Can someone describe how a detailed understanding of the OSI Model can benefit a network administrator and support people. How can the OSI Model be a useful reference when troubleshooting network problems? I think that you can benefit from it to know how to go about building a network or a type of network a small business company may want. And the OSI model shows you how to go about doing that. RIGHT????

If you look at the OSI model, you'll see it has different layers. Just as a basic troubleshooting thing, you can start from the bottom, ie can't connect to something

physical -are the cables plugged in?
data link - cables are in, but are you getting an ip?
and of course it goes on from there, up to the top layer.

That's the simplified version of it, it can of course get much more detailed. A support person should have the basic concept of the OSI model and a network admin should definitely understand it well.