run and I will do my best.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. So obviously a great opportunity there. You're new to that space.

There's a plethora of products underneath. I actually, full disclosure, I do use one of them, Lifecycle Insights. There's also Lifecycle Manager, Cognition, Control Map, Backup Radar.

Quoter looks new. I don't think I saw that in there before. Do you know anything about that?

[Brook Lee]
It's quoting software. And that was an acquisition that ScalePad made. I want to say at the end of last year, I want to say it was October or November.

So it's fairly new into their software stack that they are able to offer clients. They are very intentional about the things that they acquire. So it has to really make sense for sort of their overall vision of what they want the ScalePad platform to be.

So that was a fairly new acquisition. Yes.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Now, two weeks, not a lot of time. But I'm sure that in the process of leading up to the change, you probably did a little background, you did a little research on them.

What were some of the big opportunities that you saw with taking this position at ScalePad?

[Brook Lee]
The opportunities, part of it is it's a larger company than I was working at before. So there's definitely room for growth for me at the company. They also have a number of platforms that they deliver to their clients.

So that was something that was going to be new for me as well. Being able to, again, they have six different applications. And those are available to a variety of sizes of MSPs.

And at the end of the day, that's all I want to do. And pretty much a lot of people in this space, we want to be able to help MSPs. So having a variety of products that are available to MSPs of any size, shape, form, length of being around, maturity level, that is a pretty cool thing for me as somebody who likes to be in this space and likes to help MSPs after having worked in them for a number of years, rebuilt a number of them.

So seeing that opportunity for me to be able to say, I have all of these things now that I can use to help MSPs with, that was definitely one of the main reasons that ScalePad was very interesting to me.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So are we going to see you out and about with the same amount of vigor and frequency as before when you were at PIA?

[Brook Lee]
Yes, sir. It is a fast and furious team here. Eric has what I would consider similar to some of the last place that I worked at.

He has a very lean channel team. It's a small team. We're extremely efficient and everybody has a really solid skill set.

So he's going to be able to run that channel team with, again, a very lean team. Again, I was in Vegas for a week for them, came home. I'm going to evolve in Copenhagen next week.

Then I've got another event the week after that, going to do Women of the Channel West with some of the amazing women that work at ScalePad. That is definitely another thing that attracted to me at this company. They have women on their leadership team.

They have women in leadership roles. They have women in director roles. And that is not something you see a ton in the tech space.

So that was extremely attractive to me that they had so many women in prominent positions in their company. So I'm going to do that, Women of the Channel West. And then I've got IT Nation Secure, then PAX 8, and then, then, then, then, then, and we keep going Q3, Q4.

So, yeah, just as busy as before. And I absolutely love it.

[Uncle Marv]
Swag season begins in its full swing. I've already had a couple of conferences, but yeah, June is going to be a huge kickoff. I'll be both at IT Nation Secure and PAX 8 Beyond.

So I know you probably can't answer this now, but I'll go ahead and ask. Good swag? Going to have good swag?

[Brook Lee]
We have the best swag. Well, first of all, we have Eric Torres glasses. I mean, who doesn't want to be like Eric Torres?

He is the best dressed man in the channel. And who, frankly, doesn't want the same glasses that he has? I've worn those as well.

And we have these amazing pocket squares for blazers that I'm using, which I think are super cool. And surprisingly, usually pens are not a sought after swag item, but I had those at the Kaseya booth and those things went like hotcakes. I mean, the pens are top quality pens.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, they've got to be the quality, hefty pens. They can't be that cheap plastic.

[Brook Lee]
They have some weight to them, and I think that's why they went so quickly. Again, so I would say definitely we have great swag. Those Eric Torres glasses, the pocket squares, I think Luis designed those.

He's working on a new design for another iteration of those. Those are really, really popular and cool. And again, who knew the pens are where it's at?

[Uncle Marv]
And I'm looking up in my rafters. I don't see a scale pad shirt. How is that possible?

[Brook Lee]
I will see what I can do. I'm going to see you in Orlando, so I will get you a scale pad shirt to put in the rafters.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. All right. So I know a lot of people probably ask this question in a myriad of different ways, but what about Coach?

You left Coach.

[Brook Lee]
Yeah, so I didn't leave Coach. We're still friends. I just left the company that we worked with for a better opportunity.

Still friends. We still, there's a group of us, me, him and Joe. We still chat on WhatsApp every single day.

I'm still keeping up with Joe's band. We still stay in touch. So I didn't leave Coach or Joe or anybody else that's there.

I just left the company.

[Uncle Marv]
And I was looking forward to a nice little campfire experience again with all of us sitting around the table chatting about music and, you know, whatever question.

[Brook Lee]
We can still do that. We can still do that because I am 100% still friends with those guys. We'll be those, those two guys are lifelong friends for sure.

We have developed a relationship, the three of us over the last year and a half or so. And those are guys that I will be friends with forever.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Good, good, good. So now let me shift to the MSPs themselves.

You have been quite active as we talked about going to all the events and speaking with everybody. Have you had any feedback yet from any of the MSPs out there?

[Brook Lee]
I had a ton of people actually come up to me because, I mean, what better place to announce that you've switched jobs than Las Vegas? I mean, it's sort of a go big or go home thing. So I made sort of the little secret announcement with the picture that was on LinkedIn, sort of mimicked that picture that Torres has.

So did that. So a lot of people came by the booth. I mean, just I lost track of how many, but every single person that came by there was supportive.

They were so happy that I have gone to ScalePad. They had nothing but wonderful things to say about the people of this company, how the company is run, the stack that they have, how they treat their clients, how they treat their employees. So it was nothing but positive things.

But I had a ton of people come up and they were really happy to see me here.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, Brook, that's all I have. I didn't want to, you know, bog you down with a ton of questions.

I just wanted to get the chance to hang out with you and chat and see how things will have to obviously follow up, I don't know, in a few months, a year, see how things are.

[Brook Lee]
Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do another check in, see how things are going. Hopefully I'll know more than the two week mark that I'm at now.

[Uncle Marv]
That is true. Well, there you have it, folks. Brook Lee, the director of channel development at ScalePad.

And of course, we will see you in Orlando in what was that a month?

[Brook Lee]
I think that's that first week of June. We're all going to be in Orlando for that one.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. And I will make sure I stay an extra night so we can hang.

[Brook Lee]
Absolutely. Absolutely. Got to do that Saturday night thing.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Hi, Brook. Thank you very much.

And look forward to the things that you're going to do over there at ScalePad and wish you the best.

[Brook Lee]
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it as always.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, folks, that's going to do it for this episode of the IT Business Podcast. Make sure that you follow us in your favorite pod catcher or head over to ITBusinessPodcast.com to see anything that you might have missed and be notified when we have new shows. That's it for now, folks.

We'll see you soon. And until then, Holla!