April 29, 2025 • 11 mins
Landing a new project manager role is a huge achievement, but before you accept the offer, don’t skip the crucial step of negotiating your salary. Failing to negotiate can cost you millions over your career, yet many find the process intimidating and awkward.
Yonelly Gutierrez, Senior Project Manager at Palo Alto Networks and Founder of Velvet Vision, joins us to share her expert advice on negotiating with confidence. With her experience coaching women into $100K+ project management roles, she offers practical strategies for securing the compensation you deserve without the stress.
Resources from this episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Yonelly on LinkedIn
- Check out Palo Alto Networks
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kelsey Alpaio (00:05):
Hey! I'm Kelsey, and welcome back
to The Retro on The DigitalProject Manager podcast—where
we dig into past lessons,future trends, and what
they mean for your career.
If you've recently landed anew project manager role—first
of all, congratulations!That is not an easy feat
in today's job market.
But before you sign thatoffer, there's one big
(00:27):
step you can't afford toskip—negotiating your salary.
Research shows that if you failto negotiate, you could lose out
on literally millions of dollarsover the course of your career.
But I also get it, I've alwayspersonally struggled with
salary negotiations becausethey can be awkward and
stressful and honestly juststraight up intimidating.
(00:48):
So today, we're tackling how PMscan negotiate with confidence.
And to help guide us through it,I have Yonelly Gutierrez here
with me—she's a Senior ProjectManager at Palo Alto Networks
and the Founder of VelvetVision, a coaching program
dedicated to helping women land$100K+ project management roles.
Yonelly, welcome to the show!
Yonelly Gutierrez (01:09):
Hi! Thanks for having me.
Kelsey Alpaio (01:11):
So tell us a little bit about yourself
and the work that you do.
Yonelly Gutierrez (01:14):
Absolutely.
So as you mentioned, I'm asenior project manager working
in professional servicesat Palo Alto Networks.
So basically we helpclients deploy their
cloud security solutionsoutside of my nine to five.
Also, like you mentioned, Irun a career coaching business
where I help women break intoproject management roles.
So my background is interesting'cause I actually transitioned
(01:37):
from Tech from higher education.
I have no technical background,but I still work as an IT
project manager and I love it.
So now my main focus is onhelping others negotiate
their worth and landing,life-changing offers.
Kelsey Alpaio (01:50):
That's great and perfect for today 'cause
I wanna dive right in here.
Why is salary negotiationso important and especially
for project managers?
Yonelly Gutierrez (02:00):
Yeah, so it's really important
because project managers areessentially the backbone of
execution at any organization.
And so when you're actingin a leadership role in your
driving impact outcomes,like you have to get
compensated well for that.
So unfortunately many PMs,they accept their first
offer without negotiating.
(02:20):
And like you mentioned,you're literally leaving
thousands and even millionsof dollars on the table.
And over time that gapcompounds and that's gonna
affect your lifetime earnings.
So it's really importantto negotiate when it comes
to getting a new offer.
Kelsey Alpaio (02:35):
And for project managers, what are
the skills that they naturallyhave that can help them in
this negotiation process?
Yonelly Gutierrez (02:42):
Like I mentioned, project managers
are supposed to be leaders,and so we also need to
be good at communication,stakeholder management,
and also risk management.
And all those skills can combineand actually help you when it
comes to negotiating offers.
So it's a combination ofbeing a leader, having
great communication,and also spotting risk.
You might see some red flagsin the negotiation process, and
(03:05):
if you value yourself enough,you might have to pull back
and reconsider other options.
Kelsey Alpaio (03:10):
So in terms of the research someone
should be doing beforenegotiating their salary, how
can someone figure out whatthey should be asking for?
And are there surprisingways to get this information
outside of, the Glassdoor,PayScale, those websites
that we typically hear about?
Yonelly Gutierrez (03:26):
Yeah, so I was gonna start with that.
There's so many tools thatour fingertips, and even
in addition to Glassdoor,LinkedIn Salary, Levels.fyi.
You can actuallyuse ChatGPT too.
So that's one additional tool.
Two other ones can beinformational interviews.
So as you're networkingwith others, you can simply
ask them, Hey, what's themarket rate for a PM with
(03:48):
this much of experience?
And people would be happyto share that information.
The second tool is actuallyusing the PMI salary calculator.
So they collect data fromdifferent project managers
and you can get very.
Level and specific with it.
You can select if you havea PMP or not, your city.
And even if you are a male orfemale, and so it's really cool.
(04:12):
Definitely if you'rea PMI member, go check
out that free tool.
Kelsey Alpaio (04:16):
Yeah.
All really great resources andI do just wanna shout out to
that, the DPM does have our ownsalary survey that we put out
every year, so another greatresource for people to check
out if they're trying to dosome research ahead of time.
So diving into the actualnegotiation process here.
What is the best way tobring up salary during
the hiring process?
Like when in the processshould it happen?
(04:38):
Should you be the one tobring it up, or should you let
the employer take the lead?
What does that look like?
Yonelly Gutierrez (04:43):
So for me and what I coach, the
women that I work with,definitely let them bring it
up first whenever possible.
If they ask early, youcan actually respond with,
I'm focused on findingthe best overall fit.
I'd love to learn more about therole and responsibilities first.
Does the team actually havea salary range in mind?
That way it keeps theconversation open without
(05:04):
locking yourself intoa number too soon.
Kelsey Alpaio (05:06):
So if a company can't or won't budge on salary,
what are some other thingspeople should negotiate?
Yonelly Gutierrez (05:13):
Yeah, so there's so many different
options, and that includesbonuses, additional PTO, maybe
even getting to work remotely.
Professional developmentstipends was just
actually really fun.
I've done that before.
So when I was firsttransitioning, I invested a lot
in career coaching, PMP prep,and I actually negotiated with
them that they would, if theywould reimburse me and they did.
(05:36):
Other options can be stockoptions, a better title,
relocation assistance, and evena salary review in six months.
Kelsey Alpaio (05:44):
Yeah, those are all really great options.
But I do wonder, at what pointduring a negotiation, if you're
not getting the things thatyou want out of it or the
things that you deserve, whenshould you walk away and just
say, you know what, no thanks.
This isn't the role for me.
Yonelly Gutierrez (05:57):
Yeah.
There's absolutely timeswhen you should walk away.
So ideally before you'reever getting to the
interview process, you'redoing research and you're
essentially coming up with arange that you are okay with.
And if they ever comebelow that, I think at that
point you should walk away.
So really just havingthat confidence in backing
yourself up with data ofthis is the acceptable range.
(06:19):
If they're not even goingto consider that, at that
point I would walk away.
I think if you have goneback with the company at
least two times and you'restarting to get this feeling
that hey, they're not reallywilling to work with me.
If you're able to, atthat point, I would
say, thank you so much.
I am deciding to go witha different offer, but
(06:40):
really it comes down to youand how you view yourself,
your confidence levels.
And honestly, sometimespeople are just in a
financial situation wherethey have to take something
and that's okay too.
So it really just depends.
But I would say at leastgive it two back and fourth.
Kelsey Alpaio (06:55):
And you this is a fear that I've always had.
I don't know if it's a rationalfear, but I know that some
of the time when I've wantedto negotiate a higher salary.
I've gotten in my head and saidif I ask for too much, if I
keep pushing back, like they'regonna rescind the offer, is that
something that actually happens?
Is that something peopleshould be worried about?
Yonelly Gutierrez (07:15):
No.
It's not something peopleshould be worried about.
Yes, I'm sure there isa situation out there
where they have rescindedwhy would you wanna work
for a company like that?
It really just depends.
But no, you shouldn't.
Companies are expectingfor you to negotiate and
they're ready for it.
And also, what I also liketo mention too, to the women
that I coach, is that fromthe beginning, you're setting
(07:37):
this expectation of how youare as a professional, right?
And by the end, they shouldbe so excited to work with you
that they're gonna be willingto come to the table and
negotiate and create a packagethat's gonna make you excited.
So ultimately, I think that'snot something that people
should be worried about.
Kelsey Alpaio (07:51):
Great.
Good to know.
So what advice do you havefor someone who might be
nervous about negotiatingor maybe finds this process
a little intimidating?
Yonelly Gutierrez (08:01):
Yeah, so the best thing you
can do is practice.
So you literally need torehearse your responses out
loud and again, remind yourselfthat negotiation is expected.
It's not rude or aggressiveor anything like that.
You bring value inadvocating for fair pay
as part of career growth.
And the more that you do thisover the span of your career,
(08:22):
the better that you'll get.
So it is gonna feela little bit icky.
It is gonna feel a littlebit scary, especially
as women, right?
'cause we're not really raisedto go for what we want and
demand our worth as muchas our male counterparts.
And so there is like thisgeneral sense of anxiety, but
you really do have to justget over it and understand
again that this is anexpected part of the process.
(08:44):
And you deserve it.
And as women, we really need toget over that payment gap that
we experience in our lives.
And so we really justneed to push for what
we want in the end.
Kelsey Alpaio (08:54):
So you mentioned practicing
being a big thing here.
Can we walk through somescripts, maybe some things
that you can say during aninterview, like for example,
say I want a hundred thousanddollars salary, but I've just
received an offer for 90,000.
What is some of the languagethat I can use to get to
that number that I want?
Yonelly Gutierrez (09:14):
Sure.
So you could say somethinglike, thank you so much.
I'm really excitedabout this opportunity.
Based on my research andthe value that I bring,
I was expecting somethingcloser to a $100K.
Is there flexibility in thebudget to get closer to that?
Kelsey Alpaio (09:28):
And what if they were to come back and say, Hey,
we actually can only do 95,000.
It's the best wecan do right now.
That's all we can negotiate.
Yonelly Gutierrez (09:38):
Yeah.
Typically, I would still gofor it for a second time,
like I mentioned earlier,so you could say something
like, I really appreciateyou working with me on this.
If we can do $97K, I'dbe fully confident in
moving forward today.
And if they come back andsay, Hey, it really is
95, then at that point youcould start to negotiate
some of those other thingsthat we mentioned earlier.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:00):
Awesome.
Yeah, I love that.
Really short to the point,really clear about what
you want and what youfeel like your value is.
Yonelly Gutierrez (10:07):
Exactly.
Yeah.
And again, people are expectingyou to push back and negotiate.
You're short,straight to the point.
You're not rude or anything.
But yeah, it's almostlike with a tinge of
I know what I deserve.
I have value and thisis how much I'd want.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:21):
Great.
So this is my lastquestion here.
If listeners were to rememberjust one thing about salary
negotiation after listening tothis episode, what should it be?
Yonelly Gutie (10:31):
Always negotiate.
Even a small increase nowcompounds over your career.
And honestly, the worstthey can say is no.
But the best case scenario couldchange your financial future.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:43):
Absolutely.
Yonelly, thanks so much forspending time with me today.
This has been so helpful.
Yonell (10:48):
Thank you for having me.
It's been really greatmeeting you and discussing
negotiation today.
Thank you.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:58):
That's it for today's retro.
Be sure to follow the showso you never miss an episode.
And if you wanna keep theconversation going with
a crew of a thousand plusproject management pros
who get it, come join usat thedpm.com/membership.
Thanks for listening!
Hey! I'm Kelsey, and welcome back
to The Retro on The DigitalProject Manager podcast—where
we dig into past lessons,future trends, and what
they mean for your career.
If you've recently landed anew project manager role—first
of all, congratulations!That is not an easy feat
in today's job market.
But before you sign thatoffer, there's one big
(00:27):
step you can't afford toskip—negotiating your salary.
Research shows that if you failto negotiate, you could lose out
on literally millions of dollarsover the course of your career.
But I also get it, I've alwayspersonally struggled with
salary negotiations becausethey can be awkward and
stressful and honestly juststraight up intimidating.
(00:48):
So today, we're tackling how PMscan negotiate with confidence.
And to help guide us through it,I have Yonelly Gutierrez here
with me—she's a Senior ProjectManager at Palo Alto Networks
and the Founder of VelvetVision, a coaching program
dedicated to helping women land$100K+ project management roles.
Yonelly, welcome to the show!
Yonelly Gutierrez (01:09):
Hi! Thanks for having me.
Kelsey Alpaio (01:11):
So tell us a little bit about yourself
and the work that you do.
Yonelly Gutierrez (01:14):
Absolutely.
So as you mentioned, I'm asenior project manager working
in professional servicesat Palo Alto Networks.
So basically we helpclients deploy their
cloud security solutionsoutside of my nine to five.
Also, like you mentioned, Irun a career coaching business
where I help women break intoproject management roles.
So my background is interesting'cause I actually transitioned
(01:37):
from Tech from higher education.
I have no technical background,but I still work as an IT
project manager and I love it.
So now my main focus is onhelping others negotiate
their worth and landing,life-changing offers.
Kelsey Alpaio (01:50):
That's great and perfect for today 'cause
I wanna dive right in here.
Why is salary negotiationso important and especially
for project managers?
Yonelly Gutierrez (02:00):
Yeah, so it's really important
because project managers areessentially the backbone of
execution at any organization.
And so when you're actingin a leadership role in your
driving impact outcomes,like you have to get
compensated well for that.
So unfortunately many PMs,they accept their first
offer without negotiating.
(02:20):
And like you mentioned,you're literally leaving
thousands and even millionsof dollars on the table.
And over time that gapcompounds and that's gonna
affect your lifetime earnings.
So it's really importantto negotiate when it comes
to getting a new offer.
Kelsey Alpaio (02:35):
And for project managers, what are
the skills that they naturallyhave that can help them in
this negotiation process?
Yonelly Gutierrez (02:42):
Like I mentioned, project managers
are supposed to be leaders,and so we also need to
be good at communication,stakeholder management,
and also risk management.
And all those skills can combineand actually help you when it
comes to negotiating offers.
So it's a combination ofbeing a leader, having
great communication,and also spotting risk.
You might see some red flagsin the negotiation process, and
(03:05):
if you value yourself enough,you might have to pull back
and reconsider other options.
Kelsey Alpaio (03:10):
So in terms of the research someone
should be doing beforenegotiating their salary, how
can someone figure out whatthey should be asking for?
And are there surprisingways to get this information
outside of, the Glassdoor,PayScale, those websites
that we typically hear about?
Yonelly Gutierrez (03:26):
Yeah, so I was gonna start with that.
There's so many tools thatour fingertips, and even
in addition to Glassdoor,LinkedIn Salary, Levels.fyi.
You can actuallyuse ChatGPT too.
So that's one additional tool.
Two other ones can beinformational interviews.
So as you're networkingwith others, you can simply
ask them, Hey, what's themarket rate for a PM with
(03:48):
this much of experience?
And people would be happyto share that information.
The second tool is actuallyusing the PMI salary calculator.
So they collect data fromdifferent project managers
and you can get very.
Level and specific with it.
You can select if you havea PMP or not, your city.
And even if you are a male orfemale, and so it's really cool.
(04:12):
Definitely if you'rea PMI member, go check
out that free tool.
Kelsey Alpaio (04:16):
Yeah.
All really great resources andI do just wanna shout out to
that, the DPM does have our ownsalary survey that we put out
every year, so another greatresource for people to check
out if they're trying to dosome research ahead of time.
So diving into the actualnegotiation process here.
What is the best way tobring up salary during
the hiring process?
Like when in the processshould it happen?
(04:38):
Should you be the one tobring it up, or should you let
the employer take the lead?
What does that look like?
Yonelly Gutierrez (04:43):
So for me and what I coach, the
women that I work with,definitely let them bring it
up first whenever possible.
If they ask early, youcan actually respond with,
I'm focused on findingthe best overall fit.
I'd love to learn more about therole and responsibilities first.
Does the team actually havea salary range in mind?
That way it keeps theconversation open without
(05:04):
locking yourself intoa number too soon.
Kelsey Alpaio (05:06):
So if a company can't or won't budge on salary,
what are some other thingspeople should negotiate?
Yonelly Gutierrez (05:13):
Yeah, so there's so many different
options, and that includesbonuses, additional PTO, maybe
even getting to work remotely.
Professional developmentstipends was just
actually really fun.
I've done that before.
So when I was firsttransitioning, I invested a lot
in career coaching, PMP prep,and I actually negotiated with
them that they would, if theywould reimburse me and they did.
(05:36):
Other options can be stockoptions, a better title,
relocation assistance, and evena salary review in six months.
Kelsey Alpaio (05:44):
Yeah, those are all really great options.
But I do wonder, at what pointduring a negotiation, if you're
not getting the things thatyou want out of it or the
things that you deserve, whenshould you walk away and just
say, you know what, no thanks.
This isn't the role for me.
Yonelly Gutierrez (05:57):
Yeah.
There's absolutely timeswhen you should walk away.
So ideally before you'reever getting to the
interview process, you'redoing research and you're
essentially coming up with arange that you are okay with.
And if they ever comebelow that, I think at that
point you should walk away.
So really just havingthat confidence in backing
yourself up with data ofthis is the acceptable range.
(06:19):
If they're not even goingto consider that, at that
point I would walk away.
I think if you have goneback with the company at
least two times and you'restarting to get this feeling
that hey, they're not reallywilling to work with me.
If you're able to, atthat point, I would
say, thank you so much.
I am deciding to go witha different offer, but
(06:40):
really it comes down to youand how you view yourself,
your confidence levels.
And honestly, sometimespeople are just in a
financial situation wherethey have to take something
and that's okay too.
So it really just depends.
But I would say at leastgive it two back and fourth.
Kelsey Alpaio (06:55):
And you this is a fear that I've always had.
I don't know if it's a rationalfear, but I know that some
of the time when I've wantedto negotiate a higher salary.
I've gotten in my head and saidif I ask for too much, if I
keep pushing back, like they'regonna rescind the offer, is that
something that actually happens?
Is that something peopleshould be worried about?
Yonelly Gutierrez (07:15):
No.
It's not something peopleshould be worried about.
Yes, I'm sure there isa situation out there
where they have rescindedwhy would you wanna work
for a company like that?
It really just depends.
But no, you shouldn't.
Companies are expectingfor you to negotiate and
they're ready for it.
And also, what I also liketo mention too, to the women
that I coach, is that fromthe beginning, you're setting
(07:37):
this expectation of how youare as a professional, right?
And by the end, they shouldbe so excited to work with you
that they're gonna be willingto come to the table and
negotiate and create a packagethat's gonna make you excited.
So ultimately, I think that'snot something that people
should be worried about.
Kelsey Alpaio (07:51):
Great.
Good to know.
So what advice do you havefor someone who might be
nervous about negotiatingor maybe finds this process
a little intimidating?
Yonelly Gutierrez (08:01):
Yeah, so the best thing you
can do is practice.
So you literally need torehearse your responses out
loud and again, remind yourselfthat negotiation is expected.
It's not rude or aggressiveor anything like that.
You bring value inadvocating for fair pay
as part of career growth.
And the more that you do thisover the span of your career,
(08:22):
the better that you'll get.
So it is gonna feela little bit icky.
It is gonna feel a littlebit scary, especially
as women, right?
'cause we're not really raisedto go for what we want and
demand our worth as muchas our male counterparts.
And so there is like thisgeneral sense of anxiety, but
you really do have to justget over it and understand
again that this is anexpected part of the process.
(08:44):
And you deserve it.
And as women, we really need toget over that payment gap that
we experience in our lives.
And so we really justneed to push for what
we want in the end.
Kelsey Alpaio (08:54):
So you mentioned practicing
being a big thing here.
Can we walk through somescripts, maybe some things
that you can say during aninterview, like for example,
say I want a hundred thousanddollars salary, but I've just
received an offer for 90,000.
What is some of the languagethat I can use to get to
that number that I want?
Yonelly Gutierrez (09:14):
Sure.
So you could say somethinglike, thank you so much.
I'm really excitedabout this opportunity.
Based on my research andthe value that I bring,
I was expecting somethingcloser to a $100K.
Is there flexibility in thebudget to get closer to that?
Kelsey Alpaio (09:28):
And what if they were to come back and say, Hey,
we actually can only do 95,000.
It's the best wecan do right now.
That's all we can negotiate.
Yonelly Gutierrez (09:38):
Yeah.
Typically, I would still gofor it for a second time,
like I mentioned earlier,so you could say something
like, I really appreciateyou working with me on this.
If we can do $97K, I'dbe fully confident in
moving forward today.
And if they come back andsay, Hey, it really is
95, then at that point youcould start to negotiate
some of those other thingsthat we mentioned earlier.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:00):
Awesome.
Yeah, I love that.
Really short to the point,really clear about what
you want and what youfeel like your value is.
Yonelly Gutierrez (10:07):
Exactly.
Yeah.
And again, people are expectingyou to push back and negotiate.
You're short,straight to the point.
You're not rude or anything.
But yeah, it's almostlike with a tinge of
I know what I deserve.
I have value and thisis how much I'd want.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:21):
Great.
So this is my lastquestion here.
If listeners were to rememberjust one thing about salary
negotiation after listening tothis episode, what should it be?
Yonelly Gutie (10:31):
Always negotiate.
Even a small increase nowcompounds over your career.
And honestly, the worstthey can say is no.
But the best case scenario couldchange your financial future.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:43):
Absolutely.
Yonelly, thanks so much forspending time with me today.
This has been so helpful.
Yonell (10:48):
Thank you for having me.
It's been really greatmeeting you and discussing
negotiation today.
Thank you.
Kelsey Alpaio (10:58):
That's it for today's retro.
Be sure to follow the showso you never miss an episode.
And if you wanna keep theconversation going with
a crew of a thousand plusproject management pros
who get it, come join usat thedpm.com/membership.
Thanks for listening!
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