At the start of September 2024 I spent my last day in the office at GRYFN and moved into my new role at Uniform Sierra Aerospace. Going from being a "Pilot and Analysis" to a "Customer Success Manager" seems like a bit of an odd career move at face value. However, its not always about the title, and more about the real experience. In my old job there absolutely was a level of customer interaction, from being in the field with them, to coordinating schedules for data review, and learning how to have the hard talks when things didn't go well. Over the 3 and a half years I worked for GRYFN I not only got hundreds of hours of commercial UAS experience, working with complex research grade airborne sensors, but I had the chance to be face to face with many customers and collaborators. Not to mention the chance to get use to working with real large stakeholders that the company depended on.
All of that to say when I made the jump to my new role, I was of course nervous, but I knew that my prior experiences had positioned me to be ready for this change. Uniform Sierra Aerospace builds drones for public safety and security personnel. This means our customers operate in tense and threatening environments. When they are evaluating a drone it is a very serious decision for their organization or department. They want something that works, and works every time. They don't need the "cool" factor, they need something that will help keep them and their teammates out of harms way. The way you can't lie to PhD researchers about the accuracy and quality of your data, you can't lie to a police officer about the reliability and effectiveness of your drone.
At Uniform Sierra they take that seriously. In the guides for our employees that build the drones there is explicit attention to detail, and reminders that their work will be held to high standards. When discussing new types of marketing material we don't talk about fancy CGI videos, we plan out videos showing real features in actual operation. And when I'm sent to demos I make sure my sales pitch is as quick as possible, to ensure potential customers have plenty of time to get hands-on experience with the equipment, so they can make their own assessments. And this has seemed to go over really well. There will always be mixed opinions about what we do and do not offer, but every time I have been told by potential customers that they appreciated me stepping out of the way and letting them really try the equipment.
This doesn't mean its been perfect out the gate. I've still only been with the company for a few months at this point, and I'm still refining the way I handle demos. But in this short time I not only have gained confidence in this role, I have found myself to enjoy the new pace of work. Outside of demos I also have put together a handful of marketing videos to demonstrate what our products are capable of, and have drafted concepts for several more. I also have taken over the responsibility of revising and maintaining our customer facing documentation, with emphasis on making things easier to understand, and adding the documentation our customers tell us they want. All of this has been a nice change of pace, and I'm grateful to have gotten this opportunity.
Lastly though, I couldn't have gotten up to speed so fast if it weren't for the team that surrounds me. We are a small team at Uniform Sierra, with me being the 6th official full-time hire, in addition to a handful of part-time employees The willingness to help me learn in this role has been amazing. In addition I've been encouraged to be a part of larger conversations, and to express my ideas about what I think works and what can be done better. This open-collaborative atmosphere has genuinely been a blessing. I can't thank my coworkers enough for how supportive they have been of me these first few months, and I can't wait to see what the future holds!
