Danny Cantrell - Marketing Response Solutions CEO - Established 1995
Exceeding Expectations
Call Center News, January, 2008 by Dr Miles Kimball
Danny Cantrell's instincts have served him well. In that thin fine line between playing a hunch and relying on instincts, Cantrell defined an underserved market, allied the resources and technology with the manpower to seize the opportunity, and launched Marketing Response Solutions, the industry's most profitable and fastest-growing Call Center concept in recent years.
He is Chairman, Chief Executive and President of the nation's leading Automated Call Center (IVR) whose clients are fond of telling their share holders that MRS is helping them become "the most profitable corporations in the world."
Danny Cantrell's (AKA "The Big Man") none-too-modest ambitions have never overshadowed his desire to bless others because he feels he has been blessed. He has often said he has leaned on his faith and learned from business mistakes. This has enabled him to always move forward, achieving his goals and those of MRS. Danny has built his business one customer at a time. His favorite business saying is "Slow and Steady Wins the Race", reaching his success one client at a time.
Now Cantrell's instincts and a very intense suggestion from his brother led him to the newest cutting-edge technology which makes companies more efficient and profitable. In October of 2007 his company purchased partner rights with a text message services company in the UK to offer and to create a new growth vehicle that could compete in the upper strata of response communications. At the time of the offer, company executives would only reveal his new concepts would have a chance to exceed all expectations
"This is a market that is underserved in America," Cantrell says. "We're still very much in the call center business and text marketing only enhances this. We're not going outside of our core expertise, and we have the infrastructure and the talent to carry text marketing services to our clients in a way which has not been done in the United States."
In the past few months, Marketing Response Solutions has become more open about its intentions. In early January 2008 they partnered with Impact Marketing, a Print on Demand "Green Certified" Printer in Los Angles, as its entry vehicle to provide print support to the marketing efforts for his text services clients. The marriage between text services and Print on Demand would create an in-house profit center and the real meaning to turn key solutions for his clients.
There were other businesses and industries that might have lured Cantrell after he graduated from Midland Lee High School in 1983, but he says he has always liked to sell because it is one of the few endeavors that gave him immediate gratification.
"There are not a lot of entry barriers to starting a career in sales," Cantrell says. "It's very competitive, you have to execute and focus. But unlike other careers, there's immediate success. You'll know very quickly if you are winning or losing.
Identifying underserved consumer needs and surrounding himself with the management personnel to carry out his vision are the unique gifts behind Cantrell's achievements.
To those who know him, Cantrell is an open book. A passionate yet modest man with a pretense for fawning for the spotlight.
For a company that generates as much excitement and scrutiny as Marketing Response does, Cantrell - like most executives of his caliber - keeps a very high profile in his local community, and is a proud member of Texas Business for Clean Air. Our corporate responsibility lies not only in the well being of our employees and clients but also to all of the inhabitants of our planet as well.
Bob Cross, a business owner and golfing buddy at Fire Wheel Country Club, says Cantrell's vision and ideas have benefited his company, Xen-Com Corporation, in ways he would have never imagined.
"The Big Man" keeps on top of the day-to-day details and leaves no stone unturned," Cross says. "I think he's a real student of business."
Most depict him as a man whose character blends the best traits of an outstanding friend and businessman: loyalty, praise, gratitude, intuition, intelligence and fearlessness. "Danny is a class act, and he approaches everything business from the perspective of how can my customers benefit from this," says Craig Bolin, President and Chief Executive of Pre-Buy Electric. "He surrounds himself with quality people who are dedicated to their customers, delivering solutions services, from a quality company."
"He's the consummate professional and entrepreneur."
Even by his own standards, Cantrell admits he did not always possess the business skills his colleagues accord him.
As a young man out of Wayland Baptist University, Cantrell says he shared, like most students his age, clumsiness between what was right and wrong.
 Southwestern Bell Telephone can confirm that Cantrell was the first person to install a T-1 Line in an apartment complex. With a successful link to the telecommunications world, he worked out of that apartment for two years growing in both faith and belief that he could achieve his sales goals. He says his favorite piece of memorabilia is not his many Tiger Woods autographs, but a cherished football personally signed by the late, great Coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Tom Landry. It reads: "To Danny Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do". Cantrell says passing those words of wisdom to both friends and clients has kept his company growing with a desire to exceed all challenges.
"I think I learned to be the business operator I am through those early days with MRS," Cantrell says. "When you start a new company, understanding profitability issues are tough. From 1995 to 2000, I think, was the period I began to learn how important it was to control expenses while driving the top line. "It was a rocky road, and it took us a while to figure out," but managing costs may be one of his best business skills.
When we finished our interview, Cantrell smiled and said:
"Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare." |
