4 Deadly Mistakes Home Business Owners Must Avoid

We’re all part of a very special group, us entrepreneurs. Yet, we don’t all enjoy the same level of success. Why is that? We’d like to believe that the rich and successful have secrets that they’re keeping from us, and if only we knew them, or fortunes would be transformed!

Well, there is no magic secret. Sorry. It all has to do with discipline and following a system. With that said, there are some very common mistakes that people make in the day to day functions of their business. These mistakes doom them to a life of mediocrity. They choke the life out of the efforts. Below are four of the most common:

Not Scheduling

The apparent freedom that comes with working from home can be a double edged sword, especially if you’re just breaking free from the shackles of the corporate world. Unfortunately, whether you’re working from someone else or working for yourself, you must have a schedule. Time is the scarcest of commodities, and you must treat it as such. It is the most valuable thing you’ll ever have to manage, it is priceless.

If you allow yourself to just ‘figure it out’ each day when you wake up, you’ll never get anything done. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize this. With no scheduling and planning, you don’t know what you’re working towards and you don’t know what you’re accomplishing. Most likely, you’ll end up spending most of your time doing tasks that do nothing for the growth (money) of your business. Tasks such as filing, cleaning your workspace, bills, calling customer service for that issue that ‘has to be taken care of today’.

True, all these tasks are in some respect important. But they fall under the category of ‘Operations’. They do nothing for your bottom line, and therefore should be relegated to either someone else to do, or to a block of time where they are addressed together and quickly.

Pick a day during the week – I use Sunday evening – and every week sit down for 20 or 30 minutes and plan out that upcoming week. Based on the goals and stepping stones you have set for your business, what needs to be done this coming week to reach your 1 month goals, 3 month goal, 1 year goal? If you have this process in place, your business will run smoothly. Also take this opportunity to look at the week passed and to review it.

Not Prospecting

For most businesses, you have to prospect. Just because you’re now working at home does not mean that you do not have to associate with the outside world anymore! Quite the opposite – the very existence and success of your business depends on it!

I have my own preferred methods of prospecting, but I won’t get into that here. There are various methods to use: be it cold-calling, search engine marketing, email marketing, offline marketing, etc. You have to do your homework and pick a mix of marketing methods that will supply you with prospects. Then you have to prospect them.

You need to take the time to learn and refine your communication and prospecting skills. It is an art and skill to be able to prospect and close someone effectively. Learn this, or your business will suffer.

Momentum – Not Running Through the Finish Line

So you now have goals and schedule – great. But what do you do when you reach a goal, especially at the beginning stages of your business? You absolutely should celebrate your successes, no matter how small – but then get back to work!

Watch a race, any race. It could be swimming, running, motorcycles, or car racing. How do these people finish the race? Do they race to the finish line, or do they go full speed right through it?

Treat your business the same way. One mistake I see too many people do is celebrate and relax too much at every little sign of progress. Give yourself a pat on the back and a smile and keep going. Building momentum is so key to making things happen in business. Every time you stop, you kill any momentum you have built and you have to start over. Keep refining your goals and adding to them so there is always a next step. Don’t kill your momentum. Make sure you run through the finish line.

Marketing – Not Enough Of It!

Ah, the big one. Let’s put it very simply: If no one buys from you, you have no income. If no one knows your business exists, then no one can buy from you. If you do not market, then no one knows your business exists.

Therefore, if you do not market your business, you have no income.

Agreed?

If you don’t like marketing – start liking it. There are so many ways to do it, find a few that you enjoy and make it fun. The fact is, the majority of your time should be spent MARKETING. At least 60% of your time, if not 80% should be spent marketing.

Go through your typical day and think about what you spend time doing. How much do you spend marketing? If you’re like most people, you probably spend less then 20% of your time marketing. Therefore if you’re like most people, you’re not making any money with your business and like most people, your business will fail.

Get the word out! Find the people that already want what you have, and get in front of them. There is not a lack of ways to do this, so get out there and learn and MARKET.

Agreed? If you need ideas or you’re struggling with this, just get in touch with me and I’ll help you out – that’s not a problem. Just get out there and Market Your Business.

To Your Success

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3rd Edtion New Ground In Online Money-making Strategies

Joel Comm, the Internet Marketing guru, has developed and refined one of today’s most well-known and revolutionary industry books, ‘What Google Never Told You About: Making Money with AdSense’. In his highly sought-after third edition, fully beefed up, updated with the latest techniques and expanded to include even more money-making AdSense techniques than ever before, Comm gives us the architecture and toolbox every to-be online entrepreneur and Internet Marketer requires to truly prosper.

He begins his book with the basics, a refresher course for more experienced AdSense users and an outstanding core foundation for those just beginning. He speaks clearly and understandably, avoiding highly technical jargon and defining terms in the books comprehensive glossary. He explores techniques anyone can use to launch an unlimited stream of cash with no money down, no experience, no inventory and minimal time investment.

Readers acquire a thorough understanding of website development, profitable domain naming, web hosting, content creation and search engine optimization. In his book, Comm also demystifies the lucrative world of blogging and how anyone can use this new medium to make money working from their home, office or abroad. He explains, in easy to understand language, the secrets to profits, what makes some websites sell and others falter right down to fine details like the colors and link locations on a page.

In addition to offering guidance on what you should do, Comm also explores frequent pitfalls and mistakes both new AdSense users and seasoned professionals need to know. He discloses the biggest (and often costly) mistakes AdSense publishers fall into, along with practical ways to avoid them. His techniques, followed step-by-step, can help anyone earn significant advertising revenue online.

Comm leaves some of the most powerful information geared toward established AdSense Internet Marketers for his chapter on troubleshooting. This chapter dispels the myths and sheds light on common obstacles faced in ad publishing. Through years of experience, Comm is able to rectify why publishers might be getting low revenues, traffic levels, clickthrough rates and click prices. He shows why too many public service ads may be running through your ad stream and why ads may have a low relevance to your page. Each chapter, page and lesson is powerful as a whole or individually as a reference.

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3 Traits Of Quality Seo Web Design

When it comes to web design, there are so amazing designers out there.  Most web designers are very creative and have a strong artistic background.  They are able to use their artistic talents to create layouts that are guaranteed to catch the eye of your visitors.  Unfortunately, there is one major thing that most web designers are missing.  The majority of web designers are not familiar with the concepts and implementation of search engine optimization techniques.  Even if a web designer has at least some basic know

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3 Tips For Writing A Great Resume

In most job interview situations, your resume will provide your potential employer with his or her first impression of you.  If your resume makes a good first impression, you will move on to the next step in the hiring process.  If not, your resume will likely be filed and you will never have the opportunity to progress to an actual interview.  For this reason, it is essential that you take the time to create a resume that will make the first impression you need it to make.

Stay Clear and Concise

Before you even start writing your resume, you need to be clear on what your objectives are.  This means having a solid idea of the type of job that you want and the types of skills needed to obtain that job.  By having a clear idea of the job you are hoping to get, you can structure the rest of your resume around this objective.

When actually creating your resume, be clear about your objectives as well as the talents you can offer to the company.  Don’t go into a great amount of detail about these talents – you can do that at your interview.  Rather, provide the potential employer with a brief overview.  Creating bulleted lists with short sentences is generally the best way to go.  Remember, your potential employer will be scanning over dozens of resumes.  Make it easy for him or her to read the highlights of what you offer to the company.

Use Action Words

Your resume should also contain action words such as monitored, managed, prepared, and developed.  Not only will this help your resume stand out, it will also make it more likely to be picked out by the computerized resume scanners many companies are now using.  With these scanners, the hiring manager inputs certain words that relate to the position and the computer searches for these words on the resume.  If there are no matches, you resume will be overlooked.

Do Your Homework

You may very well have a number of skills and talents, but not all of them are necessarily valuable to the company.  Do your homework so you are aware of what the company does and what it is looking for in the person it is hiring.  Be sure to highlight these strengths in your resume in order to match the needs of the company.

By following these simple tips, you will be more likely to get an interview.  From here, it is up to you to “sell” yourself to a potential employer.

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3 Tip If You Just Have A Web Site

No One Can See it

The otherwise largest instrument to your deprivation of on track Internet Marketing is the customary milestone that no one has empitic your site.

So profuse companies spend lank sums of leverage on really supposition out marketing plans for routine advertising venues identical as: print, radio, television, operate mail, telemarketing, and tradeshows secluded to shy up a website as an after thought with no clear goals or clear internet marketing strategy of how to make it one of the most productive and cost efficient marketing tools available today.

Online Web Presence Issue #1

No Plan of action, No Budget – Assuming your website cede relinquish itself by itself – applicable constitution it and they cede come.

Once your website is launched with shopping cart, select photos and mismatched bells and whistles, you should have under consideration traffic and lots of sales. Right? In your dreams and fantasies. The strikingly biggest incident bantam and rib businesses motivate is bossy that right because their business is live on the web, they don’t need to fund an online marketing budget or execute a strategic, integrated marketing & business development plan. With over 7.5 billion web pages worldwide, and with tens and hundreds of thousands (frequently, millions) of web addresses returned for most terms entered into search engines by online prospects, finding a tiny pin in a huge haystack would be easy compared to finding your site on the Internet. Your sales will be limited to present customers who are loyal enough to type in your web address, but you’ll be invisible to the rest of the world.

Online Marketing Tip #1

Develop and appliance a planned internet marketing plan, thorough with variegated
components and mutually instrumental of your general activity marketing and advertising.

Fund a memento distribute reflecting the vicinity of sales you hunger to effect and the characteristics of your products. For example, a sky-scraping modern matter wad in that $75,000 per month in various elements of it’s online marketing strategy to drive its annual online sales of several million dollars. A target of $400,000+ in annual Internet based sales might require $2,000 to $5,000 or more monthly in online marketing.

Online Web Presence Issue #2

Most websites are typically designed, built and deployed without transform to how they bequeath be viewed by question engines and without planned regulation around how they leave be advertised and promoted online. Their study is usually a racket of owner or designer preferences in graphics, text and format, without constant regard to incorporating important principles of online selling effectiveness or search engine optimization. As a result, they fail to entice shoppers to stop and buy, and don’t attract significant volumes of qualified traffic.

Online Marketing Tip #2

Your website should be designed from the prelude with marketing integration “ROI” Focus in mind. It needs to be created as “spider-friendly” and optimized for search. http://www.SEOhoustonWEB.com deploys a SEO / SEM Formula which is a proven and a high-powered road to magnetic website satisfied for SEO friendly interlacing sites that leave blitzkrieg sophic traffic to your site with a right mix of internet marketing strategies.

Online Web Presence Issue #3

Working with amateurs — Cutting Corners to Save Money – Quick-n-dirty Template Site

So now, you requirement to retain supremacy with your net concrete by domicile and/or marketing your website yourself, or having your brother-in-law or a special inexpensive part-time or polished prodigious cut web-site firm does it for you? A cheap website hosting service will be fine, won’t it? Internet marketing, beginning with the initial website design, needs to be handled by expert professionals with a substantial track record of past successful experience.

Online Marketing Tip #3

If you’re solid about setup your life by expanding your propitious eCommerce operations, pipeline with a contingent of professionals who in fact differentiate what they’re doing. There is no additional competitive plan environment than Internet sales. It is neither quick nor easy. You won’t win in the professional & competitive markets by hiring a team of well-intended amateurs, particularly if the team captain is yourself. This doesn’t mean having to spend lots of money but it does mean doing your homework and identifying cost effective, highly experienced SEO professionals with expertise in online marketing strategies.

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3 Steps To Track Your Product Buyers – Find Out What They Do On Your Website

When you are developing or designing a website you have to imagine to a certain extent how it will be used and what will attract the right kind of visitors to this site. Once the site is up and running the best way to test your theories or to find out where you can make improvements is to have hard data that you can analyze.

There are various ways of gathering information on people who visit your site. You can ask for personal information if the user wants to register but there is no guarantee that the information will be correct and not every visitor will register if they are not required to. The best way to get a definitive and accurate set of data is through visitor tracking. Each visitor to your site however has a web log that can provide very specific and relatively accurate information on everyone that lands on any page of a site.

Web tracking is non invasive since there is no personal information available through the web log. A java script is attached to each page that you want to track and when a visitor opens that page it is used to collect the information from their browser. Most users’ internet preferences will allow this and also allow a cookie to be stored so that they have a unique tracking history. Statistical analysis can then be done either on individual behavior or behaviors can be grouped into certain actions.

The kinds of information that are usually available from a web log are:

• Geographic location or domain
• How the site was reached; from which directory or site they linked through
• Date, time and duration of visit and how often unique visitors returned
• Which page they landed on first and how they navigated from there
• Keywords used in directory searches and site searches
• The users browser and operating system
• Which visitor made a purchase
• At what point did those who initiated a purchase give up before the sale was completed

Other information is available such as the presence of click robots or HTTP errors and the data gather can be interpreted using web log analysis software. This will generate either a tabled list or graphic information that can be used for the following:

• Understanding where your visitors are from and what markets you can accommodate more efficiently
• Establishing peak visiting hours and capacity levels
• Seeing which content and features receive the most attention and what is ignored

This kind of information can also be critical in making improvements that will make a site easier to use more relevant and will drive traffic to and through the most relevant pages. It will show you clearly:

• What keywords are most effective
• Where improvements can be made to the functionality and user friendly ness of the site in order to increase sales
• Which marketing campaigns and directories deliver the best results

Apart from discovering which links are the most valuable to your business the nature of the sights which feed into yours can also give you a lot of other information on your visitors such as their interests and you can even abstract a certain amount of personal information from the other sights that they visit.

Visitor and sales tracking has become and integral part of CRM (customer relations management and helps to determine ROI (return on investment). It can also be used to supplement other forms of interactive information gathering such as blog pages. Although there is no way to link the statistics to information gathered on user forums you can get an idea of how and when they are being used or whether they are being underutilized. Indirectly it can also be used to develop social media marketing.

Affiliate sales tracking software has a slightly different objective and creates more of a two way relationship between affiliates and traders. A different kind of software is required but there are some similarities to ordinary sales tracking. The main difference is that you are not tracking visitors but analyzing the performance of other sights. There are also more functional tools that can be used such as automatically generated e-mails, sales reports and commissions.

If you have a website from which you conduct or facilitate your business activities then the best way to ensure the success of your business is to ensure that your website does not hinder the function of your business in any way. As the web is a constantly evolving environment, it is almost ensured that no site will be created perfectly or in a way that will not need to be changed over time. Without viable information on how your current model is operating you have very little idea of where you can make improvements. In this regard it makes no sense to run any website for a profit if you do not intend to track sales and visitors.

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3 Steps To Selecting And Using The Right Keywords For Your Site

Keywords play a great role in how popular (or unpopular) your website is in the internet. Here are three steps for using and picking keywords for internet marketing purposes.

Your website traffic is your business’ lifeblood. It is therefore of great importance that you employ all possible measures in order to increase your website traffic. One way to increase traffic is through search engine optimization or SEO.

The key to SEO is to select the right keywords that would drive targeted traffic to your website. The idea is to get visitors who are more likely to be persuaded to become your customers. Therefore, it is very important that you find the right keywords in order to get your target or your niche market.

Search engines are practically driven by millions of keywords, so there is a great need for you to find only the relevant keywords that you would need to make your site relevant to your intended audience. Here are some important points that you have to consider in determining the keywords that would get you noticed by your niche market.

Step 1: Study the competition

Is there a room for more? There is a need for you determine if your niche has a room for another competitor and another website. A particular niche may be saturated with too many websites and businesses endorsing their products that, inadvertently, you would always rank poorly in search engines queries.

Studying your competition and your niche size is very important in order to find the right keywords. Unless you are running a well-established website or blog, you should avoid keywords with high rate of search. Most likely, these keywords are used by a great number of your competitors. It will be very difficult for you to rank high in search results.

You should, therefore, carefully examine and study your keywords before anything else. This is very important because your keywords would determine your success in your marketing campaign.

If you find that your niche is indeed saturated, your option is to use more specific keywords. You must avoid general keywords, and instead, break the general keywords down. The goal is to choose keywords that have a minimal amount of competition.

Step 2: Research your keywords

Determine the characteristics of your keywords for your niche. The goal is to find the most pertinent keywords – pertinent to your business and your niche. This is extremely important in order to get your target market.

If your keywords are relevant to your market, chances are high that by optimizing your site for these keywords (through SEO), your niche will find your website and search engines will credit your website with higher ranking.

However, let me reiterate once more that it is also important that you find keywords that are innovative and unique, which would make your website stand out from all other similar websites.

Step 3: Take time in selecting your keywords

Your keywords are crucial to the success of your website. You should take time to consider and select the keywords that you should use in order to optimize for the search engines.

Check and test keywords using search engines. Google’s keyword tool is particularly helpful in checking out the competition for keywords. You will get an idea on what keywords are oversaturated, and what keywords will possibly help your website stand out and rank higher in search engine queries.

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3 Steps For An Effective Website Promotion Campaign

Driving traffic to your website and promoting it is not easy. There are millions of websites in the internet and chances are about a hundred or a hundred thousand of those could be your competitors. Therefore, it is important that you heed these 3 steps for an effective website promotion.

It is imperative that your website should be found in almost every search engine results, social networking websites, and broadcasting websites. You have to understand that the internet’s attraction springs from the fact that it has everything. A person would only have to key in words or phrases and he would have access to any information that he wants to have.

With the internet, one doesn’t have to wait for the news on the tube to get the latest weather report. One need not open a cookbook to get a recipe. Because of this inherent usefulness of the internet, the number of internet users has rapidly grown and expanded. With this growth in the number of internet users, however, came an equally rapid increase in the number of businesses jockeying for the internet market’s attention and patronage.

— The Importance of Web Traffic —

You need to bring your customers attention to your website if you want your business to thrive. There are no ifs and buts about it. Your e-business can survive only if your website is generating traffic. Traffic means potential customers. Your website’s traffic is the lifeblood of your business.

Your website should be accessible to your intended consumers. This is a way for you to obtain a high percentage of the market size. It is very important, therefore, to promote your site so that more potential customers will be drawn to it. There are many ways to promote your website and a mixture of methods would be more advisable. Here are the steps for an effective web promotion.

Step 1: You should have a promotion budget

When you are trying to launch a web promotion campaign, you should have a budget, no matter how stringent. With online advertising though, you can use a lot of methods without spending thousands of dollars in advertising expenses.

Utilize free forms of online advertisements. Do not spend money on anything that could be done for free. Instead, channel your funds to your website improvement, for web-based applications and other natural internet marketing expenses. Pay for advertisements on parts of your websites that are not accessible to non-members. Do not advertise for the part of your website that people can get free access to.

Step 2: Employ website promotion strategies

You should use all possible promotional strategies available to you. You should promote your website to an existing market. Be consistent in promoting your website. Let your market know that your website exists. Make sure that you are promoting your website to your target market.

What is the point of advertising for different shades of lip gloss if your website is getting more hits from men? Concentrate on generating targeted traffic. Every thing you do must be aimed at generating more traffic for your website, so it is best if you would utilize the services offered by popular web promotion brands.

Step 3: Use different methods of promotion

You should use different methods of promoting your website. Write articles that you could post in your website or you could submit in other websites. Informative articles that are useful to people would arouse people’s curiosity and interest. Make sure that you optimize your site for the search engines. Create blog posts using words or phrases that people would usually key in search engines when looking for something. Build your network through social networking sites.

There are a lot of methods that you can use. The idea is to use multiple methods and to use them well.

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3 Simple Ways To Jumpstart Your Home Business

Are you a victim of time-impoverishment just as one is cash-strapped? Then an online business opportunity is an easy solution to help you balance your personal life and make some fast money!! An online business opportunity not only offers great growth prospects but also has no time restraints. So how does one get started?

Few guiding steps follow:

- Make sure that you are geared with the right tools to run the business on your mind. First requirement is a good computer. Computers today come in numerous configurations: laptops, desktops, media centers, business machines; but what is to be kept in mind are speed of the computers, storage capacity, portability etc. consult a technician to get the machine that best suits your needs.

- Next you need a work-space, depending on what you are most comfortable in. Furniture, telephones, printers, general office supplies are few of the basic requirements.

- Next on list is high-speed Internet connection. Online business demands good deal of time spent online doing basic research. For that if you have to wait for eons, it can be quite putting off.

Once through with the settings, you need to go about doing some research to find a great online business opportunity. Countless websites offer scores of online business opportunities.

Some things that are to be kept in mind include, availability of ample marketing support in terms of site promotion. A complete back office system with a strong customer support where one can view his stats. Do not collaborate with a company that does not have a strong customer support. The choice of the right ‘sponsor’ is of utmost importance. He should be available to help you expand your online business. Ask him certain basic questions like:

“how long have you been with the said company?”, “what is it unique about you that others won’t offer?”, “how much do I need to spend for marketing?”, “what has been your success rate” etc.
Be careful & attentive while these questions are answered and go ahead only if you think the person is making genuine claims.
It is true that one does want to get off to a good start, but one should never be hasty. Weigh your options, be thorough and meticulous with your pursuits and your online business would be a success indeed!

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3 Simple Steps To Building An Affiliate Empire

If you have your own product or service on the Internet today then you will know that the way to explode your profits is to have your very own, successful affiliate program.  The problem is that most people do not have their program set up in the right way resulting in low traffic counts and therefore poor sales from their affiliates.

In this article I am going to outline some tricks and strategies that anyone with their own affiliate program should use in order to take their online business to the next level.

Encourage People To Sign Up

This is where most people start to go wrong.  They set up an affiliate program, stick up a link that says “click here to sign up” and leave it at that.  You need to sell your affiliate program. After all there is an incredible amount of competition out there.

Have a mini sales letter that explains the benefits to people signing up.  Tell them their commissions and how they can earn an income without having to worry about creating a product or having a website but from promoting your products instead.

Provide Affiliates With Marketing Materials

Here’s another big one. Site owners get people to sign up their affiliate program and then just leave them to it. It’s like they’re saying “thanks for signing up, now go and make me some cash”. That’s ridiculous.  To start earning the big bucks, you need to do all the hard work for your affiliates.  If you don’t, somebody else will.

Provide your affiliate with email promotions, articles, press releases, pay per click ads, banner adverts and whatever else you can create that will enable people to promote your site to the masses with as little work as possible.

Here’s the thing. You could write an article and submit it to article directories all over the Internet and do very well for yourself. However if you just had one hundred affiliates blasting that article all over the net you’ve just multiplied your marketing power by one hundred. This is the key to making massive mounts online.

If you can’t write articles etc yourself hire someone to do so from www.elance.com but do provide your affiliates with marketing materials or your just setting yourself up for having a very mediocre Internet business

Have An Affiliate Only Newsletter

Here’s a real cracker. Have an email list of only your affiliates. Each week send out a mini blueprint on how they can market your products and earn a commission. Inform them of new products you’ve just launched or new marketing materials you’ve just added to your affiliates area.

Another great method you can use with this is to have a weekly completion. Each week your affiliate who earns the most gets an extra one hundred dollars or whatever you can afford. Mention the winner in each week’s newsletter and say things like “who thinks they can overtake Joe Bloggs as being my top affiliate? Come on guys I know I’ve got some great marketers signed up as my affiliates prove it and I’ll mention you in next weeks newsletter”.

This is great. Psychologically you are motivating your affiliates to promote your products like crazy to get recognition as being your “top gun”. Often ego trips are just as motivating as money.

Motivate Your Affiliates And Explode Your Profits

In this article I’ve been taking about what you need to do in order to earn a serious living online through having your own affiliate program. Done properly this could earn you more money than you could ever have dreamed of. The methods in this article outline what you need to do to in order to overcome the three barriers of starting an affiliate program

You need to:

Persuade people to sign up

Make it easy for them to market

Motivate them to market fast and market hard.

Do these three things and you will be able to create a massively successful affiliate program and you will sell buckets of your products, and build a huge list without any real hard work or costs.

Take my word on this; if you implement these simple strategies today then you will see a marked improvement in both your affiliate sign ups and your affiliates marketing efforts.  Go on. Give it a go!

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