An Interview with Doug Greenhut
Custom fulfillment can be a daunting and time intensive task, even for companies who have been at it for years.
It has especially become a feat since Covid and the restructuring of how people receive goods. That’s why some companies make the switch to work with MKM after decades of doing it on their own. We take a complicated job and make it easy for our customers.
One such customer is The Book Company. For 25 years, The Book Company has sold books for big publishing houses like Random House, Simon and Shuster, and Harper Collins—to name a few. Many are promotional, meaning they are customized with company logos or page inserts from corporations or literary agencies, then shipped across the country.
Doug Greenhut, the CEO of The Book Company, sat down to discuss why, after so many years of working on custom fulfillment internally, they decided to make the jump to MKM.
Here’s what he had to say.
MKM: What made you decide to use MKM as your distributor?
DG: For many many years, we had been doing it all ourselves. But as time went on, we just saw less and less need for all the overhead associated with that. There was the warehouse, all the equipment, all the fulfillment services and shipping. You know, individually fulfilling custom orders was a lot, especially during Covid.
Let's say Microsoft comes in and buys 500 copies of a book and wants them delivered to 500 different people. That's not really the model that we had set ourselves up for. So we went out looking for a partner that could do this work for us. MKM was a perfect fit.
MKM: How long has it been since you made the switch?
DG: Two or three years now. We tested things for a while and tried different methods, and then we eventually transferred our equipment up to them. They took it all over.
MKM: That must have been a huge relief. What specific tasks have been the most important to your company to have done by MKM?
DG: It used to be custom kitting and fulfillment. We would send MKM a book and other products and they would take it all, put them together in a nice gift box, and then send those gift boxes out individually to people. Now, we've moved all of our production to them. They handle the pad printing of logos onto books, the insert of promo pages into the books. They do belly bands and all kinds of different customization options that we used to do in house. We don't even have a warehouse anymore. It really allowed us to completely eliminate a ton of our own overhead.
MKM: That’s a lot of trust and responsibility. What has your experience been like so far?
DG: The way MKM communicates and the willingness to constantly improve has been great. When you have a partnership like this, it's very unique, and there's so many different elements to it. The key is finding someone who can handle any issue. The greatest thing we found with MKM is their flexibility and efficiency. They're really willing to learn new things and then take on additional roles.
MKM: Have you worked with other distributors before working with MKM? If so, what was that like?
DG: You know, we did, yeah, we've had some other experiences over the years. But we jumped all in with MKM and put all of our eggs into their basket, per se. We really rely on them heavily now, much more so than with anyone else that we've tried.
MKM: That kind of partnership is so important for success. Is there anything else that you think has made this partnership work so well?
DG: I know that when we get in a pinch, they're willing to jump through hoops and make things happen. That's huge. Any last minute orders, clerical mistakes—they make sure it’s fixed quickly. My team has been really happy with everything they’ve accomplished, and in the end, everything they do is what makes them a good partner. We have a lot of respect for them.