Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / The Critical Balance: Leveraging AI while building real world connections with Domenic Maiani

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The Critical Balance: Leveraging AI while building real world connections with Domenic Maiani · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Foreign.
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  Dave Goulis, Beyond Fulfillment here at Manifest with another special guest, Dominic Miani.
• 0:12
  How are you?
• 0:13
  Hey.
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  Doing fantastic, Dominic, how about you?
• 0:15
  Great, great show so far.
• 0:17
  Yeah.
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  So Dominic, here at Manifest, what would you say the vibe is?
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  It's high energy.
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  I'd say there's a lot of AI, automation, robotics talk.
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  As you know, you see it everywhere, every, every sign sponsor.
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  It's, it's a great event.
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  A lot of networking going on here.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  I did a post earlier today, just talking about like, for me the best part about this event is just the, the quality of the conversations.
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  And like you can't have these conversations anywhere else where you're meeting people, you're at events, you're having dinner together and you get to talk about real issues, real problems and get to know people on a more personal level.
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  And the results of some of those conversations to me is like the true gold of an event like this.
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  I would agree.
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  One of my best meetings was yesterday and I was just sitting down having dinner, had meetings stacked all day, right.
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  And I'm sitting down having dinner, three private equity guys next to me.
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  Then I got the CEO of Weber Logistics.
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  We had a great conversation and talking about talent.
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  What does that next generation talent look like?
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  What does he need to keep an eye out for, especially with all the buzzwords and AI, what does he need?
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  Right.
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  So we were going, walking them through that and we just decided that now we're going to dive deeper into it next week.
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  So.
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  Okay, just conversations like that, can't do that over the phone unless you meet somebody in person here.
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  Absolutely, absolutely.
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  So Dominic, you are the founder of Lazio Search Group.
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  So you are a recruiting firm and you specialize in sales and C level execs within software and logistics.
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  So 2026, there's a lot of optimism around this industry.
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  There's a lot of growth projected.
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  Everyone's really amped up.
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  And in terms of what companies are looking for from their sales team, what would you say is, is most important for the enterprise reps?
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  Key relationships but also learning how to leverage AI.
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  Because the studies done by Salesforce, 65% of sales reps spend their time researching the company, find the contact information, where you know, if they can come to the table with that skill set and upskilling with AI, they're going
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  to be more valuable, just not only for themselves to make more money, but to that company.
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  Right.
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  And a lot of AI will what's going to replace a lot of people, there's going to be new job openings that open up with that.
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  And I always tell all these university kids I speak with, if you learn how to leverage AI, learn how to 5 and 10x your output, whatever your mission is.
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  Right.
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  So if you're in sales, learn how to.
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  How can I be 10x more effective at work on a daily basis?
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  And so you're in the trenches every single day having these hiring conversations within the market.
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  Like right now, what percentage of let's say candidates are truly like truly have that that down to like a competent level in terms of leveraging the AI the way they could be?
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  Not many right now.
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  So I'm having the round table calls with them and I'm showing them new tools.
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  Here's how to be more effective in your day to day and just having those calls with them, showing them.
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  I share a lot of stuff on LinkedIn but like tools like N8N clay and then using APIs from the different LLM models.
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  Right.
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  If you can learn how to do that, add that skill to your sales palette, whatever methodology you run it, you're going to be 10x everybody else out here right now, especially in the smart world.
• 3:35
  Yeah, absolutely.
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  And that's something I have a bunch of teenagers at home and I'm always encourage them, encouraging them to use AI, to learn AI, to get comfortable with it, to play around with it, to understand it.
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  Right.
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  And that's something, I don't think the school system is doing a good enough job in terms of teaching that they are really trying to like go the other way.
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  Like don't use it.
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  And I don't, I don't think that's the right way.
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  The world's heading to AI and how do you.
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  If my kids are 6, 5 and 2, my 6 and 5 year old are already using Nano Banana to create images.
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  Like create me a poke rare Pokemon.
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  Right.
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  Like learning how to do that.
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  And even the teacher asked me, she knows I'm deep in AI.
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  She goes when should I start implement?
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  This is a private school, right.
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  She goes, when should we start implementing it?
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  I go, I'm doing it right now at home because I know where the world's heading, I'm deep in AI.
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  See where it's, you know what the use cases are, everybody's going to be using.
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  So you gotta learn how to use it whether it's now or later.
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  But you still need to get that.
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  I think where most kids are feeling right now is this like they have my conversations.
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  Shaking your hand, looking you're in the eyes, right.
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  Like the social skills have gone Down.
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  I see it when you're at events or anything.
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  Fifteen teenagers sitting around, they're all on their phone not talking to each other.
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  It's sad, but those that come out with the social skills will be very effective in the market.
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  If your business is an E commerce brand, this message is for you.
• 5:02
  Logistics can make or break you.
• 5:05
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• 5:13
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• 5:21
  We offer warehousing, fulfillment and transportation with a focus on personalized service and flexibility.
• 5:29
  Our central Kentucky location gives you nationwide reach, turning logistics into a competitive advantage.
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  So if you're ready to partner with a 3PL that actually gets your brand, visit EasyDC3PL.com yeah, yeah, I agree there's a, there's a term for that.
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  I'd heard about that because they talked about how kids when they grow up in the digital age with too much screen time where they have anxiety about even like having like personal conversations or making phone calls and setting
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  appointments.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  So always important to get out to events like this and actually collaborate with real people, have real conversations because that's it's, it's still.
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  The human touch is never going to go away.
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  Never going to go away.
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  I brought one of my 19 year old AI wizard from Denmark and he realized how important it is to come here and have these fence.
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  And he's a shy guy, right?
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  He doesn't, he's an introvert.
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  He doesn't want to go like I can go talk to anybody.
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  He on the other hand, you know, he's hiding in the corner.
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  I go no, it's wise, get out there, start meeting people, start having those conversations because you never know that will lead to.
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  Right.
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  Build up your network.
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  Even if you can provide them any.
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  Whatever value you can provide in any conversation is going to be huge.
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  Especially at an event like this.
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  Yeah, 100%.
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  All right.
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  So within logistics and within kind of your segment of the market where you really see with this enterprise software and, and, and that, that section of it, what, what do you see as upcoming Trends for, for 2026?
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  Obviously AI is a big play, right.
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  But I think a lot of people are going to realize that they can create their own software now and come in and they're going to, some of these people are going to leave these companies and create their own
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  software tools and come in and Undercut those big, you know, like for example, a company like Blue Yonder, how much is it for the software, the implementation?
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  When you got people that can now create with the, that's available in these tools, you can create a wms, you know, within a week.
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  You know, I, I've created my own CRM, my own ATS system contracting system.
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  So I know what's possible.
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  And I think we're seeing a lot of change there.
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  A lot of companies that are going to be rolled up depends on what area they're in the market.
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  Seeing that right now we're on the lookout for a couple of PE firms and M and A.
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  So I don't know where it's at and we'll still see with AI.
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  But I know a lot of companies are slow to hire right now because the new job titles that I'm telling them personally keep an eye out for this type of talent.
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  You don't even know you're going to need this type of role yet, but you will.
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  And I had two clients listen right away, and there was a game changer for them and most of them are here.
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  I'd say 75% of my clients are at this event right now.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  And then speaking too, of like the clients you deal with, because the hiring market, right, there's always, you know, you have the, the candidates and obviously the company's hiring and there's always this dance between what each person wants.
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  What would you say in terms of like the companies you dealing.
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  Dealing with?
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  What would you say is maybe the biggest thing they're getting wrong right now in terms of the way they're treating candidates?
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  It's very bad what's happened in the market.
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  I have a list of probably 250 people that are applying for jobs.
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  They're going through six, seven interviews only to get ghosted.
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  And the company still have to remember these are humans, right?
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  Like they're going to remember that and have a bad rep.
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  You're going to have a bad reputation.
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  So at least if you're going to pass on them, pass on them.
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  Some reject, you know, rejection letter, something, or give them a call, say, hey, right now we're just going to go with somebody else.
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  But they are completely ghosting.
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  And I'm talking about executive level candidates too.
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  It doesn't matter what level you are, it's just the right thing to do.
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  There's a lot of novelist things.
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  People are freaking out.
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  It's a bad market for a lot of people right now.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  And I mean that's just.
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  It sounds so basic, right?
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  Like just doing the right thing and treating people right and letting them know where they stand.
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  But clearly too many people don't do it right now.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  So.
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  And again, what a way to differentiate yourself is just, hey, do the right thing and remember, that's a human.
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  And you never know if you're on that side.
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  You want somebody to respond to you.
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  Yeah, of course.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  So, Dominic, if people are seeing this and they want to learn more about Lazio Search Group, and maybe companies need talent, particularly in sales, which, you know, I find good salespeople are never going to go out of style
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  and never going to be out of demand.
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  Right.
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  So.
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  And you're clearly in touch with that segment of the market.
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  So if people want to learn more about what you do and get in touch with you, what's the best way people could find you online?
• 10:09
  You go to.
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  On LinkedIn.
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  I'm always on LinkedIn, so that's the best way.
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  But check out last year search.com connect with me on LinkedIn.
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  Okay.
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  And we'll put all your info in the.
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  In the show notes.
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  So.
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  All right.
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  Always great seeing you, Dominic.
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  Thank you so much.
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  All right.