Manna 360: LiveSmart 360 tries to reinvent itself
LiveSmart 360 was the brainchild of Mark McCool when after a decade of running his previou company, CyberWize, product orders ground to a painful halt;
In 2008 270 Cyberwize product orders were placed. In 2009 this number dropped to 26 and in 2010 the total orders placed appears to be just 3.
Facing the inevitable collapse of Cyberwize, McCool pulled the pin on the company and deployed a flashy pre-launch marketing campaign (‘LockYourSpot’).
Attracting thousands to the pre-launch, McCool reinvented Cyberwize as LiveSmart 360 with the company officially launching on May 15th of last year.
Troubles began to plague the company with reports of distributor payouts being delayed and in some cases not paid out at all.
Shortly after LiveSmart 360’s launch, Mark McCool wrote a blog post explaining that
During our initial pre-launch stage, some of our computer servers and software were provided by a third-party company. This impacted our ability to perform important business functions properly and in a timely manner.
Just weeks after that announcement, one of LiveSmart 360’s frontline distributors (and arguably the company’s second most well-known public face after Mike Potillo) Donna Valdes, took home her first $57,500 commission check and then quit.
LiveSmart 360 still managed to persist throughout the next few months, but it was hard to ignore that most of the momentum driving the LockYourSpot prelaunch campaign had been all but lost.
This seemed to climax when in June of this year the public face and President of Business Development for LiveSmart 360, Mike Potillo quit.
Following Potillo’s departure, Mark McCool put together a training call and personally pleaded with what was left of his memberbase to stick with the company.
On the same call, McCool announced a financial arrangement with new investor and business partner, Chuck Hallberg. Hallberg was to bankroll LiveSmart’s ‘international expansion’ and appeared to be throwing McCool a financial lifeline.
Four months later, the fruits of Hallberg’s cash injection appear to be surfacing and McCool has reverted back to trying to capture some of the hype excitement LiveSmart 360 experienced during its prelaunch.
With the introduction of ‘Manna 360’, LiveSmart 360 appears set to ride the prelaunch waves yet again.
Despite LiveSmart 360 having been in business for nearly a year now and Manna 360 only being a new product, McCool has decided to give Manna 360 it’s very own pre-launch date in November.
The product itself doesn’t officially launch until January 2012.
If you ask me, pre-launching a product is a bit of a desperate grab for attention. I mean cmon guys, it’s a product. You add it to your range, do some advertising and promotion and let your distributors get on with it.
Do you really need to have a prelaunch for a product and give it its own gala opening?
If you’re trying to re-capture the large amount of the business momentum you’ve lost since you prelaunched over a year ago – apparently so.
Along with the launch of Manna 360 itself, McCool has also announced what he’s calling the ‘Founding Executive Program’, because y’see… even if you join a company over a year after it first launched, you can still be a ‘founding member’.
Yeah… I couldn’t work that one out either.
From what I can see, the main longterm advantage of being a Founding Executive Member appears to be participation in a new bonus pool. This pool, made up of 1% of LiveSmart’s global company volume, is only paid out to Founding Executive Members.
To become a Founding Executive Member, all you need to do is pay LiveSmart $999.
As a kick in the nuts to existing members, y’know members who might have actually been a part of LiveSmart 360 since it was actually founded, they too also have to pay LiveSmart $999 if they want to become Executive Founding Members.
Way to reward those that have stuck by the company!
Meanwhile Manna 360 itself appears to be a milkshake weight loss system coming in at $89.99 for a one month supply.
LiveSmart 360 claim that Manna 360 is like ‘a grocery cart full of whole foods in a glass that tastes like vanilla icecream!’
Will Manna 360’s prelaunch campaign and LiveSmart’s Founding Executive Program be enough to save the company from the same declining membership fate as Cyberwize?
Stay tuned.
The facts are:
During Manna 360’s “Pre-Launch” the product will be available for purchase through select packages. During Manna 360’s “Pre-Launch” all product details will be shared with the public.
This includes full supplement facts (which already are on Mann360.com under Product Overview), several marketing materials and Member tools.
Also,
ALL current LiveSmart 360 Members who have purchased any Smart Start Pack (Join Packs) worth $499 or more are able to participate in the “Founding Executive Program” for $499.
These Members will receive Manna 360 products with a value of over $499 (Member Price).
Additionally, Manna 360 product packages for new and current Members (unrelated to the Founding Executive Program) will be made available in the very near future.
Lastly,
We hope you can forgive us for the excitement in launching a product which has taken a solid year of development. We have a lot into this one. Manna 360’s launch has not been thrown together, nor hurriedly decided on. We know our reputation, as many MLMs, we’re under a lot of scrutiny.
I can tell you with personal confidence we are not out to do anything wrong, misleading, nor questionable. We want to produce the highest quality products and pay our Members what they are worth, it is that simple.
LiveSmart 360 is definitely not just “hype,” and we plan on being around for a very long time.
Thank You,
Tyler McCool
LiveSmart 360
@Tyler
Thanks for the clarification.
The promotional material for the Founding Executive Program states
Is this incorrect?
I’m not suggesting otherwise going forward, but simply recording history and giving my opinion based on it.
Your father (?) Mark McCool has since threatened me with legal action for not providing the facts. He wants me to call him.
What, he has the time to email me demanding I publish ‘facts’ and threatening legal action without providing said facts?
I suggest he provide those ‘facts’ before engaging his lawyer. Anyone is always welcome to rebut anything published on BehindMLM.
Yes, the official statement is, “Members who joined after May 1st, 2011.”
However, we ask our Members to contact us directly. Certain exceptions can be made.
And yes, Mark McCool is my father. I don’t know anything about legal action, but I can tell you a phone conversation would probably clear up quite a bit, even if everyone isn’t 100% happy with the outcome. At least you will know where both of you stand, and possibly spare some miscommunication.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions, comments, or concerns. I’ll answer the best I am able to.
Thank You,
Tyler McCool
@Tyler
On what basis?
I don’t appreciate being sent legal threats claiming factual error with zero clarification, it reeks of ‘I don’t agree with what you’ve written so I’m demanding you take it down’.
With all due respect, your father can stick his phone call request where the sun don’t shine. If he’s got a problem with the information here he’s free to make any corrections he feels are neccessary, the same as anybody else is.
Thanks for that, I’ll keep you in mind if I need any further clarification on LiveSmart in the future.
I cannot answer completely as I am not making these high-level decisions. There are no exact criteria, and it will be discussed on a case by case basis.
Some factors may include Member activity, what join pack they enrolled with no matter their join date, and Member productivity.
However, let me clarify, these “Founding Executive Program Packs” do contain a great value in actual product (Manna 360), and are not just join packages filled with virtual products or created only to build downlines.
Also, as I said before, additional Manna 360 product (and join) packages will be made available soon.
I’m sorry you feel that way. Sometimes it is necessary to put aside who thinks who is right, on both sides. Hopefully you two can settle the matter(s) without becoming legally involved.
I have not discussed this with him, but I know it is easy for these types of things to get heated when someone feels personally inflicted upon.
Thanks again.
Tyler let’s get all the correct information on here beginning from top to bottom:
1. “Facing the inevitable collapse of Cyberwize, McCool pulled the pin on the company and deployed a flashy pre-launch marketing campaign (‘LockYourSpot’). ”
– Cyberwize suffered when CEO Mark McCool had to take step back from the company due to his Father’s illness.
Anyone in there right mind would stop what they are doing to take care of a family member over a business.
2. Mike Potillo has nothing to do with Manna 360 or LiveSmart360 anymore, this needs to be removed.
3. “On the same call, McCool announced a financial arrangement with new investor and business partner, Chuck Hallberg. Hallberg was to bankroll LiveSmart’s ‘international expansion’ and appeared to be throwing McCool a financial lifeline.”
This needs to be clarified:
Chuck Halberg is not just a “investor” he was recently featured in Inc. 500 for his success in BUSINESS. He brings
way more than just MONEY to the table.
Full story found here: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070901/how-i-did-it-charles-hallberg.html
Please add the correct concrete details about Chuck Halberg, you can find further relevant information on our 360 Calls found here: http://livesmart360news.com/category/events/corporate-calls/
4. I don’t really like the part about how he describes “Product launching” as a desparate act.
Product Launching is natural, its part of life. Look around Hollywood launches movies, online marketers launch products and this blog has Google Adsense (For Profit) all over it, so the writer is also involved in bringing new products and ideas to market through this blog.
Tyler and to all LiveSmart360 distributors/researchers please do the following:
Do not post on this blog anymore, the more we interact on here the higher it will stick on the search engines, that’s why the writer continues to create conversation through the commenting section.
– Matias Leiva
@Matias
I’ve read this… but clearly Cyberwize was in a downhill trend for a few years before LiveSmart 360.
McCool’s father might very well have been ill, but I don’t really see how that translates into the drastic reduction of product orders Cyberwize experienced. Didn’t McCool have any support staff around him?
I suppose it does let marketers use the ‘wouldn’t you help your family too?!’ line though, but that’s just designed to appeal to emotion and detract from the reality of the decline in business itself.
Cyberwize clearly wasn’t a one man operation, so claiming Mark McCool had to tend to his father which solely contributed to a decline in sales is misleading. Convenient, but misleading.
Yes, we’d all love to erase the past that we don’t want documented. Part of the reason I created BehindMLM, to catalogue company histories which all too often dissappear when company members decide it’s not in their best interests for the general public and potential prospects to know anymore.
Potillo’s departure was unexplained publicly by the company and as such people are going to look at it as a negative reflection on LiveSmart. I mean hey, if there was a positive reason surely they’d have been shouting it from the rooftops.
Potillo’s departure is part of LiveSmart 360 history. I know you’re used to reading shallow marketing pitches but we do more than that here at BehindMLM. Alot more.
Regardless, he’s still an investor. Bringing more to the table doesn’t negate that fact. So I’m not sure what ‘correct details’ your asking for to be changed here.
McCool himself stated Halberg was a ‘financial partner’.
There’s a difference between launching a product, and going overboard with a prelaunch campaign, conference and hype. In my opinion, based on the history of LiveSmart/Cyberwize and the past 12 months, this is an attempt to recapture pre-launch hype that new MLM companies experience when they launch.
It’s no secret that there’s a bit of a disconnect between the momentum LiveSmart 360 had back during ‘Lock Your Spot’ and now.
Oh great, another MLM industry SEO expert…
Yes comments do marginally help with search engine rankings but it’s not like it’s that much of an impact.
Like it or not, gone are the days when companies and their marketers held tight control over the information and analysis of their companies in the public domain. Ignoring social media won’t make it go away and any responsible PR company/social media strategist knows this.
I understand the common perception in MLM that social media is merely a platform to be whored out for your marketing needs, but it doesn’t quite work that way son.
Best of luck with continuing to bury your head in the sand. Let us know how that works out for you.
…or not, wouldn’t want to catapault BehindMLM to the top of the SERP positions now would you.
Let me make one thing clear. My grandfather (Mark McCools father) passed away suddenly and without sign. There was no illness, and it was a shock to the entire family. He was extremely healthy at the time of his passing. I do not feel a need to discuss the events after this.
No, LiveSmart 360 did not issue an official statement on the Mike Potillo departure. Obviously with this type of matter, drawing attention to it raises questions, some of which we cannot answer publicly. For anyone who had questions or concerns with Mr. Potillo, we answered them the best we could on a case-by-case basis.
However, this is a free country (thankfully) and when the grass appears greener on the other side of the fence, sometimes you cannot stop someone from jumping over that fence.
It is not a secret where Mr. Potillo is working currently. Although I haven’t seen an article on that company on this site, I don’t believe.
His departure has not effected our direction, nor will it impact our future projects and plans for expansion.
“Overboard” is definitely objective. And of course we want to generate excitement. This is MLM, and it should be a fun business to be in. We have not even used “Lock Your Spot” since launch, although we could have easily generated another “hype” campaign centered around a secretive, pre-launch concept to a market who had never seen it before.
However, we have created a credible product, with credible materials and credible research behind it. Manna 360 is quite honestly better than 99% of products on the market anywhere today, whether MLM OR retail.
Manna 360 is the singular direction we see ourselves going as a company, nationally and internationally. We have a strong belief in what we are doing, what we have created, and have large-scale plans laid out for Manna 360.
We hope you see what we are trying to do, and give us an ounce of credit for being a reputable business.
Thank You,
Tyler McCool
LOL @ Tyler having to defend the re-launch of a pre-launch once again – too funny . . .
( above phrase was coined by the mystical Ricky B )
@Tyler
So with all due respect then (and not to trivialise your grandfather’s deat at all), claiming the death was the reason Cyberwize slowly faded away is a bit rich isn’t it?
Sales were in sharp decline for at least the last three years of the business, so it seems to me like the death was just a convenient marketing excuse.
(again, I’m not trying to trivialise the loss or impact)
Why not? I know you probably don’t intend for it but saying ‘there will be questions raised we cant answer’ honestly looks like there’s something major to hide.
In this industry things usually have a way of surfacing sooner or later (what do you expect from networking) so wouldn’t it just make sense to put out what happened?
At least that way any speculation can be fended off with a simple ‘look, here’s what happened from the company itself’.
Not yet, I’ve got a long list of companies to get through, along with covering bits of MLM news of the companies I’ve already written about. I limit myself to one article a day so it’ll take a while but slowly slowly I’ll build up a considerable information base for people to reference.
I’m in it for the long haul just as much as you guys are.
That I don’t doubt, my observations were related to the marketing campaign within the greater context of LiveSmart’s history.
And personally I don’t think a ‘Lock Your Spot’ campaign would really work outside of a company launch. You’d probably get too much negative feedback from participants who were expecting more than just a product launch.
As always, that’ll be judged on what I observe.
I listened to a Conference Call by these new “leaders” and they didn’t even mention anything about Cyberwize; they just said Mark sold his last company when his father passed away
they didn’t tell you that he sold it to himself and changed the name to livesmart360
this whole deal smells a bit fishy to me, i mean how many times can you become a founder of the same company?
you have to become a founder and spend $499 or $999 all over again everytime McCool decides to relaunch it?
what a joke………………..
Here is some Great Information about the Bogus “ZorbMax” and the Fact that there really aren’t any Patents….
http://www.industrywhistleblower.com/2010/07/dr-sean-mueller-derrick-desilva.html
Maybe you misread, or have been given false information.
I do not know all the details myself, but what I can tell you is the company was in fact sold, to an outside party, before the eventual take-back from Mark McCool. I wish I could explain to you the series of events which resulted in this, but it is not my story to tell.
Also, this is a launch of the Manna 360 product, a product which the company is completely focused on for the future.
The Founding Executive Program packages are product packages, containing an actual product value more than their sales price.
For early adopters we are offering special incentives, since these packages will not ship for a few weeks. Hence the term “pre-launch.”
If anyone has questions or wants insight into what has actually happened in the past, or what is happening with LIVESMART 360 now, send me an email at (email removed) and I will do my best to answer.
In any case, have a nice day,
Tyler McCool
You should have a live blood test done on yourself and decide whether it works or not.
I speak from personal experience on ZorbMax, witnessing several hundred doctors whom experienced a positive reaction in their blood using ZorbMax.
These were not paid individuals, but skeptical third party doctors who walked away impressed with ZorbMax technology.
Tyler McCool
@Tyler
I’m not a big fan of the ‘call me/email me if you want the real truth’ marketing approach. Your dad already tried that with me and I didn’t bite.
If you want to publish ‘what actually happened’ so that everyone can read it, then by all means do. But enough with the requests for one on one conversations just so that you can keep tabs on people.
So what’s the Deal with the Patents?
where are they?
you guys say they are Patent pending, yeah…
Since May 22 2008
LOL
I googled Manna 360, found this blog, read mostly one of the best internet fights I’ve ever stumbled upon. I thank you for that. Winner: Oz
A test they developed to promote alleged needs of their own products. A lot like the Pharmanex scanner that supposedly proves the person being tested needs to buy vitamins. 🙂
I have been using MANNA360 since Jan 2nd this year and it really works. I am a Golf Professional by trade and the energy and mental stamina it has given my body is truly amazing.
To add to this I have lost 10 kgs in 3 months without really watching what I eat. Truly amazing product Thanks Livesmart360 and Mark McCool. 100% Nutrition in one shake is a WINNER and REALLY WORKS. The proof is in the pudding.
@MikePike — now where is the proper scientific study so they can turn your anecdote into something people can really trust?
Looks like the nerds have been attacking the company that was struggling and now found itself winning on a major breakthrough in technology.
K.Chang and others, FYI do some research on Erythrocyte Aggregation before assuming livesmart invented it. You’ll find causative factors of mobile phone use, electromagnetic field radiation, infections, inflammatory and connective tissue disorders, and cancers.
You’ll also find EA can affect microcirculatory blood flow, venous flow, whole organ perfusion, and tissue hematocrit. It is a risk factor for vascular occlusive disorder, thrombosis both in arterial and venous systems and microvascular occlusion in diabetic retinopathy.
That is some pretty scary stuff.
And Manna360 address this with a meal replacement full of your nutritional needs. That is convenient.