I'm a PT in the South Bay/LA area, have faced all these points mentioned. No longer work for a box gym. Once I calculated how much the gym really makes from the sessions I as selling - I jumped ship and went independant. Over 2 years now and still doing it . More $$ yes, but far more challenging as now there's sales and marketing involved (in addition to training and nutritional techniques/know how).
As far as certs go, that's only for liability/insurance reasons for the chain gyms.
Although in general, almost ANY cert will be considered, there are SOME gyms that only focus on the big name certs as NASM, ISSA, NCSF, . .these are , how I put it, the 'Harvard's and Yale's' of certs. . others like ACE , WITS, etc. are like the 'community colleges' lol
No one you're giving an assesment to will ever ever ask 'Who are you certified by?' 1 in a million Q right there.
All 'clients' care about is - Can you get me results?
Everything else is secondary .
Love this topic/field, so therefore love the post! haha , Upvote!
Thanks for the detail you went into my man, definitely once you see how much corporate makes off of you, it makes you want to leave ASAP! And true no client ever cares for your cert, usually they go look at your instagram and judge how you look lol srs
Word. . and if they're over 40 - they prob don't have IG (like my clients) and go by how you presented yourself / the formula.
:p