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?
lexus
Wealthy affiliate is ok. My problem with them is they always send email asking you to upgrade to get training. If you do upgrade and cant afford the monthly payment you cannot go back to free. You have to totally quit if you cant afford it.
Nathaniell
If you are a free member and using their services/training, I think it’s not uncalled for to send advertising emails to upgrade. It’s a paid training center, much like you would pay a gym membership or any other type of lessons. They difference between WA isn’t the money (though WA is cheaper), the difference is that they deliver on their promise of support and training.
Wanda Harrell
My Mother signed up w/ EN in Dec ’13 and has spent around $3000, she is not rich, she lives on Social Security only. My brothers have told her EN is a scam and she STILL doesn’t believe us. I am looking for someone in Georgia that I can call or meet to talk to her and tell her this is Fraud. I have showed her this site and others telling EN is fraud but that hasn’t worked. Please reply if you are in the state of Ga. and I can contact you for help!!!!!
Nathaniell
Sorry, I’m not in the Georgia area. Unfortunately, MLM has a lot of similarities to cults, so if it’s serious enough that your mother is selling stuff she needs to make payments to these guys, you might need to seek professional help.
Chas
There are so many good comments in this thread. Recently I am going through some tough financial troubles as so many are here in the USA. I reached out to the online business world to find EN, PL, and others. The negative reviews of EN are astounding. I am amazed they prosper. As I have looked at all the training videos I signed up for EN and 5 others. All of them I requested a refund as once you are in you never get help nor do anyone respond to your emails. My sponsor for EN has responded 5 times to my 46 emails. Each time it was a one sentence response without answering my question. This eagle scout says, stay away.
Nathaniell
Ladies and Gentlemen, from someone who’s been there and back. Thanks for the comment Chas!
Jonathan Brand
I am part of the International Coalition of Consumer advocates. We just requested FTC complaint data and found 71 complaints made against empower network in Dec 2013.
Jonathan
Veronica
My friend was going to help me get signed up to EN and help me make money, problem was she was worken it and crammen it and not making any money at all, I can’t believe people especially, so called internet marketers promote EN. It is a worthless piece of trash, very hard for a newbie to promote without a list, Lies and deceit are also in the mix, it is wolf territory there, i canceled my subscription to the gurus blogs a few years ago, and notice they still promote EN on their branded blog. I have yet to see a EN blog in the searches, it is weary to even hunt for one.
The inner circle was promoted as a type of school, or course that would help you with your blog, but instead the audios promote you to the upper levels or be a wussie.
Dave Sharpe lies are:
“i got help and i want to help you” Hey Dave good buddy, try answering your support tickets and refunding people their money when requested especially after being charged twice for 1 item.
More lies from ole dave sharpe whose dtr called him a wussie when he was pouting one am about going to work in sunny florida for his daddy, big cry baby wussie dave sharpe told this lie:;
Dave wood lives in costa rica and does not have a phone
what?
at the time, I googled it and found dave woods phone number in his personal blog
Hey, if you don’t want to talk to people on the phone? get ole wifey to do it since you were a
homeless van man when she was a worken or hire a va. oh yes and during the time you were a homeless van man, even cops cater to you and ticket you on a beach in hawaii not costa rica and…you were promoting amway, mlsp, numis, and goodness who knows what else..but truth be told dave wood you got your wisdom from mlsp on how to get leads etc..that is how all of you = your founding EN members promoted EN was to their mlsp list and…all of you all were already maken dough from mlsp, numis , amway, and body by vi, I mean come on ..who could forget the gurus putting EN on the shelf to promote body by vi in the winter of 2012 while leaving all the new unknowing EN inner circle members hanging with no.. i mean no weekly training as promised..at the time ole dave sharpe held a monday signup audio and told the would be newbies..dave wood had no phone, oh i get it..dave wood was busy promoting body by vi just as much as toby and layla black, lawrence tam, nick bramble, and aaron and sophia rashkin, i mean anew bmw was up for grabs, right? ha! ole hairy hairy toby and layla even proved it on their blog a brand spankin new bmw was worth it .. Let us all put our EN signups on the back burner right.. a few more server crashes and come march it is time for EN to run a contest..what? where were you all during jan and feb 2012? this is no way to run a business.
The inner circle members did not get there lessons as promised, but what lessons anyway, when dave s took up the biggest part of the hour talking about the next upper level and how we could make it if we could get that next level, that is why i signed up for inner circle to make it from the so called lessons..duh
Lies, Lies, and more Lies,
Ha, dave sharpe and dave wood are like blood brothers and they even said that for me as a newbie to set up a blog and get a blog as powerful and oh yess..gotta say it..search engine friendly!!! that it would cost over a 100k. what 100k, so here we are the blind followers of EN, gotta get in or be a wussie and pay 100k to a geek, they said that we would have to pay someone else..what? I found out later that it is free in some cases to get a blog=blogspot.. just google “get a free blog” These guys have studied hypnosis too and are pros at using subliminal messaging
. there is also deceit in the mix as well, never are you going to get 100% commissions, they only pay you
80% and your 1st sale goes to dave s not your signed up person
I could go on.. here it is
empower network is :
targets newbies to sign up by promising you 100% commissions
the unholy tub of pig lard on the net
misrepresentation and can easily be sued if they do not aim to be more honest
a cult like atmosphere with deceit in the mix
not reliable, as their severs have crashed way too many times to count
fails to teach new sign ups and no ongoing lessons to help you succeed, you are left hanging
dishonest as they say they are a network marketing business and do not teach network marketing as they only teach you to promote not even how to promote
a failure of a blogging system that can not even rank in google
misleading very misleading
overpriced failure of a product that does not live up to its claim
100 % SCAM all the way in all aspects
MLM Guy
I love MLM – just wanted to make sure that I was 100% upfront about that.
That being said, I also see the need for Affiliate marketing, and, for the most part think that it should be part of anyone’s online business portfolio.
Before you stone me – let me explain that I’m not some rookie. I have debuted products on JVZoo’s top 10 list every year for the last 3. I have been one of JVZoo and Warrior Forums higher earning affiliates, and have email lists of over 10,000 active subscribers.
But, MLM for me is the thing to look out for. When done right, there is always money to be made, and you can always leverage other people’s efforts. It is, in sorts, an affiliate program….the only difference is that you don’t need a very established list to get started.
BTW I agree 100% with the lack of training. I think experienced MLM’ers should absolutely give enough training for their team to succeed. I 100% disagree that eventually there are more sellers than buyers. No MLM company has ever had 10% penetration in any country, which means there are always buyers for the saavy marketer.
Nathaniell
LOL. I won’t stone you if you are even keel and explain yourself as you did. I just get uppity when people troll my blog with dumb things like “Apple is a pyramid scheme”. My main issue with MLM is that there are always losers at the bottom of the pyramid. The vast majority of MLMs have products that are more expensive and lower quality than other similar products, meaning that what drives people to buy them is the “biz op”, or that they are required to buy them in order to start selling them.
That’s why I rip on it and tell people to stay away. With affiliate marketing everyone wins. The customer gets a product, end of story. The affiliate makes a commission, and the vendor makes a profit.
Jozef
Hello, MLM guy !
Don’t worry, Nathaniell now understands that not all MLM is bad, because I explained the stuff to him and he understands. You can find my explanation here:
https://onemorecupof-coffee.com/internet-marketing-versus-mlm-crucial-facts-knowledge/
(search the huge comment from me and see the reply from Nathaniell to see his reactions)
There are no stones to fear from him here 😀 My experience with him is that if he threw a stone at somebody, then that somebody ***REALLY*** went out of his way to earn it (just little amount of simple trolling was not enough to cut it 🙂 – I know because I saw some trolls around here). Actually it turns out to be particularly easy to shut them off by just a simple request: “Show us the money”. They won’t because they can’t.
Here is the main point of that huge comment: A true MLM is just a multi-tier affiliate program. You must be able to treat the MLM program as any other affiliate program: You sell a product, you get paid a commission. End of story. The higher commission levels allow you to do “teaching and mentoring business” where you teach your downline how to promote the products and they then promote the products (and earn their 1st level commissions) and you earn your 2nd level commissions. On the third level you need to teach the people how to teach people how to do affiliate marketing. However you are never required to go to these levels and in a true MLM program all you need to do to change levels is to switch your marketing gears to match the next level. And you get paid the 2nd and higher commissions even when you are operating at the 1st level and one of your customers happens to be a marketer and starts to promote the products himself (you then get the 2nd level commissions automatically just because you got that marketer under you). If the “MLM company” does not work along these lines, it is not a “MLM company” at all, it is in fact a “MLM pyramid scam” and is most likely going to be banned in the future (when FCC gets bombarded with enough complaints from unhappy customers to push laws against these types of scams). Additionally with true MLM with great products there is never a shortage of customers because people need to consume the products and there will be many who want just the product and are not actually interested in the business opportunity.
EN is thus not a MLM company at all, it is a MLM pyramid scam and one of the worst ones (crappy products designed to extract money out of their users rather than help them).
There is much longer discussion about true MLM versus fake MLM which is just a redressed pyramid scam in that huge comment, go read it if you are interested.