I've read a few times how one surgeon or another is better at selling or marketing their services than another, especially in relation to Suporn. Marketing influences our decisions, and it would be interesting to know how much the various surgeons are doing to influence us. Suporn for example, is he really that good, or is he just great at marketing? For the lesser known surgeons, who's good, but terrible at marketing - which is entirely fine by me, better than the other way around.

I really like to make rational unbiased decisions, and to separate the marketing from what's actually true. That's especially true for surgery, since you only really get once chance at it.

It seems impossible to work out who is actually best, but surely it's possible to work this one out?

Wikipedia's definition

   "Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product to customers, for the purpose of selling that product (goods or services)"

I'll start off with some of my thoughts...

There's a lot of people posting their experiences with surgeons, but I don't count this as marketing because it's no under the control of the surgeons. If they were paying for it or offering discounts for testimonials that would be very different.

Yeson have a YouTube channel with heaps of video's. It's pretty impressive, and their website is good too.

Dr McGinn does quite a bit, with TV and radio appearances, press releases, newspaper articles, etc. There's s a whole page of it on her website, and her website is pretty good too.

Dr Marci Bowers also does quite a lot, with TV interviews and conferences (to the trans community). She has a pretty good website.

Dr Reed has a yahoo support where he posts, so I'd count this one as marketing. I don't know if owns the group or not. His website is good, but not as nice looking as Bowers/McGinn.

Suporn has a support site on Yahoo that's virtually a fan club. I don't think this counts as marketing since its independent of Suporn. He also gets tons of blogs and discussion, but I suspect a lot of this is due to the large number of patients, plus the 30 days people stay in Thailand for SRS and the high level of care there (and that he actually is good) - apparently this is a big deal to people. I'd also guess that this is an accident rather than something he planned, because I think his marketing is really bad apart from that. His website is poor and years out of date, and the 4th link on the first page when I google for "suporn" is "Suporn's FailureS" from these forums. He could easily do so much better than that. He does conferences (including last week), but I think these are more professional development than marketing to trans people. It took a lot of effort, but I found a 2006 interview with him (and his wife) in French. Possibly his really high price is marketing (of the "if he's that expensive he must be good" type), but I'd guess he's just charging as much as he can.

I would define marketing, in my opinion, as only portraying the good things about the surgeon/clinic, while avoiding the possible downsides/complications.

Suporn for example, is he really that good, or is he just great at marketing? ---> What makes you think so? If anything, I would just say Suporn is overpriced. He's really not that good at marketing. He doesn't have a FB site or Youtube channel, and the pictures (or his website in general) is pretty out of date. Suporn gets customers and charge high prices large due to the good reviews that go around and also his 'proprietary techniques' which many find superior to the penile inversion [worth noting that now many surgeons jumped on the bandwagon of 'non inversion technique']

I'm not a patient of Suporn and will not be. But in his defence i don't think he's aggressive at marketing. On the contrary, I would say Dr Kamol is pretty aggressive on marketing (youtube, Facebook [one for international one for local patients mind you] and INSTAGRAM!!!!]. I haven't been to him either so no comments on quality but on purely grounds of 'marketing', his team is definitely doing quite a bit.

Sometimes reviews only help that much. Who knows we can that only unlucky one? I would say choose based on what you are comfortable with (location, technique, etc). A useful way, maybe would be to single out cost. I personally think it helps me make a more objective decision rather than 'choose the most bang for buck one'.

My recommandation is as follows:

Ignore marketing.
Get your desired results:look, depth, ease of access for aftercare, cost, cost of aftercare, experience.

Then grab the internet, and find proofs : pictures healing accounts, lots of them.

For me, passed the fact that dr brassard is paid in quebec, he is still my choice.
Tons of practice, gives exterior look i want, sufficient depth, aftercare free for 1 year, no need to pay extra for hotel and plane ticket for each visit

Remember marketing is a tool used to bring attention to a product that has none. The good surgeons out there do not need more attention, there product speaks for itself.

Quote from: AnonyMs on November 02, 2014, 11:12:05 PM
For the lesser known surgeons, who's good, but terrible at marketing - which is entirely fine by me, better than the other way around.e can.

I'd wouldn't call her "terrible at marketing", but I think my surgeon (Dr. Kathy Rumer) did a really good job. She seems not as well known as the ones you list, yet she's been doing this awhile and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Quote from: suzifrommd on November 03, 2014, 10:43:01 AM
I'd wouldn't call her "terrible at marketing", but I think my surgeon (Dr. Kathy Rumer) did a really good job. She seems not as well known as the ones you list, yet she's been doing this awhile and I'm pretty happy with the results.

It doesn't look like she does anywhere near the amount of marketing as some of the others, plus she seems to do a lot of non-trans work. Perhaps she deserves to be better known.

Quote from: blackponyx on November 03, 2014, 05:54:02 AM
Suporn for example, is he really that good, or is he just great at marketing? ---> What makes you think so? If anything, I would just say Suporn is overpriced. He's really not that good at marketing. He doesn't have a FB site or Youtube channel, and the pictures (or his website in general) is pretty out of date. Suporn gets customers and charge high prices large due to the good reviews that go around and also his 'proprietary techniques' which many find superior to the penile inversion [worth noting that now many surgeons jumped on the bandwagon of 'non inversion technique']

I only picked Suporn as his name came up elsewhere as being good at marketing, and it was what prompted me to start this post. Plus I find him of interest, one day... I think its safe to say that he is one of the big names though, with Bowers, Brassard, etc. I didn't realize just how much effort McGinn and Bowers were putting into it before I started this post, and it makes me wonder a bit just how much surgeons reputations are based on their work vs self promotion.

I've never got very far trying to work out who is best among them, as so many people are happy with what they get and there's always a few problems. I'm not expecting to be able to work it out from answering this question either, but it may help a bit and I find it intriguing.

Quote from: Hanazono on November 03, 2014, 12:27:31 AM
sometimes we chose based on testimonials.
I chose my SRS surgeon from my transistors here in my country attesting to his great skills, including his excellent international reputation

Personal testimonials are great, but the "international reputation" is also influenced by marketing, which is why business in general always spends so much money on it. That was the point of this, because what happens if you choose based on marketing without realizing it?

Since both Bowers and McGinn have had GRS/SRS themselves I would like to know who their surgeon was.

Although Bowers trained with Dr Biber I don't think he operated on her.  Perhaps it was Toby Meltzer.

I wonder if Bowers actually operated on McGinn.

In any case the surgeon's choice of a surgeon would be a pretty good endorsement.

Do any of you know the real answers?

Randi

I'm a very happy former patient of Christine McGinn (GRS, breast augmentation and FFS). During one of my later post surgery appointments I did ask Christine who she had used and she declined to answer.