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?
John
You almost had me… You lost me at Wealthy Affiliate… Creating a fake review without trying the product to steal the SEO for other companies so you can get an affiliate commission is ALSO KNOWN AS fraud!!!
Nathaniell
Ummmm, 4 years later, while EN is dead in the water, you’re still considering this is a “fake” review? Geeze. It’s my opinion and experience. Ignore my recommendation for WA and read the review, and will you still disagree with it? Of course. I’ll call you out on your comment as well. No doubt you are concerned that I’ve written a negative review of something you’re selling. So aren’t you biased as well? It’s all just opinions, and I’ve written mine here.
ALL the big EN sellers are gone, and have moved on to something else. Sounds like you’re late to the game!
Despicable Deb
Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam. Nor is it really a true a affiliate in the aspect that some think. You can ask people to join and yes make a commission, but the training is like no other. You can literally make a business you may already have even better through Wealthy Affiliate. It does not work like a MLM so to speak. Ranking for money is not the main objective. If you are so willing to shell out THOUSANDS of dollars for EN, you could give WA a look. It’s actually free for the non premium and very affordable for premium, even drop to price to help people stay connected. Not to mention all the help from other members. A true working community.
Glenda Cornelius
Thank you!!! I saw one video and started looking for reviews and came across yours. I appreciate it.
Yolanda
I paid the $1.00 to join Empower Network, but the more videos I watch and listen to, the more I don’t like it. One video i watched said “if you don’t have the money to be “All In” figure out some way to get.” This is the only way to make money. My email has been bombarded with emails from David Wood trying to get me to purchase tons of products that I have not learned about. EN makes it seem like you’ll make tons of money within your first week. Sounds too good to be true for the average person.
Nathaniell
Unfortunately, high pressure sales tactics like this are common in MLM. Don’t have the money? Well go get it! Lots of people have gotten into huge amounts of credit card debt to fund their business without fully understanding how things work. At least you stopped at the $1 point instead of investing a few thousand dollars it takes to “go all in”.
Harvey
I don’t like Empower Network. As the previous writer said, once you join with the initial $25 per month membership, you are constantly bombarded with messages to buy other products. I was in it for about a year and a half and bought everything except the top-end product, which was $3500, a one time fee.
There was NEVER any way I was going to spend another $3500 on their products which are extremely difficult to sell. The lower end products have almost no value; they don’t teach you anything. All they do is give you a bunch of hype, motivational stuff, and testimonials from people who have been successful with their program. After a year and a half of making no money, instead of “getting all in,” as they say, I “got all out.”
I didn’t learn much of anything. The only positive thing was I accumulated over 100 blogs which I will use later on in other projects. EN taught me one valuable lesson. If a company pushes itself to the point where the hype overpowers what they have to sell, then don’t walk away, run away as fast as you can. I’m so glad I never bought the $3500 product; it would have just been money wasted. It wouldn’t surprise me if EN folded within the next 3 to 5 years. In fact, I already see it going downhill.
Nathaniell
Thanks for the comment Harvey, and the insight too! Unfortunately, EN is still operating, and still switching products to feed the launch beast. As each new offering bombs, they gotta think of a “new” and “revolutionary” way to earn money online.
Geraldine Benz
Thank you for writing this article and posting Ian Pribyl’s video. I learned about EN from a good friend so I wanted to do a background check. I am glad I did.