Karen Rubin's Ramblings

Day 10 of total silence, once I get through today, I still have 4 more to go!! At home, this isn't too much of a problem. Jared waits for me to type out what I want to say, and while it's probably very frustrating for him, I still manage without too much problem.

Work is a totally different story. If HubSpot is anything, it's fast paced, and it doesn't slow down for anything, even me! My job is solving problems, and I do that most effectivly by talking to people and finding fast solutions. Not being able to talk is putting a real cramp in my style! This is why I normally hate working from home, things are so much less effective when you have to do it all over IM and email. 

However, I am managing. I went in on Monday for a few hours. Completely whiped myself out, and decided that I should probably just work from home this week. Then I worked 10 hours straight yesteday and almost dropped dead. Today I plan to figure out a way to take better care of myself, while working from home. I'm setting my alarm to force myself away from the computer for 10 minutes every 2 hours. Then maybe I won't fall into a coma before Jared gets home. 

As for the not talking, I'm doing well. Not perfect. I've had 4 slip ups. All while I was distracted or sleeping.

• "Hi" to my mom on Day 3, when she woke me up
• "Yes" to Jared, as he was about to pull into a one way on Day 5
• "I'm cold" to Jared, as I woke from a nap on Day 6
• "Gemma" to the silly cat, as we were watching TV on Day 7

I also did one experiment, last night. I'm sort of embarassed by my weakness, but I told Jared I loved him, just to see how it sounded. I really wasn't interested in what it sounds like during week 1, but it's been 10 days!!! It certainly felt weird to talk, but my voice sounded good. 

The good news is I am mostly feeling better. I don't quite have all my energy back, so I haven't been running at all, which is almost as bad as not talking for me. I would really rather not come out of not talking, only to get sick because I pushed it too hard, so I am doing the best I can to take care of myself. 

Thanks for all the support and well wishes!

My parents home is the perfect place to recuperate. It's in the woods, without any neighbors or noise for distraction. It's an absolutely beautiful location that should really be used as a get away resort or spa. The house is filled with comfortable places to curl up and take naps, all while being bathed in sun and fresh air. To top it all off, my Mom is an exceptional cook who makes all my favorites when I come home. 

This means lots of people come here to recuperate and my parents have done this a few times. They know the drill. So this morning when I woke up and was feel blue, they were expecting it. They have noticed a trend when people have surgery. You come home feeling like crap, sleep up for a day or two, and then have a really good day. Then the post-surgery blues set in. You want to be feeling even better, but it takes time. That's where I am at. 

Physically, I'm doing pretty good. I'm sleeping better again, don't have to take naps every 30 minutes, and can eat a lot more (but not everything). My throat still hurt, but I'm probably back to 80%. The thing is, I want to be 100%...NOW!!

I'm also getting to the point where not being able to talk is frustrating me. Sure the computer and iPad work great. The whiteboard gets me by, but you really can't have indept conversations with these tools. It's all very limiting. Try explaining something in more than 2 sentences on a whiteboard, it doesn't really work. 

So I'm changing scenary. We head to New Hampshire tonight to get away for the weekend. I love being in New Hampshire, because it's all about relaxation. There is no internet, so I can't work. I can't expect to get things done and do stuff. I plan to spend the next 2 days, on the couch, reading my book. Hopefully I can kick the blues by the time I go back to work on Monday. 

(Photo Credt:  Zach Klein)

I think what I have learned from all this is that I really don't like drugs. It's just not my style. I'm finally off the codine and out from under the drain of the anethesia and starting to feel human, but the last couple of days were a drag!

I think I slept 20 hours yesterday. I would wake up, and just not be all there, and go right back to bed. I hate being in bed on beautiful days, but it just wasn't working to stay awake. So I did what had to be done and slept it off. The good news is today I feel much more human. 

As for the not talking, it honestly hasn't been hard, but I haven't really felt like talking much. I did wake up yesterday morning to my Mom peeking in on me and I whispered "Hello." Then freaked out that I had talked! I also spent all night having dreams in which I was talking, but was worried about the fact that I was talking, so clearly my brain is thinking about it. 

I've continued to use a combination of the white board, iPad and computer to talk. The white board is easiest for very quick things. The iPad and computer are necessary for actual conversations. It's slow but it works. It really makes you think about what you say, a lot less excess chatter coming from me these days. My Dad wonders if that will be a perminante change, but somehow I doubt it. 

Today my challenge is planned for dinner. My cousin Kara (not the one I work with HubSpotters, my other cousin Kara, yes I have two of them!) is having a birthday dinner at a local Mexican place. It's early enough that I am planning to go for a little while to see the family before I fall asleep. The real question is, what will I find to eat and how will I manage talking with a group! Should be interesting. 

(Photo Credit: Smath)

I made it down to Ashford today to get babied by my parents while Jared goes back to work. It's nicer to be here than at home, because my Dad is home all day to give me some human interaction. I think I can handle not talking, but being alone all day and not talking, forget it!

The best way to communicate is on the commputer. My Mac laptop and iPad both have text to speech applications that work just fine. It's certainly a slower, less fluid conversation, but it allows me to make my points. Thanks goodness to Tomcat and Chip (HubSpot's IT ninjas) for letting me take an iPad from work while I am away. I need it for work, but it's even better than the laptop for talking since it's so convienet. The only downside with talking through the computer, is it's real hard not to get sucked into my work email. I have to keep reminding myself I need to rest in order to heal! 

The only problem today is eating. My throat is still pretty sore and I miss real food! Mom made me some carrot ginger soup, which is amazing, and got me some Odwalla smoothies. It feels like I am actually getting some nutritional value, in addition to plenty of ice cream. I really hadn't expected the throat to be this bad. I figure yesterday would be tough, but I would be back to more normal food by today. Hopefully tomorrow I can return to the land of the eating. 

For now, it's lots of sleeping and resting. The codine makes it hard to sleep, so I spent the afternoon in the hammock with a audio book. Nothing better than having someone read to you to make you sleep. 

Surgery went fine and was done by about 10AM this morning. Dr. Burnes was great and told Jared everything went fine, there were no surprises and this is going to make talking so much easier and nicer for me (when I can talk again.) Jared was SUPER excited to hear that I'll like talking MORE. :-) 

Coming out of surgery wasn't much fun, I don't think it ever is. I was worried that my fist instinct would be to talk, because last time I had general anethesia I came out yelling. I did much better and haven't talked at all, but I did moan a couple of times. The hospital staff was really good at reminding me I couldn't talk. A number of hospital staff thought I couldn't hear as well. I had to keep reminding them that I could hear, they didn't need to write things down! I think maybe they just liked my marker board. 

The wierdest thing about not talking are the sounds I make without realizing I am making sound. The noises I don't even conciously think about. The first sip of water they gave me felt so good, I went "mmmm," which of course I shouldn't do. It's a lot more than just not talking, which isn't as hard as not making the little noises. 

Using the white board worked well at the hospital, but at home it's just too slow. I've been using the text to speech software on my mac. I type, and when I am done, the computer reads what I wrote. it's a lot better than trying to convey myself in a couple of words on the white board. I also used Google + to video chat with my parents, they talked and I typed via Google chat. It actually worked pretty well and will probably be how I get a lot of work done when I am back at HubSpot.

The only bad thing is I have a killer sore throat and half my tongue is numb. I got down a milk shake earlier and some mashed potatoes, but eating is hard and I don't have much appetite. I think I am going for another chocolate milk shake for dinner. If that's my biggest complaint, I'm doing pretty well. 

I'm off for the night, hopefully tomorrow the sort throat will be feeling much better and I can start eating some real food! Thanks to everyone for all the thoughtful wishes, emails, texts and messages. 

(Photo Credit: waitscm)

If you know me at all, you know I talk... a lot. I've always talked a lot. The next two weeks are going to be interesting as I'm not going to be able to talk AT ALL!!! Watch while I tell you all about it, and how I plan to cope. 

Is AdWords Expensive?

I recently used Google Adwords to generate some traffic to a landing page I created for a personal product I was advertising. I've been in the AdWords game since about 2005 and I've worked mostly with B2B companies, using AdWords to generate traffic and leads. I knew that by using AdWords I'd be able togenerate some quick traffic to my landing page without spending too much money. But I learned quickly that this wasn't necessarily the case.

2005 - The Online Gold Rush

What was great about 2005 and the advent of AdWords was affordability. It was a time where opportunity was ripe for businesses of all sizes to generate low cost, qualified traffic using AdWords. At that time, I had proposed to my current CEO to run an AdWords campaign to get us some leads. I remember the days of spending at most $1000/month and receiving Click Through Rates as high as 5%, plus a whole lot of traffic. But since 2005, keyword costs have increased.

Why the Increase?

There are a lot of legitimate reasons for keywords to increase in price. Much of it has to do with competition and new players entering a market. The popularity of AdWords and of using online as a way to advertise means more businesses are putting money into Google. AdWords is Google's primary source of revenue and in 2010 that number is a staggering $28B. And some may even go so far as to wonder if Google has any influence on the pricing of their keywords to increase their bottom line?

How Much Does it Cost?

It's actually hard for me to make a statistical inference that all keyword prices have gone up since 2005, due to my inability to access all of that data. But it is certain that you will find a lot of online sentiment making the case that it is indeed getting expensive. Since I can't speak on the behalf of everyone, I can only give you some personal examples and general observations from campaigns I've worked on since 2005.

Let’s take a look at some keyword pricing data:

Keyword term: wildflower seeds
Keyword Cost in 2005: $0.62*
Keyword Cost in 2011: $1.56**
Percentage Increase in Cost: 150%
*captured from a screenshot printed in Andrew Goodman's book Winning Results with Google AdWords
**keyword cost in 2011 is based on Google's own estimate using their keyword tool

Keyword term: human resources
Keyword Cost in 2005: $0.16*
Keyword Cost in 2011: $2.29**
Percentage Increase in Cost: 1293%
*captured from a screenshot printed in Andrew Goodman's book Winning Results with Google AdWords
**keyword cost in 2011 is based on Google's own estimate using their keyword tool

Keyword term: policy administration
Keyword Cost in 2008: $0.66*
Keyword Cost in 2011: $3.05**
Percentage Increase in Cost: 362%
* based on my own data from an Enterprise Insurance campaign (B2B)
**keyword cost in 2011 is based on Google's own estimate using their keyword tool

Keyword term: product development software
Keyword Cost in 2008: $0.85*
Keyword Cost in 2011*: $3.48
Percentage Increase in Cost: 309%
* based on my own data from an Enterprise Insurance campaign (B2B)
**keyword cost in 2011 is based on Google's own estimate using their keyword tool

What's Going on Here?

It's discouraging to see such dramatic price increases. If you look at the data above, it means that in 2005 you could run a campaign for the keyword 'human resources' that would cost $160 for 1000 clicks. If you ran that same campaign now it would cost $2,229, based on a single keyword. Add multiple keywords, and you get my point.

So What's the Alternative?

Fortunately, there are still ways to generate qualified traffic to your website. I'm not here to discount AdWords altogether but if you want to setup a campaign, make sure you do it carefully and optimize it well, otherwise you could burn through a lot of money quickly. Consider the other players in the industry as well like Microsoft and Yahoo.

And of course, using tools like SEO, blogging and inbound marketing are sure-fire ways to generate more qualified traffic to your site. Most of these methods are affordable and over a period of time the costs eventually diminish (considered an investment). So instead of pulling out your wallet, consider creating amazing and engaging content and getting it out to the masses.

I have to say, I didn't think the day would come where I wouldn't be a huge fan of AdWords. Frankly, it'sgetting too expensive and less democratic. The next few years should be interesting for Google.

Additional Resources
If you’re interested in learning more about using inbound marketing to drive your marketing efforts then I highly suggest you check out these resources:

Hubspot – it would be remiss of me to mention the company that pretty much put the term Inbound Marketing into our daily online lexicon. They have a ton of resources on their website and I highly suggest you check out their blog to get started.

If you do want to give AdWords a go, I would still recommend that you check out Andrew Goodman’s book called Winning Results with Google AdWords. It’s an intense ready but it still stands the test of time. And here’s an article from the Hubspot blog on Adwords: How to Maximize PPC Campaigns and Optimize Landing Pages

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About the author: Zaid Rasid is the founder of the internet marketing blog Better Social* Skills. He provides expert social media, lead generation & brand awareness advice to small and medium sized businesses. For a practical look at how online marketing can work for you, visit www.zaidrasid.com or follow him on twitter. 

One of my favorite podcasts is Stanford's Entrepreneurial Though Leaders series. Every couple of weeks during the semester they have fascinating people come talk about being entrepreneurs and they record the talks and make it all available online. 

A couple of weeks ago, they published a talk by Bill Gross the CEO of Idealab which included a brilliant section about the skill set needed in a management team. Bill outlines 4 different types of people you need on your management team to succeed. 

• The Entrepreneur -  is the visionary. They see the big picture, loves inventing things and can envision the future. They are frequently trying to do things ahead of their time.
• The Producer - is the person who actually makes things happen (or as we say at HubSpot, gets shit done.) They can take an idea, execute on it, sell it, and get things into peoples hands. 
• The Administrator - helps to organize things. They put systems in place to keeps the trains running on time, make sure everyone get's paid and that the company runs smoothly.
• The Integrator - is more of a people person. They understand the other three types of people and helps them get along. They are generally more worried about what other people are thinking or feeling than the product or customer and often bridges the gap between the other personality types. 

Bill explains that no one is just one of these personality types, but we each have strengths and weaknesses. For example, strength is as a P and I do alright as an I. I realized awhile ago that I am not an E. If you give me a vision, I can execute and get it done, but I am not the idea generator. 

Bill also explains that it's important when you are forming a company to make sure you have these personality types present. For example, if your two co-founders are E's, they have no one that can actually get the product built. They need to bring in a P. Once they have a P, they need to bring in an A to put some systems in place to keep things running smoothly. When you have an E, a P and an A in the same place, you have to have an I because there is going to be tension between them that has to be resolved. 

I thought this was an interesting way to think about the people and skill sets you need on a team. What do you think? What are you? And what skills do you need to add to fill in your weaknesses? 

While it was snowing away here in New England, I spent last week in sunny Las Vegas. I was there for the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit both as an attendee and as a speaker. 

Maggie was kind enough to record my presentation and I spent this snowy morning putting in my slides. If you are interested in the future of email marketing and how email marketing fits into an inbound marketing approach, enjoy!

On Friday, Mike Volpe suggested I start following ProductManagementTips.com, a blog run by a former colleague of his. I've been reading through some of the past posts, and just loved this quote from the article Managing Stakeholder Expectations via Product Council, 

"After all, product management is like herding cats. Sales goes and makes promises to customers without asking the product group, marketing wants their projects done first, your development team has their own pet projects, customer support wants customer’s burning issues fixed first, professional services want projects that will make them do implementations faster. And all of this needs to be done in a short time with limited engineering resources."

I'm not sure I could have described the challenges that come along with prioritizing projects better. The article goes on to talk about how monthly product council meetings can help you manage internal expectations about priorities better, but how you still need to manage communications about progress in between meetings. 

It was a timely article, because this past week we had our first product council meeting. At first I was skeptical, mostly because the name sounds so big company and I am partially allergic to meetings with fancy names. However I found it to be an excellent opportunity to run some of the prioritization decisions I am currently focused on by the HubSpot management team to get their thoughts. 

We didn't use the same approach suggested in the article, the meeting was less about decision making and more about discussion. With so many teams that have different priorities, as described above, it's hugely beneficial for each team to hear the thoughts and opinions of the others. I found that the meeting both succeeded in keeping the management team updated on the direction I am headed, and helped me take their thoughts and opinions into account more fully. 

What are some other approaches that you have used for keeping team with different priorities on the same page? 

* Photo Attributes to Morbuto