An excerpt from Volume 1 of Be the Better Broker.

At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth, let’s talk about sex — specifically, being a female within the Broker industry. I know many strong women in this business who are crushing it, as they should be.

Recognizing my obvious limitations as a male, I asked a few female top producers for help on the subject.

This is a profession, unlike many others, in which gender equality does exist. The compensation is performance based and blind to the sex of the Broker. A Broker is rewarded on the merit of his or her abilities and work, not whether the Broker is a he or a she. In fact it is fair to say that as many clients prefer to work with a woman as a man. Without question, the majority of clients prefer to work first and foremost with a competent, knowledgeable, personable individual.

There’s no a glass ceiling for women in mortgage Brokering because there is a lack of formal corporate culture, with progress dictated by only the Broker herself, rather than a crusty layer of management. You are your own CEO, you are your own HR department, and you are our own crusty layer of management.

In this business, the only one holding you back is you.

Looking at the 2015 Canadian Mortgage Professional Top 75 statistics, 24 of the top 75 Brokers nationwide were female. That is impressive representation. Roughly 33 percent of the top performers in the industry are female. This suggests pretty significant opportunity to excel in earnings potential and market recognition.

Lenders pay purely based on performance with compensation based on the mortgage itself, not who delivers it. That compensation flows, in most cases, through largely progressive Brokerages with commission split models based once again on performance and performance alone.

No doubt today we do what we can to raise both boys and girls in a far more egalitarian manner than generations past, but once our children enter the real world we quickly see how gender discrimination persists. Yet Brokering, by accident or by design, has a pure compensation and career advancement model strides ahead in equality.

The future only looks brighter for the younger entrants into the industry. Both female and male.

No doubt there remains room for improvement within many of the corporate entities with which Brokers interact. But down here in the trenches we are to a great extent brothers and sisters in arms.