Jake Mashin was given the opportunity to complete an internship at MOTOREX in Switzerland from October 2023 to March 2024. He is 23 years old and very passionate about the powersports industry. During these five months, he supported the marketing and technical customer service departments, where he was able to gain experience that brought him closer to his dream study programme. Jake would like to use the knowledge he gained during his internship to support his father’s company in America in the future or other companies that he works with.
Most recently, I lived in Tempe Arizona, which is right next to Phoenix. While I lived there, I attended Arizona State University and earned a bachelor of science degree in marketing. I haven’t worked directly in the lubrication industry, but my dad, who is a distributor in the US, has been involved with it ever since I was born. So, I have been around it my entire life. Specifically, the powersports side of it has always been an interest to me. Actually, I did some work for my dad and did several short-term internships throughout college, in just some local companies. MOTOREX is a pretty big name that comes with partnerships, so it was an easy decision when it seemed like a possibility. It’s kind of hard to pass up the experience of working in an international setting.
I tried to approach the internship with a pretty open mind. I had various ideas and thoughts about what I would be doing, but I didn’t want to place too many expectations on anything. Just because it’s something completely different to what I think I would have experienced in the US and it’s a completely different cultural environment.
I had quite a few tasks to do. For example, helping out with the powersports marketing, helping with future ideas or campaign ideas. Getting to be involved in that in a more direct sense was amazing. And on the customer side, I enjoyed getting to put together lubrication plans for customers. Gaining more expert knowledge about lubrication was great and enhanced my general knowledge of lubrication and the history of machines. To see how PRs are distributed and how they are made was interesting. I enjoyed helping to put together PRs, like the boxer oil. I also helped to put together the PR for the Shimano partnership that recently came up and a couple other smaller ones. I was surprised because usually I’m not a big fan of writing, but they were quite fun to put together.
One time, I had the opportunity to help set up and work on the Moto Festival. That was a successful event in Bern. Then I got to help with the relaunch of the boxer oil. A pretty cool thing about that project was that I could choose the design of the new label and I could see how that process works. That whole event and product relaunch was really cool.
I think the biggest takeaway from my Internship at MOTOREX is just being in this international setting. Especially with the way the world is nowadays and the way the world is going. It’s becoming more and more common for even small companies to be a global company – to sell across the world. So, getting to experience a market like Switzerland, kind of Europe as a whole something, that I know I’ll be able to bring back and implement either in future businesses or wherever I work in the future. This has given me a lot of valuable insight.
When I arrived in Switzerland, it took me a little while to get used to the times and to understand when places are open, like grocery stores. Because in the US these places are open from five in the morning to eleven at night, so you can go whenever you want. Whereas here, it was like seven in the morning to eight at night. Everything’s closed at that time – everything’s done. But the language was probably the biggest challenge. I didn’t know any German, let alone Swiss German before coming here. I didn’t even know any French or Italian.
On the customer service side, there were a lot of things that I have never seen in the US. I think the biggest thing is the amount of time and care that the people here put into their jobs. In the US, we don’t put as much emphasis on it. Especially in terms of aftersales or after a service is completed. In the US, customer service often focuses on that initial purchase. Once they get that, that’s all they care about. Whereas here, they’re very focused on customer retention. So, seeing the care, time and effort that they put in was very valuable. It’s something that I would like to bring over to the US and try to implement into wherever I work in the future or into future businesses. I think it’s something that would be appreciated over there.
I probably didn’t try as many Swiss dishes as I could have. But I would say that my favorite was raclette. I was kind of surprised when I ate it the first time in a restaurant, because they brought one plate full of cheese I ate it and thought that was it. But then they brought out another plate, and I was like okay, eat that and then another plate. I think they brought out like four plates. I do love cheese, but in the US, we can have too much cheese, here it doesn’t seem like that’s really a thing. It seems like people just kind of eat cheese and more cheese, especially with raclette.
The oil and lubrication industry is very large, but I don’t think it’s the first industry that people think of when they think of a career in marketing. I’ve seen a good example of the kind of people who pursue a career in it because they have a true passion for it. I can definitely see that after working here. Especially with the customer service and in the marketing department, everyone really does have a passion for lubrication. That was very cool to kind of be around and experience.
I’ve always been interested in powersports, so getting to work on the marketing side of powersports and to be able to reaffirm that this is something that I want to do with my career in the future. Where exactly and with who exactly, about that I’m still not sure yet, but eventually the overall plan is to take over my dad’s companies. At some point in the future, it would be to take over his companies. And I would like to earn my Master’s of Business Administration, but after I gained some outside experience, like I did now.
Actually, I have a pet bearded dragon. When I got him, he lived with about fifteen other little bearded dragons who barely fit on my little finger. He would come and go along the wall, while all the others just stood there looking at me. After seeing that, I knew that I was going to call him Bugatti. He makes me laugh a lot. I really like him.