How a College Student Bought His Professor’s Business

I finally got the guts one day to walk into his office and said, if you want to sell,

I'm interested in buying and I really was focused that whole year on preparing myself for business. I was like numbers, numbers, numbers, and about six months into this business, I realized it had absolutely nothing to do with numbers. Andrew Olson is a creative entrepreneur, branding strategist, and the CEO of PDG plus created, drawing from decades of experience in branding, marketing, and business leadership. He helps organizations clarify their visions,

strengthen their identity, and build meaningful connections that drive lasting impact. Our full service, we do everything cradle to grave, so we don't just kind of do a design or do a logo or do a brand or whatever. We come in and we really evaluate the landscape of what they're

“trying to accomplish and say, okay, in our sector of the pie, how can we make you the most successful?”

Ready, hi, come here. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's our over, I'm telling our weird. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast for Insight Success. I am Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today, which I just interrupted his interresession and brought

him out to his podcast so we can stick it back into his interresession, is Andrew Olson. Today's Operation CEO. Andrew, welcome to the show. What's up Ray? How you doing? Fantastic. Thank you for asking Andrew. What are we going to learn today about you, Andrew Olson? What do you want to know? That's a big question. Select all of the above and go. Sir, so where do you want to start? Do you literally where do you begin? What's getting you out of

“bed every day every morning? This is my favorite thing to talk about. I can probably go on”

a soap box about this. But we really get to work with. My favorite types of people to work with are like the small demand size businesses. Oh, hell yeah. Because those are the guys that actually write the check. Yeah. And they're much more invested. They can't be. I don't want to want to discount the big guys. But they can be much more invested in what they do. And we get to come in and be, I mean, almost on a partnership level in their success. Yes, sir. When it comes to

marketing, we really, we don't just kind of do a design or do a logo or do a brand or whatever, we come in and we really evaluate the landscape of what they're trying to accomplish and say, okay, in our sector of the pie, how can we make you the most successful? Right on. And it's such a blessing. Especially when we get to see the progress, we get to see things take off. I don't want to say that we, you know, we own the success. Sure. We get to be a part of it, right on? Which is super.

“That's just amazing. So you run a creative agency, a marketing team. Yep. And we're full service.”

We do everything, cradle to grave. So we will do the marketing, the overall marketing strategy. Then we'll come in. We'll evaluate the brand. We'll take a look at, okay, if you don't have a brand, we can, we can build you one. If you do have a brand, what do you want it to say? And what's the reality of what it says? Right on. And then how do we bridge that gap? Then everything that comes out of that, the website, the, whether maybe it's a SaaS product, whatever, the graphic

design work, the branding work, whatever we do really comes out of the strategy that we've picked up

at the beginning. Right on, cradle to grave. That's awful. It's crazy. I'm surprised I've never heard

that before I got to feel that for me. Take it. Take a man. I just give me a bus every time you use it. I definitely, I will. Two bucks at this point. Two bucks at this point. Fair enough, great. Three bucks. I can keep going for my friend. Gosh, I got to, I got to ask you man, like for as someone that comes from the creative world, obviously in the marketing world, it's got to be kind of tough to be running a creative agency. Everyone out there thinks

they are a creative director. We do battle that a little bit. But when people see the portfolio of work that we've done, it really changes a landscape. And for example, I'm, I'm co-owner of another, of another company called Leveler. And when I first met the founder Jeff Dean, we kind of, he kind of came to us with this idea. The idea was so fire that I was like, I have to be a part of this in a bigger way than just doing it. But we, we did the brand work, which was interesting because

he hated it at first. We did the brand work, we did the software development, we do all of the marketing, what was crazy is when he first came to us, we were kind of, I don't want to say his third pick. I don't mean it like we were the red headed stepchild. But he had gone to other agencies and because of the complexity of what he wanted done, they flat out told him no. We took the challenge head on and it has been a challenge. We've been doing it for three and a half years, but it's been

incredible. We just launched the product a couple of months ago and we're already seeing success

with it. Cool. Are you, how do you hire, how big is your team? Are you local or do you outsource to, to, to our good old friends in the, of the other side of the world? Okay. So this is a, I get this question a lot too. And I, one of the things that I'm super proud of is that everybody that we

If I can, I want them in our office. And the reason for that is because when I, when I first bought PDG, so give you the start of the story, I was in college, the owner, the founder of PDG was a professor of mine. Right. And one day, I was going to move to Kansas City where we have our

second office and try to start up there because I was always competing with the guy, always competing

and always losing. And I finally got the guts one day to walk into his office and said, you know,

“hey, if you want to sell, I'm interested in buying and he was kind of like, yeah, and now”

I was a 24 year old idiot at the time. I'm a 38 year old idiot now. I'm a 43 year old idiot. There we go. The next day, the next day, I had an offer in my email. And so for the next year, we spent going through it. And I really was focused that whole year on preparing myself for business. You know, I had a little business in college just doing graphic work on this side, but this was the big leagues, right? And I was like numbers, numbers, numbers, and about six

months into this business, I realized it had absolutely nothing to do with numbers. It was all people. Oh, thousand percent. That's the first thing. That's why to kind of roll back to the beginning. That's why, you know, where our hiring process is so unique, we take between 90 and 120 days to hire everybody. It's got five external steps, 12 internal steps on you. And we actually have our core principles and our operating principles and our core, our core beliefs are hanging

on these two giant banners in our office. And it's not just something that we talk about. It's something that we actually live. And we've got to feel it with the moment you walk. 100 percent. We talk about that during the interview process. It's like, what's your, what's your lead voice? Exactly. And we talk about this during the interview process. And again, because here's, here's my, my philosophy when it comes to hiring. The reason that we take so long

to hire is it's kind of like dating, right? Not only are we interviewing them, but they're kind

“of interviewing us. And I don't know if you have to cut this out. But it's kind of like if you've”

got a bunch of thoroughbred horses and a bunch of asses. Yeah, a pen together. Yep. Right. You, if you have that finish line, two feet from the gate, you fling it open. Everybody's going to cross. If you put that, that finish line five miles from the gate, only the thoroughbreds are going to make it to the end. So we really value the people that we bring on. And our turnover is almost nothing. Wow. So if I can hire locally, I do, I do have a couple of team members that are out of

state. Sure. But they're all American. Awesome. Uh, do you, are you actively recruiting? How do you

keep it fresh? And when do you burn down the canva offices? I never, ever, ever turn down an interview

because in the first, the first interview called the drive by 30 minutes long, we don't even talk about the job. Yeah, you never do your case. And I take them out of the office. So we'll get a beer. Yeah. You'd be surprised. A lot of some company had what you're trying to do there. They're like, oh, what? And it's crazy. It's a thing created to me. It's a whole different ball. Yeah. If you're going to surprise the things people tell me. Oh, for sure. They don't look at me as a

boss when we're sitting in a booth or a bar. You know? So you asked me another question. When we're going to burn down the canva offices? Yeah. Like how much of your funk is the gulf is camp at this point. I know five, ten years ago was, it was all, it was all hands on. It was all Photoshop and design. I get an lecture. You're speaking to your speaking to the choir. Well, I guess I should ask you when you're free to hold a torch. But in a real way, how do you join them at

this point? Because this is like really we do utilize some tools like that. But for the most part, because of the projects, the types of projects that we work on, we still do a lot of the hardcore

“creator stuff. You have to. Yeah. Which is what you're charging. Right. Your clients are charging for”

your charging your clients for the experience, for the fact that you've lived the 33 held where you are. I'm 38 now. 38 years. That's a lot of experience. No canvas software, nerd, that design it, understands what that is. Sure, you've got a piece of software that can do all these cool things that optimize your workflows. But you really need that intuition, which is priceless. It is. And I've got, I've got it so many like fun little things that I that I use. And what's interesting

is not all of them have been said by me. You know, if they say a picture is worth a thousand words, you've got to finish as sentence. What's it saying into who? Yeah. Right. That's where our expertise comes in. Right on. And then another, he's a client, but also a dear friend of mine also said to me, he said this to a client in front of me. And it almost dropped my jaw. But he said, you know, at PDG, they they tell stories and they use words when they have to. Right on. I love that.

Oh, for such a succinct way of saying it in a little nutshell exactly what we do.

For sure. That's why I always like always like take pride in going. Well, there's a video

auger for those issued weddings and and Kintenia has been in their cinematographers that are filming a moment. Exactly. And experience and understanding, lighting fundamentals, temperature rooms, frequencies. And when to call action, when not to because they quite know that the frequency of

I always love that the behind the scene stuff. When you hear an actor talking about how a

director like got them into that moment. Yeah. It's always, always intrigued by that because I'm like, wow, there's so much more than just okay, go say these lines. No, it's way more than that. Yeah, imagine waking up at three in a morning to have your call time be at four to sit in a room with make up for four hours and then deliver two lines get paid in a astronomical amount of money. But you your job is to say those three lines right on cue because you have about $50,000 worth

of production a minute to say that goddamn lines exactly. Better say it under three takes or your fire. Exactly. And go. And go Brad pitiful at the blank or wherever you are. Who's ever going to solve the movie or do it again? Yeah, good. Not as mobile. And you shut it. Do it again.

“And do it again. Yeah. And not do it again because it is quite the art. And that's why I enjoy”

folks to kind of get the the the the theatrics of the theater of the production. Because at the other day, it's really just theater for the client. Right. The client sitting there and the director's chair, which I'm sure we've all been there. And it's really just like, why is that happening? Why am I paying for that? And the director's speaking to it's a whole symbiotic unit. Which is why I love facts of folks that run their own creative agencies because that is what it is. It's agency first

and then creative because we're all working together to hurry up and wait for the moment and we cry. There it is. And what you just captured is we get to see this every day. Sometimes we're sitting around our conference table and we'll have the client there and we're working on a marketing strategy. And one of my favorite moments is that offensive moment when they're sitting there going, what's the answer to this? How do we fix this problem? That's where we get to come in and really

kind of save the day. Yeah. And sometimes they'll have input and we never shy away from input because

ideas only get stronger when they're challenged. Absolutely. Good for you, man. That is a great way looking at it and a lot of folks need to hear that. So operation CEO talked to me through your service and how have you merged your service as of that with your day-to-day war on business. It's a good way to look at it. So I joined the military when I was 17, my parents signed a waiver so that I could go, went to boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, missed that place.

We had a lot of fun there. I had a really good group of guys that I went through with. You're just a little demanding and smiling, man. And it's been going for it, Helia. And it makes all the difference when you've got a group of guys who are like in the, in that to play the game at boot camp. When you've got the suckers and just drags everybody down.

Never forget, my drill sergeant was drill sergeant senior drill sergeant Huff. He ran the entire

cycle. It's not only did he run a bunch of other platoons but he ran ours. And that guy was just this big seven foot black training. Oh my god. When he came, when he came in the room, air moved away. Oh, I mean, he just displaced everything. Oh, amazing. So when from, since I was, I already had an assignment to a unit. So I was able to wear all of my, um, all of my insignias and

“all that, which got me into more trouble than I think it was worth. I'll never forget one time,”

it was pretty close to the last month we were there. And because I'm wearing all my name tapes and all of that stuff in my mine's insignia, um, I remember that we're at the, we're in the bay for it's a Sunday and we're just cleaning. We're just, it's just stay away from us day. And one of the drill sergeants in the drill sergeant area, he kind of opens the door. He peeks his head out and you're not like, oh, God. Don't pick me. I wasn't in the back. I was in the front.

I was in the middle. So safe. No, no. He just goes old soon. So I walk in there. I go into the room. They're drinking beer watching football having pizza, you know, and he just goes per raid rest. So I'm standing there at parade rest. And it was like I was just a painting on the wall at that point. He comes up and he's taken on my grab off. Goes and sits down and they start playing darts with me. They just started throwing stuff, trying to get it to stick. I stood there for

probably three hours. Yeah. Well, they were just, you know, BS and telling stories or whatever, super fun memory of boot camp for that. Yeah, but you can challenge your being tough. Super fun. I mean, I got to see a different side of them, too. But at the same time, like I said, I was not there. I wasn't painting on the wall. Yeah. Several years later, I got the call went to rock for my first tour. And we were kind of stationed all over the place. We started in the south,

“which was pretty tame. I think the most we ever had to suffer was some staff, every now and”

some small arms fire ran out again. Rocket fire borders, maybe. And then we kind of traveled back and forth. I was on a QRF team there, a quick response horse team. And then also, I was kind of part of a convoy protection team. We would go back and forth between Anazaria and Baghdad in that area, back and forth. Well, so my MOS, my military occupation specialty was

Everybody knocks doors. You know, that's your job first. They always tell you that infantry

first or MOS second. But my MOS qualification school was super fun, because I actually got to fire rockets and stuff. Nice. So that was legit. Nice. Gosh. How do you transition back to being a civilian? You don't. You don't. Like you don't. Like you're using all these amazing terms and like wow, humans. You like just being so nice on so boring. Well, you know, it's crazy.

“I remember. So when I was getting ready for this, I was pulling all these pictures out, right?”

Sure. Which I don't have very many. We just didn't have time to snap photos. I know that sounds odd. I did have a camera. I didn't have a camera phone, but didn't get, we just didn't, I was always

because I was always on deck. I was a gunner. So we just didn't have time to do all that stuff.

But I remember looking at the pictures, I had six weapons assigned to me. Probably I'm not, I don't know how much all that stuff has worked. But I had an M2, a 50 caliber machine gun. Mine, my responsibility. Yeah. My regular M4. I had a grenade launcher on the bottom of my M4. I had a buretta. I had a Mark 19, which is a chain link grenade launcher. We used to joke around. We're like, some guy was like, I want all of that way over there, blown up repeatedly.

I mean, you just hold the butterflies down. I had to go to the phone, phone, phone, phone, phone. Oh, dude. Oh, God. What is your day-to-day now? Why are you here? Why do you think you've been chosen to tell your story for operations? Probably because of marketing, I'm a really good bullshitter. Nice. Yeah. No, good. I'm teasing. No, sir. That's PR. Not marketing, right? Right. Yeah, that's true. I think what's really fun about being an entrepreneur is every morning.

This is how I feel. And whether it's true or not, it could be argued. But I feel like every entrepreneur wakes up in the world spins because we get up and push it with

“our friends. We get up and we spin it. And that's what drives me every day. And really, my team”

is what drives me. I have such an incredible team. I don't just get to go to work. I get to run to work. Hell, yeah. You know what I mean? I think you spend more time with the people you work with. And the people you live with. Absolutely. And so, having, again, it goes back to that culture. Having that culture of people is incredible. And the clients we get to work with, again, every day it feels like there's just these tiny explosions of success. Yes. And I get to live that.

Yes, sir. Yeah, you know, you're preaching to the choir here because every every single time. We have these studios, but these studios are really designed to foster folks like you to hear your stories. Yeah. Gosh, I'm so lucky that Rudy just said, sir, no, I'm like, I'll start podcasting out. I get the joy. I'll get the joy of interviewing folks like you. COVID gets the joy of interviewing you now, man. Yeah, we'll see about that. He almost kicked me out. My first two questions were

that terrible. Oh, gosh. No, it was not sir. You're rocket and man. Don't, don't, don't. All right, Baba. We're going to wrap this up sweet. How can folks learn and how can folks learn more about you and find out more about? So obviously, we've got a website pdgcreative.com. You can follow us on social

“media. I love, I love, love, love talking about the work that we do. So honestly, if they just”

gave me a call, my, my advice is about worth which I pay for it and the first call is always free.

Oh, dude. So the discovery call that discovery call. Yeah, I'm going to take you up on that, Andrew, because I'm, I am a creative director myself, but I've always wanted to just like hand that off for someone else. I'm like, what's your take on it? Because you'd be surprised at, I know we got to wrap it up, but like getting a different perspective helps to shape that so well. Yeah, that would be really, that would be a learning experience for me to be like, I really just want to

enjoy these other things and I want to release my grip on what this thing is and I really feel like, well, the special with your background and our bond, I'm like, I think you, you'll understand what I'm trying to achieve in our life. Some new fresh eyes on this. Let's do it. Andrew, a pleasure, just making sure that is your name. All of a sudden, there's an old son, also. The East Island, we're Scandinavian. So we put both the E and the O in there just to throw people.

You Scandinavians, you just gorgeous eyes. Thank you. Thank you. That's a Scandinavian thing. It is. Tell the ladies that too. Yeah, no, don't do that, because I, one of my ladies was Scandinavian with the creepy cool eyes that you do. I'm getting all sorts of fideas. Let's wrap this up before I start crying again. Yeah, right? This is Andrew Olison and I am Regoutiere's and we are inside success.