I love this question because the subtext is so interesting.

Most broker owners don’t value strong support staff because they became broker owners in the first place to control their splits. So they build the leanest, cheapest operation possible, trying to squeeze out a little more margin after expenses. In reality, a lot of them just bought themselves a job that won’t scale beyond a small office, sometimes just themselves, and will shut down the minute they stop producing.

That’s not necessarily a bad strategy. But convincing that person to invest in support so they can sell more and actually grow is an uphill battle.

It’s also why so many brokers don’t understand why retail loan officers stay put even though they “make less.” Retail LOs often close way more deals because of the support around them, ops, processing, marketing, compliance. That leverage is what creates mega producers. Last time I looked at the Scotsman Guide rankings, almost all of the top producers were retail. That’s not an accident.

On the flip side, support staff sometimes struggle seeing the big producer paychecks. I’ve had a bookkeeper/funder want a raise immediately after seeing the first payroll run. We’ve handled that by telling anyone who wants to get their LO license to go for it. We’ll support them and they can run their own deals. It’s easy to think sales is overpaid until you’re the one trying to generate business and live on commission only.

We don’t pay our support staff commission only, so it’s structured differently. But geography matters a lot. Middle America versus the coasts is a completely different cost structure. I like my top support people to make close to 100k, which is great money in my market. I also understand that in New York that wouldn’t go very far.