$25,000 Monthly Revenue within 9 Months of launch with a Account Based Marketing (ABM) Consulting

Hey Guys, Vedant here. Today’s Interview is with Kinan Aloch of midan consulting group a account based marketing(ABM) consulting firm

Stats

Company : Midan consulting Group

Product: Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Consulting

Revenue MRR: 25K as of March 2024

Launched in: June 2023

Founder : Kinan Alhoch

Location: Chicago USA

Employees : 3

Hi there! Could you introduce yourself and tell us about the business you've launched?

Hey, I’m Kinan Alhoch and started Midan Consulting Group, a consulting practice specializing in Account-based Marketing Consulting and Fractional CMO services.

What’s your back story and how did you come up with this idea? 

I’m a former tech Marketing Executive and an expert in Account-based marketing. I came up with the idea for Midan when I was looking to hire another marketing manager for my team. I kept running into an issue where candidates would have “Account-based Marketing” on their resume (CV) but if I asked them the most basic question about ABM they couldn’t answer me. After literally 7-8 candidates I realized I was seeing a pattern and there must be a market need for ABM expertise. I did some research that confirmed my hunch and that was how Midan Consulting Group was born.

Guide us through the journey of conceptualizing, crafting, and producing your first product?

My product is service-based so I had to come up with the types of deliverables clients want/need. I thought about what I would want from an ABM consultant as a marketing leader and the first thing I would want is a structured ABM plan. I tested the idea with other marketing leaders in my network and received a positive consensus. 

The framework I use to deliver ABM plans is the Outcome-Focused Framework (OFF). I developed it years ago to deliver more streamlined and effective marketing programs and I credit it for a lot of my career success. There are hundreds of moving parts to OFF but the basic mechanics is dividing a marketing plan into 4 parts: 1 – Define the objective. 2 – Develop the strategy. 3 – Plan the Tactics. 4 – Measure the results.

Next, I had to figure out how to deliver the ABM plan. I didn’t want to use pdf’s and docs. Firstly because that’s what every consultant does and I wanted the deliverable to be more interactive for a better client experience. Secondly, we live in 2023 (at the time) and countless technologies could help me deliver a better experience for my clients so PDFs felt outdated. I tested dozens of tools and eventually landed on one (Gamma) that I liked, was easy to use, and had at least 90% of the features I was looking for. 

Now I had my first service product and deliverable.

Describe the process of launching the process.

First I had to come up with the branding: company name and messaging. I landed on Midan as an homage to my late father who was also an entrepreneur. It’s the neighborhood he grew up in Damascus, Syria, where he was born.   

Once I had the branding and messaging, I put up a simple website describing my services. It’s expanded since but it started life as a single page because I wanted something quick and clean. Check it out at midanconsulting.com. 

Next, being a marketer, I of course developed an ABM plan for myself so I could execute it. This served as both a marketing plan and a proof of concept for my service. 

Finally, I sourced the suite of tools I needed to execute my ABM plan starting with a CRM (Hubspot), intelligence (Apollo), outreach (Google Workspace), and of course Gamma for my deliverables. 

Finally, I came up with a pricing model for my services. It’s changed significantly in 2024 but at the time I used the average cost of a marketing consultant as the basis for it. 

Since launch what has worked to attract and retain customers?

Once everything was in place, I built my target account list and started my outreach. Starting out I had 2 channels for outreach, first like with most entrepreneurs, I started with my network. That landed my first few clients pretty quickly. My second channel was strategic cold emails. That took a few months to yield results because it required a lot of trial and error before I found what worked. But now it’s my biggest pipeline generator. 

To retain my clients I had to build strong relationships with them. This required three things on my end: First is delivering results consistently because without results I don’t have a service. Second, tailoring my services and plans, I have never delivered the same proposal or ABM plan to more than one client. Third, I invest a lot of time training and educating my clients on ABM foundational knowledge so that they understand what we’re doing at a deeper level. 

How are your doing today and what does the future look like?

It hasn’t even been a year and I’m happy to say that we’re growing. We got our first office space and I brought on my first two employees.  I’ve added new services that have a market need like fractional CMO. And I’m developing a digitized version of the training I provide clients as a stand-alone product to certify future Account-based marketers. I’m looking to launch that by the end of Q2 this year. 

We’re also in the preliminary planning stages of an analytics SAAS tool that I won’t talk about now but will be a game-changer when we launch it.  

Through starting the business have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

I’m learning all the time, one particular thing I’ve learned is how to be a better salesperson. I’m a marketer so I’ve never really been on the front lines of a sales process. It’s a skill I’ve had to (and continue to) develop to close my clients.  

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Here’s a full list of all the tech I use currently: 

  1. Hubspot – CRM

  2. Apollo – Intelligence and Cold Emails

  3. Gamma – Deliverables and presentations

  4. Canva – Maintaining brand and design

  5. Quickbooks – Accounting

  6. Motion – Calendar and project management

  7. DocuSign – Contracts

  8. Zoom – Meetings

  9. Slack – Instant communications access for my clients

  10. Sendgrid – Email API

  11. EasyDMARC – Managing email domain health

What have been the most influential book, podcasts or other resources?

I like books that give me practical advice, I’ve read books that spew inspirational nonsense and find them useless. Here are a few books that helped me along the way. 

Books: 

  • Million Dollar Consulting – Alan Weiss – helped me understand how to run a consulting practice, structure contracts, build pricing models, and value myself and my time as a consultant.  

  • Stories that Stick – Kindra Hall – helped me understand how to tell better stories to build a brand, make more sales, or build relationships with clients. 

  • Zero to One – Peter Their, Blake Masters – drove home the importance of establishing a niche. Marketing Consultants are a dime a dozen, ABM consultants are rare. Real ABM experts are practically non-existent. 

  • The 4-Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss – unfortunately I am nowhere near working only 4 hours every week but this book helped me understand the value of automation and delegation to run my business. 

 Youtube: 

  • Starter Stories – I’ve discovered several tools that I currently use through this channel because they always ask their interviewees about them. I also like to hear how companies got started and their different processes. They also have a newsletter and website that I check out regularly.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started ?

It’s a cliche but it is great advice for inherent perfectionists like me. Perfect is the enemy of good. You don’t need the perfect brand, perfect website, perfect product, or perfect anything to get started. Nothing will ever be perfect. Get going and then get comfortable with improving as you go. 

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