Skot Waldron:
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So, you know that guy that does everything, that has tons of experience with consulting and with executive leadership and with managing people and then starting companies and selling them and then starting other companies, and then working with chambers of commerce and then building chambers of commerce, and then... Yeah, you know those people? Well, I'm about to interview one of them. His name is Jim Primrose. He is the CEO of a company called SOPliance. SOPliance are a standard operating procedures, that's what SOP is, and then the compliance part of that. But he's going to talk a little bit about what SOPliance does at the beginning, so you'll get the nuts and bolts of that organization, what they provide. That's really relevant right now.
But you're also going to start to hear in the middle of this conversation and the end, the goal, what is really driving all of this, the success of what he sees and multiple organizations all over the US. What is driving them? What is growing them? What is helping them thrive? We talk about that. We talk about some stats. We talk about some values. We talk about the things that are all helping us move forward. I don't care who you are. Let's talk about that. Listen to what Jim has to say. And you will walk away with a little bit more insight than you had before you started listening to this show today. All right, let's do this.
All right. Welcome to another episode of Unlocked. We are going to talk today to a man who has done a lot of stuff. He has worked as an independent consultant now for the past 25 years, and has worked with a lot of different companies. And I'll let him name-drop those companies because it's pretty impressive. Jim now is the CEO and founder of SOPliance, and I'll let him also tell you a little bit about that. So welcome, Jim. Thanks for being at the show. I really am interested in this conversation, a little bit because what we were talking about before with the people stuff, but I want to talk a little bit about SOPliance and your background and what you are the champion of. What are you amazing at? What do you bring to the table?
Jim Primrose:
Well, thanks, Skot. Thanks for having me. Well, I want to start off with just talking about SOPliance. SOPliance was put together, and it's a combination of SOP, which is standard operating procedures, and compliance, which basically is my background around project management and compliance and just bringing things together. It organically grew into a new solution. We started out doing project management, and then one of the local international airports came to me recently and asked for some advice on how they can get people flying again. And there's a whole perception of things being clean, and actually when they are clean and how safe they can be. So we've done a lot of investigation and we turned ourselves into a reseller, but a value-added reseller.
So what we do is we take a backbone component, which is a hydrogen peroxide vapor generator. And we use that as our core background to pull together a solution for cleansing and cleaning surfaces, floors, clothing, skin, and purifying the air. We can actually take care of 99% of airborne and contaminants inside of the air, which the hydrogen peroxide vapor grabs that, weights it down, drops it onto the surface, and then eats it away over a period of time.
And the great thing about this, there's a lot of HPV generators out there, but the one that we utilize currently is the only one on the market that the organization that we deal with, the manufacturer, they have the IP on for does not create any harmful ozone. So all of the other ones have some sort of UV lighting in there, and they do create some harmful ozone and cannot be used around people, whereas this one does not. It does have UV lighting, but it's to the nth degree where it's not harmful.
So we started putting together a service specifically around that. We're working with, as I mentioned, some large international airports here in Southern California, some of the local Indian nation casinos, as well as some hotels and schools. So that is our focus right now on SOPliance. However, we do have that flip side where we're still a technology provider or assistance provider, where we're working with some cities inside of various different states to implement various different technology solutions. A good one right now is Hillsboro, Oregon. We're helping them implement a new system inside of their licensing and permitting for new buildings and stuff. So we do a lot of different things, but it's truly, people come to us that are looking for solutions that nobody might have yet, so we can help them and design that and implement it and do the research for them.
So part of my background is working with universities as well. So some of the stuff that we tap into, we'll work with the university to do some of the research for us. And if we find a solution, those universities will work with us to create the white papers that are needed in order to prove to the masses that these solutions are actually viable, sustainable, safe and/or not safe. If it goes to the FDA or EPA, whatever it may be, all that behind us with the universities that are assisting us to get where we need to be.
SKOT WALDRON:
So what gives you the authority to do this? What have you been doing for the past 25 years, maybe even in your career before that, that led you to this? And why is it so impactful?
JIM PRIMROSE:
That's a great question. I think the key is that I organically fall into things based upon what I'm doing at the time. My previous background is project management. And before that it was help-desk. So I was the national director of help-desk services for a Fortune 200 company where I would put solutions together for large organizations that were looking at outsourcing their help-desks and/or making them better. So doing that then allowed me to just learn more and more about project management, and being a project manager you're sitting in the center hub of all the issues, problems, and everything that people need to implement and/or push forward around projects, look for solutions, et cetera. So I've grown two companies just by putting myself first, by myself, as a project manager out onsite and working with these organizations.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Now, these folks that are working on these projects, they have full-time jobs already. So what they do is they don't want to work on a project and then still have to then go back to their desk and do their full-time job as well. So I would mitigate some of their time that they would have to spend on that project by augmenting them on that project. So if they dedicated 30% of their time on the project, I would then say, "How about I bring somebody in that can now mean you only have to spend 5% of your time on this project?" So I quickly grew my companies organically this way.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Like I said, I started out by myself at one of the organizations. Next thing you know, within a year I had 38 employees. So you just start growing these things organically within these organizations and they start bringing you in. Obviously that doesn't work for small organizations because they don't usually have the budget, but the larger organizations do. And they're all about bringing in consultants because they understand, their staff they hired in knows what they need to do, but when they're throwing another project at them, sometimes it's better to bring in somebody from the outside that might advance that further, because they understand it. They've done it. They can then teach their staff for that ongoing sustainability.
SKOT WALDRON:
You call yourself a project manager, right, from the past, but with 38 employees and being in some of the positions you've been in, you are a people manager.
JIM PRIMROSE:
That's exactly it. And the key to that is learning those individual people and understanding what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are. Not everybody fits every organization and every job, right? So I worked inside this compliance organization in a large biotech firm here in Southern California. And one of my best consultants and project managers was in that compliance division. And they were not very big on him. They did not care much for how he managed the process. Well, I knew him and I knew that he could do the job and I worked with him and it didn't matter. It was already just not for them, and they were very polite and nice in sharing that with me. Well, I took him and moved him over out of compliance into global regulatory affairs and safety. They loved him so much that they worked with me to hire him full-time because they wanted to keep him. That's how much they liked him and valued his input and what he was doing.
JIM PRIMROSE:
So you just have to learn what the organizations are, what the job is and how people are going to fit. Everybody has a value. There's nobody that doesn't have a value. You just got to find out what that value is through communications. And people are hired to do jobs. You need to let them do their job because you brought them in to do that. They are the experts that are supposed to know how to do that, and you just need to give them the tools, the assistance and the communications with them to help them be successful.
SKOT WALDRON:
So what do you feel is the biggest mistake companies are making when it comes to company culture and the management of people?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Well, first of all, I think the hiring process in especially large organizations takes too long. You go through all these interview processes and sometimes big panel interviews, 30 people, and you're spending entire days there to hire somebody that's going to make $40,000 a year. Think of the cost behind that. You're better off evaluating that person by bringing them on as maybe a temp-to-hire first or a contract-to-hire. That allows you and that candidate to determine if that job is the right fit for them, as well as fitting inside your organization. And you can then do that determination. I know a lot of budgets don't actually fluctuate in a way that would assist you to actually do that. But if more CFOs would recognize the value and the cost savings behind doing that, I think they will actually hire a team that's more successful and will get them where they need to go faster.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. I think that what we're talking about here is data, is understanding inputs, things that are coming at us that help us make educated decisions about how we're going to run our businesses going forward. I think one of the things that you noted in some of our discussions prior was that you see too many people dictating decisions without that input.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
And that goes back into what you were saying earlier, too, about how we find the value in the person. We've got to figure out what that value is. Just don't discard them. There's something there. Maybe they're just not in the right place. And if we put them in the right place, as you did with this other gentleman, you nailed it, right? And they succeed, they thrive. They're liberated. Their team's liberated. All good happens.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely. And I think the key is giving them a happy balance of working inside of a group, but actually working on their own too. Some people are better at working on their own, especially in the IT world. I mean, I've had these programmers that are used to just being in a dark basement staring at a bright screen and focused only on that, and feel a little awkward within the groups. Well, they quickly get over that once they find that they're valued inside those organizations and within those groups. And they start actually coming out of their shell a bit and working more with the other employees and stuff. Yeah, they still go back to their old habits, because they got to get their job done back in that basement. But you'll start seeing them creep out a little bit more and you create that group environment for them. They love it.
And the same thing for those folks that are in groups that don't really know how to work on their own. By doing this, and this is where my project management comes in, and I'm a very hands-on project manager where I will sit down with somebody and work with them, sometimes you've got to assign these folks that are better at working in groups and not on their own small tasks and milestones that they can then go off, do, and then come back to the group and report. But everybody needs that feeling of, one, I'm getting my job done, two, I'm in this environment where I'm being listened to, appreciated and I'm showing value and we're advancing this project.
You've got to put those celebratory milestones in there for everybody too, to keep that project moving forward and going. Even if it's operational, put some milestones in there with KPIs and stuff to make everybody understand that you're not just delivering the mail and more's coming in, right? There is success behind that. Every 50,000th letter that comes in, we're going to celebrate, because you guys did a great job and it got to the right place. Whatever those milestones may need to be.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yes. Love it. There is a couple of principles here. What I hear from you is that you can't lead everybody the same.
JIM PRIMROSE:
No, 100%.
SKOT WALDRON:
Different people have different gifts, different ways of operating, different ways of communicating, and that needs to be understood by the leadership, by the people that are running that team, so that they can help people be as liberated as possible. And what I also heard you say was that we need to take time to not only critique and push the thing through, but to take the time and create a safe space for celebration and pause, and "Hey, we just conquered this thing." Because we have people in our environment that are just, drive, drive, drive. "Okay, that's done." Drive, drive drive. "Okay. That's done." Drive, drive, drive. But there are other people that need the time to celebrate that moment that happened. And it's healthy, right?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely. I mean, we're not working on a conveyor belt where we're Lucy working the candy, right? We want to be-
SKOT WALDRON:
My mom loves that episode, by the way. That's awesome.
JIM PRIMROSE:
That is not sustainable work. I mean, yeah, it used to be at one time because people just needed the work and stuff, but we're more creative and more engaging these days, that we need that to keep us going and excite us for our job and getting up every day. You'll actually have less transition of people out of your organization so you don't have to go through that hiring process again. If you make it a happy place to work and make everybody feel included, listened to, encouraged, and celebrate those wins, they'll look forward and they'll push harder. So if you set a deadline by something, they might actually exceed it and then you got to actually do a better celebration, right?
SKOT WALDRON:
Better celebration. There is a stat out there I throw around a lot about 82% of people feeling undervalued, not understood and not heard in an organization. And that actually comes from the science based on Myers-Briggs personality assessments and that data that drives that. 82% of our people are undervalued, not heard, not understood. And that means when I'm in a room of ten people, I'm losing influence with eight of those people. Two of them are like, "Go, boss, you got this." And the other eight are like, "Yeah, you don't care about me. Yeah, I'm probably going to be gone next week anyway." The loyalty is gone when you don't have that.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Can you imagine how successful you would be if you flipped that over and eight of them were cheering for you and the other two were just [inaudible 00:00:18:00]? Now you can actually just focus on those other two and get them encouraged. And maybe it's not a right fit in that environment, in that job for them, but you now have those eight people pulling that boat forward. Right?
SKOT WALDRON:
Right. There's another number we put out based on the numbers of companies we've coached and worked with in the past and over 116 countries that when we do these assessments, companies work at about 60% of their full capacity based on disengagement or other things that are happening within the organization, right?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Unfortunately, yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
60% of your true capacity. Now I say to them, not that this is completely realistic, but would you rather have six people working at 100%, or ten people working at 60%? Would you rather pay ten people to only get 60%? That's what I'm talking about. Let's flip it, and we can do that through listening, alignment, correct execution, relationships and bettering communication.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely. And you know what? For these folks that are in management, they're trying to grow their business and they're hitting that plateau and stuff, there's organizations out there, a lot of the extensions through the universities and stuff have classes that teach you how to communicate, how to manage people, how to listen. I mean, there's just lots of etiquette classes, even, that you can take and learn how to do this. And it's not instilled in everybody. Everybody worked the job and normally they're good at their job and they get promoted to that management piece, and they've not been trained and they're not ready to take that on. We need to enable them and help them if that's what they want to do. So they need to take these classes and learn how to actually do this. They'll be more successful. They'll be happier. They won't hate getting up and regretting the fact that they took that promotion. So let's help all these folks get to their full potential, love what they're doing. Everybody will be more successful.
SKOT WALDRON:
So you're saying that we actually need to invest in our people.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely. There is money never wasted there, right? There's that whole saying of the CEO telling the CFO, "We need to train our people," and the CFO turns around and says, "Well, what if we spend this money to train them and then they leave?" And the CEO turns around and tells the CFO, "What if we don't train them and they stay?" Right? I mean, it's money well spent.
SKOT WALDRON:
Exactly. Yeah. I think that there's a definite problem there that's happening. And I'm just curious. Do you see, when you go into these organizations, and it sounded like you were hinting at this a little bit, that people, we look over and we're saying, "Hey, Jim is really good at project management. Let's make him a VP."
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
And instead of promoting Jim on visibility to lead and his ability to communicate and his ability to deliberate other people, they're just promoting Jim because he's good at his job. And now Jim's like, "I've never done this before. What's going on?"
JIM PRIMROSE:
Well, in a lot of times, those individuals want that position. They think they can handle it. They might not be ready for it. So now they're going to fail and they're going to be miserable and leave your company. And you've taken somebody that was very successful in their position and now they're gone. So now you've created another gap. Two gaps, because that VP gap plus the other job that they were doing. Whereas if you organically help them grow into that position, it's always push-up mentality that needs to happen with these organizations. They need to look at their employees and say, how do I groom this individual to take their boss's position, and their boss, how do I groom them to take their boss's position? Right? Even if it doesn't happen and they're not interested.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Some people are just happy being that person that works at the gas station, right? You go in, you work that counter, and at the end of the day, you punch out, you go home. There's nothing mentally you've got to take with you. Some people are okay with that. But most people want to grow into that next position, and we need to help them. And even if they don't grow into that position, by grooming them, getting them ready for that position, it's going to make them a better employee, because now they feel like they're more part of that organization and they're better at doing their job, but they'll also understand, when their boss asks them to do something, why they should be doing it. And the key to that is, why am I doing what I'm doing? Because if you understand the why and it makes sense to you, you're more likely to work harder and get it done correctly.
SKOT WALDRON:
Alignment with the vision, the purpose and the ultimate goal of that organization, right?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
Getting buy-in all round, with all employees, leadership, all the way down.
JIM PRIMROSE:
It is the happier culture.
SKOT WALDRON:
It is. It is. If you could put a word of advice out there in order to help that happen, that transition, that investment in people, what's one thing that organizations can do to make sure that happens in the right way?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Wow. Well, it's obviously communicate with their employees to find out what their issues, their wants, their needs. I've been recently in project management using this system called HPMS, which is High Performance Management System. And what you do is you bring all of the organization together so everybody has an input. You list out all the various different ideas, and everybody gets a point scale. Everybody gets the same, the CEO down to the secretary, and everybody scores that. And whatever scores the highest is what everybody's going to focus on. And everybody gets behind that and they find success. But to really get back to your other question, is that communication is by far the biggest key, but training and upskilling your individual people to get to that next level is huge.
SKOT WALDRON:
I'm going to do a little name-drop here with Amazon. So I was working with Amazon when I was working with the University of California. And their big thing is they wanted to give back to the community, and they know that they were burning through their people pretty rapidly and people were just getting tired of the job. So I was working with them to put together courses that their individual people could actually take that would allow them to go out and find another job in the community that would pay them $2 more an hour.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Well, what that did is that now skilled that person to go out and get another job, which helps the community, helps that another company, but now allows another position open for Amazon to bring the new ones in. So they're not getting burned. And it helps Amazon. It gives them good PR, but it helps the individual community, the people. It's a great, great thought and process and program that they thought about and they worked with me to put in place. And I can't speak enough about how great that is working in the community here in the Inland Empire.
SKOT WALDRON:
So you're telling me Amazon hires people and invests in hiring them, gets them in the job, trains them in the job, they become successful, and then puts them through a program to get them to leave so they make more money?
JIM PRIMROSE:
It allows them to, yes, look for another job. Now that other job could be inside of Amazon as well. But it absolutely is allowing them to find another job anywhere inside of the community that at least pays $2 more an hour and has the same benefits. So it's helping advance those employees. It's just a great program.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's amazing. That's awesome because-
JIM PRIMROSE:
I know, right. It's just phenomenal.
SKOT WALDRON:
Not only are they investing in their people and with the goal of, "Hey, you're not going to be stuck. You have the potential for growth and that's what we're investing in."
JIM PRIMROSE:
And it creates a great thing inside that employee, knowing that Amazon's taken care of them. But Amazon understands they're going to lose this individual potentially anyway, because they're going to get burned out, but then they leave with a bad taste in their mouth about Amazon. So having this program in place creates so many values that I can't even mention them all right now, because I'm sure we could sit here and do a whole show just about the values that that program brings.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. That's awesome. As a brand strategist, I always teach people, brand is your reputation. That's what people say about you when you're not around. I say you have an internal brand problem if your employees are going home at night complaining about their job or their bosses. You have a brand problem. And those employees are speaking highly of that program. They may not even be there any more, but what's Amazon getting is good brand recognition. Those people are going home at night, maybe they're leaving that job, or they're going to their friend and saying, "Hey, you need a gig, go check out Amazon. They're going to also invest in a program to where you're going to get more money. They're going to help you grow, just like they did with me."
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely. And then I was in charge of corporate partnerships at the University of California Riverside Extension, and what we did with Amazon, we give all their employees a discount on any of the courses, but Amazon would actually pay for us... We would actually send our teachers out there on site at Amazon that would fit any of their basic schedules [inaudible 00:27:54] a cohort of 12 or more, and even do ESL, English as a second language training, first, before they actually got into the other program. And Amazon would subsidize all of that stuff. I mean, they're really trying to get back to the community, because they understand what a gap and what a hole it could cause inside of their own organization, but they do recognize brand as well. And every employee is a sales rep for your company and your brand. And if you're creating their positiveness inside of all the communities, it's a great thing.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's amazing. Thanks a lot for that insight and what you've shared with us here. Is there anything that you'd like to share or any way for people to get in touch with you for engagement and what you're offering right now?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Yeah, I mean, our big offering at SOPliance currently is, like I said, the air purification and everything, and they can get on our site, which I have up there behind me, which is info@sopliance.com. And SOPliance is S-O-P, and then L-I-A-N-C-E.com. And then my personal email is jim@sopliance.com, so it's very easy to see. But one of my previous jobs that I had, I worked with the Chambers of Commerce, the Cal Chambers, and the US Chamber of Commerce to start a regional chamber of commerce here in the inland Empire. Now the Inland Empire is Southern California. It's included with Riverside County and San Bernardino County.
JIM PRIMROSE:
San Bernardino County is the largest county in the United States. So it's very big. And there was a lot of large organizations that wouldn't give back to the community to their chambers of commerce. Because if I'm a hospital per se, and I give to this chamber, well now I got to give to all these chambers. So they weren't giving to any chambers. By creating a regional chamber of commerce, we could then focus on helping these large organizations give back in a more strategic way, where we would then work with the government agencies and small companies to help them get to that next level.
JIM PRIMROSE:
So what I put together was a maturity model to evaluate where they're at in that process of growing their company. Do they need financing? Do they need personnel? Do they need technology? Do they need SBA assistance? Whatever it may be, we had those contacts for them. So we would do a lot of consulting to get those organizations up to that next level. Now that's some of the type of consulting we can actually still do here at SOPliance. I am still a member of that inland empire regional chamber of commerce, but I am not running or a part of that any more, but I still help them market and do everything too. But that is another offering that we can actually provide here at SOPliance.
SKOT WALDRON:
Beautiful. Jim-
JIM PRIMROSE:
Thank you for letting me share that story actually.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, no, that's great. I think that's super. I mean, it just shows the depth that you've been involved with, right? As a sales executive, a project manager or running a company, a consultant, and you've also created chambers of commerce, so why not, right?
JIM PRIMROSE:
Absolutely. I've organically grown and touched many different organizations that built me the knowledge. And I don't have everything in my head, but my contacts are what gets me to where I go, and I learned that from back in my help-desk days, right? Running a help-desk, when somebody calls, you don't have to know the answer, you just have to know how to get the answer. Right? And that's the key for all these organizations. I'm the guy that knows a guy. So I just need to understand what your problem is, and we need to come up with where you need to get to, to figure out who we need to get for you or what that idea is so we can actually get you where you need to be.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, if you're the guy that knows a guy, then everybody needs to be talking to you because-
JIM PRIMROSE:
I love that. Absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
All right, Jim. Thanks a lot, man. I hope you have an awesome day. I really appreciate you being here.
JIM PRIMROSE:
Thank you for your time and thank you for the opportunity, and you have a great day as well.
SKOT WALDRON:
As you heard from that conversation, Jim is a project manager. This guy has systems flowing from his ears. He is a systems guy. You can tell. But at the heart of systems are people. And Jim understands that. Jim understands that in order to get the systems to work, to get everything moving the way it needs to, you've got to invest in the people. You've got to communicate with the people. You've got to understand the people. You've got to ask the people. The people are what make the systems happen. And when there's a person that isn't quite working, what do we do? We just move that person. We adapt and understand that person and see where we can help that person grow and thrive. And then we evaluate together. We give them the opportunity to thrive.
We talked about Amazon. What an opportunity for that employee to thrive based on the program that Amazon has created. That's an awesome program. I didn't realize that existed. There are things like that that happen in this world. This program is about bringing those things out, about unlocking the potential of organizations, unlocking the potential of people, in order to make things happen that are beautiful.
Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can find more of these videos on my YouTube channel. You can find more information about me at skotwaldron.com. That's S-K-O-T-W-A-L-D-R-O-N.com. And I share some thoughts there. I've got my blog there. I've got some free resources for you there. I would love to have you sign up for my email on there. I provide a lot of good, valuable resources for you. So that being said, I loved having you here today. Thank you for watching, and I hope you learned something. Until next time.
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