CD Consulting
- Founded in 2022
- Operates in Royal Oak, Michigan
CD Consulting works with contractors and construction companies to optimize logistics, identify their ideal customers, and streamline operations. Their expertise lies in helping clients modernize their workflows, properly research their market, and turn data into insights that help them make the best decisions.
Chris Diroll
Founder and Chief Consultant
Chris Diroll founded CD Consulting after working in the construction industry for over 12 years. He’s worked as a Marketing Analyst, a Sales Engineer, and Head of Sales and Operations at a family roofing business before becoming a consultant.
His mission:
- Use location intelligence to research potential markets.
- Assist clients in directing their business strategy.
- Find ways to streamline and optimize operations.
- Help clients reduce costs while increasing revenue.
- Working through a client’s existing customer base to find their ideal customer and how to make them more profitable.
The challenge
In construction, every process is literally full of moving parts. That means a lot of opportunities for increased costs that eat away at profit margins. Chris initially found Smappen when looking for a way to calculate drive times for a roofing company’s employees as a way of prioritizing zones for sales efforts, but quickly realized it could do more — it could be his one-stop shop for all his location intelligence needs.
“I first went looking for Smappen when working in roofing and trying to analyze ways we could be smarter about the customers we’re going for and attracting. Even with everything else that’s out there, it’s impossible to find a tool that looks decent; they all look like they’re from Windows 95.”
The solution
Visualizing data in a way everyone can understand
The construction industry is full of dedicated tools that are great for some things, but struggle to represent data in an easy-to-understand way. A key selling point in Smappen for Chris was how simply it can represent even the most complex data, creating visualizations that all his clients can benefit from.
“A lot of people get turned off by graphs, but when you just show them a heatmap and tell them red is good, they can tell you what they know about those areas.”
Combining customer data with demographic information
One of CD Consulting’s key roles is working through a client’s customer data to help them identify their ideal customers and bring in more of them. With Smappen, he can pair demographic data with a client’s customer database to research potential markets and tell clients where they should focus their marketing efforts.
“Most contractors I’ve talked to can close their eyes and see a map of everything in their territory. Smappen helps them see what’s actually there through data, draw conclusions, and get more clarity on their territories.”
Knowing more about their own backyard
Most contractors and construction firms already have a pretty solid understanding of their target market. But the problem is that knowledge is hard-won through experience, which makes it difficult to communicate or use in business strategy. With Smappen, Chris can use location intelligence to help his clients translate their experience into hard data.
“By playing around with demographic data in Smappen, I could confirm things contractors would see throughout the neighborhoods they visit and help them think about those territories a little differently.”
The results
- Extensive built-in data that can be coming with imported data from a client’s own database.
- Color-coded catchment areas that are easily shareable.
- Customer data can now be visualized through a map, creating more useful insights.
- All-in-one location intelligence tool.
- Data-driven decisions for every aspect of business strategy.
“I was initially looking for drive time maps, and everything else looked really old. Smappen stands out because of its usability and its functionality. It’s a lot easier to start with and it just looks so much cleaner than the competition.”
Smappen according to Chris
“Smappen is a tool that makes it easy to examine territories you’re familiar with but see them represented in ways that help spur ideas you might not have thought of before. It really helps you see important data represented in a visual way and extract the information you want."
Chris Diroll
Founder and Chief Consultant at CD Consulting
