March 21, 2017

You Grow When You’re Uncomfortable, with Ryan Neal

Episode 63:

Ryan Neal is a seasoned investor, director, and advisor with more than ten years of experience in collaborating with the owners and managers of private companies to increase their value. Ryan is the President and co-founder of Blueprint Consulting Services, LLC. He also is an active member of the Seattle chapter of Entrepreneurs Organization.

Blueprint Consulting Services is Washington State’s fastest-growing private company for 2015 and 2016 by Puget Sound Business Journal. They’ve also won Best Company to Work For by Puget Sound Business Journal and Seattle Business Magazine.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Ryan’s background
  • How Blueprint Consulting Services bridges the gap between strategic analysis and solution delivery
  • The challenges they’ve faced growing from 0 to 600 employees in just four years
  • Why you need to be uncomfortable to keep growing
  • How and why Ryan vets applicants so that their team is full of people who take challenges that would intimidate most people and figure out how to better their company through the solutions to those challenges
  • Why Blueprint treats all their employees like entrepreneurs and gives them the freedom to spend their time wherever they want
  • Why Blueprint celebrates when then their employees leave (and what they do when an employee leaves for a reason that is Blueprint’s fault)
  • Why you have to have crashed and burned to learn the lessons you need for success as an entrepreneur
  • Why you should never stunt an individual’s growth because you “need” them to service your business in a certain way
  • Why you need to reevaluate your processes and be self-reflective as an entrepreneur
  • Aligning your priorities so that what you focus on is aligned with who you need to be
  • What Ryan’s learned from his mentor John Connors
  • Why you need to have the humility to not be an expert

Ways to contact Ryan: