Archives for June 2013

Affiliate Review: Covering Empower Network
by Daniel Euergetes,
Updated: February 22, 2013

Owners: David Wood and David Sharpe, Founders
Price: Overall: Approx. $5,000
Website: http://empowernetwork.com

Rating:

(1 / 5)

In my Empower Network Review, I pose the question, “Is Empower Network for you?” Indeed it is for some folks, but NOT for others. Which are you?

I am writing an overview on the popular company called Empower Network. I have found many colorful articles on this company out on the web, and I would like to share my take on it all. I went into it myself but found that I really didn’t have the “right stuff” to make this business work for me, but perhaps you have what it takes.

I admit. I’m one of those “Wussies.” Not such a bad name for simply wanting to be ethical and treat people like human beings and not numbers.

PLUS…

After I go through the overview, I would like to discuss what alternatives we who don’t quite fit into a place like EN have, because they’re out there.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

The Company

Empower Network was created by David Wood and David Sharpe. The site was launched on October 31, 2011.

They have had MANY problems with merchant accounts that has hindered their early growth but after awhile they found a work-around for all the problems and today they are a thriving and VERY profitable and attractive business.

David Wood, was purportedly a homeless man living out of a van with his wife. David Sharpe is said to have been a former alcoholic that worked as a construction laborer. [There are unconfirmed reports that living in this van was entirely voluntary and not due to impoverishment.]

Both these individuals learned about online business, both in affiliate marketing and MLM, which are incorporated into the present platform today. Having perfected their business model they began making 5- and then 6-figure incomes and the rest is history.

PROS & CONS

What I Like

• There are great, well-meaning individuals in EN
• Fast-growing
• Nice-looking blogs

What I Don’t Like

• Shaming members into action
• Too many up-sells for my comfort
• Very high accumulation of negative reports, reviews, etc
• Stresses quantity over quality
• Encourages selfish marketing mentality
• Advertising is aggressive and misleading
• In my opinion, not a true MLM
• Further, Has no real products, entirely self-poromoting.
• This is a Ponzi scheme, and is commonly known to be so.

WHO IS THIS PROGRAM FOR?

If you are squeamish about aggressively driving people into a program like this, this will not work for you. The great thing about the Program is that it provides everything you need to persuade folks to, not only join, but to go “all out.” This includes the training and social pressure to do this.

Expect to meet up with some up-sells, but these are necessary to put members who come into the program to unfair advantages above those who don’t. With bare minimum and even some of the up-sells, you won’t stand much of a chance getting anywhere. The program is designed to work best when the all the offerings have been purchased and used. Coming into Empower Network and settling for the small introductory stuff is absolutely not acceptable. If you join, you need to follow through. Else, you will be shamed until you either leave the program or get hopping with the products offered. Before you join, make sure you have over $5,000 to spend into it.

This is for folks that are out there to aggressively rake in the cash. Those who do not put forth this effort are readily called “Wussies,” even more so not going “all in.” It is the shaming aspect that gets people on their feet and finally on their toes in sprint mode. Here, it’s all about making money and learning how to get your down-line making money for themselves, for you don’t if they don’t. Your superiors will nudge you along and coach you. You are not in it to play around. They mean business and so should YOU!

The Uniqueness of Empower Network

Who says you need money to make money? At Empower Network, you do just the opposite. You really don’t even have to use your imagination. EN’s system is so refined, it does it for you. All you do is promote EN on the blog you purchase upon joining up. Yes, there is an up front cost for the training materials you will need and this is Empower Network’s only products. How’s that for creating something from nothing? It is amazing!

There is no need to fool with products outside of the training of how to run an Empower Network business. Anything other than these are a waste of time and in order to streamline your success, they are the only products included and are available to members. The products you will be selling are the training modules that teach you how to bring in new recruits and persuade them to purchase the products as well. These products will take you to exotic places! An example of the kind of products you get is below – the training that comes with the Blogging Package…

Here you have the best of both worlds. You get plenty of support but if you underachieve, you will be coached. Empower Network has found that the best way to do this is by getting you to sit on a tack once in a while to get you motivated and in line. They will (and it is encouraged) publicly make you look like a fool if you don’t conform to the program, so you best to it.

HOW DO YOU GET PAID?

You get $100% on your commissions! Restrictions Apply – Read Below…

Neucopia: A Turbo Feature Added to Empower Network

$49.95 to join… $269.95 To be “ALL-IN” for a measly $169.95 Monthly. THAT’S IT!!! Straight forward, Simple, No Extra FEES ever! With Neucopia, you pass up your first 2 sales only and going forward, you are fully qualified for life. In Empower Network, Neucopia is the WAY to go! Be the first to market with Neucopia since only 1,000 have already joined.T

COST TO JOIN:

• Blog: $25/month
• Affiliate Fee: $20/mo
• Premier Membership: $100/mo
• $500 one time
• $1,000 one time
• $3,500 one time (And get told repeatedly you’re a “Wussy” if you don’t buy the $500, $1,000 AND $3,500 right away.) = $5,145 to get started at the TOP!

TRAINING:

The Products

For a small fee, Empower Network provides a ready-built blog for every member complete with hosting, domain name, all necessary plugins and pre-loaded with powerful Empower Network advertising and monetization. Be one of tens of thousands to rent one of these proven sites! You are given the freedom to add your own posts, your photograph and more EN banners to get it lit up like a Christmas tree! All this for one low monthly price!

One more item of interest… Though the overall format of the site is proven to work as it is and cannot be changed, you CAN change the background color if you desire!

The basic membership which is $25 will also give you a fast start training area that will give you audios on how to set-up your e-wallet, getting started with your blog, and instructions about when to write a blog post on your new blog.

Hidden Charges? Not Mentioned Anywhere, So Here They Are:

• Merchant account charge of $19.95 when you start.
• $19.95 monthly charge to keep your merchant account.
• You need your own merchant account because unfortunately, EN can’t get any and is working on this.
• Transferring of money comes with small fees. (ex: a $25 commission will net you about $22.)
• Any commissions you make is subject to these ity-bity fees.

The Marketing System Funnel

Empower Network’s renowned Marketing System Funnel does have a LOT of ‘up-sells’, this is necessary so that they can maximize your up-front payout. Only people who are out to do some serious marketing do not complain about these up-sells and regard them “as necessary.” Dave Wood or David Sharpe knows what’s good for you and will tell you to ‘Go All In’ at around $3500, or you are a “WUSSIE”….

How else are you going to get off your duff???

The Inner Circle Upgrade

This gem comes with a price tag of only $125 auto-ship and $19.95/mo. to help defer costs. Worth it! (at least to the most serious.) This give you access to several audio training and you will also get the privilege of promoting these to your down-line. Hence you will receive commissions less the fees and pass-ups described above. Easy sales!

To Recap

You have the $25 level, and the $100 level, so as far as the residuals go, you will pay $125+$19.95, but you will now be able to make $125 in residuals minus the merchant fees. You have the Empower Network-based training that should take you a long way if you are the go-getter type. Empower Network will help you get the massive numbers you are looking for and is specially-formulated to do just that for thick-skinned performers!

Now, how cool is that?

The Up-sells…

Let’s take a closer look at what you get when you purchase all the up-sells, heh?

15k Formula ($1500 to buy) A set of eight videos that train you how to sell, drive traffic and generate leads to Empower Network. Reported to be a great video course and one that needs to be taking up space on every EN member’s dusty bookshelf!

Take a virtual trip to Costa Rica in the “Costa Rica Intensive” which will cost you a mere $500. This is more of the same great stuff as above but in happening in tropical Costa Rica.

No Empower Network Membership is complete without the Costa Rica Masters Retreat which is a $3500 cost. Book a trip to a mastermind session with David Wood and David Sharpe at the elegant Casa de Woods Costa Rica There you will also be with thousands of other people that have also booked the trip looking to monetize their memberships!

VERDICT:

MY FINAL THOUGHTS

Hmm…

This may be for folks that want the numbers but are not so concerned with quality. I personally found Empower Network to be a little too aggressive with its advertising and that it is also misleading. Many people in there have no issues with that though.

It does put a sour taste in people’s mouths that care more for the customer than to elect her as a number.

And to make it even more of a bad taste, they call you names and call you a wussie and suck if you don’t go ‘All In’.

Marketing is marketing, and these guys know how to do it and build teams FAST.

The way it’s done is a little beyond my tastes and is a little too black hat for me. I’m one of those wussies I guess LOL!

Here is the bottom line

Some pyramids are not bad. Take the ones at Giza, for example. They’ve withstood the test of time. They are well-built systems though nobody alive inhabits them now except the curious.

Are there alternatives to Empower Network?

A Resounding YES…

Now in my personal opinion is there a better program for a new person to get started and make money with, that is more transparent, more professional, pleasingly-aesthetic, has a FAR better training program, and the excellent ethics are unmistakable. I, myself, choose to be involved ONLY in memberships that provide real value and do not employ “black hat” methods. In my opinion, EN does little more than give lots of folks a very bad taste about what online business is all about. Are there any programs that do more than just teach you how to give out hot air sandwiches and create money out of thin air ROI?

YES…

What is that Program you ask?

A membership having about 25,000 less in its community, (EN sports approx. 70,000 at the time of this writing) check out my Review on Wealthy Affiliate.

You may get the numbers in EN, but at WA, quality shines more and which is more important?

Click Here!

Affiliate Review: Covering Internet Income University (IIU)
by Daniel Euergetes,
Updated: June 4, 2013

Owners: Kevin & Darin Blue, Founders
Price: Free Account: $0. Premium: $30/life
Website: http://internetincomeuniversity.com/

Rating:

(2 / 5)

Are you a member of Internet Income University and having problems getting anywhere with it? It’s not your fault and this review will show you why. Are you considering joining this program or are looking for a good one to join? For the first question, I urge you to read this review in full before considering IIU and I can assist you on joining the best program your money can buy – and you won’t fork out anywhere near as much as you would this expensive program nor will you regret it. I supply links to those programs widely endorsed as safe, fair, honest and secure. I have not supplied any links save the one above in the summary box. If you click that link, do so at your own risk. Please read this review…

INTRODUCTION

Internet Income University isn’t, by any means, a “university.” That it calls itself such is horribly misleading at best. In this review, I will show you why, for the most part, this program isn’t for most people and is one that should be avoided. Though the program isn’t so much of a scam, it certainly is borderline to being one. IIU (their acronym) purports this to be a place “Where Education Meets Opportunity,” that this byline is nothing but a hot-air sandwich.

PROS/CONS

The Good Stuff

• The training videos are reported to be somewhat acceptable.
• You can learn about SEO from the videos, though they are very basic.
• Very readily honors its guarantee.

The Bad Stuff

• Offers hosting that you MUST use. You Cannot use any other.
• Free website is filled with their adverts.
• You have no control over these adverts, or made to think so.
• Their affiliate “education” limited to five of their programs.
• Their F.A.S.T. Program is actually quite slow.
• A few people do well with this program, but this is atypical.
• Training modules, though some useful stuff in them, are riddled with upsells.
• Professional coaching is not free. Comes with a monthly price tag.
• SEO is done by them and comes with a price tag.
• High-priced three-year hosting fee can be revoked.
• Negative review, blog & complaint forum posting very high.
• Boldly places “top business” plaques on site. Is legit, but not the best.
• Free stuff completely useless, other “free” stuff comes with price tag.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

An affiliate opportunity that purports to be a “university” of sorts. The product plays heavily on education to draw folks into their program. This is a very long shot from being an educational institution or site of any sort. Their “education” is, at best a very brief and extremely elementary set of a few segments on how to conduct an affiliate business. It is very suited to their own business, teaches nothing about how to build websites and other important aspects of having an affiliate marketing business, other than how to populate it with content and change colors, etc. Users do have full administrative control over their sites but are not taught how besides the very basics.

WHO IT IS FOR

Better have some cash to fork out … you’re gonna need it!

There are reports of a few people having made money with this program but according to a very large percentage of reviews and other reports available on the Internet, this program is one that should be approached with caution. Admittedly, some of these negative reports come from folks who won’t even try it out before posting what they do about it. However an equal amount comes from reliable sources, from folks who have given the program a fair shot.

This program is for anyone who would want to start a business where everything is “done for them” including closing the sales. What you essentially get, is a business-in-a box type which entails a cookie-cutter website. I have seen that it is possible to alter the content in these sites to make them stand out from the others, but from personal observation, most people do not exercise this, and only upon expensive coaching and training does one learn to go beyond the herd in this case. Without paying out extra dough for this, the average person doesn’t know what to do with their sites besides add content, change colors, etc.

If you have the extra money to “invest” in your business in this way, this program might be for you. There are indeed folks on there doing fairly well with it, as I have personally spoken to a couple. However there are other programs out there that do not impose such expenditures on its members

TRAINING/TOOLS OVERVIEW

There are no training tools whatsoever in the free membership. In fact, there is nothing at all useful in it – except you are able to get into the forum to view what’s there. This has helped me tremendously determine what’s in this program as it is freely-talked about on there. Other than community forum access to view it, (no posting privlieges) the free membership is nothing more than a series of up-sells.

Let’s move on to the paid membership:

F.A.S.T. Program

Step 1: Fast Website Setup – This is the program within IIU that offers a free website to each paid member. It consists of a simple web document from WordPress consisting of a Home and About Pages. Home is the blogroll and the About a page.

In virtually every way, this installation resembles a “business-in-a-box” scheme. Due to this, members on IIU are having great difficulty promoting their sites and must rely on expensive up-sells.

Step 2: Affiliate Marketing Streams – They head these five promotions with “Top Income Opportunites.” They come default on every website given out “for free” to every member who completes this step.

• Internet Income University

Cost to Join: $0

• Perfect Balance Plan

Cost to Join: $177 affiliate program/use the personal development program

• ViSalus Sciences

Cost to Join: $49/mo affiliate program/use the weight-loss program

• Keyword Evolution

Cost to Join: $97 affiliate program/use the tool

• Secure Online Hosting

Cost to Join: $14.95 affiliate program, $20 domain/hosting

The purpose of the training is all about how to write articles (they have their own article directory,) find keywords and build out the site with content. It is readily suggested, that though the site looks complete, it is, but it’s only a start, a “baby seedling,” as expressed by Kevin Blue. Basically, what you have at this point, is a pretty-looking website that is just sitting there. This advice is perfectly sound.

It is also warned that in order to get credit for sales, members MUST sign up for the affiliate programs being advertised on the sites, else proceeds will pass on to the company. To get credit,this forces members to purchase into these affiliate programs as affiliates. Upon signing up (or calling a special phone number) to get signed up, the company will update the affiliate links and banners on the site.

Step 3: Scalable Advertising This is what they call the “SEO Infinity” otherwise known as the “Co-op.” Here you are given the opportunity to purchase “shares” into which you are then able to have the promotional work done for you. These entail members who pay into these the limited-time opportunity to tap into an international team of “Autopilot Lead Generation Experts” to drive an “endless stream of traffic” to your affiliate links.

Your affiliate link for IIU shows up any number of times in a rotator of sorts (have not researched this.) which could be a banner rotator or something similar.

The three currently-available selections are:

1. SEO Infinity Silver, entitles 1 slot: $597
2. SEO Infinity Gold, entitles 3 slots: $997 (purported savings of $800)
3. SEO Infinity Platinum, entitles 5 slots: $1997 (purported savings of $1000)

These are “lifetime” purchases, meaning, once you have them, you’re in with these benefits for life.

Here’s what I found in the forum after someone has purchased one of these:

“I am noticing an increase in clicks now but after 4 months still haven’t made a sale. Can any of the experienced members out there advise what sort of click to leads, leads to members and members to sales ratio i should be aiming for and what the average ratios are.”

The answer?

“Sometimes w/ advertising it is just the luck of the draw as to which members get sales- unfortunately we can only rotate traffic and not sales … Keep believing in yourself and make no excuses, 2012 is going to be an EPIC year!!!!”

Not something I’d like to invest $597 into, let alone $1997!

Step 4: Training & Support

Paid Coaching – Coaching is available for SEO-related issues. I have not researched this fully, but it is an added feature to put those who use the service at “an unfair advantage” over those who don’t. There is a recurring monthly fee of $97 for this service.

Forum – The Forum doesn’t boast a lot of activity but there is some going on. This is where most of the members address their questions and issues since this is free. The owners readily come on board to answer the questions.

There are also weekly webinars, every Thursday evening. However, I found this in the Customer Support section of the site:

“Missing Thursday night webinars: I currently work second shift and was wondering how to access the weekly Thursday night webinars”

Answer:

“Note that the last webinar we had was still on Dec. 20, 2012 as we didn’t have any webinars recently so don’t worry if you’re not seeing anything posted for this year as of yet.

Hope that helps!”

Well, it was May 15th, 2013 when this question was addressed and answered by Support. Awfully long week here, heh?

SUPPORT

Customer Support is through a help-desk. It appears to be quite prompt on answering questions and handling problems. Very often there are disgruntled members wanting refunds. These are always granted without question. In all of my reading, it seems just about everything that a member can pay out, readily gets refunded upon request or demand.

PRICE

All pricing has been discussed above. Some on the higher end may have been missed, but this review gives you a good idea on what to expect to pay out to get anywhere with this program.

FINAL OPINION/VERDICT

Technically, this program is not a scam, but is very borderline to being one. There are far better programs and training communities that do not employ the use of business-in-a-box models. My top pick doesn’t employ such tactics. From observation it appears very apparent that members do not get educated other than on how to add content and other very basic functions of WordPress. I originally deemed this program a scam because it seemed apparent that some of the functionality was removed from the WordPress installations, preventing folks from manually removing unwanted items from their sites. I have since found this is not true and upgraded my assessment to “Avoid.” From observation of the many sites built and used by members of this program needed education is lacking, and though I find this program isn’t a scam, I find it one to…

Final Thoughts

I rate programs by Horrible, Very bad, Bad (levels of scam and quality) and Good, Better & Best. I rate Internet Income University as one of the bad programs out there. The means to get into the paid program is cheesy in and of itself, being declared as free, actually costs $30 to activate, or to choose any one of sponsored offers to activate it. It is full of up-sells for which you will fork out well over $500 just to get started anywhere near making success with this. There are far better programs out there that are not so restrictive, do not have up-sells at all, and are MUCH cheaper, not to mention have MUCH more to offer in every way!

My first pick is Wealthy Affiliate. Wealthy Affiliate is preferred by most anyone who finds it. If you are a member of Internet Income University, I invite you to take a look at what you are missing. If you are planning on joining IIU, I strongly recommend you do NOT consider this program.

Do note that Wealthy Affiliate also has a yearly membership which offers great discount on the monthly pricing of $47. This equates to $29/month. You can’t beat this price on any one of the single items one must pay for alone in IIU! WA has been around since 2005 and has a true pay-it-forward spirit. This means, nothing is cut out, nothing is hidden. The entire spectrum of learning how to build and run an online business is put before you. You will be expected to work and not expect overnight riches. Just like IIU says this, WA endorses it with a MUCH better program!

My Best Pick:

Please check out my Review for Wealthy Affiliate

or, check out below…

WATCH VIDEO: Wealthy Affiliate Walkthrough – How YOU Can Benefit From WA

As I said, I can assist…but only if you are willing to take action on the help I give you. If you want to get the most out of yourself and the most efficient learning platform, check this out!

Step 1: Sign-up HERE for your ZERO DOLLAR ($0) Wealthy Affiliate Account
Step 2: Watch this VIDEO which walks you through the process
Step 3: Build your OWN website

See for yourself why Wealthy Affiliate goes above and beyond any other program available online!

Do you have any questions about the video presentation?

Simply ask! If you need a hand with anything that I have discussed here, please leave a comment below or you can get in touch with me inside of Wealthy Affiliate via my profile.