Ryan Green admits he has been criticized for having long meetings. But there is a reason. “I’m a talker, and I’m a big listener,” he says. “When I have a meeting with somebody, I am truly invested in that moment and that person. I really care what they’re saying, and it’s not an act.”
That ability to listen is a big reason he was successful in building one of the biggest discount coupon books in the country while maintaining a business recognized as one of the best places to work in San Diego. He was named in 2014 as one of the “40 under 40” business leaders to watch by SD Metro Magazine.
He has always had a knack for sales. He sold Cutco knives to help pay his way through college at UC San Diego, and the day after graduating with a degree in management science, he went to work for Clear Channel, winning Rookie of the Year. That is where he discovered that direct mail coupons could be a winning advertising strategy and decided to start his own company, Get1Free, in 2002.
“Every startup is hard,” he said. “We took a lot of punches on the chin building that company.” By the time he sold the company to Pennsylvania-based Valassis for $8.1 million this year, the firm was producing 21 books throughout Southern California, about a million magazines a month, and was likely the largest privately owned coupon magazine in the country.
He now heads a new company, Green Media Inc., staffed with key employees he brought from Get1Free and is embarking on new ventures. The first is The Neighborhood Connection, a personalized magazine for real estate agents. He says with a laugh that it is just a coincidence that he has developed a magazine for the new green wave of marijuana, publishing a branded and completely customized publication for dispensaries called Your Cannabis Connect..
Ryan, who just turned 41, and his wife, Kerry, have three children, Caden, 18; Riley, 10; and Conner, 5.
The secret to success in sales, he said, is sincerity. “If you don’t sincerely believe in your product and sincerely want to help your clients succeed to a fault, with all your heart and everything you’ve got,” he said, “it just doesn’t work.”