So Who Is MyVoucherCodes' Mark Pearson

Many have been talking about MyVoucherCodes and the person that apparently runs it - Mark Alan Pearson. But who is he?

Mark's like the Scarlet Pimpernel in that everyone's talking about him but many have never actually met him. Fortunately I (and a few others) have when we went to the Barbados 2008 affiliate trip.

To set the scene here's some photos.

Damn! Most of "Team Fun Got In the way of this one - Mark's in the background


Mark's Hiding Again


Frostie Stalks His Pray Whilst Tom Looks At Me Saying "So You Think You'll Drive Do You?


Letting Others Take The Lime-Light


I Don't Know What's Going On Here


Mark Joins In On The Afternoon Cocktails


The thing is, Mark when he's not thinking or talking business is a nice guy. I know that'll shock everyone. They want him to look and be like an uncompromising, non-affable, selfish, arrogant person. Although you can tell Mark is young, and slightly dismissive of people that don't see the world in the way he does, he is mostly just like you and I.

My view is that he's 95% his way to being a fantastic businessman. Like many affiliates it appears he tries to push merchants a bit too far. With experience he'll learn to work more closely with the merchants, networks and agencies (his Christmas campaign is testimony to that).

Somewhere along the line it appears there's been a breakdown in his business processes where it appears that merchants, networks and agencies are asking him to interact with their brands in one way and that doesn't seem to be implementing their requests on his MyVoucherCodes website. The upshot of this is that it has left a bad taste in the mouths of many parties - including affiliates.

I know I've commented on Voucher Code sites and they may not be as great for merchants as many think. But now there's been a barrage of merchants changing their code policies. If he and others and tried not to grab that extra buck at the possible expense of merchants and users then the situation may be different?

Anyway I digress.

Mark is a serial entrepreneur, he's involved in a number of companies:

CoReg No.	Company Name	Appt Date
06226245	A WEEK WITH YOU LIMITED	25 Apr 2007
06327961	MARKCO MEDIA LTD	30 Jul 2007
06735602	MARKCO PROPERTIES LIMITED	28 Oct 2008
06226049	PEOPLE PASSION PLANET LTD	25 Apr 2007
06506214	PETOBA MARKETING LIMITED	18 Feb 2008
06255141	THE MILLION TREE PROJECT LTD	22 May 2007

Many have congratulated him on his PR successes. But I feel most of the ground work for MVC was done before he started using 10 Yetis with his use of various forums to get the "hype" ball rolling.

And Petoba is interesting. But I won't comment about that.

In summary, Mark is an interesting character. He's obviously done well. It looks like he gets bored easily and has a strong desire to succeed. It is this desire that I feel allows him to cross lines that are written in merchant T&C's as well as the unwritten rules of business. I hope Mark can see some of the comments of those in this industry and re-assesses how he does things (or get a tighter grip on what goes on his sites without him knowing - he does have staff). There's so much potential - it needs to be guided. Perhaps he should take on a mentor just as Google did to channel their enthusiasm.

So his PR company has done a lot of work getting the MVC brand out there. Perhaps Mark should do a little bit of his PR himself and work closer with the industry?

Report Card For Mark: B- Good performance but could do better to work as a team.

Disclaimer: If any information is factually incorrect, or anyone would like photos removed then feel free to contact me.

P.s. Any views on this?