Really good stories start with unexpected events. Really good decisions start with unexpected encounters. In July 2017, I wouldn’t have thought that that summer would be my best summer ever; but that’s when I met a Danish businessman who truly changed my life.
In the spring of 2017, I received an email from a stranger who very politely told me that he wanted to establish contact with me via a referral, so that he could expand his business contacts in Bucharest. I thought that wasn’t a very good start, seeing as I was reading his email in Budapest. I immediately put the email out of my mind and didn’t even reply. A few weeks later, I got another a very subtle ‘touch’ from this gentleman: “I trust that you received my letter…” Well, my parents brought me up to believe that straightforwardness, honesty and self-discipline are a person’s strongest virtues, so I called him with the intention of very politely shaking him off.
There’s no sugar-coating it; that was my plan.
OBT Founder
At the time, our family business was booming. We’d just won the Hungarian Product Grand Prize in a premium segment in which no one had even thought of initiating a start-up, and I thought, “This is for me!” I truly enjoyed not having to manage 80 employees and 30,000 distributors as I’d done earlier as the Managing Director of Oriflame. So I was about to make a very polite phone call, in my own Ria kind of way: lovingly, caringly, unyieldingly.
However, that phone call ended with us agreeing to meet in Budapest.
On a sweltering July day, sitting in my car between meetings, the phone rang: “I’m here.“ Of course, I’d forgotten about the meeting, and there was no chance of me getting there on time. I knew I had to solve this problem, because I always keep my word; so, somewhat late, I eventually arrived. There sat this open-minded, patient man who asked me if I would be open to mentoring leaders to lay the groundwork for the company’s Central European expansion with a turnkey business model. My son, Kris, was sitting next to me, and I wanted him to get a taste of business life. I saw the fire in his eyes, his hunger to succeed, and his determination. So I said yes, because I knew we could do it together.
Five years have passed since then; we’ve done truly great things together, expanding well beyond Europe. And we’re only just starting to really get going. When I think about this story, I always remember that I said ‘yes’ because I felt that this man was truly curious about me; he didn’t know me, but perhaps he saw more potential in me than I knew I had. Twenty-five years of leadership experience tells me that this is what drives the most successful businesses in the world: to see more, to trust more than the potential leaders themselves, who may be about to take the most important step of their lives. I took the step, and tomorrow, I will be a little bit better than I was yesterday.
In July 2017, I was really looking forward to going to the Balaton Sound Music Festival with my friends. However, an unexpected meeting changed my plans. And I haven’t been to Balaton Sound since.
In the summer of 2017, I was chilling in the pool when my mother called:
–“Kris, a Danish businessman is coming to meet me in the hotel down the road. I’m running late, so could you please go and meet him.“
–“Ok, but what does he look like?“
–“I don’t know, but he’ll have a suitcase with him, because he’s staying for a few days.“
That’s all I knew.
OBT Founder
My mother always says that with politeness, entrepreneurial spirit, and knowledge of the English language, I can get anywhere in life. I already had those things, so I arrived on time for the meeting. There, I met a wonderful businessman who asked me if I could imagine having a 6-figure annual income in dollars a few years from now? Of course I could! Did I believe it? I was 19 years old, and I knew that if I didn’t do what he was proposing, I’d never have a chance to get the house, the car, and the lifestyle I’d been dreaming of ever since I was a child. As the son of entrepreneurial parents, ever since I was 10 years old, I was constantly bombarding my mother with my best business ideas and continually writing income plans. And now, I simply knew, I felt it in my gut, that this was the big opportunity of my life with which we could start a successful, multi-generational family business.
As a professional athlete, I learned humility, perseverance and teamwork; and that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. So many people say this as mere empty words, because they don’t live that way, they don’t have the right mindset, and they don’t have the tool to truly achieve all that they want.
I remember when I was living in Canada, tired from water polo training one night, I wrote down my plans of the things I wanted to achieve by the time I was 25. I turned 25 this summer. I have the 6-figure dollar income, I have the life I wanted, and I have the proven system with which I achieved this. My goal is for masses of 25-year-olds to also achieve exactly this. I have arrived. I’m here.
The most memorable moments in leadership are when you talk to someone and you can see in their eyes that they’ve made a decision; you notice that they’re walking differently, talking to you about books that earlier they would never have read, and telling you about holidays they could never have imagined, let alone afforded. That’s when a leader says, “This has been a good day”; when they sense and feel that they’ve made a positive impact on other people’s lives, and those people have become a degree better and are living better lives than they did yesterday. And today, more people than ever before simply feel good in company of that leader.
Can all this be put into a system? Of course, why not?
Ria believes that everything is impossible until someone does it. So her only question was: how to get started.
The One Big Team story will be forever entwined with that particular business meeting of 2017. That’s when Ria and Kris made a decision to start their family business. They had the courage, the hunger for success, a grand vision, and the humility; but they also knew that the key to a big business was a system that would make them unstoppable.
The One Big Team Global e-learning system was born of Ria’s 25 years of experience as an international business builder and Kris’ instinctive business talent. They knew that for a network leader to fully exploit the enormous advantages of international expansion, they need a turnkey system: a simple, franchise-like knowledge-base that extends beyond borders and countries.
Kris says, “Traditionally, you could only grow internationally if you spoke the language of a given market, and could travel to that country by car or plane in a time and cost-effective way. These territorial constraints were the barriers to your business expansion. The spring of 2020 showed us what happens to a business when even our travel options are constrained.”
Ria recalls, “I precisely remember that summer day in 2020 when I was video-chatting with my son from my office in Florida – i.e., from the patio of our home there. Kris was living in Russia at the time. I was very tired because I’d spent the whole day talking to my European business partners who were worried about the chaos forming around the world. My eyes were virtually flickering from the light of my computer screen. Although tired, I was still very calm. Kris and I were putting together the training modules of the One Big Team E-Learning System. It gave us tremendous peace of mind to know that our business and the businesses of our network partners were safe. We knew that whatever life threw at us, we would continue to grow because we had a solid system in place to ensure that.”
One Big Team’s system aims to provide a home for the tens of millions of people who already feel they deserve a better quality of life. People who look creatively at the way the world is changing, who have a clear vision of the life they want to live, who want to be part of the trends that move the world, and who understand and appreciate innovative ways of doing things.
Many want to earn an extra income of $1-2,000 a month, working from home. Many would like a full-time career, risk-free, because, let’s face it, not everyone wants to buy a franchise for hundreds of millions of dollars, which, in all reality, is nothing more than a new job; not the freedom that they actually desire. One Big Team provides a choice; anyone can choose to earn extra income, or they can choose to make their way into the top 10% of the top earners, making 6 figures a month in dollars.
That’s why Ria and Kris decided to create a franchise-like global webshop system, a new generation model. They combined innovative, subscription-based e-commerce solutions with a 0-24 hour e-learning system based on video training. Thematic business and personal development materials, a dedicated podcast channel, customised video marketing tools to support sales, a dedicated CRM system, and a step-by-step module system allows members and leaders to progress according to their personal aims and desired degree of progress, to move up a level or even several, if personal progress and the opportunity to develop is why they’re with us.
Kris says, “We asked our members and leaders what One Big Team means to them. Beyond the unique know-how modules and sales tools, their answer was clear: an accepting community where people are valued, recognised, and, with the help of their mentors, can get the very best out of themselves. Many times, this manifests in millions of dollars in sales, sometimes in merely a hug, which is a truly rare gesture in the business world today, but we know that behind every achievement there are people who, at the end of the day, say to themselves, “I’m home. This is my team.”
Ria adds, “One Big Team started over 5 years ago and I hope that it will never be finished. Because if it were, that would mean that we’d stopped evolving, that we thought we knew it all, and that we’d taught it all. Everything around us is constantly changing, so how can today’s knowledge be enough for tomorrow? My experience is that the faster and more creatively we respond to these changes, the more successful we will be; and the more we draw on the knowledge and experience of our leaders, while also getting to know fresh perspectives from new leaders, the better we will be.”
One Big Team, like a living organisation, is expanding, evolving and becoming more diverse. There are no country borders, continental borders, language barriers, or generational barriers. It is the cultural mix and the mix of know-how that provide our rhythm and momentum. Via the power of community, day-by-day, we are becoming increasingly better; increasingly better examples of ourselves.
