Ronald Shaw has never done things the conventional way. His first career was as a stand-up comedian, opening for legendary entertainers like Dean Martin, Jimmy Durante, and Connie Francis. After he started a family, the need for a steady paycheck became paramount and Shaw left show business to become a salesman for Bic pens. In 1975, after 14 years with Bic, Shaw joined Pilot Pen Corporation of America, where he is now president and CEO. His tenure at the company has been as unconventional as it has been successful: Sales have grown from around $1 million his first year to nearly $200 million in 2006. A large component of that success can be credited to Shaw’s integrated marketing savvy, drawn largely from his skills as an entertainer and a humorist. He emphatically eschews consultants and focus groups when making marketing decisions, placing confidence in his own instincts and experiences and those of his coworkers. FuelNet recently spoke with Shaw about the limits of outside help and why it’s important to trust your gut.

FuelNet: Given your background, you must feel pretty confident about what people want when it comes to pens.

Shaw: I started at Bic in the lowest sales position they had. I had to introduce at retail stores the then-unheard-of product called Bic. I learned from the ground up. So when I came to Pilot, I had managerial experience. I [had the authority] to make those [marketing] decisions. I could have fallen flat on my face, but I knew what the risks were and I was willing to take them. You are never going to be a success if you’re not willing to take a risk.

FuelNet: Plenty of marketers rely on focus groups to help tailor their messages, but you do not. Why?

Shaw: I look at marketing as being nothing more than giving the public that which they want, and being able to do it at a profit for my company. Since I was not born with any kind of silver spoon in my mouth, and I came up off the streets of both Philadelphia and then later Miami, I think I have a feel for what the common man does and knows, and I’ve tried to apply that to marketing at Pilot Pen.

FuelNet: But can’t focus groups be a way to better understand what consumers want?

Shaw: In the early days we did a few. And we responded to those focus group results with some less-than-stellar sales results. That just reinforced my thinking that we know the business better.

FuelNet: So would you say that having focus groups and consultants involved with your integrated marketing communications strategy stifles the creativity of your marketers?

Shaw: I think your point is a good one. I don’t want some so-called expert that we’ve hired saying, “Well, here’s the way to position that product.” Because then I have a staff of marketing people saying, “Hey, Ron, I think we have to go the way they told us.” I want my people to give us their own ideas and be able to say, “Hey, Ron, I understand what you’re saying, but I disagree.” We want ideas and we want disagreement. I’ve told them dozens of times to convince me why they think I’m wrong. In a number of cases they have, and I’m delighted that I listened to them.

FuelNet: Can you explain how you come up with your integrated marketing campaigns?

Shaw: The process with us might be a little different in that most of the new products are coming from our parent company. Pilot is the oldest and largest pen company in Japan. We take a look at whatever it is they’ve come up with over there. Fortunately, we have never been forced to take anything they’ve developed if we don’t like it or we don’t think it will sell in this country. We only look at the products that we think have some potential. Then we [meet] at our headquarters in Connecticut and talk about why a consumer would want it and what we would have to do to package it to make it look enticing. If you go into a large drugstore or an Office Depot or a Staples or even a Wal-Mart, where they have a huge selection of pens, [the packaging] is basically all saying the same thing — our pen writes smoother than anybody else’s, our pen doesn’t leak, our pen does this and that. Well, how do you rise above that? The packaging really has to be something very, very special.

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