The Empowerism Screw-Up With Janet

Did you enjoy this article? Be sure to like my Facebook Page, Patrick Carpen, for more!

This article was first created on the 14th of June, 2015 and last updated on the 23rd of April, 2016 by Patrick Carpen.

The now defunct "Empowerism" company.

The logo of the now defunct “Empowerism” company.

Sometime in the year 2005, I chanced upon Stone Evan’s Plug in Profit Site.

Stone Evans proposed to build me a “completely free website outfitted with five automated income streams that could be making me money in the next 24 hours”.

I didn’t doubt the possibility that such a venture was feasible. With the steady rise of the internet, ecommerce and digital products, this was something that seemed very likely at the time. I figured that someone might have sifted through all the chaff to bring the wheat to ordinary folks.

Stone Evans mentioned that his product was completely free and would cost me nothing. I read and reread the sales pitch. I must admit that this guy could really write. He had a knack for it. His writing was captivating and narrated tales with such enthusiasm, you were bound to follow.

Related: The Power of the Sales Letter

By the time I got to the bottom of the sales page, I decided to give it a try. I clicked the “get started button”. The website led me to one program after the other which I was to join “free”. Then there was the catch. At about the fourth program it read “this is the only program which requires a payment: and I put this here to weed out all those lazy people who are looking for a free ride”.

That was indeed a red flag. First he said “completely free”. But here he introduces a program that needed a 24.99 USD monthly payment starting now. I liked the sound of it nevertheless, and I decided to follow through. The program’s name was “Empowerism” and it required me to scan copies of my credit card and fax it over to the US office.

By the end of the day I was all set up for the Plug in Profit Site, which was another long story all by itself.

I decided to head over to the Empowerism website and see what they had to offer. I logged in with my credentials and went straight to the training center.

Empowerism did have some good stuff there. I must admit that their training videos on building websites using HTML gave me a head start in web development. I was able to build and upload my first website to a server right after watching these videos.

I would later develop my skills from that starting point; and I must admit that it was a very good foundation for a web developer: learning to build websites using the most basic coding language.

But coming back to the topic, I decided to explore more of what Empowerism had to offer. They had something called a “RSVP” package where you purchase “RSVP” packages of 25 dollars, you cycle, and you get about 2000 dollars by the end of so many cycles. I bought a few packages, but even after a few years, I never got any returns.

Nevertheless, the Empowerism idea seemed like a good one. With all the money it was making from its thousands of members and counting daily, one would have thought that the founder and owner, Janet, would improve the website, especially the training center, to become “the only one of its kind”.

Instead, after about three years of my joining the program, Janet announced that the program would be closing, and everyone will lose their money. Janet declared that a “program of this nature is not viable”.

I remember studying of the “Empower lessons” from Empowerism where they mentioned the German poet Goethe (pronouced Gerta).

Goethe wrote a poem that was pages long and took decades to complete but it turned out to be an epic success. The lesson prompted “this is what we’re talking about, the ability to stick to what you started…that’s what brings you true success…the stick-to-itness“.

Well, Empowerism just didn’t stick to it, did they?

What a screw up. A total screw up.

Related: My experience with ICS

Related: My Experience With Davison Inventegration

Related: Marketing by Patrick Carpen

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments