Greig Roberts

Greig Roberts came to Australia almost twenty five years ago with nothing, and has built his logistics company into the country’s largest and most successful independent book services provider. His story highlights the value of curiosity and long-held connections as well as utilising the entrepreneurial spirit to grow an international business.

Greig originates from the UK and started his working life there forty years ago in the same industry he’s in today: freight forwarding as it was then known or logistics as is the current term.

An Australian partner of the freight-forwarding company Greig was working for in the UK offered him work with a company in Australia. As Greig recalls, “I took up the opportunity and within a couple of years, I’d established a niche within that company doing the freight forwarding for book publishers.”

While Greig was at the London Book Fair and approaching publishers seeking to handle their freight forwarding, most of them said, ‘No thanks, we’ve got this fantastic company called Publiship.’

The Publiship name kept coming up and eventually Greig felt compelled to investigate further. “I remember it vividly”, he says. “I phoned Publiship, who were based in Liverpool, and asked for the Managing Director, because I wanted to find out more. I got put through to this Liverpudlian sounding voice, and I picked it straight away; it was the same guy I’d met in Felixstowe five years prior who’d offered me a job! We met in Birmingham and struck a deal there and then.

When Greig came to Australia twenty-three years ago, he was given the choice of which city he wanted to work in. He comments that “I chose Sydney and came to Cronulla. Seemed like I was going on holiday every day, so I’ve been here ever since.”

His current business partners in Publiship Australia “are the original people who brought me over and sponsored me as well as the MD from Liverpool!”

Publiship provides freight-forwarding logistics services to book publishers. “As a sideline to that, our Asian offices, where most books are printed of course, also work for printers. So, we end up getting the business from either the publishers or the printers. Predominantly, we then deliver into distributors throughout the whole world, mainly English-speaking nations, and mainly Australia, USA and the UK/Europe.”

Publiship has offices established in most areas where books are published, and of course those areas are all consumers of books. “We’ve got offices in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Holland, Italy, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Bangkok, the UK, the USA, New Zealand, and all the major regions which is great from our customers’ point of view, because we offer consistency and continuity of service.

“Each Publiship office obviously has its own knowledge of the local requirements, and most publishers will be selling into all of the same markets, where we have our established offices.”

The business then has also become “a very good source of information for publishers who are looking to sell their books into different areas of the world, because we’ve got a handle on all the regulations, all the nuances and anomalies.

“The Publiship Group has been going for well over thirty-five years, so it’s gathered all that knowledge over the long term, plus of course, we get the economies of scale because we’re delivering to all the distributors, all the time.”

Greig believes “we’ve got a fantastic product and because we work for so many publishers, it’s a proven concept and it works. There are always challenges; movement of books or any product is a physical thing. All of them have their nuances and challenges we have to address every day.”

Most importantly, though, “my staff have been with me for so long that most of them know as much as me now and I’m lucky to have such a great team. My job really is mentoring my people, and helping them build up their knowledge. I give to them and they give to me.”

Now, Greig’s son works with him, and “I’m very lucky. He’s got all the qualities I look for in an employee. He’s honest. He’s loyal. He’s committed. He’s pleasant. He’s now getting valuable training from staff who have been with me for a long time, and of course, most of them knew him when he was a youngster.”

Greig believes it’s important in business to make sure your staff are comfortable enough to be able to share knowledge or the IP of the business. As he explains, “business relies on that knowledge. It’s important to retain it. It’s not trade secrets. It just makes us better able to do the jobs we do. It’s important in a working environment that you can create that sharing and communicative ethos.”

Amazingly, Greig notes, “I still deal with the same people overseas in the Publiship Group who I was working with when I first opened Publiship here in Australia twenty-odd years ago.

“One of the key elements is that we’re feeding business to each other. A publisher in Australia will publish a book, and print it in China, typically. But then it’s distributed to the UK, to Europe, to USA, to Australasia, to other places, and we facilitate the movement of those books from the Chinese printer. And of course our local Publiship office handles the import and the delivery at the destination country. So, we’re all giving each other work.”

The next stage is “to re-energise Publiship in the USA. The existing office is in New Jersey. About five years ago I took over the US operations for Publiship, so a lot of my time is spent over there, developing that market.

“It’s a big challenge, but I’m five years down the track, and I’m pleased I put the time and effort into it, because of course it’s the biggest book market in the world, and so it’s the biggest growth opportunity left for us.”

When asked if physical book sales volumes are shrinking, Greig replies “it’s interesting because everybody asks that, but they’re not. The publishers are all well-established and becoming more efficient. The industry is going through a change, because it had to. Previous to that, it hadn’t gone through much change at all.

“The more people that are reading e-books, the more interest builds in books generally. The publishers are investing more, and giving more thought and effort into making books more attractive. They’ve had to change, because the world’s changed. But I still move the same quantity of books as I have always done.”

For Publiship the USA is a market presenting a new opportunity “because we’re not very well known in America, apart from the major companies. So America is a big opportunity for me and for Publiship. That’s where our growth will come from.

“It’s surprisingly different how they do business in America compared to Australia,” Greig comments. He adds that this “was a real challenge for us to understand, but also to get all our offices around the world to understand, and it was a really interesting exercise. Often it’s just communication. So for me it’s knitting the whole lot together, which I really enjoy.”

As for Publiship Australia, it’s all about the service. “We’ve got our own warehouses in China where we pack our containers, so we ensure it’s done right every time.”

Greig happily adds, “I just love doing this, and I could see myself doing it for another twenty years. I’m dealing with clients all over the world, literally, and so my schedule, first thing in the morning is call to the USA, because I can still reach them in business hours, and then last thing at night, it’s the UK, and then during the day it’s Australia and much of Asia.

“It’s not a job, it’s more like a hobby or a passion. Recently, my wife and I had a holiday, and travelled through the Panama Canal. Why? Because I’m fascinated by it, and being involved in the shipping industry, I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Fortunately for Greig, “my wife is my support mechanism. I couldn’t do what I do without her being there. She helps me in many, many different ways in the business, and she fulfils a role that nobody else would; she’s my sounding board and my confidante. It gets stressful, and she’s a great advisor in that respect.”

ADVICE
Most importantly Greig believes “when you run a business these days, it’s vital to have a strong work ethic. It’s a big commitment, so surround yourself with good people. It’s important to keep the continuity of staff. You can only achieve that by doing all the right things by them, giving your loyalty back to them in terms of recognition. That doesn’t mean necessarily in remuneration.

“It’s all about how you treat them: they’re human beings just like you are. I see the staff for more hours a day than I do my family. So, having a good relationship with the staff is so important, because you’re with each other so much.”

Also, Greig adds, “the buck stops with you, and you’ve got to shield your people from the things that you inevitably go through.”

As all business owners know, “business goes up and down. You’re not always doing well, and you’re going to have bad times, so you’ve got to be prepared for that.”

Greig’s key advice would be to put money aside when you’re having good times. “Before you even start a business, make sure you’ve got enough backing in cold, hard finance to be able to go through those periods when cashflow is not great.”