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Make Them Smile: Why Customer Satisfaction Is the Key to Rapid and Sustainable Growth
Learn to scale your organization to grow your impact and create sustainable wealth with this inspiring book from the Founder of DECA Dental Group.
Highly specialized service providers—such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, physical therapists, and consultants—are often limited in their growth and earning potential by their notoriously difficult-to-scale industries.
As a dental student at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston just four years after leaving Zimbabwe for America, Dr. Sulman Ahmed was already looking ahead to an alternative future to private practice, determined to help as many people as possible, innovate within a stagnant industry by putting the customer experience first, and maximize his earning potential.
In Make Them Smile, Dr. Ahmed shows readers how he scaled his customer-centric services and built a national brand—known as the “Starbucks of dentistry”—and offers guidance on how to:
• Identify the ideal gap to fill in your market
• Leverage your expertise as your competitive advantage
• Become a compassionate, highly capable leader
• Standardize operations and scale
• Navigate the various financing vehicles available at different stages of growth
• Build sustainable wealth while creating a legacy of improving customers’ lives
For hardworking and dedicated professional service providers, Make Them Smile offers a way out of the grind of living hour to billable hour, providing a road map for how to build a scalable, standardized brand that provides a consistent, repeatable, and high-quality customer experience.
Highly specialized service providers—such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, physical therapists, and consultants—are often limited in their growth and earning potential by their notoriously difficult-to-scale industries.
As a dental student at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston just four years after leaving Zimbabwe for America, Dr. Sulman Ahmed was already looking ahead to an alternative future to private practice, determined to help as many people as possible, innovate within a stagnant industry by putting the customer experience first, and maximize his earning potential.
In Make Them Smile, Dr. Ahmed shows readers how he scaled his customer-centric services and built a national brand—known as the “Starbucks of dentistry”—and offers guidance on how to:
• Identify the ideal gap to fill in your market
• Leverage your expertise as your competitive advantage
• Become a compassionate, highly capable leader
• Standardize operations and scale
• Navigate the various financing vehicles available at different stages of growth
• Build sustainable wealth while creating a legacy of improving customers’ lives
For hardworking and dedicated professional service providers, Make Them Smile offers a way out of the grind of living hour to billable hour, providing a road map for how to build a scalable, standardized brand that provides a consistent, repeatable, and high-quality customer experience.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published May 7, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 7, 2025
Great read for anyone dedicated to providing clientele with superior customer service. Dr. Ahmed draws from his experience as an immigrant to the United States and early years in the dental industry to provide us with his unique approach to customer satisfaction and how such an approach can be the catalyst for any company’s long-term sustainable growth. He uses the book to summarize how this business philosophy led to his revolutionizing of the DSO industry. Disrupting antiquated methodologies to create an industry leading company, his background is an inspiration for any entrepreneur. A fun and enjoyable read that is a true page turner and refreshing reminder that the customer should always come first in an era when competition and the fight to win market share is at an all time high.
May 14, 2024
A must read for any entrepreneur and dreamer. Specifically, a great book for a dentist to have in their knowledge bank. To use Dr Ahmed’s term…this is a playbook: with key ingredients for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit. Additionally, it is a story of perseverance, not giving up, accepting failures; taking risks, celebrating wins, leveraging, all the while believing in your grand vision and betting on yourself.
March 5, 2025
In the rise of corporate dentistry this book offers great advice on how to open and develop an expansive dental chain. This book was easy to read and quite informative, especially for those with a limited business background.
However, as a private practice/GP dentist, I found many concepts regarding beliefs stated about corporate dentistry to be problematic. First and foremost referring to dental offices as "stores" formed a narrative that dental care is an optional good rather than a necessary means of healthcare. Dr. Ahmed's views that patients should be developing a relationship with the "brand" rather than their personal dentist (pg. 175) completely disregards longterm patient-provider connections and the genuine relationships dentists are able to build with patients over time. By emphasizing that patients will be loyal to the brand rather than a specific provider is not realistic for many patients including those who are anxious or reluctant.
In the beginning of the book, it was mentioned employees are vetted for how they will perform and blend with the culture of the office. Then a 20% doctor turnover rate was mentioned and how this is due to "having no patience for underperforming doctors" as if they weren't the ones hiring these incompetent providers. This is a core issue with corporate dentistry. Ahmed talks of aspiring to being similar to Starbucks/Dunkin/Walgreens- dentistry is medicine and NEEDS to be personalized to the needs for the patient. All patient interactions are unique and valuable and need to be treated as such. Corporate dentistry will help to bridge the gap and allow accessible care for some, but will not be what is truly best for our patients.
However, as a private practice/GP dentist, I found many concepts regarding beliefs stated about corporate dentistry to be problematic. First and foremost referring to dental offices as "stores" formed a narrative that dental care is an optional good rather than a necessary means of healthcare. Dr. Ahmed's views that patients should be developing a relationship with the "brand" rather than their personal dentist (pg. 175) completely disregards longterm patient-provider connections and the genuine relationships dentists are able to build with patients over time. By emphasizing that patients will be loyal to the brand rather than a specific provider is not realistic for many patients including those who are anxious or reluctant.
In the beginning of the book, it was mentioned employees are vetted for how they will perform and blend with the culture of the office. Then a 20% doctor turnover rate was mentioned and how this is due to "having no patience for underperforming doctors" as if they weren't the ones hiring these incompetent providers. This is a core issue with corporate dentistry. Ahmed talks of aspiring to being similar to Starbucks/Dunkin/Walgreens- dentistry is medicine and NEEDS to be personalized to the needs for the patient. All patient interactions are unique and valuable and need to be treated as such. Corporate dentistry will help to bridge the gap and allow accessible care for some, but will not be what is truly best for our patients.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews