diff --git a/contrib/seekable_format/examples/Makefile b/contrib/seekable_format/examples/Makefile
index fcc04587c..336d8c722 100644
--- a/contrib/seekable_format/examples/Makefile
+++ b/contrib/seekable_format/examples/Makefile
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ all: seekable_compression seekable_decompression seekable_decompression_mem \
 	parallel_processing
 
 $(ZSTDLIB):
-	make -C $(ZSTDLIB_PATH) $(ZSTDLIB_NAME)
+	$(MAKE) -C $(ZSTDLIB_PATH) $(ZSTDLIB_NAME)
 
 seekable_compression : seekable_compression.c $(SEEKABLE_OBJS)
 	$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) $^ $(LDFLAGS) -o $@