2. Hubbard Coe
MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
1
Contents
Company......................................................................................................................................................2
Responsibilities............................................................................................................................................4
Course Relevance........................................................................................................................................6
Challenges & Resolutions.........................................................................................................................10
Works Cited...............................................................................................................................................12
Appendix....................................................................................................................................................13
3. Hubbard Coe
MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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In August I was offered the chance to work at a local business called Wyo Speed as a
marketing intern. My interest in cars made this position a high priority not only academically but
also personally. The owners, Brian and Nadine Tremblay, had done work on my cars in the past
so I already had a relationship started with the business. This made it less of a shot in the dark
experience for me as opposed to an unknown business. While there I honed my social media
marketing skills and learned plenty about not only the automotive repair and modification
industries, but also about small businesses in general. I was given responsibilities and
expectations that I needed to meet or exceed, a nice change of pace from previous jobs. Working
at Wyo Speed taught me all about the struggles and hardships a small business can go through as
well as strategies to overcome them.
Company
Wyo Speed is a small business located on the northern edge of Laramie, WY. With less
than five employees, you could call it a “mom and pop” style business. While classified as an
“automotive repair” business, Wyo Speed offers many more services, particularly automotive
modification. While some physical products are offered there, the company mainly offers
services related to cars, although they can extend to both larger and smaller vehicles such as
semis and ATVs.
Company culture can be described as relaxed but professional. There are rules employees
must follow, but overall the rules do not define exactly how an employee is to behave and react.
As far as company philosophy is concerned, Wyo Speed prides itself in quality of service and
product. They focus on getting it done right the first time and being fair with their customers. My
position at Wyo Speed can be viewed in Figure 1 in the appendix of this report.
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MGT 2600-01
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12/5/16
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A factor I find unique to Wyo Speed is the quality of service they provide. Most
small business automotive shops I’ve worked with in the past had severe customer relations
issues and were either difficult to approach or difficult to contact or both. Wyo Speed seems to
take these factors more seriously than others in the industry, particularly locally. The customer
experience resembles that of a somewhat larger business. Professionalism and friendliness are
apparent when you call to make an appointment or visit Wyo Speed in person. Brian and Nadine
create strong relationships with their customers which contributes heavily to repeat business as
well as word of mouth recommendations to other prospective customers.
One of the most apparent pieces of proof of this factor is the popularity of the shop with
the Camaro Club of the Rockies. Most club members live in Colorado but are willing to drive as
much as five hours just to have their car worked on at Wyo Speed even though there are plenty
of potential shops that are much closer to where they live. The club has developed somewhat of a
loyalty to Wyo Speed, I’ve often personally witnessed members recommending Wyo Speed over
other shops on the club’s Facebook page. Wyo Speed works closely with the club members and
even offers a discount that only they receive. I believe this has created a very strong customer
base that for some people may remain as long as Wyo Speed continues to do business. I am
personally able to post in the club Facebook page as well as communicate with its members. The
club page is used for all matters of discussions, and often is a place where people with questions
post them seeking answers. Being an employee at Wyo Speed allows me some manner of
credibility to offer help and suggestions on the page for these individuals. The fact that this sort
of help is allowable free of charge also helps these potential customers to trust Wyo Speed to be
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fair and truthful with them, especially when it comes time for them to pay their bill when they
have service preformed on their car.
Responsibilities
My most predominant responsibility at Wyo Speed is running the social media accounts.
Wyo Speed initially had a Facebook page before I began working there (Facebook, 2016).
However, it was difficult for Brian or Nadine to find the time to create interesting posts while at
the same time running the business. My internship has hopefully removed some of that burden
from them. For starters, on Facebook I try to post at least one picture or video of something in
the shop each day that I go to work there. These pictures are typically of cars or products that the
shop is working on at the time that I feel current customers or prospective customers may find
interesting or relevant. I also try to post humorous videos and pictures which seem to get a strong
positive reaction from page followers while also giving a good presentation of Wyo Speed’s
attitude towards cars. The Facebook page is also a common place for customers to ask us
questions, request quotes, and make appointments or place orders for future services and parts. I
am not the only one that will address these messages, but it is one of my responsibilities to at
minimum monitor them and be sure they receive replies punctually.
I was also responsible for utilizing Facebook to advertise a car show that Wyo Speed put
on in conjunction with Advance Auto Parts of Laramie this past August. Many people and
businesses use Facebook to organize events and notify attendees with updates and information. I
created the event page and used several utilities to promote it to people who would otherwise not
seen it without liking our Facebook page. This included Facebook Ads and Google Ads, which
allowed our reach to extend to several thousand people locally, and accounted for several
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MGT 2600-01
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attendees of the car show. I was also responsible for creating and distributing the paper flyer for
the car show, a tried and true method of notifying car show aficionados of the upcoming event. I
created the flyer, then solicited many local businesses to allow us to hang it where their
customers would see it. A copy of the flyer can be found in Figure 6 of the appendix. Overall the
attendance of the car show was nearly double that of the previous year’s show put on by Wyo
Speed.
I also created an Instagram for the company while I’ve been working there (Instagram,
2016). I typically post the same pictures that I would also post on Facebook, but the intentions
are slightly different. Instagram users are less focused on the practical sense of social media and
instead spend their time looking and reacting to pictures that spark their interest. Because of this,
the effective use of hashtags is much more important than on a different social media platform
such as Facebook. An explanation of hashtags can be found in Figure 2 in the appendix of this
report. Instagram has allowed Wyo Speed to spread its reach much farther than Facebook would
have through the use of these hashtags, getting our pictures into the phones of people from all
over the world. In fact, the first “follower” of our account that we received is from the United
Arab Emirates. While worldwide popularity isn’t necessarily a practical approach for a small
business located in Laramie, the popularity certainly lent some credibility to our posts and
attracted a few more customers.
Outside of social media, my responsibilities included several projects that took place
during my internship. A recent one was to build a new pricing matrix for Wyo Speed to
determine how we should markup the pricing of our parts used in services on customer cars.
Parts are essential in most services we provide and can range from quarts of motor oil to entire
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MGT 2600-01
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engines. Wyo Speed did use a markup strategy prior to my internship, but it wasn’t allowing
them to hit the necessary overhead required to have positive cash flow. I was responsible to
come up with a new one to increase capital taken in from parts charges, which required me to
build a database of pervious parts charges from scratch. The end product I came up with was
recently implemented so results are not yet apparent.
At the start of the internship, Brian and Nadine explained to me that they wanted Wyo
Speed to also offer a retail factor to their business. They wanted to sell performance parts to
customers, especially to Camaro owners of which the market for is enormous. To begin the
process of this addition, I was responsible with finding suppliers and creating partnerships with
them. I came up with a rather long list of over fifty manufacturers and suppliers and contacted
them to find which ones would be useful in Wyo Speeds retail future. While the retail plan is still
in motion, it has not been implemented yet as it is a fairly long, complicated, and especially
expensive process.
Course Relevance
Throughout the internship there have been more than a few times where I needed to
utilize concepts learned from previous classes in order to market effectively.
1. External factors is a concept that had a major impact on how I marketed. I learned about
this concept in MKT 3210 “Intro To Marketing”. A major one was the cultural
environment I was working in (Bright, 2012). There were two subcategories of people I
was marketing to; car people and regular people who own cars. I define car people as
anyone with an interest in cars or car related subjects, such as racing or humor for
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MGT 2600-01
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12/5/16
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example. Car people are typically sharp in their understanding of automotive concepts
and culture. While the different sects and cliques of car interests vary widely, not all are
the types of people that came to our shop or followed our page. It was important for me
to recognize the typical car person that we were marketing to in order to avoid posting
something they would find unappealing or even offensive. The other type, regular people
who own cars, aren’t as discriminating with their tastes in cars. I found that they typically
were most interesting in knowing if Wyo Speed could perform whatever particular
service they needed done on their car. It was important to be respectful about their
automotive illiteracy that may or may not be present and present Wyo Speed as a “we do
it all” type of car business to increase confidence and trust from the customer. This type
of consumer didn’t want to listen to us carry on all day about their car and facts about it,
they just want to leave the car with us and when they returned it would be fixed.
Although their needs may have seemed simpler, they still required plenty of thought to
make Wyo Speed appeal to them, in fact I’d say it was sometimes more difficult than
appealing to the typical car person.
2. The marketing mix was also an important factor. I learned about this concept in MKT
4430 “Marketing Management”. Product, place, price, and promotion were all things I
took into account with the experience and projects (Mind Tools, 2016). Wyo Speed’s
product went mostly unchanged. However, additions to it were made; such as the
acquisition of a dynometer, a machine used to accurately measure the horsepower a car
produces. Wyo Speed is one of the only places in Wyoming that has one of these sought-
after machines which attracts more customers. Place was a factor that was already at peak
efficiency. Wyo Speed’s location is largely concrete and unable to be moved, but a
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MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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service that is offered includes picking up the customer’s car and delivering it back to
them in places as far away as Colorado Springs adds to the convenience. Price was
tinkered with during the internship through a price matrix which I will explain in part 3 of
this section. Promotion was the most predominant factor of these four. I made some
major changes to how postings on social media accounts worked, and also made changes
to the convenience of finding information about Wyo Speed. This was accomplished by
working with major search engines such as Google and Yahoo to feature Wyo Speed and
information about the company when people searched it or terms such as “Laramie
automotive repair” and the like. Examples of what these searches appear as can be found
in Figure 3 and Figure 4 of the appendix.
3. Matrices and linear programming were other factors I used during this internship. I
learned about these concepts in MATH 2355 “Math Apps For Business”. Although it
may at first seem like a strange application for a marketing intern, it was practical for my
marketing experiences to be used with it. I was asked to create a pricing mark-up matrix
that would allow a universalized system of price markup for the various items and costs
we charge at Wyo Speed. The reason a matrix was necessary was because we determined
customers would be more focused on overall cost rather than individual costs (especially
of particular various items). I needed to determine a reasonable price a customer would
be willing to pay while also meeting or exceeding the monthly overhead. After
determining how far we were from reaching the overhead before my matrix I was able to
determine markup values that would be acceptable to a customer, followed by adjusting
each price bracket accordingly to meet the overhead with a reasonable margin of wiggle
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MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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room. My database utilized Microsoft Excel and I used the dual method to come up with
the new pricing matrix to be used on all future parts sales.
4. COJO 2400 “Intro to Photography” is a class that heavily influenced the pictures that I
post and how I edit them prior to posting. Because I try to post at least one picture each
day that I am there working onto our social media accounts, the stack of photos has piled
high in the time I’ve been at Wyo Speed. Not all the pictures are up to my standards or
how I would prefer them, but all exhibit concepts learned in that class. An example of
one of these concepts would be the Rule of Thirds (Rowse, 2016). This concept implies
that a photo is more visually appealing when the main subject occupies a specific
intersection of quadrants in a picture rather that in the center. Although most photography
concepts are up for speculation, they are typically correct in many cases. An example of
this concept can be found in Figure 5 in the appendix. Another factor that I try to
occasionally include is a human element, a subject my teacher often was critical of as my
pictures rarely had people in them. This concept implies that a human subject within a
picture can make it more relatable for most people. It’s not necessary for all pictures, but
as my professor said, “your portfolio should always have at least a few”.
5. Business relationships is an additional concept I found prevalent in this internship. I
learned ab out it in MGT 3210 “Management & Organization”. In addition to my
observations of Brian and Nadine building relationships with customers, I found it was a
good opportunity for myself to do the same. I particularly branched out to the Camaro
Club of the Rockies, who had been loyal customers before I began my internship. While
working at Wyo Speed it was practical for me to become “friends” on Facebook with
some of these customers. This allowed me to be more personable in a less formal setting
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MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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by doing various things such as commenting on their posts and sending them humorous
or interesting things. This allowed the customers to feel more trustworthy of a young guy
like myself in comparison to my bosses who have a proven positive reputation.
Challenges & Resolutions
Overall I think the biggest challenge was adapting concepts I had observed and executing
them in social media. I know this report makes it sound like I’m a huge fan of social media
marketing so why would this be a challenge? It was a challenge because it’s not a concept
anyone had ever taught me. There aren’t classes for it, informative articles are rarely written
about it, and the entire field is still relatively young. This made me nervous about the things I
thought I knew and the unknowns that lurked with each step into the field. Overall I found my
social media marketing experience to be positive and at least moderately effective. I had
aspirations of doubling the number of people who liked Wyo Speed and having tons of
customers coming through the door saying they heard about Wyo Speed on Facebook. After I got
my head out of the clouds I learned that a single positive reaction online seems to value far lower
than a positive reaction in real life. That is to say, word of mouth seemed to be more productive
as far as effort into the marketing was concerned than posting on social media. However, I still
believe social media marketing was an effective tool and will continue to be so.
Another challenge I found was the responsibility of the price markup, not necessarily
because I lacked confidence in myself but because it was the first time I had a job that involved a
company’s major source of income. The results of my work might determine if the company
comes out in the green or in the red. My employer’s trust in me inspired confidence and I feel
that I did a good job with the changes I helped to implement. Looking back on it there’s tons of
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MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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things I would do differently to streamline the process, including making a macro for Microsoft
Excel to automatically update the markup matrix based on overhead requirements.
Results of my strategies on social media were overall effective. On Facebook, Wyo
Speed’s page likes have increased 20%, along with over 2000 individual post likes since the start
of my internship. Google reports that over 500 unique users have discovered Wyo Speed through
searches, and 50 have used it to call us. Instagram began from scratch with 0 followers, but now
the Wyo Speed account has 110 followers. Charts of these results can be found in the appendix.
Overall the experience at Wyo Speed has been invaluable to me. Due to the nature and
size of the business, future employers may not feel the same way. However, I feel like this
opportunity gave me the chance to not only sharpen my tools, but allowed me to gain new ones.
Before Wyo Speed I had no clue what it was like to work in an automotive environment, or in a
service based industry that wasn’t hospitality. In my time here I learned so much about cars and
the culture behind them. I learned about marketing online and offline. I learned about trust and
credibility. I learned about the realities, benefits, and obstacles a small business has. I learned the
power of social media and its own benefits and obstacles for a business. This experience has
taught me lessons I think will last me throughout my future career as a student as well as a
professional marketer and may even lead to new concepts and strategies in social media
marketing.
I thank the University of Wyoming for allowing this credited course, Jennifer Hendrick
for overseeing the course and assisting me with it, and Brian and Nadine Tremblay for allowing
me this rewarding experience and invaluable lessons.
13. Hubbard Coe
MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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Works Cited
Facebook Page Insights. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2016, from
https://www.facebook.com/business/a/page/page-insights
My Business. (n.d.). Retrieved December 05, 2016, from https://www.google.com/business/
Rowse, D. (2016, August 10). Rule of Thirds in Photography. Retrieved December 1, 2016, from
http://digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds/
The six (6) external environmental forces that can influence your business. (2012, November
13). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from
http://mymarketingnotebook.blogspot.my/2012/11/the-six-6-external-environmental-
forces.html#!
The Marketing Mix and the 4 Ps: Understanding How to Position Your Market Offering. (n.d.).
Retrieved December 5, 2016, from
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_94.html
Wyo Speed. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2016, from https://www.facebook.com/wyospeed
Wyo Speed. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2016, from https://www.instagram.com/wyospeed/
14. Hubbard Coe
MGT 2600-01
Final Report
12/5/16
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Appendix
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Organization Chart ........................................................................................................ 14
Figure 2: Hashtags ........................................................................................................................ 14
Figure 3: Wyo Speed as It Appears on Google............................................................................. 15
Figure 4: Wyo Speed as It Appears on Bing................................................................................. 16
Figure 5: Rule of Thirds................................................................................................................ 17
Figure 6: Wyo Speed Car Show Flyer .......................................................................................... 18
Figure 7: Wyo Speed Google Search Insights .............................................................................. 19
Figure 8: Wyo Speed Facebook Page Likes Graph ...................................................................... 19
Figure 9: Wyo Speed Google Phone Insights............................................................................... 20
Figure 10: Wyo Speed Instagram Insights.................................................................................... 20
15. Hubbard Coe
MGT 2600-01
Final Report
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A hashtag is a linking device used by some social media platforms as tags to assist users
with finding similar content related to the hashtag. Hashtags are formatted with a pound sign (#)
followed by a word or words with no spaces. Examples of hashtag formatting are as follows:
#hashtag, #hashtagexample.
Figure 2: Hashtags
Wyo Speed
Brian Tremblay Nadine Tremblay
Bryce SinnerJustin Madden Me
Figure 1: Organization Chart
