Dave Valentine sits down with Matias Sorevik, a Norwegian Social Entrepreneur and Leadership Coach. working to create workshops for teenagers who've been dropping out of high school in Norway. “In the end,” Mathias explains, “it is all about creating awareness about the opportunities that exist, not the problems.” How can a service like this be marketed? Where can it be grown and expanded? What are the issues we must help our rising generation conquer if they’re to inherit our world? Our goal is to connect the community while generating success. Welcome to the InWork Podcast.
00:00
Mattias, dude, it's so good to have you on the show. All right, so tell us a little bit about your agency and what you're up to.
2
00:11
Yeah, so what I am doing, Dave, so I am in Norwegian. As for I'm working on establishing my social enterprise, what I am working on is to create workshops for teenagers who's been dropping out of secondary school, which I think in the US is the equivalent to high school.
4
00:36
Yep.
1
00:37
Awesome, how long have you been doing that?
4
00:39
Yeah.
2
00:39
I've been doing this full-time for the past year or so. Brilliant, brilliant.
1
00:46
So who, when you're trying to find this kind of, these people that are dropping out, what's your solution to help them?
2
00:57
Yeah, there's not one solution there. It's all, that's the thing. Because we are all different people, and we all have different experiences with the school system and life as a whole. We're all having different strengths, while also having different weaknesses in many ways. So what I am trying to do is I am focusing on every single individual in the workshops. There are some concepts, some tools that everyone can adopt into their daily life and habits, but it's also about what your main goal in life, as then it comes to your career. And for some young people, those tools might sometimes might work when other ones can be a bit more tricky, it requires more work. But in the end, it is all about creating awareness about the opportunities that exist, not the problems.
1
01:59
I love that, man. I love that. So where do you go to find these kids, man? Like how do you find them? Are you working with secondary schools and high schools? Like what does this look like to try and capture this audience?
2
02:13
Yeah, that's still a problem I am working on. The reason being that even though that drug court rate in Norway, it is surprisingly high. I think it's about 30% of pupils in upper secondary, they do not finish school on nominated time, so they choose to drop out during that time. And then because it's considered to be such a stigma, it's kind of hard to pick it up. They're usually spending time at home, and the way the system is working in Norway is usually through the welfare agencies, trying to help them back into jobs where they go. The challenge is more that the welfare state, they do a magnificent job in terms of helping people into employment. But then perhaps they're not doing it for long term, they just want to create employment straight away. But when you're in that age and you're also vulnerable and you are likely to be put in a job, you're sitting all by yourself, you're being isolated. You're not likely to last long.
4
03:25
Right.
1
03:27
That's interesting. So have you started to approach companies about this,
2
03:31
Mattias, and say, hey, I'm doing that basically every day. I'm really active on LinkedIn as a platform I'm using the most. And it is loads of really just doing your research and figuring out what's already out there. And it is kind of the life of the entrepreneur, there are rejections, so many rejections all the time. And people who, yeah, they say interesting what you're working on, but they don't have that time to help you. But then for every ninth rejection, then there is that 10th one who's saying, I like what you're doing. And even though I might not be able to help you myself, there is somebody in my network that actually might be able to help you for justice.
1
04:24
Yeah, I love that. So when you're reaching out to these companies, I'm curious about what your presentation is to them. Because to me, you know, one of the things that a lot of employers know is that it's very expensive to replace an existing employee. Right. It's it's expensive to train them. It's expensive to hire them. It's expensive to make sure that they get the equipment that they need, that they are able to be successful in the business. So I'm curious, what's kind of your pitch whenever you go to these companies and you say, hey, I want to help your employees that may be struggling thrive better? Yeah, that's a very good question, Dave.
2
05:03
It's sort of hard to explain this because the Norwegian and American system, they can be quite different in those ways. In Norway, they have a much more bureaucratic approach. That means you can't go directly to the CEO or the leader. You always have to go to the secretary, who in turn has to forward you to one person and then again to the next one. And that's just the way the system is and you're going to just have to play with those rules and it's going to take the time that it does. And it's not an efficient system, but it is what it is. So what I'm trying to do then, I'm doing loads of work on LinkedIn, doing posts about wellness and productivity and leadership. And also helping us to create value. And such way people are having awareness around the work I'm doing and my unique approach to this work. Then people can read it themselves.
1
06:11
I love it, I love it. One of the things that we've really pioneered, Mattias, and I'm curious if this would work in Norway, you would know certainly much more than I would. One of the things we've figured out is, even if a CEO at a company is challenging to get to, and you talk about some of the bureaucracy that exists, that certainly exists in the US as well, it's just that larger corporations. But one of the things that we've figured out is, you can typically find those people on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook, and you can engage and follow their content, and do what we call is one-to-one marketing. So traditional marketing is what you're doing, you're doing content marketing, you're putting out content and anyone can see it. You're thinking about an individual, but really you're putting it out there so that anyone can engage. One-to-one marketing is saying, hey, I know that I wanna work with this company and this person at that company is probably who I wanna talk to. And maybe there are four or five. And what you can start to do is follow them on Twitter and engage, or Instagram or whatever you want, and engage with their posts, right? Don't say, hey, I'm here to pitch you, but engage with it in a thoughtful manner. Hey, I really enjoyed this post because da-da-da-da-da, and give some very specific details. One of the other things we've done too is we found people that like a particular sports team, and we'll talk about our love of sports. And we make it not about business, but we make sure that our profiles are set up in such a way that it looks like, oh man, who is this?
6
07:47
Who's Matthias?
1
07:48
Who's this guy that's reaching out to me and talking to me about soccer or football, proper football, right? And so there may be some, have you thought about doing something like that?
2
07:58
Yeah, I'm doing those things all the time, and the good thing is I love football. Unfortunately, as you know, I support Manchester United. That's the thing.
3
08:08
It's okay, man. It's okay, we can still be friends.
1
08:12
Oh, man.
3
08:13
Of course, this is right before
1
08:14
the big FA Cup final this weekend,
7
08:16
so that's so funny.
2
08:17
Yeah, two days.
3
08:19
Yeah, that's so funny.
6
08:21
So when you're engaging with them,
1
08:23
are you getting any sort of responses back from those CEOs, those high-level
4
08:29
leaders?
2
08:30
Yes, I am having responses back. And what they are saying is, yeah, and we do really like the work you are doing. What we would like to see is, because right now we're living in times, at least in Europe, of a high rate of inflation. This means companies in general are really cautious in terms of who they are employing. And this also comes to those people having education. And the way it's working, again, that's the way the system works, is usually the welfare agency, they can fund sort of internships, but then it has to go through the welfare agency before being put into those corporations. And my work is more about helping those teenagers have that confidence, they need to enter the workforces in the first place. And also having collaborators when they are done with the workshops, depending on different interests that they are having, that I can refer them to new companies. Say, if you have young teenagers, he doesn't like school, but he's into gaming. And so she has brilliant knowledge. He's got skills in the ICT. I can say, yeah, and there is this company to helping people just like yourself. So once you're done with my workshops, then you can go there and within six months, they can help you to become qualified to work in the ICT sector.
1
10:02
I love it. I love it. Have you started to reach out to the secondary schools to create relationships with them so that you could find these teenagers before they drop out?
2
10:13
Yeah, that is something I'm considering to do more long term. Right now, I am focusing on purely the dropouts. However, if the project becomes a success and I am indeed able to help them out into employment. And then I can also, like I say, have workshops at school if they are in danger of dropping out. That's something I am considering. But again, they want to see results. They would like to see, okay, so I can prove I'm able to provide this. provide us what I am hoping for. Actually, tonight, after I've finished talking with you, there's going to be a debate on the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and who are the featured guests that day. That is teenagers about the school system. I think this debate is sent all across the country. It can spark the need for change in the system, depending on how it's going. You can watch those events and say, okay, this might be just the right person to talk to, tell them about what I'm doing. Yeah, I saw you on this debate, and I think it's something just for you.
4
11:27
I love it, I love it.
1
11:29
So whenever you are thinking about how you make money, who's the person that's paying your venture to move forward?
2
11:42
Yeah, right now I'm working on establishing that project in the first place. So I'm doing this all bootstrapped. And then it takes time to sort of land those agreements. So the welfare agency is where I'm aiming at comes to first. Just to provide it, okay, I'm having a magnificent program and there is indeed a need for this program. And also I've been having a few trial workshops. This is the feedback. And as you can also see, I'm starting to have a steady group of followers on LinkedIn. I'm really close to having 10,000. So that proves I'm doing things something right. I'm also reaching out to people, also enjoy my content. And 10,000 people, they can't be wrong.
5
12:34
Right, right.
1
12:35
Yeah, and it seems, and you're so dynamic, Matthias, in your talk and everything, that I can feel the passion for these teenagers just emanating from you, which is beautiful, and I love it. I'm sure that that's palpable to other people as well. And it's interesting to me, because they're looking for results, and one of the things that you may be able to do, Mattias, I've done this in my, I did this in my first business, where I said, hey, let me do this for free for two months, and let me show you what I can do. And I did this in a couple different ways. So one way that I did this was I literally did it for free. Another way I did it was I worked with a brewery and we were doing marketing for them and I was like, well I said, hey, I'd like to do marketing for you. And they said, cool, we don't have any money. And I said, well what do you have? And they said, we have beer. So they paid me in beer for the first 18 months. But what I would do, Matthias, is I would take that beer to networking events or to lunches with potential clients and I'd say, hey, this is from one of my clients, I just wanted to give it to you. And people like beer. And so I'd bring it to them and then they would become a client of mine and they would start to engage. And so I think that there's some ways, too, where you may be able to just say, like be very upfront, listen, I would love to work with you for two reasons. One, I know that I can help you. Two, I'd love to use you as a reference, a referral, a case study so that you can go pick up more business in other places. This may be a way for you not only to get your first client, but it may be a way for you to get your second, third, and fourth client. I've also done things too, Matthias, where I've said, talk to people, they go, hey, I don't have any money. And I go, that's fine, let me do my service, but I want you to do something for me. And they go, what? And I said, I'll do my service for free, but you have to be my super referral partner. What does that mean? Anytime that I'm talking with somebody about the services that we provide, and they go, well, hey, do you have anybody that I can talk to that's worked with you before, yeah, here he is. And I just hand them over to this person that I've legitimately been doing work for, but they're gonna speak highly of me because that's the exchange of payment. So I think there's some interesting things that you could do here that would help you generate more engagement and have more people say yes.
4
15:08
Yeah, absolutely.
2
15:10
And I'm already trying to, I'm always into what I'm doing. I'm just reminded that your network is also your network. And in such a way, I'm also, when I'm attending events, which I'm doing all the time, going to networking events, going to webinars and those things that are related to what I am doing, I'm also looking out for, okay, this might be a potential collaborator, perhaps not immediately, but perhaps the next year, maybe in two years, depending on how it's going and what I'm doing is also developing. And I have also used what you said about referrals. So next to this entrepreneurship, I'm also doing acting as a side hustle. And earlier this year, I was a part of a project and in between takes, there's loads of waiting between the takes. I'm also talking with the other actors on set. Then I was talking with a girl and she was a dropout, but she loved the acting part. She just didn't enjoy school. Then I had a conversation with her and I told her about what I'm doing right now myself. And actually, it's a high-dose of mine. And she said, yeah, there's definitely a need for this. I was saying, wonderful. And perhaps you may be interested yourself in attending a session with me, or perhaps you also know other dropouts that may need this. Then you can refer them to me. And in turn, if there are other ones, then I can say, okay, I can prove now I have 10 participants, so there is a need. And if you will be willing to fund us, then you can contribute into solving a social problem.
4
17:00
I love it.
1
17:01
I love it. I love it, man. That's great. All right, well, hey, I've really enjoyed this conversation. I'm excited about what you're up to. And if people wanna learn more, Matthias, is there a place, obviously they can find you on LinkedIn. Where is a good place for people to find out more about who you are and what you're up to?
2
17:19
Yeah, I'm also, yeah, so definitely LinkedIn. That's where I'm active the most. And also Instagram, if I'm at Matthias Global Leader. I'm also having a website that say, Work in Progress. It's hopefully coming within next month. And once it's up and running, I look forward to it straight away.
1
17:40
Beautiful. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast, brother. And I love what you're doing. And I love what you're doing.
4
17:44
Thank you so much for having me today. It was a pleasure.