Has anyone been a SW leader?

[ImperialBlether]

I wondered what it was like and what the money was like. Any ideas? I've heard they have to drum up their own business - is this right?

I haven't, but have been a member for ages and have had several people try and convince me to do it. I will consider it when my life stablises a bit!

Unless you get given an existing group (unlikely) then you do have to drum up your own business. I remember the leaflet campaigns etc that my group used to do for new members. It can be quite hard in that respect depending on where you are; when I moved to SW London I pinged between about 4 groups until I found one I actually liked with a leader I was comfortable with, so there was a lot of choice and competition. When I've been more provincial it was just a case of you have the one group that's there and no choice.

I was thinking of sticking with the classes with the view to becoming a leader. We have a choice of quite a few classes and I don't think I've ever had anything through the door. There are just big adverts up outside each class. I wondered how their earnings are figured out - so much per person, do you think?

I think you pay for the franchise, and you keep the money once you've paid for room hire etc. But I'm not certain.

The other thing is they don't let everyone do it, I know one woman who got rejected. And I think you have to be within a certain amount of either your target, or the healthy BMI. I'll see if I have the "thinking of being a consultant" leaflet at home tonight.

But none of the SW leaders I have had have been anywhere near their target weight. I know with WW if they go over a certain limit, they're suspended - they're weighed every week and it's taken really seriously. The SW leaders, on the other hand, have all been several stone overweight and nowhere near a healthy BMI - I'm not either, so not being critical, but the WW leaders had all lost several stone and had the before and after pictures and their 'journey' to talk about. I found that inspiring.

I was one but it was back in the day before it was a franchise. If you are interested ask your consultant about it (not leader that's WW). Or ask to speak to the Area Manager.
BTW when I did it you didn't have to be target weight & my fave consultant was 4 stone overweight but she was amazing

I don't think you have to be at target, but you have to have had some kind of loss by food optimising. My best consultant was not in target too. That didn't mean she didn't have a journey, or before pics. Same as me I suppose, 6st 7lbs later I'm still not at target but I still have before pics and am happy it works.

I read a thread on this a while ago, if I can find it I'll link it. From memory you have to pay alot upfront for the franchise and a number of SW leaders were saying when you work out how much money you make for how much time you spend on it it's not very much per hour at all - more a love of/enjoyment of the job type of thing

You buy the licence for the franchise to begin with: can range from £500 til about £1,500 depending on what you choose to go with - there's the option of buying a double licence incase you want to run two groups.

Your earnings are dependant on the number of members you have/ You start off on 25% only getting 50% earnings when you have over 70 members - which isn't always easy. And you will never earn more than 50%.

It is a very rewarding job, particularly if you're a people person, but if you prefer to have your own personal time to yourself, you won't get that - you're on call to your members 24/7. The support is what makes SW different from any other slimming organisation.