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?
R C
I just visited an EN meeting on Thursday Sept 25, 2014 in Denver.
There were some ‘Million Dollar’ earners there and helped with the presentation. There was alot of Rags to Riches stories as well as alot of Hype…
There seemed like alot of potential I didnt sign up at the time and wanted some time to research since I have been pulled into sooo many MLMs like – Amway, ACN, Organo Gold, Laminine, as well as others that i cant quite remember.
Just like so many others I have been looking for a way to get financially independent. I was told to sign up now since the bundled rate is on sale now off from 5k to 3k and thats the way to make the Big money like the Million Dollar earners do.
I know it is a Huge amount of cash and I thought about it. I am glad I found this website to convince me otherwise….
After reading the article and comments I will Not be joining EN…
Thank you
RC
Nathaniell
No reason to spend $3k on EN when that same amount of money could buy you 10 years of personal support and training at a legitimate training center. It sounds like you’ve done a lot of MLM and none have worked out. Sounds like it’s time to move away from MLM. I think your story is not unlike many others.
Anthony Daniels
Hey this review was awesome even though I joined EN I got out the next month and only lost 50 bucks which is good. But I joined Organo Gold MLM and seen other distributors the bully crap and I didn’t approve but I am still in it and do direct sales. But thank you for your review it was extremely helpful
Nathaniell
Yeah, the bully stuff doesn’t fly with many people, but EN panders to the youth crowd who see it as ‘fun’. I don’t approve of Organo Gold either, but I really dislike most MLM.
Michael McGowan
The thing I see with WA is they are always coming against EN.. you never see EN doing that, at least I haven’t. Now don’t get me wrong I most likely will never join them because I don’t agree with what they do but I just find it a bit funny. It’s like the toughest kid on the block thing and always trying to pic a fight or always messing around with the completion.. If your the toughest kid on the block WA then prove it and go out and stop worrying about them. I have a membership with you guys but until you can ‘man up’ I’ll just leave it there and keep going on my own.. I understand you want people to see what’s going on but who made you the police of the internet? (If I don’t agree with you I must be a crude ball right? I must be doing something underhanded or I’m just not quite right and it gets tiring to say the least. It just gets plain OLD.) Anyway.. I hope you guys over at WA can come up with more value because at $50 a month it just wasn’t worth it to me. I mean I went out and built a website on my own and have had traffic there already. It’s just a small hobby site but it wasn’t that difficult to make. And I will be building others. (and I get to keep it) So bring on some more value so I can justify my membership. Thanks and have a good one……. Mike.
Nathaniell
Well, I don’t know what to tell you about the value part…I know that for my referrals, they can contact me at any time with questions. Having access to a mentor is valuable any time. How much does a personal training at a gym cost? $20-$50 per session? People in WA have unlimited access to personal money trainers for $29/month (if they pay for yearly). How’s that for value? How about 500 training modules..did you watch them all?
What about 4 live webinars every month? People charge $100 or more per hour for live webinar training and those come included with your membership. I could keep going, but I think that’s already A LOT more value than the regular $47 monthly membership fee.
Police of the internet? OK, I get what you mean there, but I can only speak for myself. I just find it annoying as hell that EN is charging so much and scamming so many people. Doesn’t it get you mad to see people get scammed? I guess this is just what I’ve become passionate about as I build One More Cup of Coffee out. There are so many scams that we’ve never heard of…people spending their last dime, their food and rent money, their retirement savings on these things.
Why not show them something that is cheaper, more helpful, and that I can personally help them with?
Steve
Doesn’t the fact that more WA members show up for EN related keyword phrases than EN members tell you something about who offers better training? WA has many ex-EN members who are pretty upset with the low value offered at ridiculous prices. Many of us are tired of being scammed and seeing other people being scammed and SOMEBODY needs to warn people!
Joy
I appreciate the great review. In my experience with Empower Network I found it spot on. I have suspended my association with them after six months when they completely changed their business plan allowing for the people already in Empower to get even more of the profits but they also added a DVD to distribute “personally” to prospects and a $7 cost to get their Top Affiliate training. I see it going under since Dave Sharpe retired in May 2014. Dave Wood is an incredibly charismatic guy but if you attend just a few hangouts you’ll see it’s all hype and that’s all. I went into the business as a hope for learning internet marketing and did pick up some valuable info but your review of the blog and inner circle are completely correct. I listened to 30 minutes of one inner circle and knew it was a complete ripoff. Now every day they add new things (at cost to affiliates) and won’t give you training unless you are “all in”. Very sad. I saw people on the facebook pages say they were borrowing money from lenders to “get all in” and I wanted to cry for them. When they changed their program to sponsors getting all newbies 1, 3 & 5, I knew the handwriting was on the wall. Then my sponsor sent out a video saying she was only working with those affiliates that were “all in”. I purchased a couple of their side products but that’s all. I couldn’t in good conscience encourage people to spend their money on something I knew would be a bust for them no matter how much money I was garner in the meantime.
Nathaniell
Thank you for sharing your personal experience with us Joy. I don’t think they’ll recover from this, but there will always be a new network marketing scam to take its place. Wake Up Now was popular for a while, but they seem to be dying off as well.
Arp
I’m going to give WA a look based on your review. I’m not seeing true long-term value in EN and a lot of groupthink. That doesn’t work well for a skeptic like me. Thanks for the review.
Nathaniell
Cool. Find me inside WA and let me know if you need anything. You should get a welcome message from me with some tips and info about the bonuses I offer.