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?
Tom M.
I have to admit that Ian’s review is quite accurate. I too am a former member of EN and my wife and I were early-bird members in BIM (Vick Strizheus’ Big Idea Mastermind)
As member’s of EN, we were instructed to “blog about anything” and you will make money. Very misleading to say the least. We could never figure out why other blog sites seemed to specialize in one or two areas and were making money. How could we just “blog about anything” and make money? Needless to say, we did not.
Even going all-in (buying all products) is no guarantee of making any money. You are totally correct is stating that the lower category’s of very low quality information, are pretty much useless. Constantly, even after going all-in (buying all products) we are “invited” to purchase even more stuff.
Many times the “Events” that everyone is badgered to attend, can be anywhere in the US. What do we find there? Yes, there are some success stories, but mainly it’s about the emotional “FIX” that a person will get from being in a room full of chanting and raving people. Sorry, we could not give into that type of mentality.
Think about this as a reality point about a legit online business. If it is something that is honest, and above board, then even at the MOST BASIC LEVEL, it should AT THE VERY LEAST, make enough money to support itself and BREAK EVEN! If not, then move on.
Ian must of had a great sponsor. My sponsor contacted me one time, and wouldn’t you know it, it was because he wanted me to buy something else.
Buying all the upgrades is what EN is all about. So, in all fairness, Ian’s above video review is extremely accurate.
Those who disagree, as some of the comments do, need to ask themselves : How much money have YOU made with EN?
On the other hand, BIM and Vick’s training is really second to none. His training techniques and video step-by-step are excellent, up to a certain point. How so?
Both Vick and Dave Wood-Dave Sharpe fall into the same category.
That category is that there is NO interaction with the new people! They have a team of “experts” that about 50% of the time, give you vague answers that sometimes are correct and other times are so far out that you have to ask more questions about what in the world their answers mean!
Sad to say, even though we learned so much from Vick and his videos, we chose to discontinue our connection. Why? Mainly it was because of his constantly promoting “the new and improved” products that will give us all types of traffic. It’s all about the upsell.
If the upsell works, then why don’t these “experts” help the “little” people that are new to the online world so that they, in turn, will help others to learn? Never could figure that one out.
Ian, our hat’s are off to you for your very honest and informative video.
Thanks. 🙂
Nathaniell
Thanks for you insight Tom. EN has recently been having some major internal issues, so I think it’s pretty clear that they won’t be around for long!
Fran
I was member of EN back in fall of 2011, and their server crashed 3x, during that time, they were still taking peoples money, such as newcomers and telling them that- “we know our server is down and just recruit, we are coming back stronger then ever” They said the reason why their server crashed was because of gobs and gobs of sign ups. I signed up from a network maketer, david wood and dave sharpe call their product a network marketing product-HA, it is not a network marketing product, it is a paramid scheme and truth be told the FTC needs to close them down.
LIES, LIES, LIES
NO SUPPORT
CUSTOMERS WERE CHARGED AND NEVER REFUNDED
NO SUPPORT FROM THE ZEN DEPT HENCE THEY KEEP YOUR MONEY
CULT LIKE GROUPS AND ATMOSHERE WHERE THE NEWBIES SUPPORT THE CULT WITH NO HELP OR GUIDENCE
FAILURE TO PROPERLY TRAIN COMPLETE NEWBIES ON ALL ASP[ECTS OF THE BACK OFFICE
CLAIMS OF REDICULOUD HIGH AMOUNTS OF MONEY EARNED BY EXPERIENCED MARKETERS IN CULT LIKE ATMOSPHERE.
CLAIMS THAT EVEN A NEWBIE CAN DO IT -HA, SUCH A JOKE
LIES, LIES, LIES, AND MORE LIES
CULT LIKE ATMOSPHERE
THEY TELL THEIR EXPERIENCED NETWORK MARKETERS ABOUT CONTESTS DAYS AND WEEKS AHEAD OF TIME WHILE OTHERS ARE LAGGING BEHIND
IT IS A CULT
SAVE YOURSELF SOME DOUGH
AVOID EN LIKE THE PLAQUE
Eric
OMG Nathaniell, If you spent all this time promoting EN rather than knocking it, you would be a millionaire by now.
BY THE WAY…I AM NOT IN EN.
Nathaniell
I know, right? So does this mean I’m an idiot for not making money by selling something I know I could get people to buy, or that I’m just plain honest because I warn people about something that I would not personally buy myself, and could not ethically promote to my own friends and family? I don’t enjoy spending time on this post, but I do believe it’s very important that both sides of EN are shown.
Jozef
Maybe yes (but that ‘maybe’ is only very unlikely ‘maybe’) … but in 5 years from now he would (and this is very strongly likely ‘would’) be in jail for participating and actively spreading an illegal pyramid scheme. I am pretty sure he does not want that …
It is only a matter of time when this kind of shadowy pyramid schemes disguising themselves as genuine business opportunities get outlawed. Currently it is getting increasingly clear that when the company is more focusing on promoting the fact that you make money referring others to them than to promoting their actual products. I can see a point in pretty near future that the FTC will call any such program an illegal pyramid scheme and start closing down businesses doing just that.
I was invited to several MLM programs here in Slovakia but I did not buy in because I could not see the potential of their products. You know, I am not into buying an opportunity where the only benefit is going to be in ‘if you refer others to us you are going to make money’. I always look at products of the company and ask myself questions like “how many people are going to want that? how easy it is going to market them?”
And, generally speaking, now I believe that Nathaniell actually is not against MLM programs in general. After all, the MLM is just a form of affiliate program. But SOOOOOOOOOOO many MLM programs are just illegal pyramid schemes redressed to exploit a loophole in laws that almost everybody now believes that MLM = redressed pyramid scheme scam.
My idea now is that we need to differentiate between true “MLM affiliate programs” and “redressed pyramid scams”. The difference could me made along this line: “If you can successfully expand and sustain your downline by touting just the product (and completely hiding the affiliate program of the company), then it IS NOT a pyramid scheme scam. If you need to focus on marketing the company and its ‘business opportunity’ instead of its products, then it IS redressed pyramid scheme scam”. And I hope that the FTC once gains this insight and will start to prosecute the redressed pyramid scheme scams without killing the genuine MLM affiliate marketing programs (well, to be honest, I have yet to see such a thing).
Additionally, it should be easy to follow the flow of money within the company and see where the commissions come from. Are they earned from actual product sales or just by “membership fees”? This could also be big difference between true MLM affiliate program and a redressed pyramid scam. The true MLM programs generate the commissions from product sales and the people in your downline stay there because they want the product and find it useful. The redressed pyramid scams are generating the commissions from the fees paid by those that want to be the promoters and not from the actual product sales.
And, maybe I am wrong. Maybe every MLM program out there is a pyramid scheme generating the commissions from the membership fees and the other thing that I call here “genuine MLM” is not a MLM at all but just a multi-tier affiliate program. I don’t know.
Michael
Nathaniell,
Very good service you have here, and I am glad that you mentioned something about people not reading what is printed and said. I see that every day in my business, I get emails by the thousands that insist I live in a town that I do not have lived in, and I probably have written them all back at least 50 times in the last 3 months, still they come in. Some say that it is because of autoresponder, and if that is the case, get rid of the thing that does not work. Regarding EN, well I am glad I ran into your web site today, I was seriously considering it, and I won’t touch it now no matter how good everything sounds. I will tell you that I respect the man in charge of BigIdeaMastermind, I have watched his training and it is the best there is out there. But I have to stay away from EN, I have been scammed way too much already, and it won’t happen again. Great Service you have, maybe we should talk about joining forces, as a division of my company is Web Site Investigations. Good Work!
Braveeagle
How do you know it’s a scam? Because you talked to others who failed in doing the business or took really no action? Hate to tell you they do offer products on Marketing. Like many other companies out there that offers marketing techniques but charge also.
I reviewed EM Power Network and BIM (Big Ideal Mastermind) under Vick Strizehues and got in at $25 bucks for the blog with Empower. Then you have a choice to join the affiliate part or just keep your blog only for $25 per month. I join the affiliate program and since i am signed up under BIM which was the smartest thing I did. I have learned so much from Vick on marketing and growing my business or any other business on the internet. His videos, coaching and “show you how tools” are the best and it saved me money. So calling it a scam is bad taste for a person who has not even been in the company. Don’t preach on something that you have not tried. Last you will hear from me because you’re ruining my mindset.
Nathaniell
You obviously did not read the whole review, nor did you listen to the video (from ex empower member), nor did you read the comments.
Jozef
If you can’t build and sustain your downline in a “MLM opportunity” solely on the virtues of the products of the company, then it is a redressed pyramid scheme scam and it is bound to fail. Plain and simple.
duane
I think It is interesting that people write on a blog without using real names. I don’t mean to say everyone is like that but its interesting that so many would not like to give their real name. I thought we learned something from life. Nothing in life is free. Nothing worth doing in life is free. There are so many MLM’s out there they are not all scams. I am in the US NAVY what I have see with my own eyes and in my whole life. Is there are people that work hard for everything the gain in life. Then there are other people that seem to not want to work to accomplish their dreams. The funny fact is so many of you complain about their system not working but how many of you really dedicated the time to your blogs how many really tried to get traffic and make the business for you? Or are you just thinking that I will invest maybe 2k and my investment will come back 10 fold? You can go out their invest 10k to have a blogging system setup for you with training on how to run it and then sell it in a year for 20k. No one calls that a scam even if its the selling of products. What is a scam is how amazon offers 4% commition for bring them business. Max % is about 8. Why so they can increase their profit margins by 35% in the up. comming years? At least if we are going to talk about people making close to a billion what about gates he is investing in helping the world. At the same time the poor people of our country complain because they don’t want to work hard enough to get a seven figure income. Im bad at spelling but thanks fotr reading my comment.if EN is a bad business venture I don’t know. But what one man said was. In 20 years you will not remember what you have done you will remember what you have not done.