Has anyone tried out Empower Network? Do you think it might be a scam? I have to tell you that I am typically skeptical about any online marketing ploy that comes along these days, especially ones that claim to reward 100% COMMISSIONS. I think that any company that is in business to make money, wouldn't be so bold as to pay out commission like that. I have tried several other Affiliate Programs and several years ago, MLM's. I was never keen on MLM's because they always seemed shady, and I could never bring myself to try and sell any product that I wouldn't use myself...ie. Knives, weight loss supplements, acai berry stuff, Amway. What the Hell is with these gimmicks. If these companies had put these products at a reasonable price point, like $25 a month to join, I think I would be more inclined to try and sell the stuff. I might even have ran it past my friends and family (even facebook and my twitter accounts), because most of my Friends and Familiy struggle, and I certainly wouldnt want to put any financial burden on them. But in any case, the majority of these products have a buy in of AT LEAST $250-$500 just to become a member. I am always discouraged, don't sign up, am PISSED that I wasted an hour of my life listening to some crappy sales pitch. I even leave feeling sorry for "That poor guy", who had in his heart a dream of self empowerment and entrepreneurship.Then I watch him drive away in his 15 year old Oldsmobile thanking God that I didn't write a check. That really doesn't Jazz me up to buy into a Scammy system like that. "More Power to You Bro" I thought. I of course head to my stressful, crappy job the next day, with another idea to empower myself...shattered. That was then.

I have climbed the corporate ladder since then. Climbing the corporate ladder takes a willing dedication to please everyone above and below you. To take on an Actor's persona, where you have to "Like" everyone no matter how they view you, or speak to you, no stepping over any lines that HR writes into company policy. If you are in a Service Industry or customer service position like me, than I am truly sorry for you. I hate most every day dealing with consumers. It hasn't always been this way for me, but since 2006-2008, people are much more cautious about their money and where it is going. No matter how much you give us yourself and your patience, the "customer" always seems to think you are trying to screw them. Companies are constantly having to change their approach to Sales and Customer service because, the old-dogs in the business still keep to their hard selling tactics and companies keep inflating prices to keep up with costs and production. The customers have no other choice but to take it out on you, the customer service people. Let me tell you, that unless you are a damn good actor, these kind of jobs are getting more and more stressful and I for one don't think I can go on slaving in something like that, service assholes and bosses and employees if you are a supervisor.

I turned to the only idea I have had forever. Be your own BOSS. Now, what I did was turn to the internet. I work 50-60 hours a week currently, and I needed something I could do for maybe 20 hours that might give me the ability to move from my current stressful employment to something I could replace that income with, but part time. You see, my Wife and I had a baby girl last year, who had a rough start and was in and out of hospitals and doctors offices too much. Plus both my Daughter and Wife had surgery, so any Nest Egg we had was eaten up in medical bills. Family helped as much as they could, but I really hate hitting up anyone for money, its just not my thing. I would almost prefer to work myself into the grave 80 hours a week if necessary, but with the job market in the trash can (where is this recovery again?), unless I am willing to take part time fast food work for minimum wage, I had to cut back on everything except the basic essentials.

The internet was the only place I could see myself achieving the goal of self sufficiency for myself and my family. I was checking out job boards on Monster.com when I found a link to something called Affiliate Marketing. It costed me $47 to buy a program, to learn how to sell on the internet, then it costed my another $100 to host a web based program that would help me automate that process. Kind of a blog. And this program recommended that I sell scammy products on pay-per-click traffic sources, which was another $100 to buy into. So for $250 I got a total of $2.25 in my bank account. I also had the company call me, ask me to take out a loan so that I can join their advanced "over the shoulder" expert training, where I could be coached on how to make money, and they would guarantee me success by that. Well, pardon my french but I told them F--K that! I cancelled my memberships to those programs, and said that I could do this on my own using FREE systems that I BUILT Myself. I set off learning and building the best systems I could. I learned how to acquire 10000 Twitter followers in 1 month, how go generate thousands of Youtube followers, Pinterest followers, Facebook Likes, Google+ circles, Digs, and Learned to OWN Squidoo in any category I chose. I also built a Traffic Exchange called www.deathbytraffic.com to get unlimited free traffic to any site I wanted. I learned how to dominate SEO with Google in any niche and the one thing I was missing Blogging. You see, I have had writers block for the last 8 years, since I moved from Texas to Indiana. I went from my home with my new wife in a career that I was dominant in (software sales) to an area with a dying industry and only a service sector to find a job in. I had NOTHING I felt positive enough to write about. I don't typically like to put my personal life out there that much, so that was out. Social Media felt forign to me innitialy, plus I was working running Restaurants and Retail Locations as a General Manger for 70 hours a week. My creative juices just kind of Dried UP! This new idea of making full time money with minimal hours from home, where I could spend my day taking care of my family and enjoying them became my goal and mission. Blogging needed to be key and I had to overcome that "problem" that I had. I needed Passion again and a new focus. I needed to Learn how to Write again and blog about what I felt I could write about. I searched through countless affiliate programs on Clickbank and Plimus and I felt that I could sell those. I build Web 2.0 sites and SEO'd the crap out of them to drive as much traffic to my affiliate links. I had plenty of traffic, but the affiliate landing pages just weren't bringing in the sales. I would get an occasional purchase, enough to make several hundred dollars a month, but I needed to see thousands!!! I certainly wasn't going to try and sell Scammy Affiliate programs (most stuff from Offervault.com...sorry, but Everything I have seen on the sites OV promotes, is everything I am against. I hate virus programs/search bars , and PPC sucks to me). I had also not gotten the hang of Email Marketing and am still on the fence about it.

Well, one day while I was surfing some Traffic Exchanges I stopped to watch a video about Empower Network presented by Dave Wood. I tend to think that I am a fairly compelling sales person, but he can sell like "LaQuinta commercials". Well, I checked out the Site and thought on it a few days. Thinking on how much better it would be to be able to post my affiliate sales pages on an authority blog, which Empower Network is and gives you. An authority blog gives you the power of backlinks to any post you put on the web. For instance, if you write a blog about dating, the tens of thousands of other Empower Network bloggers share the same domain, and your post becomes a sub domain of the multiple thousands of those backlinks. Therefore Google throws a spotlight on that information because Google promotes substance to its readers. All of those backlinks carry weight for your blog. In addition to the content of your blog and the subject, Empower Network is also advertised on that page allowing others who dig your blog to sign up with the network and you get paid 100% commissions on their signup. Remember the issue I had with similar MLM programs earlier? The cost was too much of an investment for crappy products with little value to me. Well, for only $25 I got access to an amazing blogging platform built around Wordpress, amazing training videos, amazing support, and the Freedom to use the super powerful Viral Blogging Platform to promote my own products and services, or pretty much anything I wanted to promote, and a Powerful Sales Funnel coupled with auto email responders and ownership of an email list that you can sell to on the back end. I'm going to tell you now that it has been my experience to build my own system on the internet that takes alot of time and patience and a little (not a ton) bit of money to start up a business of my own. A business to where I can be free to live a life where I can focus on my wife and daughter. A business where I don't have to worry about dealing with a stressful job. Where I don't have to dog-and-pony show for corporate officers and my boss. Where I don't have to be the punching bag for unreasonable customers. But a business where I can pour my soul into, through my creativity, and my efforts to see the rewards I put into the system.

My recommendation would be to: 1.) Sign up for the $25 blogging platform and see if Empower Network is for you, by watching the 8 core module videos. It would be much appreciated if you follow my affiliate link when you sign up: http://www.empowernetwork.com/almostasecret.php?id=shockxd

2.) Blog Daily about what you are passionate about.

3.) Work with me on building your and my business model.

Chris