As a consultant, your number 1 tool is your intellectual property. Founder of develop my ip, Wes Wheless shares why IP is so critical for creating authority in your industry, as well as tips on how to develop and refine your IP from your unique insights and experiences.
Notes from the Show
Wes Wheless is the founder of develop my ip. His coaching practices help solo consultants transform their corporate knowledge into unique intellectual property (IP) and excellent services. IP is a set of insights organized into a shareable point of view. Consultant knowledge comes in three levels: experience, insights, and IP. The number 1 tool for consultants is their IP, which represents unique learning applicable to client engagements. This approach matches a consultant's experience with tailored solutions to client problems, offering several cascading benefits.
The benefits of developing and utilizing IP include:
1. Demonstrating domain authority
2. Focusing the conversation
3. Increasing visibility towards a solution within the client's context
4. Accelerating trust
5. Shortening the sales cycle
6. Elevating achievable rates
7. Structuring work for proposals
IP provides polished, proven solutions, avoiding the need to reinvent the wheel with each new client. Sharing frameworks on platforms like LinkedIn for feedback can further refine and validate your IP. Wes sums it up like this; everything you do will help you, but your IP will help you stand out.
What's Inside:
What is IP, and why is it important for consultants?
How is IP developed?
7 cascading benefits when you use IP in your business.
Tips for developing and refining your unique IP.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:38
Hello everybody, welcome back to stop the noise. Today, I'm excited to have Wes Wheless joining us. Wes is the founder of develop my IP a coaching practice that helps solo consultants turn their corporate knowhow into unique intellectual property and standout consulting services were spent a decade in tech After earning his MBA. He worked as a Global Product Manager at Expedia taught at expedience product Academy and develop premium courses at reforge was started as a career with the Boston Consulting Group in Miami and now calls Seattle home. Welcome, Wes.
Wes Wheless 1:12
Hi Susan. Thanks for having me.
Susan Tatum 1:13
And it's great to have you here today. Let's just dive in, shall we?
Wes Wheless 1:17
Okay, let's do it.
Susan Tatum 1:18
So, um, I know what IP is, you know what IP is some of our listeners may not know exactly what we're talking about with intellectual property as it relates to consulting. So can you just spend a few minutes talking about that?
Wes Wheless 1:33
Sure. And actually, I think it's a really great place to start, because when I say the word intellectual property, I think consultants get really scared or freaked out. And so I want to make clear that when we talk about intellectual property, we're not talking about, oh, I need an IP and IP attorney, or this is a licensing play or anything like that, with IP is just a set of insights that's organized into a shareable point of view. Like, that's all we're talking about. So it's pretty loose definition of intellectual property. And it's what consent a consultant apart in the marketplace, what this can look like, it's usually a framework, a mental model, it can be as simple as one slide or as large as a 10 week course. But really, we're thinking about a looser idea, and just a set of insights, that it's organized into a shareable point of view,
Susan Tatum 2:20
I want to underline something you just said, and that was sets consultants apart, I know, we're going to talk about what the benefits of of having this, of doing this is. But I just want to emphasize that because in this market, it is so challenging to set yourself apart when we've got this wave of independent consultants that are out there. It's really hard for a buyer to differentiate. And I think I truly think that this IP that you talk about is one of the best ways to do that. So that was my defense.
Wes Wheless 2:54
Yeah, well, I think so well, and it's sometimes the question is, well, IP versus what it might be helpful to think about, well, what does a new consultant come in and relying on usually, and I'll speak from personal experience here, a new consultant relies on their network and their experience. And you might be saying like, okay, Wes, what do you what else? Do you build a consulting practice on? Yeah, I think in your first year, and you'll probably survive based on your network and your experience, but neither of those things are sustainable, or particularly differentiated. You know, I think your your network will probably get your first client, but it's, it's a resource, and it will exhaust eventually. And when you think about your experience it because of what you just said, the fight of town in the market, you know, the fact that you have a few years at a consulting firm, or let's say, a decade at Amazon or Google, that's not enough to set you apart anymore. And so you have to move into something that's, that's deeper, and that's your insights, and eventually your IP.
Susan Tatum 3:54
Well, and then when you when you say insight, well, you You did you went through and it's your frameworks, it's your model, it's the things that you have found to be true, right? And then that goes into how you provide the services or how you go about solving a problem for your clients.
Wes Wheless 4:11
Yeah, well, let's think about this still a little bit. Academically, I think there's three levels here. One is experience. The second is insights. And the third is IP. And so experiences, everything that I just kind of mentioned, it's your where you used to work, the type of projects that you worked on, maybe where you went to school, that kind of thing. It's very biographical. You probably read most of it on a resume or LinkedIn page. When you move into the next phase, which is insights, this becomes almost inherently differentiated, because insights are your learnings from all those experiences that you went through. So I can tell you that I worked six years at Expedia, worked on a program about internationalization and trying to get our product into shape or non English country is all that's pretty boring to you, right? But I can give you an insight that you know when I'm when I'm pushing In a program to instill a change in a product organization of 3000 people, that you need a grassroots component to it, like that's an interesting insight. So you're really just trying to move into something that's the learning as opposed to the experience. And with respect to being differentiated, this is the metaphor that I've been sharing with folks recently is Susan, you and I could go climb Mount Kilimanjaro tomorrow, we could do two together even. And then as one does, we would come down off the mountain, and you would go to a conference and give a talk about it. And I would go to a conference and give a talk about it. But the insights that you and I both have from that same experience are completely different. And that's why insights are so powerful for consultants is they're truly yours. And that's what clients are after they're looking for that unique learning that you learned somewhere else in the trenches, and you can come and apply to a client's context.
Susan Tatum 5:57
Yeah, that's, that is extremely important. Like we were saying, so tell us a little bit about your practice and how you work with clients. How do you draw this out of them?
Wes Wheless 6:07
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my practice is built on the idea that consultants number one tool is their intellectual property, as we were talking about, it's not their network, it's not their experience, it's not even their charm, or their ability to negotiate or anything like that. All of that is important, but it really is intellectual property that's gonna set you apart in a differentiated way and in a, in a sustainable way. And the problem is that most for most consultants, their IP is stuck somewhere in the back of their head, usually unrefined, maybe half baked. So what I do is with my clients, I take them through a one on one coaching program, which is three steps, one, I work with them and interviews to extract their insights based on their corporate career to is help them mold those insights into IP. So frameworks, mental models, all those things that we were talking about, and then three sorts of design and consulting service in the business model around that IP. Sounds really simple, right?
Susan Tatum 7:05
No.
Wes Wheless 7:06
right, right. Yes, no, it's a process. And it's, it's interesting that once once consultants get into it, they all the dots start, start connecting, but there's this fear that I hear a lot, which is, I don't think I really have anything unique to say, or you say the word IP, I'm just like, I don't have a point of view yet. But when you start to go and ask them about their past experiences, and you say, Okay, well, where are places where you really added value? Or where are things that surprised you, then that starts to lead into all of these little nuggets, which are the insights that you can then organize into a structured point of view, can I give you an example.
Susan Tatum 7:46
Sure.
Wes Wheless 7:47
I won't say I won't say his name, but it's a client that I'm working with. And I think this could be a good example of an experienced insights to IP. So this client is an expert in strategic partnerships. And he's been working in that area for 10 years b2b software. And I can tell you that he has worked at some very large companies that you definitely would know, some smaller companies that you probably wouldn't. Again, this is all the experience parts, and you notice how it's kind of boring, but then you get to his insights. And he can tell you all about what it's like to be an early stage company and trying to set up a strategic partnership with the likes of Amazon or meta, you could also tell you about our strategic partner ship is kind of doomed if you don't have executive buy in on both sides. So these things start to get a lot more interesting. And he has even up to this point, been able to sell work and drive client conversations based on those insights. And that's pretty much how consulting projects get sold these days is is just the back and forth of the client tells you about their problem, you give some insights that are related, and you go back and forth and continue the conversation from there, and he's gotten work this way. And you can stop there, or, or you can take those insights and start to organize them into IP. So in his example, I will give away all his IP, but you can think about perhaps a framework for what makes a good strategic partnership in the b2b tech space. And maybe it's 10 criteria, and you set that into a Google Sheet template, and then that becomes an artifact that anyone can take and go apply to their context. And I think that here, here it highlights the really interesting point about IP versus Insights is that you've essentially gone one level up, you're stripping out some of the context specific details of your insights and giving instead some kind of framework that any client or any company can apply to their context. I've been talking a lot since then. So please
Susan Tatum 9:43
No I'm I these are new ideas that that I'm hearing from you. So there's, I tell you what's going through my mind now it's like I and maybe you just a few minutes ago, you said something about a lot of people think that they don't have anything different or unique to say and I find that same thing when we're talking about content. So is a seeing the parallel between the the development of IP and the development of content, because of the thing we want experts to be talking about is at that higher level. And it's not the generic six ways to do this, you know, the content that we keep seeing, seeing, and at, but when I, when people are struggling with developing content, and they say, I don't have anything to say, it's like, well, what is everybody doing wrong? You've been doing this for how many years? You know, something that's out there, that's unique. And that's that is also true of, of what you're how you're describing IP, I say that they're, they've got it in their in their heads, every, every one of them, at least the ones that have got a lot of experience, and are now going into consulting they have you ever met anybody that didn't have any Wes?
Wes Wheless 10:55
No. And I've done this now with consultants and with executives. And it's interesting when I was doing this with executives, and that's a lot of what I was doing at reforge is the executives have these incredible stories, but they are even at the executive level thinking, I don't have enough to build a course out of and you're like, come on 20 years of experience in product or engineering or whatnot. And we certainly have well, more well, more than enough to build a course. Now I think what you're saying about content is interesting and not getting lost with the generic six ways to do something, I think that the the idea here is to have a relevant framework for a very specific problem, because that is what a client is coming to you for. They are experiencing some kind of distress. And when you walk in with a framework that perfectly matches their issue that you've built out of repeated exposure to the same problem, then you're starting to provide that release and starting to kind of in their minds match you yourself as a consultant with the relief of a solution. And this starts to unlock the benefits of the IP. And there's actually there's seven cascading benefits of IP. I'm happy to go into those if you
Susan Tatum 12:07
Yeah I think we should yeah,
Wes Wheless 12:11
okay. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's when you have first IP dealt out, let's just call it a framework for now. There's some ones that you can get on the marketing fine. So some my client that was building that IP and strategic partnerships, you can go and put out a framework on LinkedIn, or go to a conference and talk about it, come on a podcast, go on several podcasts and talk about his point of view on this, that starts to get people in the door. But then when you start the client conversation with IP, it does seven things. Are you ready?
Susan Tatum 12:39
Yeah, I've got my pen out.
Wes Wheless 12:40
Okay. The first one is that it demonstrates your domain authority, and it shows that you have the wherewithal to synthesize all your knowledge on this topic and put together a point of view. And so that already takes you a long way. That then the second one is focuses the conversation. So as opposed to going into a sales conversation or a client conversation, generally about partnerships, you've now focused it down to one artifact, and that's the conversation piece, it hopefully matches the client problem, they wouldn't be talking to you otherwise
Susan Tatum 13:10
right
Wes Wheless 13:11
focuses on conversation, and then went through that and provides visibility towards a solution within the client's context, you're now showing them that that relief is inside. Yeah, there's a lighthouse on the horizon. And you're the one that's showing that to them, that then accelerates Trust, which is the fourth one, which then shortens the sales cycle, which is the fifth one. And then all of that, then you have the shortened sales cycle. And that gives you add the ability to elevate your achievable rates. And once you're already getting folks down the path to a solution, in your first call, even that gives you leverage to start asking for a premium rate and not have a ton of pushback about it. And then the last one, and then I thought and I'll take a breath is, say that framework that lead you to all those six benefits and lead your client like halfway to a solution, that then can be the structure for the proposed work itself. So say this was a three pillar framework, based on how to know for an acquisition, something like that, then that's how you can structure the work is from these three phases, and then the client is already attuned to your approach, and they're not surprised to see it in a proposal.
Susan Tatum 14:19
So do you see one thing that and this probably goes into the acceleration of trust is that just the fact that you have this IP and you've got it in some kind of visual format is in first the right word, it lead the buyer to to feel comfortable that you have the experience and you have the expertise and you can do what you say you can do. There is yeah, there's just something that's concrete about it at that point.
Wes Wheless 14:50
It makes you come up certainly as more structured and organized. And there's also this like softer aspect that the client can the client can tell when you're winging it. And I think that sort of happens when you're relying just on insights, and someone's telling you a problem. And then you're like, oh, yeah, this reminds me of something that I did before. So let me just like spit that out what I've, what I've learned somewhere else, and then you just, you know that that volley back and forth can be good. And you can it can develop a relationship, but you don't come off as polished, you know,
Susan Tatum 15:21
polished or, or as experienced in doing it, it doesn't set, you know, the the clients, I think, do look for proven solutions, and that knowing that you've done this repeatedly, is a bit of a comfort to them. And so yeah, so, yes, I think that that is true. What do you find, with your clients that when they go through an exercise like this, or process like this West? Does it help them become more efficient in working for their clients? So there they do, they have now articulated a process if they follow, let's say, or framework that they follow? So they are they are able to work a little bit when they're not reinventing the wheel every time they start work for a new client,
Wes Wheless 16:06
right. Yeah, absolutely. That's, that's the benefit. So there's efficiencies that you get in the marketing and sales or visit the development process by having IP and you're just kind of going out and pitching your framework a lot. So there's that part of themselves, I'll pre deal. And then when you're actually getting into the work, then yes, you have maybe not just that one framework, but you have a lot of artifacts that you built in selling the same type of work over and over again, that you have ultimately sanitized and can use from one client to the next. And this is something that's interesting is like, this is not a new concept. You know, this is this is what consulting big consulting firms do all the time. I think, you know, like, I remember my last project DCG was going around and interviewing this was back in 2008, you can imagine the kind of work we were selling in 2008. It was all about reorders, and layoffs and all of that. But I was going around and interviewing customer case teams about the reorg projects and finding the best practices asking for their assets, sanitizing them, and they ended up becoming a playbook for a reorg product that BCG, when sold over and over and over again. So this is an advantage that the consulting firms have they have solved. They've the whole teams and research institutes that all of this develop their IP. And I think that independent consultants just don't make the time for themselves to do this, when it really can save you a lot of time in the long run. Yeah, I
Susan Tatum 17:30
you know, I experienced that myself. Going back, I shouldn't say five or six years ago, when I went through this as a similar type of exercise. And it, it made it it made life so much easier on the delivery side as well. What so you mentioned, how can I how can a consulting get started on this, to make sure that we get that stuff out of our head and onto paper? Or onto a computer or something?
Wes Wheless 17:59
Yeah, absolutely. There's a few different ways. And I'll say the spoiler first, the spoilers, you'll, you're gonna want to find about partners. But before I get to that, you can start this by yourself. And that, and you can do that by just making this a part of your everyday business. Yeah, you could go down the path of saying, okay, an hour a week I'm going to spend on IP creation. But let's be honest, you're probably going to skip that hour, the same way that I stick my reminder to myself to put my book, you've been things together. So more. So it's trying to do these things in that moment. So when you think back to your corporate life, and and maybe this is more of a product and engineering thing, but doing like retrospectives, or like even taking 30 minutes after a tough meeting and start to break down what really went wrong. And that say it was a stakeholder readout? And it really just kind of went off the rails like could you take 30 minutes and write down? Okay, who was the cast of characters? What were their objections? How could I have been included on this beforehand, start to write that stuff down, then it becomes your point of view and your notes and something documented that you can say next time I'm in the same situation, I can expect X, Y and Z. And then when when it comes to having a client conversation about this, you look very prepared and organized and well traveled so to speak, that you kind of know what's coming, because you took the time to write that down in the moment. So that that can be the start of an IEP process for you. But like I like I alluded to the MIDI data loaded I can spoil that for you, you really going to want to work with someone and I'm not just saying this because I'm a coach that does it capture every day. Yes, you can. You can hire a coach professionally to help you with this. But that's not the only option and like end of end of pitch. You can work with a peer you can find another independent consultant in your network that you can set up regular time with say it's once or twice a month and you alternate like one time you talk about your domain and some IP that you're thinking about putting together and the next time you think about there's and just kind of tossing these back and forth until you get to something that's it's pretty solid. And the last piece I want to say is you can do it with the, on your own, then iterate with the person. And then don't be afraid to go build this in public or share early drafts on LinkedIn, or, you know, with your audience. I was just saying this to someone earlier today, of all the social networks, LinkedIn, that you can say a lot of negative things about LinkedIn. But people aren't typically nasty on LinkedIn, I think because it's not anonymous. And people only leave comments when they want to be helpful. And people actually really like to be helpful when things seem to be in draft form. So go put a partial draft out on LinkedIn and say, I'm thinking about this framework and see what comments come back. And it can help you to iterate things and also start to help build an audience around the problem that you're building this IP for.
Susan Tatum 20:52
That's another thing that I want to read it reiterate what you said, Wes, because I find there are a lot of there are a lot of consultants that spent and experts that spent their careers they spent decades in a corporate environment. And it it has been somewhat beat into them. And us I mean, I was part of that at one point. But that an idea needs to be thought well thought out before you release it into the wild. And, you know, there was a time when people would spend days writing a blog article, because it had to be completely polished before it ever got posted on a website where you know, who knows how many people are, are ever going to see it. But now it's perfectly acceptable to test your ideas and to get feedback on and this is something that I that I work with clients a lot with is the getting over this fear of that people are going to judge you by how well thought out your your idea is Yeah, and I think those of us who are willing to just take the leap and say, I'm just gonna do it. What do you guys think? Isn't that how the world is working these days?
Wes Wheless 22:02
Right. Well, a couple things. One, if they're judging you, they at least know you exist, right? Instead, there's the good side a
Susan Tatum 22:10
great point.
Wes Wheless 22:11
And the other part is, if they're judging you, and hypercritical, they're probably not going to leave that, leave that on a public LinkedIn comment. And so you take it for what it is you kind of take the good and the bad there. But I think what you'll be left with is some really productive comments, and then just takes that you didn't have by yourself. And that's what you're really looking for, you're looking not just for confirmation bias, you're not looking for validation, you're actually looking for, you know, what can I do to make this better? What? What are the holes that you can poke in this framework? And it will make you better for it?
Susan Tatum 22:42
Yeah, I agree. I know there are a lot of there are a lot of experts at a very, say technical level, or the you know, the there's still there's still room for the peer review type of work that gets done. I don't mean to I don't want to, like minimize any of that. It's just that it is an opportunity to get stuff out there. And I think was one other and I don't know if I got this idea from you, or, or where but all these little sketches that I do have half baked ideas. I just started putting them in a in a book somewhere that they're, they're there and I can go back and refer to them. Is that the kind of stuff that eventually becomes part of the IP?
Wes Wheless 23:23
It certainly can I think even if you don't find yourself to be a graphic goal or visual person, I would say start to sketch it start to sketch it out. And I certainly you should see my desk or now it's full of these little index cards full of drawings, I think that draw them out, put them in a folder, start using Mira, which is just or any whiteboarding tool, you can very crassly because that those together and then you can just start playing around with it and seeing what comes of it. Also. And I meant to say this one, we're talking about working with a partner, find a designer in your network and see what they might do. They might do it for free. But you might offer to pay them and say, Hey, can we meet for an hour or two? Can I tell you some things that are on my mind, and you can start to put some visual references about them together? I think with with IP, you know, I mentioned it can take a lot of different forms, almost all of them are visual. I think consultants have been in the slide business for decades for a reason. I think that it's a very fast way to communicate insights and frameworks. And so yeah, fine to do the sketches on your own side of digitize them and they you know, whiteboarding software and then go find a designer who might help you put them together?
Susan Tatum 24:33
Well, it certainly makes sense to to have somebody that is a designer put that eye to it for how do you communicate what's in your head in a very simple way because I think simplicity is important in this kind of stuff. And then it also begins to or helps to build your brand so you have a certain style T these drawings or charts or whatever that then become associated with you and your brand and that's that's a great thing to have too.
Wes Wheless 25:00
Yeah. Well, you know, here's a quick tip for foxes I found. It's called the noun project and a an OUN project. And that's just a database of icons. And you'd be surprised the story you can tell with a handful of icons and some arrows. Because a very easy way to start. And as you said, if you look at my, my email lists, or any of the content I put on my website, a lot of it is just diagrams made with icons, and hey, it gets the conversation going, and it gets your point across. And that's, that's all you're trying to do. You're just trying to put your point of view out there, start a conversation, have it aligned with a client problem, and then it opens the door to the client work.
Susan Tatum 25:39
So you mentioned you mentioned your, your micro email that you do. And I, I want to emphasize there that I get your I get your daily, little micro saying, and they're great. They're really, really great. I, they're just like, they're very snackable. And you tell you're also a writer, aren't you? You've got a background
Wes Wheless 25:59
I do have some writing background. That's helpful.
Susan Tatum 26:04
Well, you and I were talking about stories before we hit the record button. But you're using good examples that are maybe not business related. They're, they're very memorable, and they help to get through to get the idea across. So I'm just so the listeners, I do highly recommend that you were going to tell us how to get in touch with him that you sign up for these micro daily things, I find them to be very helpful.
Wes Wheless 26:29
Thank you. If you like pop culture references or watch a lot of TV, you'll probably find something that resonates with you. I try to squeeze those in there and keep it a very yes, we're talking about consulting. And yes, we're talking about it. But you'd be surprised. Yeah, you'd be surprised the connections that are out there.
Susan Tatum 26:44
how do you how do you find those?
Wes Wheless 26:47
How do I come?
Susan Tatum 26:48
How do you find this? connections? How do you come up with those ideas?
Wes Wheless 26:51
I mean, I have a just a Trello board of ideas that come to me throughout the day, I feel like I can I could talk for an hour about writing a daily list, I did a workshop with Jonathan Stark about doing a daily email and it sounds crazy. But once you start on your once you started that kind of regimen, the ideas just kind of are always being generated in your mind. And so I just put them in a Trello board and see what's next to me every morning and put that together in a something that hopefully can be readable in a minute or less. And it's always about monetizing expertise or creating your own IP. Yeah. So yeah, it's been fun.
Susan Tatum 27:28
We're coming to the end of our time here. Is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn't?
Wes Wheless 27:35
Well, I think I talked about the so I talked about experienced insight to IP. And one thing, if you go on my, on my website, there's actually one more step of that framework. And it's it's client work. And that leads to a whole loop. And so I think that there's this, and we sort of touched about it, it's kind of gaining scale as you continue to invest in your IP, but you have experience, you turn that insight is that insight turns into IP that IP gets you client work, and that client work then feeds back into that loop. And so you continue to really enhance your own story and your own expertise by the client work that you get from this IP. So it's all this like really great cycle, and then you can continue to accelerate this then leads to and it actually is very helpful with when it comes to specialization, that if you're starting to get more and more accelerated in a particular area of your domain. It only gets better as you continue that loop. So yeah, read more about it on my website. Just kind of that extra piece that brings this all together. The main thing I wanted to get across today is absolutely that your number one tool is your intellectual property. Everything else will help you your intellectual property will help you stand out
Susan Tatum 28:52
well, it's sort of the one thing that can't be copied isn't because of that loop of yours that it represents all of those different things that that only you have experienced that way.
Wes Wheless 29:01
Yes. And only you have internalized it in the way that you have. And once you get known for that your clients will get a peek into the way that your brain works and the experience that you've had, and then that makes them more confident that they want to work with you.
Susan Tatum 29:17
Okay, cool. So how do we how do we get in touch with you?
Wes Wheless 29:20
How do we yeah, my website is yeah, my website is developed my ip.com Pretty simple. The first clickable thing you'll see on my site is the light bulb. My daily micro email, it's called the light bulb. As you can click into there and get on the list. You can also browse the archive for some of the references that we were talking about today. And then like any other consultant to coach, I am on LinkedIn. You can DM me anytime and I'll respond to any and all DMS
Susan Tatum 29:50
and it's Wes Wheless, w h e l e s s, right?
Wes Wheless 29:53
Yes.
Susan Tatum 29:54
And we'll put in the show notes, the noun project and then the whiteboard writing tool and I know you've mentioned that to me before and I've heard but it's Miro m, i, r, o
Wes Wheless 30:04
Miro, yep. Okay. There's another one called whimsical that some people use. Yeah mirros would I started using way back in the day and it's just kind of stuck. All right.
Susan Tatum 30:15
Well, thank you so much for being here and sharing so much with us. And that was that was a really I keep hearing more and more about IP and the importance of IP and capturing it and I think it's something everyone should do. So there,
Wes Wheless 30:29
I agree. Thank you so much for having me.
Susan Tatum 30:32
Have a great day Wes
Wes Wheless 30:34
All right. Take care
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