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A very smart woman once said “find out who you are and do it on purpose.” That smart woman is Dolly Parton, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of her authenticity as I talked with actress and producer Natasha Lyonne and marketing expert Jaclyn Johnson, founder of Create + Cultivate. Like Parton, Lyonne and Johnson find that stepping into who you truly are has enormous power when you’re building out a successful venture.
For both Lyonne and Johnson, the timing of their work couldn’t be better planned. The smash success of Lyonne’s latest work - Russian Doll - tells the story of a confident professional in the still male-dominated industry of video game development. Nadia, the main character played by Lyonne, keeps dying and waking up in the same day, over an 8-part series of episodes on Netflix. Nadia personifies the relatable combination of confusion and moxie that many young women embody as we navigate rapidly evolving gender roles in our personal lives and at work. The process of writing, producing and acting in this series is itself an unexpected journey that Lyonne shares more about.
Johnson, too, is on a successful entrepreneurial journey that is unpredictable as much as it is exciting. Her multi-million dollar media and marketing firm, Create + Cultivate, is forging a new path to help Millennial women build their own success. On Equal Pay Day, the firm is launching a community platform that connects thousands of women who want to create and cultivate their own business acumen from where ever they might live.
Johnson and Lyonne share their perspectives on negotiating while female, the value of working on all-women teams, and being brave enough to follow crazy ideas. I spoke with both of them during South by Southwest, and we talked about the similarities between being an entrepreneur and being a creative professional. They also shared important advice on why women need to take up space, when it makes strategic sense to do things for free, and how we can inspire the next generation of women leaders and allies.
Natasha Lyonne: Can we start with the story about Gabby Hoffman calling me to ask me how much I made on Orange Is The New Black so she could negotiate a higher salary for Transparent? She was making more than me, so I was useless to her. But it’s important for women to talk to each other about money, and also include men in that conversation. We all need to be able to speak freely and not be ashamed.
Jaclyn Johnson: I think pay and pricing transparency is so important. Especially for women just starting out, because they don't know how to charge for things. Or they don’t know how much to ask for because we've all been given bad information. We have a big push around Equal Pay Day encouraging women to be more open about how much they're making and charging, because that transparency is important. Women need to boldly talk about money so we can get rid of the stigma around asking for more information.
Lyonne: I remember I was at an Elle dinner and Shonda Rhimes got on stage. She shared with us that she is the highest paid show-runner in the world, and that she thought it was important for women to share these types of accomplishments. I was quickly on my feet, applauding her. It was instinctual. It was so rare to hear this, and it’s important to get rid of that hesitancy. We need to know our worth and get it.
Tanya Tarr: Does that worth always have a dollar sign? Does it ever make sense to do something for free, in the service of fueling business development or building a key relationship?
Lyonne: Nobody pays you to audition. It's important to remember that as an artist, sometimes the best way to make something happen is to put yourself out there and let people see what you're capable of. There were so many times I would do free table readings or read someone's script. There are so many things like that in an actor's life and you have to put yourself out there. I had some middle years in my career where I had to build back trust. I spent so much time doing things for free to build that reputation back. People began to know that I was trustworthy and I started to get cast again. Jaclyn, I'm wondering how that works in the business world?
Johnson: I was just going to say, when you're first starting out in business, I bartered so much, especially around services, because you just don’t have any capital but you have to get started. It feels like a gamble, but you don't know when the big break happens. I remember our first sponsor for Create + Cultivate was Levi's. The were the presenting sponsor and they owned the stage, and they paid $3,000. This was seven years ago, and my client ran it on her credit card and probably wrote it off as a dinner. I was so excited though, because I knew people would see this sponsor and more cool brands would come. And it happened!
Tarr: It sounds like the common through line for both of you is building momentum, right?
Johnson: Absolutely.
Tarr: So it makes sense to give things for free when it builds that momentum.
Lyonne: Sure, but I think it's hard to generalize. Everyone's journey is so different. If I had a career that I would start over today, maybe I wouldn't be in a hundred movies. May I would have been in just ten movies and had said no until the right role at the right paycheck showed up.
Johnson: Some people don't have the luxury to say "no". They don't have resources, so you have to keep moving forward like you can.
Lyonne: The bigger idea is to know what you want to do in this life and have enough belief in yourself. You’re not giving away things for free if it's a part of building your own dream. You're working for yourself. What you don't want to do is find yourself in situations where you're arriving with an entitled, belligerent or resentful attitude. What you want to do is find yourself in situations where you're self-employed within a life you've dreamed up. But you've got to try. Sometimes I'll take swings at things and find myself pleasantly surprised. Like the Kenzo movie, I asked if I could base it on a Fellini film and they said yes. You have to throw out those crazy ideas without knowing what will stick.
Tarr: Both of you pull together amazing teams. What’s been key for you in cultivating strong teams?
Johnson: I know I have to model good behavior for my team. I know when I encounter potential funders or executives that don't treat my business with respect, I want to show my team that it's a good time to walk away from a potential deal. A lot of my team are just starting their careers, and they're on emails where we're redlining and negotiating contracts. I know that they see what I'm doing and they're learning how to negotiate and how to ask for the right things. They’re learning how to go back with better offers. It’s important to be flexible on possibilities when you’re negotiating. Good for business, and good for life, too.
Tarr: Is the experience different when the team is all-women?
Lyonne: There is something in our culture that always shames women with big personalities. When I'm working with all-women teams, I'm never afraid of having my biggest self in the room. I feel like women get it. I feel more confident in taking up as much space as I need to. I think this extends to the negotiating process, too, where I feel I have permission to disagree with you and it's not me taking you down a peg. It's about the creative project on the table.
But I'm not interested in creating a gender divide. For Russia Doll, that was the case of having an all-women team. It'll be interesting to see how the project evolves. If we get a second season, I don't know if it will be all-women writers and directors. For the first season, they were the best people for the job. Similarly, this company I started, the people on staff are the best people to run the company. What about you, Jaclyn?
Johnson: My entire staff is women, and it's always been that way. But I remember before I was the boss, and getting started in my corporate career. I’d constantly worrying about my appearance or saying no or making big decisions. It was a negotiation of all these different factors. And I had great male bosses, one of whom was a sponsor for Create and Cultivate. But I also had terrible male clients who would refuse to pay and simply tell me they didn't feel like it. At the time, I didn't say anything because he was a powerful person.
Lyonne: That's what tricky about talking about men. So many of them are great. It's that the bad ones are truly bad, and that's what makes this discussion so nuanced. At least in the negative experiences I've had with women, I've felt like I could enter the boxing ring and I'm an equal contender. Whereas with men, it's felt like a David and Goliath situation.
Tarr: Do you have advice for men who want to be better allies and partners to women in business?
Lyonne: Honestly, it comes down to not being patronizing. I've never had a woman tell me "wow, you really are smart." Men - the bad ones - they're always surprised, and that is deeply patronizing.
Johnson: Showing women that their dreams are possible is important. A girl came up to me today and told me that she read my book and used all my negotiation advice, and she got a raise. I know there were women here today that heard Natasha speak who are thinking about becoming filmmakers and maybe are feeling self doubt. But seeing Natasha talk about her experience helps give them the boost they need to go for it. Those little changes will make big changes in the long-term.
Women need to see representation of themselves as a CEO, as a director, as an executive producer, on the screen. That's why I loved Russian Doll so much - the characters were real women. The characters felt like people I know. We need to do that, too, and show up authentically as role models to help the next generation step up.
Lyonne: One hopes that enough of us make movies and start companies. Working with all those amazing women was the first time I understood that that was where the power was. This tidal wave of powerhouse women came into my life and stormed my psyche without me even realizing it. The more of us that there are, the more we become the solution, because we give each other jobs. When we're each other's bosses, there's just more for everyone.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
