Blogging Income Systems That Keep 100% Commissions Explained

Hey, this is Tom with Escape Artist and I�d like to welcome you today. I have a very, very special opportunity. I mean, I feel like I am interviewing, I don�t know if I�m just going to offend you, David, but I feel like I�m interviewing the Zuckerberg of the blogging industry, the Bill Gates of the software industry. I mean, we have an absolute tycoon on the other end of the camera today and I�ll tell you why. Obviously, I�ve been with Escape Artist and we�re a top 1% ranked website in the world. We have lots of traffic, huge subscriber bases.

We�ve been doing the internet for over 15 years and we heard this loud rumbling come from behind us and we didn�t know what it was. It sounded like a supersonic jet and it literally ripped the metal off of our website. It was going so fast. We didn�t know what it was until we saw on the license plate. It said empowernetwork.com on their license plate and we looked it up and lo and behold, here�s David Wood, the founder of Empower Network. David, it is so great to see you.

Yeah, well, great to see you too, man. I just have been traveling here for the last couple of days. As you know, I live out the mountains of Costa Rica and I�m actually going on a cruise here. You�ll think this is funny, but probably people won�t get this. I actually don�t even know where the cruise is going. I won a cruise a few months ago and I just stopped checking.

I�m like, �I need to be in Florida to go on a cruise.� I was on a plane and they�re like, �Well, where�s the cruise to?� I was like, �I don�t know.� I�ve kind of lost track of time here in the last little bit because things have been going so fun. It�s great to be here too, man. I always say just the same in return. When we were first actually moving out of America, my wife and I back in, I don�t even remember now, 2010, we moved down to Costa Rica. I found your site because we were looking how to escape from America. I think I actually ran into the escape artists then and we read a bunch of articles trying to figure out how to sneak out attacks and things like that.

I really respect what you�re doing as well just because we need more bad asses like you who just do cool shit on the internet. That�s just the plain and simple truth right there. Well, David, I want to give a comparison to people out of all seriousness to really give people the magnitude of what you�ve done in 70, 80 days. I guess it�s been under three months, isn�t that correct? Yeah, we launched October 31st on Halloween actually. We had a thing that was like� I don�t know if you saw this actually, but before we launched, we had our capture page up and our sales funnel, but if you went to the front of the domain, it had a big Empower Network logo and it said, �Come back on Halloween.� Then we launched on Halloween and we blew out two server systems because they couldn�t handle the traffic.

Of course, I don�t understand servers, I just understand people. I know how to influence people, but not technology. We blew out one server system, then we moved our company to another server system and reformulated it. Then we blew out that system. When we blew out that system, it destroyed our database. We had to reconstruct 20,000 lines of data in our database.

We were adding in about 500 to 600 blogs a day. These are actual blogs set up by customers. These are things people are paying for. We have 600 customers a day come into our system. Most people, when they�re talking about marketing, they�re like, �Well, I�m getting 100 leads a day, but we�re actually signing up 600 paid customers a day.� Then we scared the crap out of the merchants, because you know that situation. We�ll maybe talk about it in a little bit.

Then the merchant company shut us down because we�re growing too fast. Now we�re having to move 20,000 recurring transactions here over the next little bit. We�ve gone from nothing to just an incredible amount of traffic. I don�t actually know our actual traffic stats, but I believe when I go into I was in analytics the other day, in Google Analytics, and we�re getting about 400,000 page views a day, but that�s from analytics, so that�s accurate stats, but in two months. There�s some reasons for that. What we�re doing, though, and this is the significant thing, when you�ve got an idea that works the way that people work, the growth of it isn�t inhibited by resistance, because most of the time, especially a lot of people, especially who watch your sitcom, they�re escape artists, or they want to be.

They�re guys who sit there and they fantasize on the internet about being escape artists and reading the articles, but then they go to work and their boss yells at them and they go like this. They don�t have the courage yet to do it. They don�t have the tattoo yet. When they get the tattoo, escape artists, they�re good. They need to just go see how nice people are in Costa Rica, and they�re like, �What the fuck am I doing? I�m out of here� or something like that, and that�s it.

They just need to see how easy it is. It�s really not. People think you need a fortune to leave, but you�ve read the four-hour work week and been doing this for 14 years. I mean, God, you live in Costa Rica for 1,500 a month. I rent a house down there, 4,000 square feet, for 1,500 a month that looks out over the ocean with mountain views, with my own swimming pool. We got maids that come by three times a week, and it�s cheaper than living in a dumpster here in Florida.

It�s ridiculous, but we blew out these server systems, got overloaded with traffic, but the interesting thing was how people have been responding to our message, and how people have been responding to our message is actually more akin to a revolution than it is a kind of a business growth, because if you look on the business spectrum, and hopefully everybody here has at least tried to start a business, or you�ve tried to start a little home business or something where you�ve gotten out there. Normally, it�s like grunt tasks. You get on the Internet, and you�re doing all the work. You�re doing all the paperwork. You�re being your secretary and your telemarketer and following up with customers, and it�s all you. Well, this is growing more like a grassroots viral movement entirely driven by the community with no real� I mean, you could call us leaders of it, but we�re just visionaries.

Other people are leading the movement, and that�s what I look at, and I say, �Well, that�s an idea that works the way the world works, that works the way people work, that people just want to be a part of, irrespective of whether they have ever ran a business or not, and that�s really been the growth of the Empower Network, and so we�ve had some interesting challenges, but the reality is that, you know, I like to say this, people are just sick of the bulls�t, Tom. They�re just sick of the horse s�t. I remember growing up, and my advice growing up was everybody else�s advice. My dad was a judge. My grandpa was university president. My dad went to Stanford and Cornell, and so what do you think I got fed my whole life?

Well, my dad�s a great guy, but it was education, education, education, education, education, work for a company, and I remember being a teenager, and I grew up in the little bit of the younger generation. I�m just 30 years old. I used to go and say, �For what?� So I could do what you do and be stressed out all day, boss some people around if I�m an executive or being a lawyer. What am I doing this for?� I remember my dad looking at me, because my dad�s actually smart. I respect him, so don�t take this the wrong way, but he was like, �You got a little bit of a point there.� I was like, �Well, yeah, I know I have a point, because this system is horse s�t. The whole thing�s horse s�t.

You want me to go get an education so I can get a job so I can work for a company so I can go through the ladder of life and get bossed around my whole life, and then finally, when I�m 60 or 70 in the golden years, I can go surfing when my legs and my knees were too bad to surf. I want to go surf now. That�s what I say. I look at it like we�ve got this entire generation of people, and they�re all different age groups, and they�re all different professions, all different education levels, who are like, �There�s just something funky going on here. I want to do something different. I want to escape, so that�s what you do.� I heard you were on board.

I was like, �What a cool guy to have as a part of our vision, a part of our movement, because we could be a part of your movement, too, because I want to help people escape the rat race and escape mediocrity and escape bull s�t, and you�re helping them escape America, and that�s part of it.� �I need to see if that domain�s available, escape bull s�t, because I own escape just about everything else. I don�t know if I�ve bought that one yet.� You�ve got to go buy it before this interview. I think I will. David, I want to put things in perspective for people. There�s a website out there called Alexa.com, and just for the analytical people that are watching and they�re going, �Wow, these guys are crazy, and David looks like a wild man.� When you look at what Empower Network has done, it took escape artists 15 years to reach an Alexa ranking, really to break into the top 20,000, and that�s worldwide. I know that your worldwide ranking is just around 1,300 right now, and if you understand, they did that in less than 90 days of what it�s taken us 15 years to do, and I know that you guys are just accumulating.

I was writing an article last night to people, and I said, �You know, if this website had Google�s name on it or if it had Facebook�s name on it or if it had Twitter on it, money would be falling out of their pockets trying to invest in your stock right now, because they know the growth that those companies have achieved.� Now, when you look at what you�re doing� Sorry, room service. They�re trying to clean the hotel here. But you look at what you�re doing, people don�t have to invest in it. They can invest their time, and they can actually become part of the revenue stream, and that�s what�s so incredible. They can create equity in your company, their own equity, through blogging, through finding other people, and I think that�s phenomenal. I had some questions that I put together for you, David, that I wanted to talk about, because our website�s about helping people realize their escape artist dream, and when I saw your story, I just said, �Man, this guy is the ultimate escape artist.� I thought I was, and I�ve escaped some pretty bad things in my life, cancer for one of them, but when I see what you�re doing and everything you�re doing, it�s just so impressive, because it�s not about you, it�s about helping other people, and I know Stephen Covey�s got a new book out called, I think it�s The Third Advantage or The Third Wave, something like that, but it talks about the third alternative, but it talks about how you had bloggers for a long time, and you had people that wanted to blog, but they couldn�t make money together, so that was one alternative, and the second alternative, you now combine those two things, people�s desire to express themselves, but you�ve also given a very powerful income opportunity, and let me say this, I was interviewing Allison Marks yesterday, she�s got a six-figure home business, and one of the things that we know, when the economy is great, expats live like kings, they can have a great time outside the country, they�re making money, but boy, when the economy goes south, they�re running for cover trying to find ways to make money, because they�re the first ones laid off, they�re left there in other countries with their families, and I see this product, and the reason I�m interviewing is I think this is one of the best products I�ve ever seen, I�ve even named it the best portable business of 2012, and I really truly believe that people can get on board with this, make serious money, and live their escape artist dreams, so I wanted to just ask you, talking about the opportunities, why is Empower Network, in your opinion, the best, the perfect expat business?

Well, that�s a great question, and just so you know, and I don�t know if it�s a problem mutual ways, your sound was going in and out a little bit, so it just might be my computer, but just if you want to fiddle with your microphone a little bit or something like that, I don�t know how to set up, but let me first go, let me go back, because to really understand the birth of the Empower Network and what it is, you�ve got to understand where I started and how I came up with the idea for it, and then it will really make a lot of sense for people, especially if anybody�s trying to start a business on the internet, who doesn�t fit into the internet space in one way or another, they either don�t know how to sell, they don�t know how to market, or they don�t understand technology. Well, I started with all those deficiencies back in, it was like, I don�t know, August of 2009, I was actually living in a green 1996 Dodge Caravan because, you know, I�ve always just kind of been a little bit of a rebel, and my wife Ashley and I actually said, �Well, let�s go live in a van for a while.� And, you know, we went and lived in a van in Hawaii and showered at public beaches, and I worked for Greenpeace, you know, hitting people up on street corners, talking about the environment, until one day I woke up and I said, �Hey, wait, this is kind of a little bit of a socialist organization, actually. I don�t know if I like these guys so much.� And then I started talking to people about how Greenpeace was socialist and they fired me, and so I got fired from my Greenpeace job, and I was like, �Man, I really need to do something different.� So I started a business on the internet, and my wife, you know, I went to her and I�ve made money in my own businesses before, but not since we�ve been married. We�ve been poor the whole time we�ve been married. I was like, �You know, babe, can you just help me out? I know I can be successful in business, but I need some time to just focus all my energy, because I don�t do well halfway.� And she said, �Okay.� So I got on the internet, and what did I do?

I worked 20 hours a day. I mean, same thing that I�m sure that you did when you were, you know, in those early stages of doing escape artists. What do you do? You sit there all day figuring out the internet. You know, you learn about how to upload files via FTP. You learn how to configure, you know, cron jobs on your servers.

You learn what PHP code is and how to send mass emails from servers and things like that. And you were there before a lot of the new revolutions in internet technology, before a lot of it has been easier. But even with the ease that it�s gotten over the last few years, then you got to learn, you know, how to configure blogs, how to configure plugins. And then on top of all the technology, you got to learn how to design stuff. You got to learn how to configure it. And then you got to get traffic to it.

And nobody knows how to get traffic. There�s a traffic starvation out there right now, and you�ve experienced some of the traffic starvation. And part of the reason for that is because the nature of the mechanics of the way the internet works is shifting and changing, right? And not everybody is in the perfect place in their life to adapt to all the changes going on, to adapt to the way the internet is shifting. And so then you got to adapt to internet shifts. And then after you get traffic, if that�s not enough, and we�re talking about 18 hours a day for a year and a half just to learn this stuff, but after you learn that stuff, now here�s the kicker, you got to learn how to sell stuff.

And learning to sell stuff, you and I both know, and this is just the truth, 99% of the world sucks at selling stuff. They just are not, they can�t, you know, you look at Tony Robbins, and you turn on a TV late at night, every single one of us, at two in the morning one time, just flipped on the TV, and Tony Robbins has begun to speak, and our credit cards have kind of floated out of our pocket, and we found ourselves on the phone ordering something, and then you get off the phone, and you�re like, �What did I order?� Well, that�s called an ability to sell things almost magically, to where you talk, and people say, �I want to buy that. I just want to buy it right now.� And that�s part gift, part skill. Not everybody can do it. And so normally when somebody�s trying to figure out how to build a business on the internet, what do they sell? Well, information marketing courses that teach you what?

They teach you everything. Hey, let me teach you how to sell stuff. Let me teach you how to configure websites. I have a headache already thinking about it. Now, I learned it in the beginning. Why?

Because, you know, I�m only 30, and I did kind of grow up with cell phones, and I lived in a damn van, and I had no money, so I had to figure it out myself. I couldn�t hire somebody, you know, but here�s what I figured out. I could teach people what I was doing, and they couldn�t do it as well as I can do it for some reason. Now, my first year from that van, I made over $300,000 in the next 12 months. From the time I started to the next 12 months, $300,000. I got involved in the direct sales industry.

I personally got more than 4,000 customers. This is what I did personally in direct sales, all through internet, without picking up a phone. I don�t even have a cell phone. I really don�t. I don�t have a cell phone. I have one in Costa Rica now that I use for calls if my internet goes down, but I literally only talk through Skype.

I don�t have a phone. I don�t even have a landline phone. I don�t have one. I live in the middle of nowhere, and I don�t take phone calls, and I got 4,000 customers. You say, �Well, how do you do that?� Well, I have a part gift, part skill of selling and understanding things that not everybody sees, and it�s not because I�m better than people, because I realize, Tom, that people have natural, mechanical, and different kinds of skills in life that I don�t know if you want to call them a bless or if they�re just different offices of a tribe. You�ve got chiefs, and you�ve got Indians, and you�ve got all sorts of people in between, and somebody who�s going to be good at advertising isn�t necessarily going to be good at selling.

So what my vision was is, what if I started a company that basically just replicated my business? Because I don�t have to pick up the phone. I don�t have to call anybody. I never deal with customer service issues ever. I never get refunds. I never get charge backs or anything.

I�m a very unique business model. What if I just replicated it to where I�ll do all the selling and all the marketing and all the technology management and the setup, and when somebody makes a sale, they keep all the money? Now, most people would say, �Well, Dave, why would you do that?� Because it doesn�t make any sense when they first see it. But the reality is that there�s kind of a couple things going on as far as you know as well as I know. I�m going to make lots of money, no matter what I do. First of all, I actually haven�t even taken any money from Empower Network.

We�ve got right now, I think in our corporate account, we�ve got a quarter of a million dollars just sitting there. I haven�t taken a payout. It�s just sitting there because last month we dumped about $100,000 investing in technology, and I don�t need money. I don�t need it. So it�s sitting there to develop the company, and I�ll start taking payouts later in a future time when I see that the infrastructure is perfect and right for everybody, which right now it�s in development mode. So I start this company, I was like, �I want other people to make money like I have, but without having to be me, because not everybody can do the things that certain people can do, and likewise, I can�t do what you can do.� I have a unique ability, and people don�t think it when they look at me.

They get caught off guard, but then they start listening, and they can�t help but pull out their credit card, and they�re like, �I want to buy that.� They just get this giddy feeling, and they�re like, �I just want to send Dave money for something. I just feel like I�m just in the mood.� So I have this unique thing, so why not replicate that and put it in the hands of average people, but then give them the ability to keep all the money? As you say, �Well, Dave, how do you give people the ability to keep all the money? I want to give everybody a secret here, and this is just a secret of wealth online, and it�s the two opposing models of how people make money on the internet. You�ve got the promoted way that everybody talks about, which is, �You sell my stuff, and I�ll give you a 30% cut.� That�s what all the gurus want, isn�t it? They�re like, �Hey, I�ll give you a deal.

Sell my book, I�ll give you a 30% cut.� They�re going like this, because now they don�t have to blog, they don�t have to give any traffic, they don�t have to do anything. You do all the work, and they keep all the money. That�s just the way that it is. The question is, �Well, what�s the difference between that and what the guru is doing?� What the guru is doing is he�s looking at that and he�s saying, �If I make a sale, I get all the money, but not only do I get it all, I get all the money right now.� If you go out there in a business, and if you sell an e-book for $70, you just made $70. You can then take $70 and reinvest it back into your business and make $140 and make $210 and make $280 tomorrow. It�s a fast turn of money.

Whereas if you�re an affiliate, you earn $20 from the $70, and it takes a month and a half to get to you, and then you go finally get the check and you�re so discouraged you want to quit. The way that the gurus do that � this is the way a lot of money is made, this is the way I�ve made most of my money � is we get our own merchant accounts, or use PayPal or something like this, and literally we charge people for something that they want directly and keep all the money. I�ll give you an example of this, and then I want to tell you how this fits into the Empower network, because this is really a lot more complicated process than it looks on the surface. It looks like, �Oh, that�s the easiest thing in the world. I�m going to start selling stuff.� It actually is really complicated, as you know, and it takes a lot more work than people know. There�s a lot more technology processes in there that people are aware about to make it work.

It�s a lot more expensive than people think it is as well. Then you still don�t know how to sell stuff, so there�s all these things going involved. Just the way this looks, a few months ago I created an info marketing course, and people say, �Dave, what are you doing?� I say, �Well, I�m an info marketing � I sell information.� They say, �College course?� I�m like, �Well, no, how to do stuff.� They�re like, �Well, how to do what?� Then I usually just tell them I sell drugs and they go away. Then if they really push, I�m like, �Well, let me explain what I do.� I teach people the skills and strategies that they need to sell lots of stuff and build big businesses on the internet. I teach them how to do that for money. They say, �Oh, okay.� I made a course a few months back called the Perpetual Funnel System.

It�s hard to find on the internet. I just sold it to my list. It was a $495 course on how to build funnels that perpetually sustain themselves through viral traffic. I did six webinars, recorded them there two or three hours each. So it�s about 20 hours of training. It took me about 20 hours to make the course.

It cost maybe $500 to set up because I had to put a little membership site together and get a little design and things like that going. Then I sold $180,000 of that product. You say, �Well, Dave, how much did you keep?� �About $179,000 in a month or two.� People are like, �What?� Because it�s so different than a normal business. A normal business, you sell a t-shirt, it costs you $40, you sell it for $50, and you keep $10. Whereas you sell information, not only will people pay way more money than for normal products, but it�s way more profitable. The great thing about these products is there�s not really a lot of overted.

It takes a tremendous skill to put them together, and that�s why it works, because you�re actually selling stuff that people want. For example, in the Empower network, we have three core products. We have a $25 a month product, which is a blogging system. It�s really valuable because it gives somebody, essentially hands somebody a turnkey marketing engine that they don�t have to set up, that they don�t have to configure, that they can just focus on what they�re good at and we�ll help them make all the sales. They get to keep all the leads. They get to keep all the money.

We�ll actually even help them get a merchant account to take their own payments. They can actually use our payment pages. They don�t have to get PCI compliant. They don�t have to manage anything. They don�t have to know sales language or copywriting. They can just have their customers pull out their credit card and just kind of swipe a little payment on the internet.

It�s like they�re making a bank deposit, but instead of their own bank account, they�re depositing in their bank account. So you�re like, �Wait, tell me how this works.� Well, your customers basically take their credit cards out and they stick them in the internet and they�re just making a deposit straight into your bank account. That�s how merchant accounts work, except for you don�t have to build the products. You don�t have to make the sales videos. You don�t have to set up capture pages and do split testing and conversions. All you have to do is focus on one thing, which is blog daily.

We�ll teach you how to do that. You say, �Blog? You don�t have to configure anything.� We�re going to show you how a two-hour-a-day habit has made me $300,000 a year, but you don�t have to do the setup that I did. I didn�t have as good conversions then as I do now either when I started doing that. I didn�t have something making me 100% commissions like you did. So you keep all the money.

That�s all of it. So we have that product. We have another product called the Inner Circle membership, and it�s $100 a month. It�s an ongoing evergreen business education membership. Say $100 a month, and yeah, when you sell one, you get 100% commissions. So you think about something for a second.

Ten people is $1,000 a month. Well, $1,000 a month is enough to live anywhere you want in the world almost if you know what you�re doing. Ten people. You say, �Well, Dave, I can�t sell.� I can sell, and I can sell really good, and that�s evidenced by the fact that the Empower Network brought in 15,000 customers in two months. Now, in that two months, our servers were down for a full week in the middle of that. We had first day to shut down 6,000 merchants in the middle of that, and we still brought in 15,000 customers.

So what are we going to do this next month now that our infrastructure is a little bit more stable? I actually think that by February, we�ll be bringing in 1,000 or 2,000 people a day, maybe until March. We�ll bring in that many customers a day using our systems, our products, and tools. Here�s the key is this stuff really adds value to people in any business, because whether you own your own website or you�re trying to sell your own coaching or if you�re in the network marketing or direct sales or information product industry, we want to help you sell more of your stuff through our platform. When you make the sales, you keep the money. We�ll help you get the merchant accounts.

Here�s the results, and this is the important thing, is it�s worked. Not just for me, not just for Dave, but for a lot of people. We�ve got over 70 people in our first two months with a week of server downtime and all the merchant accounts getting shut down. Over 70 people made over five grand in the first two months. Dave, when you talk about this ecosystem of creating content and selling content, so you�re creating not only a user base or a producer or a publishing base, but you�re also producing a user base of people who are very interested in buying products to learn more about the Internet. It�s really almost a self-generating system.

The more people that come in, the more opportunity there will be, the more to learn and the more product to sell to make money, right? Yeah, absolutely. Our goal is really simple. I know I just kind of ramble a little bit. I kind of just go on and on and on, so I apologize about that, Tom. I don�t know if we need to go in a particular direction here.

I just tend to talk. Our goal is to help other people make money. It�s not to be here today and not tomorrow. It�s not to be flash and pan. It�s to help people make lots of money for a long time. Here�s my core motivation, is I�ve always been involved in these little things that have just horribly low commissions and you�ve got to have 10 million people to make $2 in them.

It�s just grueling and then you�ve got to learn how to sell and do everything yourself. I really want to help people. That�s been our driving motivation for everything that we�ve done here. It�s really been changing a lot of lives. I know people kind of have to graduate through what I call the sucker programs, where you end up buying like $5,000 worth of sucker programs until you finally go, �Man, this isn�t working, buddy.� You learn a lot through the process. I know in a lot of industry there�s always the training ground that you have to go through to finally go, �Dude, this is not working.

I cannot work on 20% commissions. The numbers will never work and all I�m doing is spinning my wheels.� One of the greatest things that I�ve seen with your opportunity is the numbers work. Not only can you make enough money to create content, but you can make enough money to advertise your business. You really have the capital you need to grow business. That�s why I was asking the ex-pat, the perfect portable business for ex-pats, is the ability to live anywhere in the world and do this. Really, with the exception of some of the blacklisted countries where they would have a hard time getting a merchant account or a bank account, people can do this from anywhere in the world, can�t they?

Yeah, and that�s the key is that when you�re talking about selling information, there�s no product to ship because you can host all of the videos, audios, downloadable PDFs on servers. It does get expensive when you�ve got as many customers as we�ve got, but it�s so inexpensive compared to the overhead of a traditional business if you understand the mechanics and how to manage it, which is the tough part. So that�s how we can afford to get people to get paid directly rather than taking that money ourselves is because we�re actually making money like everybody else by selling our own products to people. It�s where all of our revenues come from as a company. We haven�t made money from anything else. How about three things that are going to make Empower Network a billion-dollar company?

What do you think those three things are? Well, I�ll tell you what they all are. It�s, number one, something that moves by itself. The nature of it just moves by itself. That�s the biggest thing is you�ve got to have a product that works the way the people work, that works the way the internet works, that works the way the market works, and we�ve got that, and the conversions are good. Number two is the people because Dave and I aren�t doing most of the � we�re doing our own marketing.

You say, �Dave, how have you made money in this?� Well, I have a big list like you do, and when I launched the Empower Network, I slammed my own list and I brought in 1,300 customers, personally, is what I did in about two weeks. I got paid directly, obviously, for my own customers, for my own products. And number one, an idea that moves. Number two, it�s going to be the people. But number three, it�s going to be the stories because if you look in this industry, which we really are a part of the affiliate marketing direct sales industry where we�re selling products direct to consumers, and what really drives direct marketing companies is stories, right? It�s a single mom.

We have this gal named Cynthia who privately was struggling, publicly smiling like everybody else, could barely pay her bills every month, got involved in the Empower Network, and in one month created a $4,000 a month residual income, which is now paying for all of her expenses. She�s made over $20,000 in two months and she came to me and said, �You�ve changed my life.� It�s Rob Four, who�s been on the internet for 14 years doing SEO, who got involved in the Empower Network and paid off the last $14,000 of his debt is now 100% debt free because of the Empower Network. It�s Lawrence Tam, who�s a part-time engineer who doesn�t even want to quit his job, doesn�t even want to be an escape artist, and got involved part-time with us on October 31st and his first month made over $45,000 in direct 100% commissions with Empower Network part-time. His name was Lawrence Tam. What�s his address? Because we can�t have people like that.

They�ve all got to be escape artists, David. That�s not right. That was perplexing to me, but I�m like, �You�re making four times more from this little part-time thing as you are from your job.� He�s like, �Well, I just want the pressure off.� I thought I wanted to quit, but now I can, and I�m like, �Yeah, we�ll just stick around.� Those were the babies that were dropped, I think, the ones that said, �I don�t want to� He�s a pretty cool cat. I like Lawrence. He�s fantastic here. Tell me about, so what are some of the challenges that will make Empower great?

I mean, I know you�ve already talked about the merchant accounts. We see what Facebook has done, the challenges they�ve had. We�ve seen Microsoft get their challenges. This is going to be a massive company. What do you foresee? What challenges do you foresee that will make Empower great?

Well, I think the challenges are going to be really in any time you�re dealing with a lot of people. A majority of those people at any time, they have no experience and no background, and some of those people out of that majority are going to do dumb stuff. Our biggest challenge, of course, is going to be the people and just making sure people understand that it�s like, �Hey, let�s be legal and ethical in addition to being badass.� I�ll give you an example. Not a lot of people think about these things, but these are just stuff that happens on the Internet when you�re dealing with lots of people. We had a guy go putting ads all over Facebook using somebody else�s trademark, which you know because you�ve been doing websites for a while and I know that most people don�t give a crap, really. I mean, you put a trademark up in an ad and people will click on it, and most people don�t care, but some people do care, and it�s illegal.

Of course, that�s against our terms of service because we can�t have people abusing trademarks, but still this company comes out, not going to mention any names, because they�re just doing their thing. They send us a demand letter demanding that we tell them how much money we�ve made from abusing their trademarks. Of course, we didn�t even know who it was because we have to have the affiliate link, and we�re like, �Well, give us the link.� They go and they dig up the link, and they send the link, so I was like, �Well, let me look up how much money the guy�s made.� I had to start trucking because this guy was so infuriated about us using his trademark, and he�s like, �You�re making all your money off my trademark,� which really we didn�t even aware of it. He sent us a demand letter that we pay him $25,000 for nothing, essentially, because when you�re in a small business, you earn your money, and then once you get into big business, you just demand people give it to you. That�s kind of how the business world works. We�re looking at this demand letter for $25,000, and you�re like, �Dude, don�t be a wuss.

You can sell stuff if you want to make money.� We�re like, �Put it in the paper shredder.� Anyway, so I look up this guy, and I�m like, �Well, this guy must have this rich, powerful brand.� I look it up, this affiliate, and he had generated no leads, made no sales, and of course made no money, which of course we wouldn�t have made any money from it anyways because we pay 100% commission. Still, things like that, if we don�t teach everybody to do things in a way that�s honest, people are always the biggest problem in their organization and also the greatest gift. It�s kind of a catch-22 because you look at the difference between a movement that�s more akin to a revolution. A revolution more operates from there�s less central leadership than a revolution always. It�s just a bunch of people all being leaders at once. They just all start their vision at once, and that�s how revolutions start.

Then once it starts growing, there�s always somebody that wants to clamp down and control it, and that�s when it dies. I think what�s going to make Empower Network great is that we�re doing what we�re asking other people to do, and so we�re marketing like other people are marketing. We�re generating our money from our own marketing, from our own selling. As we go through these challenges and as we have server issues and data issues, which that�s all solved, now it�s an issue of progressing into the future. As we go through all these issues and get legal compliance straightened out and all this stuff, it�s the fact that we�re actually doing what we�re telling other people to do because I�ll tell you what I�m sick of here in this kind of an industry is the guru on the top of mountain syndrome where you�ve got this little guy on the top of a mountain telling all the peons what to do, and they haven�t done it in like 20 years. I remember I started off in direct sales in Amway.

I love Amway. I mean, Amway is great, so vitamins can�t go wrong. My maid in Costa Rica sells me Amway still. I still buy Amway, but I got started in this little Amway deal. I�m out there and I�m listening to the audios. They�re telling me what to do.

These gurus essentially on the top of the mountain, they built this whole thing like 80 years ago. They�re like, �Well, go meet people.� I�m like, �Well, where?� They�re like, �Well, Walmart, Safeway, wander around town.� I used to go wander around town hitting people up on street corners because that�s what the tapes told me to do. It�s like they told me to do that, so that�s what I did, not realizing that probably people on street corners in Walmart probably aren�t very interested in Amway. They�re in Walmart buying soap. They don�t want Amway soap. I didn�t even think about during that time.

What if I just found people that wanted to buy Amway soap and just sold it to them? That didn�t even cross my mind. I just was thinking about trying to convince everyone. This syndrome grew on top of the mountain, all my peons. It creates a bunch of unsuccessful people because the leaders aren�t doing anything anymore and everybody�s trying to follow them, but they�re not doing anything. I think the difference with Empower is that we�re doing what you�re doing.

You can actually make more money than us at Empower Network, which is unique because we�re generating our commissions selling our own stuff the same way people are. That�s attractive to people. People hear that and they�re like, �Why would you do that?� Here�s why. It�s because people will stay around if we do that. They�ll stay around. If they stay around � and we�ll attract people like you, and you ain�t going to be attracted to some wussy-ass bullshit.

It�s just the way that it is. People will stay around if you�re authentic. You say, �Dave, you�ve got to stop cussing in the videos. Bullshit. I�ll cuss if I want to. Then we�ll get the guys in who are Christians and hate cussing, and they�ll talk about Jesus in their videos, and we�re all good.� The reality is that when you�re authentic to who you really are, people look at you and you say, �Man, I can just be myself and make crap loads of money.� I say, �Well, yeah.� I�ll give you an example of this.

I had a guy named Chris Dardy. Chris Dardy had never in his life made more than $3,500 a month. He had worked his whole life construction. He�d always tried to get in these little deals, little skinny deals, and never could make any money. He would get his mom and his grandma in, and then it would fizzle out. He ran into me at a conference that I was speaking at in Vegas one time, and I showed up in a shirt that said, �The amazing MLM guy in it.� I hadn�t showered in like two days, and I�ve been traveling on a plane Costa Rica, and I outsold everybody there wearing suits and ties, and I was cussing through my thing, and I think I said the word �penis� about 10 times in my speech, and everybody�s like this, and 20 people got up because they were so offended they left the room.

Chris Dardy, he�s a really good Christian guy, so he didn�t do stuff like that, but he�s just in there chuckling because he�s a square pain around his whole life, where people always tell him, �You�ve got to be like this guy to be successful, because these were successes.� And he looked at me and he says, �How the hell did he just do that?� Because I sold at that event, I made $33,000 in about an hour and a half speaking, which people would not think I could do, looking at me, because I�m just not good at style and my clothes mismatch, and I forget to wash them, and then I�m like, �Oh man, my armpits stink a little.� Because I live in the jungle in Costa Rica. We don�t have Walmart there, and so I show up, and he�s like, �How did he do that?� So he gets in a course of mine. He didn�t have money to buy the course. This is before Empower Network. Now, this course, I offered $300 commissions if you sold it. It was a $495 course, and I said, �Well, I�m going to play with this idea, and what if I gave people two-thirds commissions?

How would they respond?� So Chris comes and he buys the course. First month, comes out of that, made $4,000. Next month, made $8,000. I launched the Empower Network, and him and his wife have made $22,000 in the last 60 days. I think they�re actually up to that $27,000 now. I can check for sure, so I don�t want to make a claim.

It could be somewhere between $22,000 and $27,000. It might actually be over $30,000. Let me actually give you some live stats here, rather than making something up. I�ll just go check what Chris has made. That�s essentially what happens when you do something that�s real grassroots that works. Then that story comes out, and the unique thing about it is it�s true.

Hold on, I�m going to pull up. Let�s see Chris Dardy. Let�s see, 105. There we go. Hold on a second. Almost there.

Pull the top. Hold on a second here. I�ve got to look up. He�s a little bit trickier to find another one. All right, so actually, wait. Now, he�s made over $33,000 now, $34,000.

That�s fantastic. So, him and his wife have now made $34,000 in a little over two months. Way more than I thought he�d made. But see, that�s the power of when you�re doing something that works the way that people and markets and the masses work versus trying to force a business into the world that doesn�t belong there. That�s what most people try to do, whereas they can just adapt to the way that nature flows and extract money like you�re a genie in a magic lamp. That�s what we teach people how to do out of the Empower Network is how to get more money in their life by giving people what they really want and keeping all the money like gurus do, only they don�t have to be a guru.

They just get money like one, which I think is super cool. I just think that�s sexy. I don�t know about you. I just think that�s sexy message. I�ve been through all the sucker programs and I wrote them all off of my taxes and I tell people, �If this is your first program, the first program you�ve ever seen, congratulations. You�ve just like passed, go and collected $500 and passed by jail and all that.� I think this is fantastic.

David, I know that the escape artist readers, they have a desire to realize their escape artist dream. We were talking earlier about the number of people, U.S. people that actually have passports. It�s somewhere around 15% and that was a statistic put out by the State Department. Even half of those have even used their passports. People don�t realize when you have a portable business like that, like what you�re talking about, you�re talking in less than 60 days, 90 days.

The idea of somebody to invest $1500 in a business and have the ability to go out and earn that type of money, it�s just staggering. It�s a true testament. You�re right. You have created something that�s got flow in it and when you create something that�s got flow, there�s no stopping it. Usually you start a tributary and the tributary turns into a river and then eventually you have an ocean. Somehow you got the ocean right and now the water is being forced upstream and creating tributaries everywhere and I commend you on that because it�s an awesome image, isn�t it?

It�s kind of like everybody all over the place getting involved with what you�re doing and your vision. You�re a true visionary and I want to tell you this. I�m going to look back on this interview. When I said Zuckerberg and Gates and all the other big names I said in the beginning, I really do feel like I�m talking to somebody that�s going to not only change the affiliate or online informational industry, I really believe that you have an opportunity to change culture with this product and I really congratulate you. It�s been a real honor to interview you. I just want to say to the Escape Artist readers, I hope you�ve taken all of this interview in and you�ve listened very deeply to what David has said because you have an opportunity right now through Escape Artist not only to get involved in Empower, blog yourself, but Escape Artist has 400,000 readers as well.

We would love to tell your story about what you�re doing with Empower Network and how you�re using it to realize your Escape Artist dream. David, we want to help people live where they want to live, live how they want to live, love who they want to love and make money doing it and you, my friend, personify that and again, I thank you for your time. Well, thanks, man. Great being on here. Last thing I want to say, everybody, don�t be a wussy. Just get in.

Don�t be a wussy. Just get in. I think you just named the title of this article of this interview. Don�t be a wussy. Just get in. I love it, David.

Thank you, Sarah.