Curious about Empower Network and its Blog Beast (env 2.0)? Is Empower Network a Scam?
You are wise to research Empower Network before clicking that join button….I wish I had.
Despite my initial gut-level distaste for the company, I drank the Kool-Aid briefly this spring when I joined a friend who is a respected, highly successful marketer. After my husband Kevin and I attended an Empower Convention in Denver this summer, we realized that we could no longer stand behind the company 100%.
Let’s strip away Empower Network’s hypey golden curtain and look at the real facts. Here are a few things you need to know up-front.
Cold Hard Facts about Empower Network and the Blog Beast
1. It costs $25 month for the blogging platform, whether or not you become an affiliate. You can blog for free wordpress.com or via wordpress.org. (You can also do it for free on blogger or tumblr—if they shut down, what happens to your blog?!) Stick with WordPress.
2. You don’t own your blog with Empower Network. Once you publish on Empower’s Blog Beast, otherwise known as Env 2.0, you are feeding THEIR blog and THEIR ranking.
3. You pay $19.95 for Merchant Account, plus merchant fees for EACH transaction/sale. The 100% commissions really aren’t 100% commissions because of all the merchant fees deducted. You pay a fee to get your account connected to your bank account, a fee when you want your commissions transferred to your bank account, etc.
4. Once you pay the $25/month and $19.95/month, the Daves and other company gurus in the “Leadership Council” will attempt to upsell you into going all in (going all in costs about $5000 total). Yes, the content in the courses is solid, but you can also learn it elsewhere for less.
5. Empower Network links are blocked by Facebook. If you post any Empower-affiliated video, Youtube will shut it down (unless you are really sneaky). This happened to me within a matter of hours when I made a video about Empower. Google doesn’t like Empower Network, either. How are you supposed to market a product that is shunned by social media and practically banned on the internet? It’s like opening a pharmacy that only sells illegal drugs and not expecting the Feds to raid it.
6. The only way to post a link on Facebook is by using a link cloaker. If a company is legit, why would you need to do that? What’s there to hide?
7. Empower Network cannibalizes itself. Those who are making gobs of offshore cash with EN throw thousands at paid traffic, like $25,000 on advertising to make $50,000. Is that a sustainable business model as an MLM company? No.
Those who are raking it in using organic (unpaid) traffic have advanced knowledge of SEO and internet marketing. Many claim to be newbies—but beware—they may be NEW to Empower, new to affiliate marketing, or new to network marketing. However, they are often seasoned marketers.
Those who aren’t able to throw wheelbarrows of money at traffic and create splashy non-Empower capture pages–are stuck with the same-o same-0 ones that EN provides. The seasoned marketers end up gobbling up traffic. Then the regular Joes, lured in by enticing offers of easy money, fast cash and “100% commissions” throw up their hands after investing thousands of hours and dollars into Empower.
8. The Inner Circle costs $100 a month. It really isn’t an inner circle, but a collection of Monday Night call recordings. The content on the calls ranges from mediocre to excellent, depending on which leaders spoke on the call–usually it features the Daves or some gurus from the Leadership Council. Some of the Inner Circle audios were actually recorded professionally. Many network marketing companies provide archived calls for FREE to their members.
9. Empower’s compensation plan is a variation of the Aussie 2-up plan. Your second, fourth, sixth, and every fifth sale is passed up to your sponsor. You can only get commission on products you own. For example, if you sold the Masters Retreat for $3500, and you don’t own it, you don’t get the commission. It gets passed up to the next person in your sponsorship line who owns that product. My friend missed out on about $9000 because of this commission structure.
10. There are no refunds. However, EN might give you some of the money back if the situation is not resolved with your sponsor. You can read the Better Business Bureau (BBB) complaints here. How does this align with states that have a year for a money-back return policy? Or states that have a Business Opportunity Law that states that any company that has packages for starting a business for more than $500. About half of Empower’s products are at least $50o.
11. The Daves have potty mouths that would make a sailor blush.If you dislike profuse profanity, Empower is not for you. If you don’t agree with what they espouse, they call you a wussy.