08 November 2022

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Dr. Tony Feck: The most successful businesses survive an economic downturn Part 2

Mary Guiden

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Dr. Anthony “Tony” Feck has 39 years of experience in private practice, and he has shared his methods of success with tens of thousands of dentists and their teams around the world. He is a pioneer and an authority on the use of conscious sedation in dentistry and serves as the dean of the faculty at DOCS Education, a company he co-founded that provides training for IV sedation to enable dentists to offer a higher standard of care to their patients. In 2005, Feck founded Sunrise Dental Solutions, a practice optimization company.

His new book, “The Prosperous Dental Practice,” is available for purchase through Edra Publishing. This is the second part of his interview. If you missed the first part, read it on Dentistry33. 

Q: Let’s talk about your new book from Edra Publishing – what can readers expect to learn?  

A: It’s been huge, and I wish I would pay more attention to it most of the time. I have always sought to work with or connect with people who were superior to me. It’s common sense if you want to get better at anything: Find somebody who has done what you want to do and imitate them.  

That doesn’t mean you can’t be an individual, but there is a valuable lesson in what other people have done to accomplish what you are trying to pursue. It’s likely they’ve made mistakes along the way. I’m always interested in people’s failures and what you can learn from failures.  

Q: You place an emphasis on networking and the Sunrise Summit highlighted the quote “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” from motivational speaker Jim Rohn. How has networking influenced your career?  

A: My objective with writing this book was twofold – one was to share all the things that I have learned from others and all the things I’ve created myself.  

I wanted to document and put that down in words so that this wisdom would be organized in a way that is easy to reference.  

I also wanted this book to live on beyond me and my career. That’s the great thing about the written word. Whether it’s tomorrow or 10 or 100 years from now. Somebody could come upon this book, and it would be meaningful to them. When you talk about a legacy, it’s often the interactions you have with people. But when you write a book, those interactions aren’t as easily forgotten because it’s there in hard copy form. Writing this book was in many ways a legacy.  

I wanted this book to be an A-to-Z book about how to run a successful dental practice. There are articles, lots of presentations and an endless number of speakers and consultants. But when it comes to having this type of a book, there aren’t many written like this one. It starts from the beginning and builds upon a simple premise: Success in any business is a great team implementing great systems in the presence of great leadership. If you can do all three of those things, the success of your business enterprise is virtually guaranteed.  

You start with the teams, systems and leadership. At the end, I have a chapter on transitions. The ultimate purpose of the business is to sell the business. Every dental practice owner should have a plan for how they not only practice but how they leave their practice.