Dan Andersson – CEO LEO Interview

 

Learning Enterprises Organisation (LEO) was founded in 2012 by Dan Andersson, CEO and President, and Atif Kamran, Chief Marketing Officer.

Since that first meeting in 2012 the company has seen an exponential growth in its member base and has achieved a large number of significant strategic milestones, including over 180,000 members in over 140 countries. 

LEO is the only member of the UK DSA promoting education products. The LEO product range comprises over 100 Coreline eLearning courses, 150 LEO Skills courses and LEO Lingua offers 24 language courses.

The LEO mission is to create, and rapidly grow, a global business that serves humanity by enabling anyone with the motivation and commitment to LEARN, EARN and ultimately OWN a business.

The ultimate objective is to create hundreds of thousands of successful, member-owned businesses, across the globe.  The aspiration is to create entrepreneurs.

As a company dedicated to entrepreneurship, Dan and Atif always felt an imperative to also demonstrate entrepreneurship in the LEO company itself.

To date the company has created a successful property development group of companies; has launched a digital currency, LEOcoin, ‘designed to be the currency of choice for entrepreneurs, small businesses and ordinary people; and is just now launching LEOcrowd, an innovative crowd funding platform. 

Ted Nuyten had the honor to interview Dan Andersson.

Dan, LEO has had strong growth, how come?

We had a unique edge because we understood that there is a huge desire, on a Global basis, for people to participate in entrepreneurship.  And, in particular, people are looking for Global opportunities.

We felt that, as we were promoting entrepreneurship, we had an opportunity to establish a business that does not follow the traditional direct selling model. We had the opportunity to be disruptive, to create a new concept and break new ground, so we designed LEO to be an entrepreneurship hot-housing environment.

Through e-learning and skills training products, our members learn all the skills they need to be successful in business. With the skills in place, and LEO as a Global partner and mentor, the business model supports our customers who choose to become Members and sell our products in a way few companies can duplicate. Through the ownership model we provide rewards that go beyond money, and we can satisfy those with global entrepreneurial aspirations.

Basically, we hit the Global scene with a unique “non-cookie-cutter” approach, and the market responded!

LEO has members in over 140 countries in less than 4 years. Did you expect that success when you launced LEO?

The second most powerful force of the universe is compound interest, or exponential growth.  The most powerful force in the universe is a hungry networker.  Put those two things together and you have something amazingly powerful. Add in Globalisation, powerful social networking tools, and a Multicultural philosophy of inclusion…
As each member develops their network they soon realise that they know someone abroad. We have a product that is accessible over the internet and is available in many languages so there are no barriers caused by borders or distance.  We are a Global family in every sense. 

What has surprised us is that so few companies are giving their members/distributors the scale of opportunity that we offer. We admire the way that new businesses, outside of Direct Selling, are expanding. If you look at Uber or AirBnb they are all designed to scale rapidly and Globally, this is the sort of space direct selling should be in. But most of them, sadly, offer variations of the same products, variations of the same plan, and variations of the same old tired and staid business model.

So, yes, we did expect that LEO would be successful. What caught us by surprise how universal the appeal was going to prove to be.

What is your secret for success?

I think there are 3 aspects that contribute to our success:

Firstly we are a values based business. LEO corporate staff are committed to 5 Core Presuppositions and follow them, every day, in all they do.  

• Our members are the heart of our business
• There is greatness inside everyone
• Diversity is empowering
• True success causes no harm
• Fast is better than slow

And this has touched a nerve. People and leaders are joining us because they appreciate the way we work.

Secondly there is an emphasis on transparency. You can see everything about LEO. You can see who our owners are, you can see where we invest our money, we don’t mess around with our plan and we involve our members in almost everything we do. Being open and being honest is the core of the business and the way we work.  

Thirdly we deliver an aspiration. Atif often says “There is a lion inside everyone. You just have to unleash that potential inside you to achieve success beyond your wildest imagination.” We believe in providing training and support to everyone wherever they may be.

This means that anyone who wants to improve their lives, and anyone who is willing to put in the hard work necessary, can be a success. We say that this is a business for Ordinary People who can deliver Extraordinary Results. We have been asked about it so many times that we have made 2 films with those names showing that the people who are achieving extraordinary results really are ordinary people who have taken that first step on the Learn Earn Own journey.

So why invest in establishing a Crowdfunding site, LEOcrowd?

We are in business to create entrepreneurs and once created we want to help them succeed. It is becoming harder and harder for entrepreneurs to raise money; they have to look for alternatives.  Crowdfunding provides a solution to this global challenge – and LEOcrowd is our way of helping our members, and entrepreneurs in general, to address that challenge. 

What will make LEOcrowd stand out is that we have a unique dynamic mix. We not only have a global member base of hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in 140 countries around the world, but we also use digital currency which elevates LEOcrowd to among the most advanced Crowdfunding platforms in the world.  For a direct selling organisation, that’s disruptive.

What is next?

Because we teach entrepreneurship, we have to demonstrate it as well. And we do that every day. We are constantly innovating and bringing new products to the market. We have leveraged our business model into property ownership, into digital currency and into crowdfunding.

The power of the direct selling business model is phenomenal, we are looking at ways to use it to drive even more disruption in all sorts of sectors – these include Travel, financial institutions, social media and communications. We are constantly looking out for major sectors that would benefit from a new disruptive entrant to their market.

We have a target of 1 million members by the end of 2016. The more members we have, the greater the opportunity we have to be more disruptive.  Atif and I are motivated by success, and the success of our members is what drives us on.

We will look to develop opportunities that will help them achieve their dream – that is our dream as well!