By Mike Callaghan, Process Prodigy Contributor

My sister Barb runs a synchronized swim club.  So, yes, in my youth I spent more weekends at swim meets listening to show tunes and classical music than I care to remember.  When you try to describe synchronized swimming to people, invariably you end up discussing the Esther Williams movies from the 1950’s, the term “water ballet”, and Martin Short sketches from Saturday Night Live.  There is a little redemption when you say that synchronized swimming is an Olympic sport, but very little.

The swim club has a team that consists of 35 girls. The major areas of expenses for the team include pool rentals, travel to swim meets, and swim costumes.  I called them suits once and was met with a steely glare, burning into my forehead.  As you might imagine, Barb is always trying to think of ways to raise money to pay for their expenses.  One day she was contacted by an event planner about a party being organized for a Hollywood fundraiser.  The clients wanted original entertainment for their function and someone had suggested a swim show like in the old movies.  Without hesitating, Barb assured the planner that she could do it and asked how many swimmers were needed and how big the pool was.  After meeting with the event planner and seeing the size of the pool, she wrote a routine and performed the show.  It was only after a lot of practice and with a lot of anxiety, that the show went on, but it was, by far, the most lucrative fundraiser the swim team had ever done.

With a client reference from that show – and with references from a number people who had been in attendance, Barb’s team now performs 5-8 shows and commercials each year.  They have become successful enough so that private water shows are the only fundraising necessary to cover their annual expenses.  So, how did they go from creating a show and hoping things went well to creating a consistent source of revenue?  Barb created a system.

Her new process began after the third show.  She found herself with a rack of swim costumes hanging in her garage and decided that she needed to start re-using these costumes.  So the first step in the process was enlisting two swim-mothers to be the costume designers.  These two mothers stored the suits and would modify the costumes as necessary for each show.  They began to build a small inventory of suits with a range of sizes and four primary colors.  Meanwhile, Barb began choreographing four shows that could be performed in pools of different shapes.  There was a show for a rectangular pool and a different show for a square pool.  There was a show that required four swimmers and one that required eight swimmers.  Just as there was now an inventory of costumes, there was also a menu of show options for the customer to choose from.

Now, when a customer inquires about the team performing at a party, premiere, or other function, Barb can complete an order form over the phone just as if she was selling shoes or any other product.  She has a list of questions to ask each customer such as how long the show needs to be, what color costume or theme would they like, what size and shape is the pool, etc.  Once the order is received, she has the two mothers modify the costumes by sewing on sequins or other decorations to vary the suits and she selects the girls from her team to perform the show.  A little practice to fine tune the routine, and a show is ready.

Barb instituted a new process for fundraising for her team.  It took delegation of some tasks and categorizing the products in her catalog, but the results have been spectacular.  Through implementation of this process, she has eliminated the gift wrap and cookie dough fundraisers with an effective way for her swimmers to gain experience enhance the reputation of her swim club, and she got to perform synchronized swimming in Puff Daddy’s pool.  That’s a long way from Saturday morning meets.

© 2009 Beth Schneider, Process Prodigy, Inc. Want to reprint this article? Feel free as long as you include the following: Beth Schneider, President of Process Prodigy Inc., www.processprodigy.com, along with her team of highly sought after operations consultants, reveal the insider secrets billion-dollar corporations pay thousands of dollars for. Specializing in process creation, Process Prodigy tools and techniques have helped entrepreneurs increase productivity by as much as 600%, and revenues by as much as 250%. Visit www.processprodigy.com/ezine and grab your FREE systems starter kit valued at $297.00.