Empower Network Review
Product Name: Empower Network
Product Owner: David Wood & David Sharpe
Advertised Price: $25/month
Upsells: $19.99/month, $100/month, $500, $1,000, $3500
Rating: 0/100
Update 2019: Dave Sharp, one of the founders of Empower Network, is now running a new product called Legendary Marketer. From other reviews, it seems to be a more “legit” venture, with actual training, but the cost is pretty freakin’ sky high, and based on his previous affiliation with this garbage product Empower Network, it’s not something I recommend you invest your money in.
Are You Ready To Work Your Ass Off to Earn Your Lifestyle?
Are you tired of the daily grind? With a laptop and an internet connection I built a small website to generate income, and my life completely changed. Let me show you exactly how I’ve been doing it for more than 13 years.
Oh yeah, remember when Dave charged you ten grand then shut down the company? Yeah. That’s the same guy. Now you want to give him more money because he “went legit”? No way man.
Update 2017: Empower Network has shut down officially, and now the ex owner is asking people to join his new program. It took 4 years to come to fruition, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!
UPDATE 2015: Notice that all “Ex” Top 1% Empower Network have now jumped ship. This is very common in MLMs where people ride the wave of euphoria while everyone signs up, then exits the room before the thing collapses.
What is EN?
Make money by blogging on their network and referring other people to join Empower Network.
Short Review:
Blogging is just a facade for their MLM/network marketing/pyramid scheme, and this program should be avoided at all costs.
Before You Buy:
There is a lot of hype around Empower Network because they give “100% commissions”, and you “make money by blogging”. This is not the whole truth.
The truth is that you make 100% of only some of the commissions, and much of what you earn goes to your upline, ie the people that referred you. After joining, you are then strongly encouraged to ‘go all in’, and ‘upgrade’, which are buzzwords for ‘pay more money’. Remember, in order to make big commissions, you need to actually own the packages.
In typical MLM fashion you pay a minimum fee to enter, and they slowly reveal higher levels of membership that supposedly unlock bigger commissions.
Remember! that to make money with Empower Network, you must refer more people to Empower Network. You are essentially a door to door salesman selling an “amazing” product.
It is an unsustainable business model where eventually, there are more sellers than there are buyers.
Anything Positive?
I’m sure it’s great to be at the top of the pyramid. Too bad there are so many sitting at the bottom.
What You Need To Know:
Not only is MLM one of the worst types of programs to make money with because of the extremely low success rate, they are tarnishing the reputation of real internet marketers like myself. Many of their members spam forums and social media networks trying to refer more members to their downline, so I see this EN crap posted all over the place. EN does not provide sufficient training to actually teach you how to promote your blog, drive organic traffic to it via search engines, or sell real products and services.
The #1 Goal of Empower Network Is To Get More People Into Empower Network
Even though their product is a ‘blogging platform’, this is still a pyramid scheme at heart. Remember, you do not OWN the blog that you write for on Empower Network. EN owns it. They can block your access at any time, and have done it to many people (see video below). There are many free or cheap ways to start out online with a blog that you own 100% of.
The #1 thing you need to be looking for is training. Good training and a quality support community will help you get started online. The next thing you need to look at is sustainability. Will you still be doing this in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?
One more thing you need to know is that if you do not buy their upgrades for hundreds & thousands of dollars, you will never get those commissions from your downline. If you stay with the $25 monthly fee (plus monthly ewallet fee), you can only make that amount from your referrals.
If someone in your downline pays $500 for the Costa Rica Intensive or $3500 for The Master’s Course, you make $0
Is This Program For You?
I get so many comments from people trying to “correct my mistakes” or “clear up confusion”. Whatever your opinion on MLM or EN is, you need to ask yourself, can I afford this? Remove yourself from all the amazing stories of rags to riches, and pictures of people holding big checks and bigger smiles.
Can you afford to risk $5000 or more on a business opportunity that’s receiving so much criticism from legitimate online business owners? Example 1 | Example 2 | Example 3 These are real people with real businesses, not just guys that blog about how cool EN is.
So, take a long, hard look at your wallet and think – would you take this money to Vegas? Would you give it to a friend to invest for you or would you put all of it down in the stock market today? Can you afford to hand it over to “viral blogging system” even though you are not 100% clear how it works?
Update
Empower is still around, though it’s unclear in what form. They ran a few promos with company names in the sales front but eventually led you to EN in the back end, but I don’t see that so much any more. More recently, they launched their so-called “revolutionary” blogging platform Kalatu, but that hit the ground with a thud (as with their previous attempts outlined in that post).
So some folks are still promoting it, but the hype has clearly died off so I’ve renamed this post “Last Year’s Hottest Scam”. I would just like to indulge a bit and take a moment to say “I told you so” to all the commenters below who spent hours and hours hating my opinion which turned out to be right.
Final Review
It’s become very clear from the comments that this review makes a lot of folks mad. Let’s make a few things clear so I we can avoid some issues down the road.
- I don’t like MLM and you cannot convince me to like it
- I review lots of products, not just EN
- I promote other, legitimate services on this blog
- It is not a secret that Wealthy Affiliate is my #1 rated product
- If you are rude, I will not approve your comments
What is One More Cup of Coffee about? Surprisingly, my goal in life is NOT to talk argue about my Empower Network review! I create websites about various topics like software, homebrewing, health & fitness, and traveling. Then I find companies to partner with, and promote their products on my blog. It’s that simple. There is no secret system.
My online businesses are based on my own personal interests.
I do not have a degree in marketing or computer science. When I started, I couldn’t even build a website. I learned everything I know from an online business training center that specializes in teaching newbies how to start their own online business. I’m still a member today, and continue to generate income from many other websites not related to ‘make money online’, including websites about computer software, health & wellness, and others 🙂
Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. My name is Nathaniell and I'm the owner of One More Cup of Coffee. I started my first online business in 2010 promoting computer software and now I help newbies start their own businesses. Sign up for my #1 recommended training course and learn how to start your business for FREE!
Can You Really Make Money Posting Ads Online?
Kelli
Oh, and one more question…who cares if Nathaniell has control over his page, it’s HIS page? I wouldn’t want to have a blog that someone else had control over. That doesn’t make it your page, it makes it someone elses!
Kelli
I am completely confused by this comment. Maybe I am just stupid but I have read it about a dozen times and I am STILL not getting the point! Your first post seems to have been removed because apparently you didn’t provide anything of value to the topic at hand, which you seem to continue to do. Also, you didn’t provide an email address. Although I have to say I agree with Nathaniell that you really haven’t given any value to this topic in any of your comments. I am curious to know how Nathaniel is getting some “good-old-traffic”, from this thread at YOUR expense? I don’t see your name in the review. You keep saying that things that were said and done have only “confirmed your suspicions” about what he and others are doing but fail to mention what those things might be? If his readers are to better understand what those things might be, wouldn’t it be helpful to say what those things are? Is it because he wrote a negative review about EN and he uses WA? That would be like saying someone is trying to make you eat at one steak house because they didn’t like the service at another steak house and wrote a bad review about them! And no, I am not a friend of Nathaniell’s…I just happened upon his blog a few hours ago when investigating EN’s legitimacy; which even you seem to have some issue with! In all honesty this sounds more like a personal vendetta against Nathaniell, eg, calling him NAT. If that is the case, I am sure there are better places to deal with that. Write a letter; send an email! There are real people who are trying to get real information here! And I think your score card is a little flawed. Personally, I would deduct about 10 points just for rambling on and making yourself look like a psycho ex-girlfriend stalking her ex’s blog! Take up knitting or something because you really need a hobby! Nathaniell, I apologize to YOU for my post. I am just a person with a business trying to get some information about a company. I write a personal blog and now I am glad I have never posted beyond just my family and friends. If this is what you have to deal with on a daily basis…I have a whole new respect for bloggers!!
Kelli
If EN is so successful as you say it is, why did you say you were considering joining WA? If the people who have joined WA are just “piggybacking on the success of EN” why don’t you just go there? Also, if they are so successful, why are they blocked from so many websites, ie. Google, facebook, YouTube, Craigslist, ect?
Kelli
WOW!! There is NO reason to use language like that; and you call yourself a professional? I would not want ANYTHING to do with ANY kind of business you run! Your post was absolutely uncalled for! I was here reading BOTH sides about EN; I was on the fence about signing up but your post really sealed the deal for me. VERY unprofessional!! And the only “lottery ticket” expectations I seen were the ones in the email I got to sign up for EN! They are the ones who claim you can set up your website and the money will just pour in in your sleep!
JD
Nathaniell,
You’re right, and you’re wrong. I’ve been in EN now for almost 4 months. I am not going to sit here and blow smoke up your rear and tell you that I make 6500 a month or 10k a month or whatever. But I do make an income and I do it with minimal monthly cost. I have NEVER upgraded to the Inner Circle membership and I am now averaging just over $2k a month. How? I have an MBA with an emphasis in Marketing from ASU. And I USE IT! I’m still working on my initial goal to sell 100 blogs and I am closing in on it. My niche is car dealers, independent realtors, and my military family. The blog system is all I sell. However, I pay the $25 a month for the blog and another $25 for the video hosting, plus the $19.95 affiliate fee (even though I’ve only brought in three people), plus I pay 19.95 a month for my Aweber email marketing account. I do all of my research online. All my long distance calls are free. But I do pay $45 a month for my boost mobile phone which has always worked fine for me. I do all of my blog walkthrough’s by using Google+ Hangout, which is also free. This is not my full-time job. But, in about six more months, it could be. There are over 150 million blogs on the Internet. I’m just trying to eventually make 500 of them my customers. I’m NEVER paying for the Inner Circle, or any other product that I don’t need. So, you’re right about that. It’s so much easier convincing someone to spend $25 to $50 on a product that they might actually use. You probably don’t think I do what I do, and that’s fine. But, if you can’t convince a GM of a dealership that this $50 product won’t AT LEAST help him sell a single car…where he will probably Gross around $1000 on, then you’re just in the wrong business. Same thing with Realtors. I remember when I was shopping for a house. I would have realtor after realtor call me telling me about these great houses. It took me a while to buy simply because I never had the time to go look at these houses. But if one, ONLY ONE had my product, they could have done a three minute walkthrough with their phone, posted it to their blog, and I could have done a virtual walkthrough and bought a LOT earlier! And, with the military, I know what it’s like to be deployed as I have had 7 years of combat tours during my 15 year career. Every base has Internet that has been established. The ability to send a video message from family to soldier is huge and it does a lot for morale. What the world seems to forget is that not everyone is on Facebook. Which makes a personal blog with video hosting priceless for business and for personal use. As I’ve said before, you’re right, and you’re wrong. You don’t have to buy the expensive upgrades to make money. But, you do have to put in a lot of work to make money without doing that. My work ethic is the one thing that I will never lose. And I use it to make a nice income on Empower Network. Will it last forever? Nope, probably not. But right now, it’s one of the best mobile blogging systems anywhere…and I’m selling it!
Nathaniell
The question is, why would you spend that money and hard work building someone else’s business and put your customers who may not be as strong willed or biz-savvy through the hardcore upsells and high pressure environment that EN subjects them to? Why not own your own website for cheaper than what EN offers and promote other, similar offers? You do realize that EN can lock you out of your own blog at any time, without reason, right?
Why not be affiliated with a hosting service, and with a domain registrar? Why not help folks set up their own website and not just a free blog on Empwoer’s subdomain? Why not sell a quality product that people would actually benefit from rather than just trying to make a sale? Sure, I could sell EN stuff like mad as well. But I choose not to because there are better ways to get done what they are trying to do. And this is the problem with most MLM stuff. It was not designed with the end user in mind, it was designed with the promoter in mind. The only people that buy MLM stuff are the folks that are in MLM. Average users are going to see immediate differences in quality, and opt for non-mlm products.