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.

Dr. Sulman Ahmed is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of DECA Dental Group, the holding company for the consumer-facing brand Ideal Dental. He is the influential leader shaping and motivating DECA Dental’s growth, strategy, and culture. In 2008, Dr. Ahmed opened his first dental office with a vow to establish a truly patient-centered model. Today, the rapidly growing brand represents approximately 200 locations in nine states, serving around 3,000 guests per day.

In his personal career, Dr. Ahmed has achieved many honors and awards, including receiving The University of Texas at Dallas Distinguished Alumni Award (2024). He has also been named the EY Entrepreneur of the Year (2017), one of Glassdoor’s Top CEOs (2021) with a 98% approval rating, and one of Dallas Business Journal’s Most Admired CEOs (2023). He is also an in-demand speaker for national leadership, entrepreneurial, and motivational conferences.

Dr. Ahmed earned his Doctor of Dental Medicine degree from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and serves on their Board of Advisors. He is also President of the Association of Dental Support Organizations (ADSO), the premier association for businesses in the dental industry.