72: All About Being A Tour Guide, with Ed Moser

Are there places in your local community that you think are fun, intriguing, or interesting for a visitor to discover? Locals are offering tours to all kinds of their favourite things; from historic sites and museums, to breweries and food outlets, to edible wild plant nature walks. Ed Moser is leveraging his love of history and politics to run a side hustle business as a tour operator based in Washington DC. Plus, he’s taken his knowledge and vast storehouse of stories about the area, and has written multiple books providing him a nice compliment to the tours while providing additional income streams.   In this episode you’ll learn, the best ways to market a tour, pros and cons of the various platforms (AirBnB, Paypal, Eventbrite, MeetUp) from fees to the marketing opportunities, potential earnings and workload, how he put a positive spin on things when in the early days few people showed up for his tours, and how he’s earned a TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Award for 2023   What You’ll Hear:   02:21 From an article, to a book, to the guided tours side hustle 05:16 How Ed’s tours are different from the rest 06:21 He cross-promotes his books with his tours 08:29 Marketing through MeetUp 09:09 Eventbrite has been the best to receive bookings and prepayment 10:34 AirBnb Experiences also provides bookings and prepayment 11:59 What Ed charges for tours and his earnings 13:24 You can customize tours for the seasons, specific groups, and create speciality tours 18:45 Earnings will really vary depending on number of hours worked, part-time or full-time 21:45 Using the MeetUp platform and dealing with payment 23:44 A discussion of platform fees - AirBnB, PayPal, Eventbrite 25:09 The silver lining of small groups in the early days 26:22 Pros and cons of using Tripadvisor 27:24 Ed has earned a Tripadvisor Travellers Choice Award for 2023  28:16 The rise of scooters, small vans, e-bikes affecting traditional walking tours 30:29 Tips for ranking well and getting noticed on Tripadvisor 31:31 Tips for starting a tour guide business 33:44 One of Ed’s most memorable moments during a tour 37:02 Ed’s best tip WrapUp 37:44 Asking customers how they heard of you, how did they find you? 38:14 How did you discover Side Hustle Hero?   Joan's Online Masterclass to help you achieve your side hustle goals: Turn Your Thoughts Into Wanted Things: https://courses.joanposivy.com/p/turn-your-thoughts-into-wanted-things   Connect with Ed: https://www.meetup.com/lafayette-sq-tours-of-scandal-assassination-spies-meetup/ One of Ed's books: The White House’s Unruly Neighborhood https://amzn.to/40nCbpJ   Connect with Joan: https://www.instagram.com/joanposivy/ https://www.facebook.com/posivy/ https://www.sidehustlehero.com/about/ Be on the show! https://www.sidehustlehero.com/guests/intake/