Empower Network’s Product Line – A Perspective From The Inside Looking Out

From the archive: originally published December 2011 on the Empower Network blog.

The time was 10:48pm EST. I was tired – exhausted would describe it better.

My body ached and my mind did, too. I had been swinging a hammer all day on a construction site, from the time the sun came up, to the time the sun went down.

It was just another day at the office for me, in the hot Florida sun.

But while all my construction co-workers were at home, watching TV, resting and gearing up for the next day – I was hunched over my little laptop, trying to move an image an inch the right on my blog (A Blog is website software that allows you to integrate ‘Plugins’ from the open source WordPress platform so you can implement and operate various functions like Facebook comments and other scripts that can turn your blog into a membership site, etc).

I was no ‘techie’, and at that time, hardly knew what a blog was – however, I had caught a bug. It was called ‘entrepreneurism’.

I also had a vision. And it’s the same vision hundreds of thousands of other entrepreneurs have each day. That vision consisted of working ‘smart’ ..not hard – running a sound business, and leveraging the power of Internet technology.

I already knew what the opposite of all those was.

I had worked hard – real hard.

I had seen people run ‘unsound’ businesses.

And I knew plenty of people who were not leveraging online technology, we’re still sticking signs by the road at their office building and were still waiting on someone to look them up in the Yellow Pages for a free estimate.

That kind of ‘marketing’ (if that’s what you want to call it) didn’t work anymore, and if it did, it was rare. Most business that were surviving the economic Tsunami without good marketing were surviving because they served a clientele that had money to spend on their product or service, or because they were still getting enough ‘word of mouth referrals’ to pay the bills and keep the doors open.

And I don’t know about you, but…..

This Was The Business ‘Depression’ I Witnessed In My Neck Of The Woods

The rest of them were spending the majority of their time licking their wounds from a disastrous hit from the economy.

I recognized this painful truth and was willing to work around the hurdles.

So I combed through YouTube video after YouTube video, and article after article, trying to learn how to set-up my blog.

With no real budget and no solid resources…..

I was left with nothing but a sheer determination as I constructed my online real estate one click at a time

I worked on my blog very similar to the way I built houses – one nail at time, one screw at a time. I was used to this kind of labor intensive work.

And I had no where to go but up. I was living paycheck to paycheck and had no money to fall back on. I had no choice but to make it work.

I started making a few affiliate sales (affiliate marketing is when you market others products or services and earn a commissions from sales that are made through your affiliate link). With each sale came a little more confidence.

But, I was still stuck in set-up mode most of the time. My blog was not complete and I had no idea how to tie up the loose ends.

It became painfully obvious others were struggling with the same thing

I pushed forward, and worked 6-8 hours every night, after working 8-10 hours during the day at my construction job.

I realized there was a few other things that would make or break my success, too.

The ability to write effective ad copy (the written word), build effective sales funnels and convert leads to sales.

This was not an easy thing to learn….

…but naturally, I became attracted to it. Not because I’m analytical, but because I enjoyed it and became good at it. I would set up online marketing campaigns, from start to finish, that converted at rates most businesses never see.

I began to write ad copy that pulled in traffic, converted that traffic into leads …and converted those leads into sales.

When I started to see some real success, I realized something. I had lost track of time. I had been working for close to a year, non stop – more than any one else I knew who was building a part-time online business.

This was not normal, and most people didn’t have this kind of time, and weren’t willing to overcome these kind of headaches and pit falls to see results.

Most people quit after they realized how much was involved in just setting up a blog or website.

I also noticed something else (or someone else). His name was David Wood. And he was producing results on a scale much larger than anyone else I knew.

Dave also came from humble beginnings – actually hopeless beginnings. From his van, homeless, fresh off of losing his job at GreenPeace – he started with a lap top and a vision. He actually asked his wife to work for two months as a waitress so he could spend all day and night building an online business.

With no solid guarantee of what the outcome would be, they both held up their end of the bargain, and within 2 months, he had a week where he made more than $25,000 in a week (these results are not typical).

Fast forward 3 years.

A few phone calls lead to meeting – which lead to a discussion – where a problem was addressed, and a solution was created.

That problem?

By this time Dave and I had both worked with thousands of people from around the world who all faced the same exact thing we did when we started – most of which were not winning the battle.

So what was the enemy defeating so many entrepreneurs one after another?

Let’s start here…..

Technical learning curve – people are not technically inclined. Period. I’m still not. Bottom line – computers are intimidating – then you have to open them and turn them on 🙂 Most people manage to get that part right, type in Facebook and spend most of their time online socializing with friends. And if you want to think like an entrepreneur for a minute, you’ll realize… those very people hanging out on Facebook, are traffic for your business, leads and buyers. That is…. if you don’t get frustrated in the technical set-up process of getting started online and actually get your site up and present them something to buy.

Enemy #2

Misinformation – it’s actually easy for someone to claim they didn’t know right from wrong these days when it comes to building a business online. There’s so many ‘wannabe’ gurus and, to put it plainly – other misinformed people who are helpful with their advice, but have no place giving that advice in the first place. So people find themselves lost in a sea of information overload, most of which is bad information.

Enemy #3

Time – my dad has said this to me as long as I can remember (he has been in the building trades for 30+ years, and would say this mostly when I was taking too long to get something done a job site). He’d say “The clock don’t stop for nobody” – and he’s right. Especially if you have a full time job, a family, and the other things that come along with that, and are trying to build a business online – or take your existing business online for more exposure and better marketing returns. Most of the time, you’ll simply find the old saying is true – “There’s just not enough hours in the day”.

So 99% of people are left with no real hope….

…until now.

See Dave and I saw this need. We saw what was happening with people – and there was no end in sight. People were preying on these evident weaknesses and just selling people more information courses promising them they would reveal the secret to push button online profits – but it never happened.

Because building a business online the traditional way takes time – and skill. It takes set-up. It takes investment …and resources …and so on …and on.

So Dave found himself wandering through the foothills behind his house one day thinking about how he could do his part to put a stop to this madness.

And so was the idea of the Empower Network born.

But that idea needed cultivating. It needed tweaking. It needed a different perspective.

That’s when those phone calls turned into that meeting – which turned into the birth of Empower Network

Our mission since the day the idea was grasped – to inspire and empower as many ordinary people to do extraordinary things in their lives and in their business – and give those same people an edge we didn’t have when we got started.

The gift of simplicity, and ease of use. To bypass all the clutter, and get to the heart of the matter.

In service,

David Sharpe

Empower Network Co-Founder

Income references are historical (2011–2013) and were not typical; no income is guaranteed. See our Income Disclaimer.