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?
Emer
I came across aome en soldiers on instagram and fb one of them i knew the others were just leaving post in my picture travel blog saying things like you wanna travel more or are u making as much as u want.
Then the person I knew is posting on fb all day how much money he makes on en but never mentioning en they go under a different name of the group. I been looking for a way to work from home in a real honest biz and well i hear the speech i was told i haveto join now and even i wasnt explained what the business was i was told the videos would explain all. I join and pais 50 dollars well im very smart and after an hour of watching videos of a guy in costa rica and some woman teaching me how to make a blog which is kids stuff i realised there was no product!!!!
All they sell is en so i buy it and sell the same thing to others they tell u that u will be helping other people with their businesses to grow but who has time to watch all this videos and run a business.
I also realised that they keep pushing u to go all in and thats all this is about nothing else on the bright side i asked for a refund shortly after and was given no questions asked so i got out and thank god didnt fell for it bow the person that first told me about it keeps telling me to go al in when i said i didnt have money he told me to borrow to use my credit card he said he sold a lot of things to start well this doesnt seem like the kind of busineses i wanna be in and explain that then he told me to shut up ha dont go for this doesnt seem like a legit biz instead im going to try wealthy affiliate!
Nathaniell
Sounds like EN is up to their old tricks. Thanks for sharing your experience with us Emer…I think a lot of folks have a similar experience to you and are turned off by having to go “all in” and spend thousands to get into a “mysterious business opportunity”.
Michelle Lambardo
Okay, so what you’re saying, is completely different from this PDF: [removed]
Are you sure that your points are correct?
Nathaniell
Yes, I’m sure my points are correct. Some of the prices are slightly different since they launched Kalatu, but the highest ticket item is STILL OVER $5,000 USD! You can buy over 10 years of personal help from the products that I recommend with that kind of money, and it’s not all paid up front. The cost for buying EN is just way to high.
Also, this PDF confirms that the main incentive of joining is to sell other EN products. If you’re not selling the audio teaching how to sell EN, then you are selling Kalatu, which people can get for FREE as a basic WordPress install instead of their crippled blogging system.
Do people make money with EN? Yes, they do. But I don’t believe it’s honest money. It’s built on the backs of desperate folks looking for income, and feeding dollars to the top of the pyramid.
Patrick Lavigne
Hey Nathaniell,
“Every review is based on people’s experiences, therefore biased. My review is based on my opinion, and what I’ve personally seen in the world of ‘home based business’ and online marketing.”
The first part of what you say is true but the second part makes it sound like you have personal experience with Empower Network. However, you ask questions like “But why would he need to promote it under the disguise of TOHTV? ” which shows that you obviously have not tried to look for the answer.
TOHTV is basically a new funnel that they developed with a top marketing firm. Ipas is a system developed by an affiliate who saw a need for separate funnels from EN.
The take away for me is that this company and the people around it are constantly doing things to improve it. I like that because jumping to another product is also what most company owners do online.
Btw, Ipas and EN have now joined together and are yet again changing things up to fix problems that they openly admit they have. Scammers don’t do that. They hit and then run. EN has been around for 4 years and are doing pretty ballsy things to make it better for the average Joe to start.
Are there problems still? Of course! Anybody who thinks that doing this online business is easy (MLM or Affiliate marketing) is going to be disappointed and will likely run around crying that they got scammed.
Bottom line is that if you put in the effort, believe in yourself, you will find a way to make anything work. I remember a long time ago, a family relative approached me for some MLM deal and I refused quite forcibly. She ended up being a multimillionaire and now living a lifestyle I could only dream of having. Would I have made it if I had bought in? Not a chance. My low self esteem in my sales abilities were what made me react so negatively. I realize that now and it is what I am working on regardless of what the product is. If I don’t, nothing will work… not even Wealthy Affiliate.
Thank you for the opportunity to reply
Pat
Nathaniell
Well, I have to give it to them for continually trying. You make a good point about that. From what I know of EN dates back to 2013, and they really haven’t been on my radar recently.
However, I have a few gripes that are still valid: 1) They wave “make a million bucks” in people’s faces all the time and make it sound like earning money online is easy 2) It’s way too expensive for newbies. Why spend $5k for something that people could pay just $11 for (a domain) or even the luxury of 1-on-1 training through Wealthy Affiliate for $47/month. Those are the folks that are doing it right, and have been online for 10 years helping people start businesses.
For me, the value of what you receive in EN doesn’t even come close to what you pay when you can get just as good (and probably better) elsewhere.
Botched launches of Blog Beast and Kulatu are kind of indicative of how the company is run – very hype based. OMG we reinvented WordPress! But I can also see that the high ticket item is attractive for folks that don’t care about the end product and just want to make commissions.
For me, I would not feel ethical promoting something like this, which is why I don’t recommend it to people that read my review. Folks will make up their own minds though.
Corinne
For the short time I was exposed to it, I really marveled how people highly skilled in persuasion were persuading others to buy material on how to persuade others, but not recognizing that they were falling prey to the same tactics. Like a dog chasing its own tail. it just didn’t seem sustainable to me and I was glad to watch this review. Thank you.
Nathaniell
Unfortunately, this scam is still happening.
Joshua
Hey Nathaniel!
I’m baaaack! lol…remember when I first commented about a year ago? You said the EN was a scam and so on and so forth. Well, I’ve not only made mid-5-figures BUT I was able to apply their training in the higher products to sell other companies products over the Internet as well as start my own marketing firm. (Get this, I sold their products without signing people up too! lol) Now I have quit my job. This from a guy not sure of joining Empower Network. 🙂 Thanks for saying we wouldn’t succeed because of that, I might not of been able to succeed. What you should do is let people know the truth which is this: It’s not the system or company you join, it’s what you do with the information you learn. Once again, thank you!
Nathaniell
I think you are confused…just because you consult people with SEO voodoo doesn’t mean you own a marketing firm.
Also, I checked out your blog – it seems you are working on your own domain, NOT the one supplied to you by Empower Network. Hm. That seems a bit strange. I wonder if that was EN’s recommendation 2 years ago.
I’m glad you are earning money through affiliate marketing, but I highly doubt it was a result of Empower Network’s training. It actually seems like most of your blog is about MLM lead generation, so I suspect that you are just selling MLM leads and masking it as selling a “product”. Just my guess though. If that’s not the case and you are selling real products, then good for you!
Joshua
Nope it’s a firm. Got my Limited Liability Company issued with the state suggested by Empower lol. I consult people on how to market online and some pay me to be their ad rep and I charge them a fee. You wouldn’t believe how many small business owners don’t wanna deal with their own marketing. I was good in marketing and advertising first but after I got the 15K formula….I became excellent! Still learning though testing traffic. I didn’t know anything about solo ads, until they showed me which was the first boost, then I started retargeting (they taught me), pulling leads from instagram (they taught me) and a plethora of other stuff (they taught me).
I can admit, I don’t blog that often as they suggested. The SEO is kind of confusing to me. I just don’t get the whole Google update thing and it doesn’t click with me as well as the paid traffic (don’t judge me lol). They didn’t suggest my own domain name…I did it to brand myself to tackle the home business & mlm industry. But they showed me how to do it though.
I don’t know how to sell leads.
I’m sure you heard of the new change, right? ENV3? ENV2 sucked but they’ve changed it so that’s why I chose to see the opportunity in blogging.
You posted a picture of the search term on Empower Network from Google Trends. How is people searching a company a definitive indicator of the company’s “leader retention”? If you think it is….Did you do one on “Wealthy Affiliate”? Just curious…:-)
In conclusion, YOU said I wouldn’t succeed with Empower and I did.
Nathaniell
Ok Josh. To be honest, I guess I don’t know the full story, so I’ll have to take your word for it. Congrats. BTW firms are legal businesses so the fact that you don’t even know what to call your company is quite silly.
Also, I did do a review of Kalatu which I guess counts as ENv3. All it is, is another bombed, restricted version of WordPress pumped up by a bunch of hype.
And the trend of EN is to show the hype and burst bubble that EN created using misleading advertising. Perhaps you succeeded, but check the comments to see how many people lost $5000+ following the complete BS that EN put out there.
Joshua
Thank you Nathaniell. You’re right, you don’t know the full story and it’s obvious to someone with a pinch of wisdom. You don’t know why people quit or what they’ve done in their business while in EN. You don’t even know if they’re telling the truth…
I feel you should do your audience some justice by being more informed when you give reviews. They deserve it.
But stop hating on my business man lol. As long as I know my company name is at the top of the check and on contracts, then who cares..
Thanks for approving my comments and I wish you more success and prosperity! I mean that.
Josh
Nathaniell
I think anyone with a “pinch of wisdom” can see that if top affiliates of EN are now NOT promoting it, and there are 100+ comments on my page from people who feel they’ve been scammed, that your lone comment doesn’t to much to help the reputation of Empower Network.