Brandon Bramley is the Founder of The Salary Negotiator. With over 11 years of experience in salary negotiations, he leads The Salary Negotiator, which provides professional job offer negotiation coaching and courses to help individuals navigate the negotiation process with confidence and secure competitive compensation. Through hundreds of compensation negotiations, he has helped career professionals secure over $175 million in additional compensation. His expertise is backed by more than 150 five-star reviews from career professionals on Google and Trustpilot.
Brandon’s background in strategic negotiations comes from working in high-stakes negotiation roles at global companies like Amazon and American Airlines. In these positions, he led multi-million-dollar B2B negotiations and was actively involved in recruiting and hiring professionals, giving him a well-rounded perspective on negotiations, compensation, and hiring strategies
Company: The Salary Negotiator L.L.C.
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Brandon Bramley: In my most recent career endeavor, I launched and scaled The Salary Negotiator® which is an online platform that empowers professionals to elevate their career earnings through personalized compensation negotiation coaching, negotiation strategies, and online courses. I created the negotiation framework and have personally negotiated over $175M in complex compensation packages for our clients.
What inspired you to start your business, and what were the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages?
Brandon Bramley: My inspiration for starting The Salary Negotiator stemmed from a realization during my final semester at ASU and the years that followed. I successfully negotiated my own job offer from American Airlines and then helped a fellow student do the same in my negotiations class. When we started, it became clear that very few people understood the power of comp negotiations. Over the next five years, as colleagues transitioned to new roles they consistently sought my help with offer negotiations. This recurring need highlighted a significant gap in career support and guided me to create a solution to help others increase their compensation. I essentially saw a consistent and unmet need which led me to formally launch The Salary Negotiator.
In the early stages, the biggest challenge was transitioning from informal assistance to a structured business. While I had the expertise in comp negotiations, I lacked experience in building a business from the ground up. I had to learn how to effectively market my services, build a brand, and develop a scalable process for attracting and serving career professionals. Another big challenge was overcoming the initial skepticism and educating people about the value of working with a professional salary negotiation coach. Many people didn’t realize how much they were leaving on the table or were afraid to negotiate their job offers. Honestly, what really made a difference was focusing on building trust with my clients and getting them great results. I then had them to share their stories and those testimonials were huge in validating what I was doing and helped grow the business.
At what point did you realize your startup was gaining traction, and what key strategies helped you scale successfully?
Brandon Bramley: Honestly, the moment I knew things were taking off was when client testimonials started pouring in – hearing the real success stories was huge for capturing new business. It validated that working with me as a salary negotiation coach could get you much more than just a quick $15,000 to $20,000 more on a job offer. To keep that momentum, I then focused on sharing those stories online, building a solid referral system, and making sure my processes could handle the growth. I just kept prioritizing getting clients great results and that word of mouth really fueled the first growth in the business.
How did you approach funding and financial management during the scaling phase? Did you bootstrap, raise capital, or take another approach?
Brandon Bramley: I was lucky enough to bootstrap the business myself and now the revenue supports all expenses and growth investments.
What role did company culture and team building play in your growth, and how did you ensure alignment as you expanded?
Brandon Bramley: When I started, I was pretty clueless about running a business outside of providing the salary negotiation services. What really made a difference was building a solid network of other professionals in the business. I leaned on them for everything – content creation, marketing, and expansion to other products. It wasn’t about some fancy company culture and instead was about finding good people who believed in what I was doing and were willing to help. That network became my team and their support was absolutely key to getting the business off the ground.
Looking back, what is one critical lesson you learned about scaling that you wish you knew earlier?
Brandon Bramley: Lean on others to help with aspects of the business instead of trying to do everything yourself. You cannot do everything yourself and need to learn how to leverage others or other services if you want to free up time and expand.
