“When over 30 tornadoes hit the Midwest on Friday, it was yet another reminder:

We’re all a part of something much bigger than ourselves.”

To help send nutritional relief, you too can make a difference through the Body by Vi™ Community Challenge.

All Community Challenge donations made now through Friday, March 9th (11:59 pm PST) will go to these relief efforts!

In the face of this natural disaster, where so many ViSalus families are among the impacted, ViSalus has partnered with Feed The Children® to ensure our relief efforts are maximized.

In collaboration with Feed The Children—who has staff and distribution sites embedded in all the affected areas—ViSalus is able to provide short and long term nutritional support for tornado victims and displaced families.  To jump start donations, ViSalus is currently preparing to ship out approximately 20,000 boxes of Nutra-Cookies™ and thousands of Vi-Shape meals to the affected communities.

Every contribution makes a difference!

Make your donation today by visiting: http://GetTo.VisalusGiving.com

All ViSalus Co-Founders Continue in Leadership Roles and Invest $14.6 Million Stake in Parent Company Blyth, Inc.

Originally posted on PRNewswire on January 13, 2012.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – ViSalus, the ultra-premium lifestyle company delivering cutting-edge products via the Body by Vi™ 90-Day Challenge, today announced that Blyth, Inc. has completed the third of a four-phase acquisition of ViSalus.  Under the terms of the acquisition agreement between Blyth and ViSalus, the acquisition payments are based on an amount equal to a multiple of ViSalus’s earnings.  The amount on which the payments are based has increased to over $250 million for 2011 compared to approximately $16 million for 2010.  ViSalus’s sales have increased to $231 million in 2011 from $34 million in 2010.

All three company co-founders, Ryan Blair, Chief Executive Officer; Blake Mallen, Chief Marketing Officer; and Nick Sarnicola, top sales leader, have agreed to stay on with ViSalus in their current roles. The founders personally invested $14.6 million from the proceeds of the acquisition in restricted stock of parent company Blyth, Inc., making them the largest inside shareholders after the Goergen family.

“We believe in Blyth. The Goergens have been like family to us so it only makes sense that we go all in with the Blyth family of companies,” stated Ryan Blair, co-founder and CEO of ViSalus.

“This answers the question as to the future of the founders of ViSalus and Blyth once and for all. We now own a significant stake in Blyth,” continued Nick Sarnicola.

“Our vision from day one was to build a great company that would stand the test of time,” said Blake Mallen, Co-Founder and CMO. “In 2008 we were privileged to become a part of the Blyth Family, and today we are honored to be significant shareholders. What excites me most is the lives we can impact together in the years to come.”

“We are gratified that Ryan, Blake, and Nick are continuing in their ViSalus leadership roles and have an enhanced presence with Blyth,” stated Robert B. Goergen, Blyth’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. “ViSalus’ market model and technology savvy is truly transforming the health and direct selling industries.”

Launched in 2005 as ViSalus Sciences and now known as ‘ViSalus,’ the company provides health benefits from weight loss and fitness milestones, or “Challenges”, to better one’s overall health and wellness. ViSalus’ product Kits support a range of fitness goals: Balance, Shape, Core, Transformation and newly launched Fit Kit and are used by people of all ages focused on creating and maintaining individually defined healthy lifestyle.

Learn more about ViSalus at http://www.visalus.com and http://www.njbodybyvi.com

About ViSalus
ViSalus, headquartered in Troy, MI and Los Angeles, CA, is a leading Health Transformation Company utilizing the direct selling channel to distribute its meal replacement and nutritional supplement products. ViSalus is built around the wildly successful Body by Vi™ 90-Day Challenge, a health challenge that helps people achieve their weight loss and fitness goals. ViSalus is majority-owned by Blyth, Inc.

SOURCE ViSalus

Visalus Sciences sent 10,000 meals to Joplin, Missouri last night!

Though most of the distributors homes were destroyed, they took what Vi-Shape Shake mix they could find and set up shelters to help those in need.  As a Body By Vi Challenge Community, their were able to feed over 90 people last night at one of the shelters!  This community in need is making an impact. Help them, help others!

Visalus Sciences will match all $24 donations, meal for meal, and send all the meals to Joplin, MO!

Will YOU help make a difference by clicking on the green button above?

ViSalus Sciences: Marketing Its Way to the Fast Track

Originally featured in Direct Selling News:  February 2011 “ViSalus Sciences: Marketing Its Way to the Fast Track” by Barbara Seale

Founder and CEO Ryan Blair says that he and his two co-founders spent the company’s first five years learning what not to do. Now that they have found the formula, they’re celebrating a year of 500 percent revenue growth.

When entrepreneur Blair combined forces with his ViSalus co-founders Blake Mallen and Nick Sarnicola, they had noble intentions to build a health-based business that would benefit business owners and customers over the long term.

Blair says: “We spent the first five years learning what not to do. Then we spent last year not repeating the same mistakes we made over the first five and doing what works instead. The economic downturn forced us to get focused on what works, and now we’re at an all-time high in every category. By early 2011, we’ll be in the neighborhood of $10 million a month in sales.”

What turned everything around was a long-lasting flash of marketing brilliance called the Body by Vi™ Challenge. The Challenge has been so successful that it has become the company’s foundation.

Shaking Things Up

The simple 90-day program lets participants take advantage of ViSalus health products and support tools to transform their bodies. As a marketing tool, as well as a health-transformation tool, the Challenge has been wildly successful. Since its launch in July 2009, ViSalus estimates to have helped people lose 3 million pounds.

The core ViSalus products are low-calorie, high-nutrition meal replacement shakes. But because of the Challenge, distributors don’t focus on “selling” the products. Instead, they issue a friendly weight-loss challenge. “Let me tell you about these great weight-loss shakes” has transformed into “I’m working on losing 20 pounds in the next 90 days. Anybody want to join me?”

“The Body by Vi Challenge is the business. It’s the only thing we talk about,” Founder and Chief Marketing Officer Blake Mallen says. “It’s a simple conversational message that draws lots of responses. There’s nothing to sell or explain.”
ViSalus crafts products from high-quality ingredients that taste good. Then they develop packaging to conform to Challenge-participants’ goals. For example, the basic “Balance Kit” is targeted to people who simply want better nutrition. It contains 30 servings of the Vi-Shape™ Nutritional Shake Mix for once-a-day balanced nutrition. The kit includes an assortment of Health Flavors, which add flavor variety and even more health benefits to the shake. The Shape Kit includes 60 servings of shake mix, enough for 60 slimming meals—two a day that result in weight loss. The Transformation Kit includes the 60 meals, plus additional products to help people transform their bodies as quickly as possible. The Core Kit helps support the active lifestyle with one shake a day, healthy energy and nutritional supplements. All of the kits come with recipes, meal plans, exercise plans and more.

“Ours tastes really good—sort of like cake mix. We know that if you enjoy it, you’ll stick with it,” says Senior Vice President of Marketing and Brand Development Audrey Sommerfeld. “When mixed as directed, in the shake you get 22 to 25 grams of high-quality protein and a full serving of fiber that keeps your blood sugar level and makes you feel full. Those are the amounts of nutrients nutritionists recommend most. We recommend blending the shake mix with fruit. That makes a 200 to 220 calorie meal that saves you money and is much better for you than most American breakfasts. Use two shakes a day to melt the pounds away.”

The basic light sweet cream flavor that Sommerfeld describes as “like cake mix” is a foundation. It can be enjoyed alone or with added Health Flavors, such as chocolate, cappuccino, banana, orange or peach. Each offers specific health benefits as well as flavor variety. Craving something crunchy? ViSalus also has Nutra-Cookies made with their exclusive Tri-Sorb™ protein system, prebiotics, fiber and antioxidants to support a healthy immune system, healthy digestive system, and help curb appetite. More products are in the works for 2011. Mallen hints that new products will support energy and fitness.

Free Products

The products and the Body by Vi Challenge keep the business opportunity simple, and the Three for Free promotion lets distributors get their products at no cost.

“The whole message is super simple: Lose weight, get fit and save money because you’re replacing meals with our shakes, literally saving people a couple hundred dollars a month,” Mallen says. “Then we layered in Three for Free, which removed all financial objections and barriers. We let our customers and our distributors refer three other people. Then their own products are sent to them free. We’re averaging over $400 in monthly product revenue for every distributor in our company. That’s unheard of! And our retention is dramatically better than the industry average.”

Retention results from several factors, including a strong compensation plan that lets new distributors promote quickly.

“We pay out up to 80 percent payout at the highest levels,” Blair says, “and we have a car bonus at the lowest rank of any competitor we’ve looked at.” More than 1,500 distributors have already qualified for a BMW, making them members of the company’s fancifully named Bimmer Club.

But the comp plan is intentionally skewed toward the bottom and middle ranks of producers, helping them quickly earn income that makes a real difference in a family’s budget.

Youthful Energy

ViSalus distributors’ average is similar to many other companies, but they have a broader range of young, middle-aged and older persons. The top 10 distributors today tend to be slightly younger than the industry average, possibly attracted by the company’s 30-ish founders, but the age of those high achievers ranges from 31 to 75, Mallen says.

“What’s dramatically different is our image and energy,” he says. “In my opinion, young is no longer an age. It’s more of an energy. Everyone wants to feel young, be young, be around a young, vibrant culture. That’s why we attract people of all ages—we attract a young energy. That’s duplicated throughout our leadership and our whole culture.”

The youthful approach embraces the use of technology. In December, ViSalus launched a powerful new generation of Vi-Net™, the private website that its distributors use. Mallen describes it as “like a private Facebook. It will have a front-end marketing site system, the normal back-office genealogy, real-time commissioning and cool stuff for managing your business. But then it layers in an online community, literally like Facebook. People will be able to see everyone’s challenges and fitness goals. There’s a live community feed. It wraps an entire online community around the Challenge. It’s really big when you see that kind of support.”

The new ViNet is fully integrated with Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Its energetic executives and distributors use it as a standard way of doing business.

Mallen himself sets the standard for activity on social networking sites. He posts videos on Facebook a couple of times a week with content that distributors can share with their personal networks. He often gets about 1,300 views in 24 hours. Technology also supports business presentations, and pre-recorded conference calls are available daily that support distributors’ businesses.

The future is exciting for ViSalus. Mallen says that the eventual revenue goal is $1 billion a year, a figure he believes is attainable within a few years. The ViSalus product portfolio is built years in advance, and the company plans to introduce new products that complement its existing line in 2011. International expansion is also on the horizon, beginning with Canada. And they plan to amp up their consumer-to-consumer business. But through it all, they’ll continue to try not to mess up the formula they’ve refined. It works.

“Our goals are really the same as when we started,” Blair says. “We want to add more value to customers and distributors; we want to get better and make the experience of our customers better. But basically, our ambitions are to continue to help the world lose millions of pounds.”

Help Feed Children In Need

Do you have someone on your list you never know what to buy because they already have everything?

Why not make a Charitable Donation to feed hungry children, in their name?

ViSalus launched the Body by Vi™ Community Challenge, an initiative that allows you to donate meals to children and families who don’t have the means to get the nutrition they need each day.  Contribute to the Body by Vi™ Community Challenge and help us achieve our goal of providing 1,000,000 healthy, nutritious meals to children in need.  Donate 30 servings of the Vi-Shape Nutritional Shake Mix for just $24 and ViSalus will match it with an additional 30 meals!

Make a Charitable Donation on the behalf of friends and family today and then look for an email from me requesting the person’s name & address to send the gift certificate out for you!

Wishing you a Happy Holiday!

‘Tis the Season of Giving

Please help us in raising 1,000,000 meals for hungry kids by  joining us at an event near you this Holiday Season!

Help us on December 12th to get closer to reaching our 1,000,000 meals for kids goal!

Can’t attend an event in your Community?  Make a $24 donation now by visiting http://getto.ViSalusGiving.com/

Happy Holidays to you and your family!

Leading health and wellness company sets goal to donate 100,000 healthy meals to children in need.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) November 18, 2009 — ViSalus Sciences has made another step towards bringing its mission of Prosperity to families in need. From Fusion Academy, a ViSalus national convention in Tampa, Florida, CEO Ryan Blair announced a new initiative that will leverage the company’s Vi-Shape Nutritional Shake Mix to provide, healthy nutrition to children from coast to coast.

The Body by Vi™ Community Challenge has set a goal of donating 100,000 children’s meals through a network of local Distributors working with charitable organizations in their communities. For as little as 50 cents per meal, ViSalus Distributors and Customers can make a donation to be matched meal for meal by ViSalus.

The Challenge was given a head start towards this goal by Co-Founders Ryan Blair, Nick Sarnicola, and Blake Mallen, who together pledged the first 15,000 meals on stage today.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Our company is founded in name and spirit on the pillars of Life, Health, and Prosperity,” said ViSalus Chief Marketing Officer Blake Mallen. “To us, Prosperity is about much more than financial freedom; it’s about the ability to give back to the people and causes that touch your heart.”

Chief Sales Officer Nick Sarnicola is humbled to have an opportunity to combine the benefits of ViSalus products with the giving spirit of the ViSalus community. “To have great products is one thing,” said Sarnicola. “To have a great product that children can benefit from and enjoy is another. For our community to make this product available for free to the children who need it most is the ultimate form of contribution we can achieve.”

ViSalus Founder Ryan Blair was inspired to take this cause to the masses after a recent trip to Jamaica showed him what a difference the ViSalus community could make. “There are too many children in this world who don’t have a fighting chance because they simply don’t have the means to get the nutrition their bodies need each day. To succeed at school, on the athletic field, or simply to grow up to be healthy, nothing is more important than nutrition, and I hope the children of the world know we don’t plan on stopping at 100,000 meals,” said Blair.

About ViSalus Sciences

ViSalus Sciences, with headquarters in Troy, Michigan and Los Angeles, CA, is a leading Weight Management and Nutritional Supplement maker utilizing the direct selling channel to distribute its products. ViSalus is the company behind the Body by Vi Challenge, a health transformation program helping people achieve their weight loss and fitness goals for a chance to win over $100,000 per year in total prizes.

ViSalus Sciences Launches Body by Vi™ Community Challenge
Posted on : 2009-11-20 | Author : PRWeb News Category : PressRelease

Interested in getting your organization involved?  Contact me at bodybyvinj@gmail.com