Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeffrey Mikos.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The year was 2014, my wife and I were sitting at a pizza shop in Wicker Park we started researching places to visit, budget travel strategies and what we would need to pack. After 45 minutes of Googling all of this, we had made a decision. We were going to take a year off and we bought a one-way ticket to the Galapagos Islands.
We spent 7 months in South America traveling country to country. While in Santiago, Chile we stumbled across an advertisement for a free walking tour. Honestly, never having heard of free tours and being in a foreign city we were a little hesitant to join. But we did, and the tour was amazing! We kept seeking out free walking tours the rest of our trip. Free walking tours were offered everywhere now that we knew to look for them.
In Peru, in Ecuador, in Colombia & in Bolivia. After a few tours, I began asking how they made money, what their operations setup was and how they built their tours. From a small hotel in Quito, Ecuador I bought the domain for Free Chicago Walking Tours, posted a project the design of our website and began to document ideas for tours.
When we return to Chicago in the spring of 2016 I posted on Craigslist looking for tour guides. The response was incredible. So many talented people expressed interest in the position. I brought on a small handful of guides, we hosted a friends and family day in rainy 40-degree weather in April and launched our tours in May 2016.
Since then we’ve added a few more tours, brought on new guides and have been giving private tours in addition to our free tours. Our tours last 2 hours, cover the best parts of Chicago and we’re rated 5 stars on Trip Advisor!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our two biggest challenges are marketing our company effectively and making sure we keep a full roster of tour guides.
We’ve tried a lot of different marketing tactics. We’ve handed our brochures to all the hotels and hostels in Chicago personally, we’ve hired a company to maintain our brochures in brochure racks, we’ve bought t-shirts, we’ve handed out flyers to tourists in Millennium Park, we’ve advertised on Facebook and spend money with Google for Pay-per-Click.
All work in their own unique way. It’s difficult to attribute a particular tactic with conversion because we don’t have a transaction. Our tours are free. And we see a lot of drop-off from the number of reservations to the number of people that actually show up. This makes interpreting our marketing results a mixture of art and science.
We’d love to run tours 7-days a week. But we will not just put any tour guide out there. Our guides are awesome and they are what makes Free Chicago Walking Tours special. We are always interested in hearing from anyone interested in giving tours. We offer a flexible schedule, outdoor work and the opportunity to meet a ton of awesome people while sharing your perspective on the best city on earth!
Please tell us about Free Chicago Walking Tours.
Free Chicago Walking Tours is a tour company providing free 2-hour walking tours of Chicago’s most iconic neighborhoods and sights. Our tours are led by native Chicagoans that have a passion for sharing Chicago’s unique history. In addition to our scheduled free tours, we offer private tours for schools, group outings, team building and folks that would like a more intimate experience. Our guides can cater their tours to your specific interests as well.
We’re most proud of our guest’s satisfaction with Free Chicago Walking Tours. We’re a small, independently run company with virtually no marketing budget that is now ranked as the #36 tour company (out of 150+) in less than 2 years. Our #1 goal is to make sure that visitors enjoy Chicago to it’s fullest.
In fact, there are times where we cannot accommodate a group with a tour and we will go out of our way to help them find another company that can take care of them. We’ve given guests personalized city itineraries to help with their visit, made restaurant reservations and helped coordinate transportation. First and foremost we want guests to enjoy Chicago. And if taking a Free Chicago Walking Tour is part of that – – Wonderful!!
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Great question. My favorite childhood memory is playing whiffle ball with my grandma in our backyard. We had a long, fenced-in driveway. Me and my older brother could never hit it over the fence. But my grandma. She had a beautiful, effortless swing. The ball would ‘pop’ off her bat. Right over the fence. Every single time. To this day I have no clue how she’d do it.
Pricing:
- Our scheduled tours are FREE
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.freechicagowalkingtours.com
- Phone: 847-875-5655 (sms text preferred)
- Email: info@freechicagowalkingtours.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freechicagowalking/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freechicagowalkingtours/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/free-chicago-walking-tours-chicago
- Other: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g35805-d9807507-Reviews-Free_Chicago_Walking_Tours-Chicago_Illinois.html
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