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Embracing Authenticity: Wendee Lee Curtis on Transforming from Performer to Executive
58 Plays10 months ago
This episode features Wendee Lee Curtis, a veteran news anchor, Broadway performer, and MC/event host, who shares her diverse career journey and insights on the power of connection, community, and authenticity in professional environments. Wendee discusses the importance of being true to oneself, the impact of the George Floyd incident on her professional approach, and the necessity of pay equity and negotiation skills for women. She emphasizes the significance of mentorship, community support, and self-advocacy in navigating career challenges and opportunities.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Career Transition and Resilience: Wendee describes her journey from Broadway to the corporate stage, focusing on the consistent theme of connection in her career.
- Impact of George Floyd's Death: She reflects on how this event influenced her professional identity and advocacy for black women in the corporate world.
- The Power of Community: Wendee underscores the importance of building supportive networks, especially for women in revenue-generating roles.
- Negotiation and Pay Equity: She provides insights on how women can navigate pay negotiations and advocate for fair compensation.
Notable Quotes:
- "If you're blessed with a long life, at some point, you will move into infirmity. You will need care, and so the money that you ask for today is for all of your tomorrows."
- "The more I show up as me, the better the chances that the people I'm working with are deeply aligned with me."
Resources Mentioned:
- The book "The Art of Gathering" by Priya Parker.
This podcast is brought to you by Women in Renuve. If you’re a resilient woman in a revenue role and crave connection, join our community!
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Transcript
Introduction to Resilient Revenue
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Resilient Revenue, a women in revenue podcast series designed to magnify the voices, victories, and valuable insights of trailblazing women in revenue-generating roles. Each episode will showcase stories of resilience, mentorship, and self-advocacy. You'll learn exactly how these remarkable women are breaking barriers, redefining success, and showing us the transformative power of unity within the tech industry.
00:00:31
Speaker
So join us as we embark on this enlightening journey toward equality and empowerment in the world of resilient revenue.
Meet Wendy Lee Curtis
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome back to the Women in Revenue podcast. I'm Hana Jakover, Women in Revenue board member, speakers bureau lead and executive coach. And I'm so excited to be hosting today's episode. And we have Wendy Lee Curtis here with us today. Hi, Wendy. Hi, Hana. How are you?
00:01:02
Speaker
I'm so good. I'm so happy you're here. Wendy has an amazing background. Y'all need to look her up on LinkedIn and just read all of the accomplishments that she has. And I'm just amped to have her here to bring some knowledge and showcase that powerful presence that she has. So just a little bit of background and then I'll let Wendy fill in the gap. So Wendy is an MC and event host.
00:01:29
Speaker
She's also a veteran news anchor and Broadway performer, so like quite the span in the entertainment industry. She's interviewed celebrities like Billy Porter, Liza Minnelli, Miranda Lambert, Alfred Donald Trump, you know, take it or leave it. She's also hosted and moderated events for companies.
00:01:48
Speaker
most recently, VCon, amazing. Pepsi, Thomson Reuters, CrowdStrike to add some tech in there. So, yeah, Wendy has just such a wealth of knowledge and I know she's got some amazing stories that she'll share with us today.
Wendy's Career Journey
00:02:04
Speaker
And we're really going to try and focus on showcasing value, getting paid what you're worth, and we'll jump in. Wendy, feel free to share a little bit about your background, maybe how you got started and where you are today.
00:02:18
Speaker
It's so funny when you hear someone read back some of the things that you've done, because in some really important ways, I actually feel like I'm just getting started.
00:02:25
Speaker
I have morphed that I've transmuted through a series of seemingly differently disparate careers, but they all had a through line, which is the power of connection. Whether I'm connecting from the Broadway stage or connecting from the corporate stage, all of it has this through line of community and connection. And so that's been the common thread for me. But every year is different. I guess that's the big takeaway that I would want to lead the listeners with is
00:02:54
Speaker
My years never looked the same. 2020 looked nothing like 2021 and 2021 looked nothing like 2022 and 2023 as well on its way to looking nothing like the year past.
VCon Experience and Community
00:03:05
Speaker
So I have to say nimble. I seem to be getting invited into more and more communities that probably wouldn't have chosen or would have thought would have invited my gifts into. And I think that's a good thing.
00:03:20
Speaker
I would actually lead with saying that one of them is VCon because sort of prima facie. If you're familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V in that community, you would think, oh, that's a super like, fantastic.
00:03:32
Speaker
But nothing could be further from the truth. It may look like that. It may sound like that. But when I arrived in Indianapolis for VCon, that wasn't what I experienced at all, both in terms of my moderating panels, the people that I was in community and conversation with. We had everyone there from Deepak Chopra to Tim Tebow.
00:03:52
Speaker
all in the same space. You had Cesar Milan and Bozama Sinclair. It was just a dynamic community of thought leaders and innovators. And so that's my prayer. If there's a prayer, it's that I'll continue to move in spaces and communities that look like that. That seemed disparate on the surface.
00:04:16
Speaker
but are deeply committed to community and connection. I've done pharma, all the things. But yeah, that one changed me. That experience has changed me. I went to Indianapolis one iteration of Wendy and I came back another.
00:04:31
Speaker
So that's really beautiful. And I feel like Gary Vee and even just thinking about like the Web3 NFT community, just the way that it was built is, I mean, community is at the core of that. So it doesn't matter who you are. When you come into the community, you can be
00:04:52
Speaker
St. John, you can be all of these high caliber folks, but when you come in, you're just a part of the community. And there could be some 14 year old behind their computer screen that like has the most accolades and the most contributions to the community. Like everybody starts at zero and it's all about connection. So that's really cool that you had the opportunity to do that.
00:05:17
Speaker
It's so deeply aligned with why I do the work that I do. Sometimes you go through life and you make choices and you're not always clear you haven't articulated for yourself why exactly you're here, why exactly you're doing that. But that was such a clear manifestation of something that I have been holding internally around the work that I want to do and why I do this work.
Aligning with Ikigai
00:05:42
Speaker
I want to be in communities like that. Coming from the world of Broadway, Broadway is a really niche community. We have a very clear outline of what's sacred. And I don't mean sacred from some sort of dogmatic sort of framework.
00:05:58
Speaker
I could do a production in London and what we hold sacred in theater here in North America is sacred there as well. It's intrinsic to the community. And so whether I realize it or not, I have been seeking that out.
00:06:13
Speaker
I've been seeking to replicate that experience in this iteration of my career. And I think that's why VCon is just so front of mind for me. Why it landed in my spirit so profoundly because it looked and felt like something that I've been doing for a really long time, but was completely different. Hmm.
00:06:36
Speaker
I think that that is a really interesting almost, it kind of gives a framework. I always like to talk about, and it sort of goes along the lines of, I think it's ikigaya. I don't know how to say it, but it's the Japanese concept, right? Of what are you good at? What do you love doing? Where can you serve a community that can benefit from those gifts and also make money and having those things all together? And it sounds like you're moving towards that.
00:07:06
Speaker
which is very exciting. Thank you. That's what I want. If we can talk about legacy, that's what I want my legacy to be. It's always front of line for me. When someone hands me the mic, I understand the power of that positionality.
The Art of Gathering
00:07:19
Speaker
And I want to make sure that the people that have spent their time, money and resources to be in that space lead change. What the hell is the point of all of us gathering?
00:07:28
Speaker
if there's not going to be real impact. Like, I'm insisting to change lives. And I know that sounds dramatic, but I don't want to gather if the gathering is not going to have lasting impact. It's fruitless to me. I don't know if you've read the book The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
00:07:45
Speaker
So that's on the must read. That's on the must read. But Priya actually outlines some really important tenets around gathering or exclusion when gathering, when it's appropriate to exclude certain people from gatherings.
00:08:01
Speaker
So like this beautiful community is centered around women, women in revenue for a very specific reason, right, so that we can connect. And as we say in the South, conversate, not to want to see issues of revenue and career. That is a very specific and intentional exclusion that men are not included.
00:08:20
Speaker
Mm hmm. Because there's a clearly outlined purpose. Well, I feel the same way about events. They can and should be so much more than marketing. We spend so much of our work lives. We spend so much of our lives at work and in community with the people that we work with. Those are exactly the spaces where we should be having profound impact, not just on the business, but on the people that come there to do business. Yeah. The idea of doing conferences and events as business as usual is I repudiate that.
00:08:52
Speaker
I'll be with you on that one. I will. And I feel like in order to move into a space where you can feel those things very deeply and you can say those things and you said it's big, I want to impact lives, people's lives. But I think that's what we should all be striving for. But I do think that it takes the identification of your own gifts.
00:09:17
Speaker
And you mentioned that earlier, right? You want to share your gifts. And it takes going through that process to be able to arrive at that big purpose that you know you're here to fulfill. When you say your gifts, what are your gifts and how did you discover them?
00:09:37
Speaker
Oh, my gift is connection. Well, CliftonStrengths says that my gift is futuristic, but I actually think it's tied to my gift of connection. I always see a better tomorrow. I always see the better, higher vision. And for whatever reason, I'm calibrated in that way. And so it's what I lead with, right? So it's my internal compass. And what ends up happening is I can meet anyone anywhere.
00:10:03
Speaker
Because we have to do this again. I keep harkening back to my Broadway experience, but it actually is the substrate for everything that I've done since. Because if you think about it, most Broadway casts come together and they have four to six weeks to turn something that's written on a page, whether it be musical notes or words, into something that lives and breathes, that grabs people by the throat and fills the theater every night, eight shows a week.
00:10:28
Speaker
And typically, there's a really good chance that two thirds of the people have never met before. But what they share and what they do in that space becomes deeply intimate. So they have to learn how to connect quickly and they have to learn how to connect deeply. So you're walking into a space both filled with your talent and your gifts, but also empty and open to collaboration and direction. And that training is always in me, that power, that urge, that gift of connection. Uh-huh.
00:10:57
Speaker
lives in me. It's part of my training. I think it's innate to me, because I like people. And even if I don't like you, I'm so curious about you. I can't help it. You might not know if you like you. Because my curiosity will have me leaning in. But I am. I'm fascinated by the human experience. I'm fascinated about the things that we do and the choices that we make and why we make them and how we do this thing called life. It fascinates me.
00:11:25
Speaker
And it has such unique lived experiences. If you care about people, if you're curious about people, you're going to ask a question and they're going to share something with you and there's a good chance it's going to change you.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. And no matter who that individual is, and that's part of that connection and just being curious that allows us to connect. The curiosity is not allowing things to kind of get entangled with yourself and your values and your assumptions and all of that, but just being present and curious allows for those deeper moments of connection. And what I think is amazing is you've had that opportunity to do that with so many different individuals, which I'm sure
00:12:08
Speaker
then only expands that for yourself. It's true. I've been in community and conversation with CEOs, C-suite. I got to interview Derek Jeter. He said something that's now part of my DNA. You know, true leadership is being disciplined in your character.
00:12:26
Speaker
He said it and I've not been able to release. It's got me in a toe cold. I have not been able to release it since, but I haven't been really, really fortunate to be in community and conversation across a wide swath.
00:12:42
Speaker
of people from different communities. I learned something new every time I'm in their spaces. Every time Cindy Gallup, she was on the panel at VCon, learned something, Arlen Hamilton, learned something, Bobby Brown, the makeup artist, interviewed her and her son, Cody Plofker, Jones Road. I learned so much about them and their lives, and it informs my brand view.
00:13:10
Speaker
And it also informs my view of myself. I desperately want to reach the best and highest iteration of Wendy. I am constantly in pursuit of my best and highest self.
Embracing Personal Gifts
00:13:24
Speaker
And I'm gathering nuggets. I'm mining the ore of truths from every
00:13:31
Speaker
person that I meet, every location that I'm in, because it means the world to me to do the full depth and breadth of this life. I don't want to live superficially. I want to live deeply.
00:13:44
Speaker
And those, when you say those words, I feel energetically and just, I don't know, intuitively like you have this self-worth because when you go through that journey of being curious and being curious about yourself, being curious about others and really just leaning in, you do end up back almost at the core of yourself of like it's love, it's joy, it's self-trust, it's
00:14:13
Speaker
everything that we would say, like, I am worthy, I am worthy. I'm curious, I have so many questions, but the first I'll start with is how did you determine that your gift
00:14:28
Speaker
was like what you were going to bring to the world, like your value, like that was how you were going to showcase your value and how do you communicate that to others? I think it chooses you, right? If you're paying attention, you'll have this sense, this internal sense of being lit up. And if you're paying attention and you're moving with a bit less fear, then you'll make a beeline towards it.
00:14:53
Speaker
I was raising Kent in Ohio, which is a small little mill town in Ohio in the middle of the Midwest. And every Saturday morning, I would wake up and plant myself in front of the TV and watch the black and white MGM movies. It was Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It was the Nicholas Brothers.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I was transported. I thought these people were the most magical human beings who had ever graced the face of the earth. And once I found out that that was actually a job that you could have, I'll say less. But there was nothing in my environment that would have informed that for me. My father was a machinist, is a machinist. He is alive. He's retired now. My mother was a hair designer, owned a hair salon.
00:15:34
Speaker
I come from solidly middle class, working class, bleak collar roots. And that felt like a very vaulted. So in this sense, I think it comes from disabusing yourself of the established norms and giving yourself permission to check in on what really lights you up.
00:15:54
Speaker
and paying attention. I'm Gen X, so we didn't have video games and all of that. We had a lot more time to split and sort of ponder our existence. We spent our days running around outside. And so there weren't a multitude of things that were pulling at me and distracting me. So I did have that time to sit and ideate around what is Wendy really good at? I'm really good at school. I'm fire on stage.
00:16:19
Speaker
So those two things have served me in my current role and in past roles. It helps to be well educated or to be a lifelong learner, to be interested in learning and sit in the seat and hold the microphone that I hold. There's a tremendous amount of work that goes into the moment before.
00:16:38
Speaker
You all see us on that stage and curiosity is cute, but you still have to learn. I'm not a subject matter expert. As you outlined, I've spoken at conferences across a plethora of industries. And so I have to do the work of learning what I can about that industry so that the questions that I ask are not only relevant, but pertinent to the reason we all gather that are going to leave everyone
00:17:08
Speaker
in that room with something more than they came into it with. But I think you have to be connected to self. You have to be really tuned into yourself and honor those voices, honor those inklings.
00:17:24
Speaker
Mm hmm. I think that's great advice. I feel like that is that's where it starts. Your value, your self worth. I mean, it has to start there. It has to. And so as we look a little more externally, I'm curious with sitting down and having all of these experiences with other individuals where you got to be really curious about them. What did you see or learn from those people or experiences around the way that
00:17:53
Speaker
others communicate and showcase their value. Most of the people in those positions have seen it and heard it all. So like their bullshit meter is second to none.
00:18:05
Speaker
I know that is a literally I would say for sure is they see you coming and you can take that as you wish all, right? So if there's artifice, if there are particularly artifice, that's a big one. If there's artifice, if there's an agenda, they see you coming from a mile away. And so what I've learned from those interactions is that it really serves you to be authentic, honest and integrous.
00:18:35
Speaker
and humane to not just approach them as a celebrity. They still go home in here. Broadway has really, really served me. When you share the stage with famous people, the allure of fame comes down. It's not that they're not gifted and talented, but suddenly they're your colleague and not just the person that you idolize.
00:18:59
Speaker
Right. I can only think of maybe two occasions when I have legit fanned out. One was when I met Lena Horne and who wouldn't lose their shit? Meeting Lena Horne.
Post-George Floyd Visibility Shift
00:19:10
Speaker
It was Lena Horne and the other might have been, oh, I don't know, a political figure who shall remain nameless.
00:19:19
Speaker
But other than that, I know that this is a role that they have in life. This is a responsibility that they've taken out, but there are people behind those roles. And so I always approach them in that way. I think that's what they taught me. I think that's what being in community and conversational with people like that has taught me first and foremost.
00:19:41
Speaker
is if you don't come correct, they're going to see you and you're never going to be able to mind the ore that you could have gotten from that interaction had you come to them framed in humanity.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, it comes back to that aspect of connection. And that's what we're all here for and approaching it from that sense. And I think that the authenticity, approaching it from that sense of connection, bringing your full authentic self, that's really how you showcase your value. And that's really how people will see you and your gifts that you were talking about.
00:20:25
Speaker
all of these celebrities, they've clearly learned how to do that. Whether some of them are faking it or not, like they are doing that as well. And yeah, it seems that it just kind of goes back to if you want to do those things, you have to go inward.
00:20:41
Speaker
It's a heart-centered business. It doesn't seem like it, but it's heart-centered work. I find for me that the people that I enjoy, even when it's not me, because I'm not the only person who does this. There are great people in this space, but the people that I enjoy who do this the most are incredibly heart-centered. You feel it. You see it in their work. You hear it in their questions.
00:21:02
Speaker
You know when there's real interest there, when there's a real query and when they've just taken the pre-production questions that the team gave them and just sort of said them, all right, thank you so much. You can tell. You can tell when there's real care, right? When there's real care in that work.
00:21:19
Speaker
Some of my favorite emcees in the business are women for that reason. I'm not saying that women are the only ones who possess that gift, but the niche that I'm in specifically, specifically is dominated by white men. I remember wanting to do this full time when I was segueing out of my Broadway career and wanting to work with an agency and one of the agents when I queried about why there were less women.
00:21:49
Speaker
saying, well, you know, people just think that men are more commanding. And so based off of what? I was like, have you been in a household in the morning when everybody's trying to get off the school? Running shit in there. I was like, that is shenanigans. But that has been a default setting. And I'm just now in the last
00:22:13
Speaker
two years right at the heart of the pandemic. Am I now seeing the sisterhood of MCs and moderators rising? I see them now doing the latest sea conferences that were always helmed by men. And most of these women are women of color. And I know that part of it is
00:22:35
Speaker
The moment the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd was a powerful inflection point for every business, but it was especially powerful in the events industry because certainly the work that I've been doing for a decade plus where I'd never once been on the main stage without a white male couples, not once.
00:22:57
Speaker
ever in a decade's worth of work. Companies where now we need an MCU or host that's a woman, preferably a woman of color.
00:23:06
Speaker
And suddenly that women like myself and other women, Quinn Conyers, Eva Saha are being elevated into visibility. And it's hard to take the measure of what you're missing when you don't know what you're missing. Our lived experience informs the way that we show up in that space. It informs the questions that we ask.
00:23:31
Speaker
And so once those doors were opened, my girls are kicking them down. Yeah. As they should. They're kicking them down. Shout out to Quinn. Yeah. Shout out to Quinn. Shout out to you. Quinn's going to be joining us next quarter and doing one of our speaker trainings for Speakers Bureau. I'm so excited. Her energy is just like on fire. We love her.
00:23:54
Speaker
And now the next hurdle is pay equity. That's the next hurdle because easily there's a 30% pay differential between men and women doing the same exact work. And the reason this is so nefarious in this niche in particular is because none of this is our IP.
00:24:16
Speaker
meaning we are not keynote speakers, we are MCs and moderators, we are all handed front-end fascia, the same script, the same schedule, the same lists of panelists to query. And so this isn't intrinsically our IP, right? We're facilitating it. And so the argument can't really be made like they try to make when it comes to keynotes that, oh, wow.
00:24:42
Speaker
We all have the same amount of experience. They may have more conferences on the resume, but that's systemic. That's in some ways by design. That has been the default setting. And so I am thrilled to see all of those established norms being blown up. People seeing and understanding the power of professional women and see in moderators and the value add that we have in this space.
00:25:11
Speaker
I have two thoughts. One, if I can, I want to bring us back to you talked about George Floyd, because I think that that was a really pivotal moment from two different lenses. One that you talked about is sort of that external we're seeing
00:25:28
Speaker
everyone bump up into these norms and constructs and brave corporations and leaders, like really breaking some of those down, which is what is necessary.
00:25:43
Speaker
On the other side, having this lived experience as a Black woman and you as well, I also noticed that there was a big shift in the Black community, especially Black women.
00:25:59
Speaker
And I felt like we've seen this over and over again, but something was different with George Floyd. Like that was different. And for me personally, like it set me into like a very interesting journey of reclaiming a lot of things for me as a black woman and showcasing those like how can I use these things that were held against me for so long and own them? They're mine. I want to reclaim them. And then I want to like
00:26:28
Speaker
show the world that it is a part of what I bring to the table and that is my value. Did you experience anything similar around that time? 100 percent. It's been this interesting convergence of sort of like in midlife moxie, I call it midlife moxie. And George Floyd is from my hometown, Houston. So when that happened, I was in Houston. I was not living in Chicago at the time.
00:26:58
Speaker
and the feeling in that city. He's actually from a community that buttresses where I was living at the time. So it was visceral, that experience. Yeah, it changed everything for me. I'm going to keep it 100. I don't code switch anymore.
00:27:16
Speaker
I don't know when I decided, but it was somewhere in that window. I don't straighten my hair unless I want to. I was having hot flashes and having all this hair was making me hot, so I gave myself an undercut. And it's all the way around my head. I called myself Eddy Corporate. I was like, I'm not interested in fitting, making myself palatable to the white gaze. Yeah. So that I can work. If I'm going to do this work,
00:27:45
Speaker
I'm going to show up as me. And I want to make sure that the people I'm working with, that there's alignment. So the more I show up as me, the better the chances that the people that I'm working with are deeply aligned with me. So it absolutely, it flipped something very big on its head for me. And now that, you know, the horse is out the barn, there's no going back.
00:28:09
Speaker
And I think it was watching him die in real time. It wasn't the reporting of it. It wasn't reading the written description of it. It was seeing the video and watching it in real time. And then there's no he said, she said, they said. There's no more you get to have your own sets of facts around what transpired. We all saw it.
00:28:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So now there's a line of demarcation. There's like before the murder of George Floyd and there's life after the murder of George Floyd. 100%. 100%. And I just know like collectively as
00:28:52
Speaker
black women and I'm sure black men too, but black women specifically like there was just such a shift. And I think it also goes back to like so many black women stepping into their power right now because it was going inward and reclaiming and thinking about all of those things and saying, you know what, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not going to do this anymore. And I'm going to step into my power. And that in itself, like what a amazing way to
00:29:22
Speaker
like stand up against their traditional social norms and constructs and just say my value is internal and I'm gonna show you and I'm not gonna hide it anymore.
00:29:40
Speaker
I mean, I think you're making a really important and powerful point. I was talking to a friend of mine who's in the political sphere. And I said, historically, we will look back at this window, this window of 2020 to 2025 is what I'm guesstimating. And we will see that it was the rise of an entire group of black female millionaires.
00:30:03
Speaker
There is a movement of foot, and I don't know that the mainstream press is paying attention, or if they're because their lived experiences isn't this, so they're not in those spaces, but everywhere I look, I see black women taking up space and coming to the back.
00:30:25
Speaker
And I'm not talking a six figure back. It is seven and eight figures. I see black women everywhere around me building empires. I see the black women that were dealing with microaggressions at work and marginalization and not being promoted. Finally, tiring of that, leaving the workforce.
00:30:48
Speaker
forming their own companies. And we learned in our words, in five years time, those same women, there's a talent bloodletting that is happening in corporate America when it comes to black women. Those women's throats are going to become their competition.
00:31:03
Speaker
I don't know any other way to say it. I see it. And maybe my lived experience coupled with the algorithm. But when I tell you, I don't really share conversations about it. And then it's going to come as a surprise to some folks. Because why are they playing no games right now? They're playing no games and they're betting on themselves in a way that is long overdue.
00:31:30
Speaker
They were more happy to work within corporate constructs and to strive for that upward mobility. On Gen X, that's the diet we were raised on. It was get a good job at a great company and work your way up, right? There was a template and that suit has been ill-fitting for some.
00:31:49
Speaker
And the pandemic changed a lot of people's thinking about Mahalo. And also something about an existential threat to your life daily that are having you rethinking the things that you think are default norms.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yes. Yes. True words have not been said. And again, like it is that lived experience. Like, do you actually know what that feels like? And we do, but there are people who don't. And so I think it's a very different experience and it's definitely time for black women to step into that power and get the bag.
Negotiation Tips for Women
00:32:30
Speaker
So we're thinking of getting that bag and this like awesome moment in time for black women specifically. And I think we obviously want to be inclusive of all women, but black women specifically and from your story, from your journey, how are you approaching
00:32:52
Speaker
this negotiation process when it comes to compensation. You know, you say being an MC, being a host, like there's no IP there and everybody has the same script. So how do you approach negotiation, compensation,
00:33:09
Speaker
in those rooms knowing that, okay, the tides are changing. There's not, I'm not standing next to a white male co-presenter anymore. And I know that I need to be paid what I'm worth. So how do you approach those conversations? What are some tips that you have for other women out there that may be navigating those waters?
00:33:32
Speaker
Well, I will say this, it's not easy, because so much of what people are being paid is hidden. And so some part of you has to go into inspector clue cell mode. Thankfully, the events industry is heavily freelance based. And so
00:33:51
Speaker
If you've worked in the industry long enough, there's a good chance that someone that you know and you know well has either been in the room and comp is being discussed or has a framework or point of reference for it.
00:34:05
Speaker
And so knowledge is power. I would start by querying the people that you trust to give you accurate information to find out what the norms have been and not the norms for men. Yes. And being that specific because particularly in news, you can be a veteran
00:34:25
Speaker
female news anchor and a veteran male anchor, and there's a really, really good chance that the guy sitting next to you at the desk is making 20% to 25% more than you. And you have commensurate experience, and that is a default setting of that industry. Incredibly common. I cannot say that enough. Not slightly dis-common. Incredibly common.
00:34:45
Speaker
In order to begin the conversation around compensation, you have to know what those numbers are. The events industry has a really interesting construct. Aside from Broadway, it is one of the widest spaces I've ever worked in. Diversity is not a stronghold of the events industry. I'm talking about on production side, the speakers bureau side, any of that.
00:35:06
Speaker
Having said that, what you see a lot is male owners and then most of the people running things are women, right? So there's a lot of women leadership in there. And so this is where real sisterhood shows up, not performative sisterhood. And so I'd like to think that I've built some really strong relationships in the industry with my colleagues on the production side. Close mouth, they'll get fed. You have to ask.
00:35:32
Speaker
Just so you can infer, you can't hint, you can't hope, you have to ask.
00:35:38
Speaker
And so I have asked the women that I've worked with on the production side, what should I be asking for, for this job? What did the last MC moderator that was a guy make in this position? And so there's a lot of trust that has to go into the process, fortunately or unfortunately, but all of this is relationships anyway.
00:36:02
Speaker
Right? Everything that we do in the business world is all relationships anyway, but you have to ask for the information so that you have a point of reference and then you have to ask for your money. Yeah. You have to know what your bottom line is. What's your, I'm not getting out of bed for this number.
00:36:19
Speaker
If there's a multinational, multibillion company that wants you to come in and emcee their global conference for $5,000 a day, that's a no. That's a no. You have to talk the numbers. You have to take the shame out of talking the numbers.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yes. Well, for global conferences, multinational companies, MCs and moderators should be making between 10 and 15,000 a day. There. Done. Right. Now, you can decide whether that's what you want. I'm not going in for lessons. You can decide because it also depends on are you working with an agent? Is there a speakers bureau? Are they hiding you directly? What number do you need to make this work for you? Because here's the other gag. Women live longer. Statistically,
00:37:06
Speaker
We need her coin. We need our coin as we age. We can't live off of hugs and hope. One day you will not be able to do this work. One day you will want or need to retire. And this is, you're an independent person. You have to have enough money to retire on. So if that doesn't wake you out of the stupor or the fear of not asking for your coin, do you want to eat cat food when you're 85? No, thank you.
00:37:37
Speaker
Do you want to have in-home care? You're going to need money for all of those things. So what you're asking isn't just about today, it's for all of your tomorrows. If you're blessed with a long life, at some point you will move into infirmity. You will need care. And so the money that you ask for today is the money that will, who knows is social security going to be here? I hope you're not counting on that. I hope you're not counting on your kid. Do you know how many people I've seen put in the home?
00:38:07
Speaker
Pretend it's just you rowing the boat. Yeah, right? Pretend it's just you that you can only count on you. If those other things come into play, that is gravy. But there is a good chance that you will live well into your 80s and even your 90s. And at some point you were retiring, you were going to need 20 plus years worth of money to not subsist on, but to live the end of your life with.
00:38:35
Speaker
your coin. Don't be in madness. Don't be ashamed. Ask the questions and don't explain. Especially if they called you. Yeah, seriously. And okay, I'm hearing multiple calls to action, obviously. Pay transparency, I think is huge. And then I'm hearing
00:38:55
Speaker
allies, mentors, right? We need both and we need people to step up into those positions, especially, hey, there's a lot of white women running the operations here is what you were seeing. And it's like we need those women to step into those ally and mentor seats so they can say, hey, let me show you what that last person made.
00:39:20
Speaker
let me show you so we can benchmark this, so we can raise that bar. So call to action there. And then also it's like that call to action to yourself. Drop the fear, drop the shame. Like you have to ask, you have to ask. And there are so many women and I've had some mentees too where they're going through their interview rounds and they get their offer and they're so excited and they just accept it. And I'm like,
00:39:45
Speaker
Hold on. Did you not counter? Did you not? And they're like, but it's what I want. And it's no, no, no, it doesn't matter if it's what you want. What do you deserve? What do you think you deserve? Is it that number? Probably not. It's probably a lot higher as it should be. And what are they going to say? No, retract the offer. Like those will all tell you, give you the information that you need then to make the best decision for yourself. But like you got to do it. You got to ask.
00:40:15
Speaker
Because life be life ain't sometimes, right? Sometimes people will say yes to the number because their situation is equitable. But with a 50 percent divorce rate, there's a really good chance that at least half the women who are listening to this may get married and have children in their divorce and suddenly in their head of household. And what all your unwillingness or fear of negotiating
00:40:42
Speaker
which might have meant an additional 10 or 20 percent in revenue, could be the cushion where it could really keep you out of the stressed, real house if life starts living for you like that. I have a very dear friend that traveled internationally and stepped off a plane and passed away from an embolism. She never even made 50. There are no guarantees.
00:41:11
Speaker
So don't make choices based off of things are fine right now. Make a plan, make an ask based off of what if some or all of it hits the fan so that you have some cushion, so that you have some backup.
00:41:30
Speaker
so that when you need to regain your equilibrium or reorganize your life or the life of your children, or I don't know, an infirm parent, any number of things, that you are not doing it depleted. Because the task will be difficult enough. But when you add the financial stressor to it, that's what redoubles. It requires that you have to redouble your efforts.
00:41:57
Speaker
So it really does fall to women a lot. I'm seeing it with all of my friends, their parents. They're now sandwiched between college graduates, young adults, and infirm parents. And so this hope that once they got the kids out of the house, they'd have this window of time. No, they're sharetaking. And which means a consistent, I want you to look at the math on this, right? Because money is just numbers. I want to take the emotion out of it. They're just numbers.
00:42:27
Speaker
is a tremendous output financially from parenthood into your own old age, right? A lot of their parents, my friends, their parents don't have enough money for their care. And so they're subsidizing that as well. I need you to hear me about being compensated well. It makes a profound difference.
00:42:51
Speaker
on the quality of your life and how you are able to pivot and manage and mitigate when life starts lifing. It's a powerful, powerful message. And I feel like so many women hear it. And they're like, I know I need to. I'm wondering, as we wrap up for our last question, what advice do you have for women that they hear you, they hear that message?
00:43:19
Speaker
But they are stuck in that fear, in that shame. Like, how do they get out of it? How do they push themselves forward to a place where they can set the rates they want? They can push back and counter. They can negotiate confidently and competently. How do we get there for the women that are stuck and they're stuck in their emotions?
Building a CEO Squad
00:43:43
Speaker
How do we get there?
00:43:45
Speaker
I get that it's not everyone's zone of genius. So what I would say is get a squad. I have a squad. We call ourselves the CEO squad. And everyone in my squad, there are four of us, has a completely different business. Everyone is an entrepreneur and we all have different zones of genius. And a couple of the members of my squad are really good money. They're really good with asking for money, framing it.
00:44:08
Speaker
If it's not innate to you, it's a skill set just like anything else, right? It's a powerful skill set and it can be cultivated. It's like any muscle. If you work it enough, you're gonna gain strength with it. But get yourself a squad. People who refuse to let you barter your gifts and have them walk you through. I've often done a version of sort of like play acting, the ask.
00:44:35
Speaker
They'll help me with the words, they'll help me with the framing. And it feels easier, right? To have that bit of rehearsal. It doesn't feel so ad-hop like I'm just winging it. Winging is where you get into trouble. Winging is where you'll shrug your shoulders and say, okay.
00:44:50
Speaker
Whatever you want to get me. Right? Being out of fear. And there's always that scarcity mindset. But I have a squad that refuses to let me live in scarcity. They refuse to let me live in a scarcity mindset. And they happen to be really gifted. Some of them were in corporate America in positions where they were hiring, where they had teams. And so they have insights that I don't. So I would encourage you to get a squad. So we have our girlfriends and that's fun and cute for emotional. But I'm talking about a business squad.
00:45:20
Speaker
Why where y'all taught dollars and cents, money and business. And it's not competitive. You're not competing with each other. It doesn't matter whether you're in similar industries or not. Business minded people where you guys can come regularly. We meet every Monday at five o'clock Central Standard Time on Zoom.
00:45:41
Speaker
every single week. And we have a quarterly retreat where we sit down and plot out our businesses and look at our numbers and our revenue every quarter. Amazing. My CEO squad, I'm not sitting here talking to you without it. I'm not at VCON without them. I'm not at Lenovo without them. Like that connection is real revenue. Tangible revenue has come from my CEO squad. So I'm gonna take you to a CEO squad.
00:46:10
Speaker
I, it is gonna be next on my list. Like, see, coming up for me, that's for sure. I think that's really sage advice. And again, like, back to connection, right? Connection. And you said not living in that scarcity mindset and that's going back internally. Like, all of this is so important. It's so important and it's like,
00:46:37
Speaker
building the capacity for that within yourself, surrounding yourself with the people who believe in you and that have also done it and are doing it. And then it's like, bam, your reality changes.
00:46:52
Speaker
Oh, full fall. We have one of the members in my squad just got 2.7 in venture funding. Amazing. All of our businesses have flourished under the combined power of the squad. That's how transformative it is.
00:47:08
Speaker
I have my girlfriends that I brunch with and it's not that we don't talk about business, but the squad is a business, a business squad. We meet every Monday for an hour on Zoom and we meet in person every quarter. We fly to some locale, we get an Airbnb and we spend three days drilling down into our businesses.
00:47:33
Speaker
strategizing, helping each other. We have a lot of fun in between as well, right? We want to be replenished. We don't want to be depleted, right? In those ventures. But it's nice to have a text thread where in the moment, someone's asking you if you'll do that or not for such and such amount of money and you're like, I don't know if I should. In a second, do you know how many times I've picked up my phone and texted the squad? This is what just came through. What do y'all think? And boom, boom, boom, I get four responses.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah, you know they're going to be back on each other's responses. And before I know it, we've synthesized it down into something that feels like me, that feels right to me. And I feel supported. That's all I love America. But this rugged individualism is shit is overrated. There are some things that we can and should do as individuals. But when we come together as community, I've seen the power of community thinks just about everything.
00:48:29
Speaker
And so, curate that for yourself.
00:48:33
Speaker
I have a CEO squad. I have my community of girls and family. I have my theater community. I have my parent community. And each one of these communities, it enriches my life. It keeps me buoyed. It keeps me course corrected when I go off course. You don't have to do it all yourself. And honestly, I would encourage you not to because we all have blind spots. There are things that my squad has called me out on lovingly. They're like, girl, yeah, that's some clown shit.
00:49:06
Speaker
Yes, no girl, no. And sometimes you need to hear that. Sometimes you need to hear that. Yeah.
00:49:14
Speaker
And it's also great when stuff doesn't line up or doesn't work out or doesn't seem to line up. Theory squad is noped. Everything is working out for your perfect good, right? No, no, no. I know it looks like this. Hold tight, hold tight. Two, three months come. Something else. CP, I told you that wasn't for you. Like, you need that. And I think as women, I think that's one of our superpowers.
00:49:37
Speaker
And the world would have us feel embarrassed or weak because we're so drawn to the idea of community. It can be so innate with us sometimes. That's BS. That's our superpower, our sisterhood.
00:49:53
Speaker
It truly is. Lean into it. Get into it. Yeah. And with our community, women in revenue, like it's easy to lean in.
Join Women in Revenue
00:50:04
Speaker
It's easy to lean in when you have a community and then it's like take it one step further as Wendy's saying and build your CEO squad. I love it so much. I'm definitely walking away with so much
00:50:16
Speaker
knowledge from you. I appreciate you sharing and being here and I can feel your energy and I'm just so grateful that we have been able to connect today and that you've been able to share your stories and your tips for all the other women out there that
00:50:33
Speaker
they know that they are worth a whole lot. And I think just by hearing some of your words and wisdom, maybe that will encourage one, two, five, 20, whatever, however many women to step up and like move past that emotion and step into their power and get what they're worth. We'll stop. Go get your bag.
00:50:59
Speaker
Thank you so much, Wendy. We appreciate you being on. Thank you so much for having me. It has been such a pleasure and I'm rooting for us. I really am. I'm rooting for all of us. I have faith that the age of the woman is what turns the tide.
00:51:16
Speaker
I'm really looking to this community to turn the tide. I just, I need us all to believe that that power is ours. And then you just all to believe it at the same time so that we can move as a force, a force to be reckoned with. Yeah, I'm here. I'm with you. Let's do it. Thanks Wendy. Thank you so much, Hannah.
00:51:41
Speaker
And that wraps up another episode of Resilient Revenue. These narratives are more than just personal triumphs. They embody the collective journey that we undertake as we strive for a future where every woman, no matter her career stage, location, industry, or demographic profile, has the opportunity to excel in her chosen field.
00:52:01
Speaker
Women in revenue exists because we know amazing things can happen when driven, talented, bottom line oriented women are fired up and collaborating to grow their careers and organizations. We invite you to join our amazing community of 7,000 plus members. If you'd like to become a member for free, head on over to womeninrevenue.org to join today. See you next time on Resilient Revenue.