Chula Vista resident Skyler McCurine doesn’t want women leaving money on the table throughout their lives. She cites a statistic reported by the Harvard Business Review last year: a woman who doesn’t negotiate her salary after graduation will lose between $650,000 and $1 million over the course of her 45 year career.
McCurine currently works as a negotiation and self advocacy coach through her business, Le Red Balloon, where she advocates for a more equitable world by helping her clients breakthrough systemic barriers that hinder their professional growth and preparing them for successful negotiation conversations.
“I love helping supporting people who would normally and naturally and justifiably trade pieces of their power to have just a comfortable conversation so they can get it over with,” McCurine said.
“What I do is write a script for them and prepare for every contingency… it translates for the rest of their lives, the only thing that changes is the math,” McCurine said, adding that negotiating not only pay, but all the terms of a contract, is important.
Before getting into this line of work, she was a fashion consultant that styled leaders who were working at organizations where they were the first of their gender, race or sexual orientation to occupy their respective positions.
McCurine said she was inspired by her mentor, Ann Marie Houghtailing, to get into self advocacy and negotiation coaching after a moving experience where Houghtailing sat in with her during a phone interview about seven years ago.
While McCurine was negotiating her pay on the phone, Houghtaling was sitting with her writing down what she should say on pieces of paper. In that moment, she said she felt the scale of power balance for once, and knew she wanted to help other people feel the same way.
“This woman that has a high level skill has coached me through really challenging nuanced contexts,” McCurine said.
Since launching her career in self advocacy coaching, McCurine has been a finalist for the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the social entrepreneurship category.
Now she works side by side with Houghtailing to lead classes people can take to improve their negotiation and professional skills. McCurine and Houghtailing are currently looking for sponsors and a venue to hold a class in the South Bay with about 250 people.
In the past, McCurine said she and Houghtailing have had people age 23-68 attend their workshops. Tickets for their workshops usually start at $25, but McCurine said she will never turn anyone away.
“This work doesn’t work if it’s not accessible,” McCurine said.
She added that it’s especially critical to make the information surrounding self advocacy and negotiation available in Black and brown communities.
According to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics released in July, women make just 81.4 percent of what men make when comparing median weekly earnings.
This disparity is even greater when comparing white men to Black women and Hispanic women, with Black women making just 67 percent of what white men make and Hispanic women making just 60.5 percent of what white men make, based on weekly earnings.
Black men make 74.2 percent of the median for white men, Hispanic men make 72.7 percent of the median of white men, according to the report.
Disparities exist among women as well, with Black women making 82.8 percent of what white women make and Hispanic women making 74.4 percent of what white women make, based on weekly earnings. Asian men and women earned more than their white counterparts based on weekly earnings.
It should be noted that this report by the BLS only identified people in four racial categories: white, Black, Hispanic and Asian.
Through a grant from RISE, a local non-profit organization with the mission of developing urban leaders by promoting resident-led civic engagement, McCurine has been able to start holding free office hours during the first Saturday of every month at the Jacobs Center For Neighborhood Success, located at 404 Euclid Avenue in southeast San Diego.
“I grew up in Encanto and Valencia Park and it’s an integral part of my life and my parents’ life,” McCurine said. “That’s why I have office hours there.”
Her monthly office hours begin at 10 a.m. and go into the afternoon. During this time she meets with people in hour increments to coach them in negotiation and self advocacy. She also takes on private clients through her website, www.leredballoon.com.
“I will never tire of somebody telling me that they were able to have a conversation that they were conditioned to be afraid of,” McCurine said.
McCurine’s advice to young women of color who are just beginning their careers is to start talking to people they trust about what they make, because salary secrecy is another reason this disparity can continue to exist.
“This is a devotion,” McCurine said. “I will be doing this until the day that I die.”
