Ladies Get Paid with Claire Wasserman
Ladies Get Paid with Claire Wasserman
If you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you know that I’m a big fan of salary negotiation and getting paid what you’re worth. It’s so important to me that all four Financial Gym locations literally have a wall that says “Know Your Worth”. One of the leaders in this conversation, especially for women, is Claire Wasserman, founder of the community Ladies Get Paid.
Claire joins me today to discuss the new book she’s written around the subject – Ladies Get Paid, The Ultimate Guide to Breaking Barriers, Owning Your Worth and Taking Command of Your Career. However you gender identify, I believe Claire’s book and insights will empower you financially in your career.
What are we drinking?
Claire - Water
Shannon - Gin and Tonic
Podcast Notes
Misogyny and sexism compelled Claire to start her company, Ladies Get Paid. She was not a feminist until a few years ago, because she had a misunderstanding of what feminism meant.
Claire was at an advertising festival about five years ago, and when she walked into the party, and an older man asked her innocently, “Who’s wife are you?”. That comment unleashed a time of introspection about sexism and gender power dynamics she had been experiencing throughout her whole career that she had never acknowledged.
Prior to this happening, she had been at a dinner and she thought there could be a potential partnership with a man in attendance. He was married, and at one point, he leaned over and kissed her. When she confronted him, he was confused because she gave him her business card. Claire was mortified and thought it was her fault.
The problem, besides Claire turning inward, is the power dynamic, because they were not peers. She wanted to have a partnership with him.
Less than 22% of women make it past middle management. Women are not in the position of power.
Claire did some research and Googled women, work, money, and self worth. She started from zero and self educated about words, like micro aggression, and she put a vocabulary on feelings she had in her workplace.
It wasn’t until another year from then that she had the thought to bring women together to talk about money. The idea came to her, when a friend of hers said she couldn’t figure out how much to charge as a freelance art director.
Claire wanted to talk about money because of what it represented - power and self worth. She made it a town hall even, an open forum, where women could stand up and say what money meant to them. There were 100 women that attended.
Many of them talked about salary negotiation, how to do it, and how to not let it affect your self esteem. Claire realized there needed to be more education.
Claire’s next step was to create a Slack group. She invited everybody who attended the town hall, and different channels of the Slack group corresponded to sub themes that came up during the town hall, including legal questions and jobs.
Claire quit her job about two weeks later. She had savings and she had a failed startup before, so she knew what she was in for. She saw from the Slack group that there was a big need for this. She was not going to run out of things to do.
It has now been three and a half years since she started her company, and almost two million messages have been exchanged on Slack from almost 70,000 women from all 50 states and more than 120 countries.
Claire is proud of herself for seeing it then, but she is even more proud of these women who come and humble themselves by saying, “I don’t know how to do this”. They are not the only ones.
Part of this are those internal obstacles where we don’t feel like we can or don’t feel like we should. Another part is tactic, the tangibles, like what savings account should I open?. The other part is the external system you are operating with.
You need to figure out how to move past what you are holding yourself back from, how you can change your world/company, and how to speak the language.
Prior to quitting her job, Claire asked to shift her responsibilities to mostly doing this type of work in a freelance capacity. Their response was no and she had a decision to make.
A reason she wanted to work for the company originally, is because she wanted to learn how to grow a startup. There were five people when she started and ten when she left, and her questions had been answered.
Ladies Get Paid was sued by men’s rights activists. They targeted her company in San Diego and Los Angeles for events they hosted. At the time, they advertised the events for female identifying and non-binary people, because they were town halls and predicated on people sharing awkward experiences, such as sexual harassment.
There is a Civil Rights Act in Los Angeles that is meant to protect people like Claire, but this men’s group has used it over 300 times to sue groups like hers. They sued Ladies Get Paid, Claire, venues that hosted the gatherings, and people who donated food and beverages.
The worst part is they sued six of their ambassadors. Claire hired a lawyer to represent them, it was extremely expensive, and this went on for about a year. Claire couldn’t talk about it during the process.
At the end, they were out of money and she had to ask her community for help. They created a crowd funding campaign or the company wouldn’t survive. Claire was worried that people would hate her, but people were supportive. In less than three weeks, 2,000 people donated almost $116,000, which was well above what she was trying to raise. It allowed them to pay their legal expenses and pay their taxes.
For the past two years now, Claire has been working with the ACLU and legal aide to make sure this doesn’t happen. She wants to prevent the progressive civil rights law from being perverted and protect other groups moving forward.
She made a website called ladiesgetsued.com. You can take steps to improve your own life, but you can also take steps to improve other peoples’ lives. It might be hard, but small steps really do lead to big change.
The lawsuit led Claire to meet her literary agent, which led to a book deal. The book isn’t about the lawsuit. She knew the book was going to be about figuring out yourself and getting all the way to the C-Suite.
The structure of the book is Claire following the lives of nine real women, each one of them facing a different professional challenge. Claire slows it down and gives advice and provides a toolkit. The book is part narrative and part toolkit.
Claire started Ladies Get Paid for herself when she was 30 and for women like her. She is 34 now. The book is also for women who have worked long enough to know what they are good at and the direction they are going, but they are hitting a wall.
Think about the girls who are graduating college and what they are going to face. If you are someone who has been in the workforce for 10 plus years, what do you wish you would have learned?
This book is for any woman who wants to get into leadership and wants to move forward in their career, but it is especially for someone who is about to graduate or is a recent grad. It is about getting respect, recognition, and the money you deserve to be paid.
Takeaway: My biggest takeaway is the value of practicing and growing your negotiating muscles. Negotiating is not natural or comfortable for most of us, but, like any workout routine, the more we do it, the better we’ll get at it. The great news is that this workout routine means more dollars in your bank account.
Random Three Questions
What bingeing has gotten you through the pandemic?
When we can travel more freely, where is the first place you want to go?
If this was your last meal on earth, what would it be?
Connect with Claire Wasserman
Book: Ladies Get Paid
Website: ladiesgetpaid.com
Instagram: @clairewassermanxo
If you have any topics you would like me to cover on this podcast, or if you’d like to get in the financially naked hot seat, I encourage you to email me to Shannon@fingyms.com, or join the private Martinis and Your Money Facebook group, and let me know what you want to hear.
2020 was a challenging year, and if money was one of those challenges for you, please don’t let 2021 be more of the same. Despite a global pandemic, we witnessed Financial Gym clients achieve amazing goals all year long. We’ve worked with over 6,000 clients at this point and we’ve literally seen it all and would love to help you achieve your financial dreams in 2021. So head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com to get set up today.