Leaders Generate Warm Leads

During my time in sales, I loved the art of selling.  I learned really fast how valuable quality sales leads were and without them, it became much harder to make a sale.  The same is true in Children’s ministry.  Every children’s ministry needs a pipeline of new volunteer leads.  In my ministry, I work three types of volunteer leads.  In this post, I will describe the warm lead.  Below are the links to my other posts about volunteer leads.

• Why you need leads 
• Cold Leads
• Referrals

This post is part three of the post “Leaders Generate Leads.” There are three types of leads every children’s ministry needs, this post will cover the warm lead.

Warm leads are people in your church that have indicated that they would like to serve. Warm leads are better than cold leads, so it is important to cultivate and mine your cold leads and try and convert them to warm leads.  One way to create more “warm leads” is to have a volunteer interest card and a corresponding online form for potential volunteers to fill out.  Every person in your church is a potential volunteer.  Those who take the time to fill out an interest card should be a higher priority than a “cold lead.”

By filling out an interest card a potential volunteer is saying, “Hey, I want to serve in your ministry.” It’s your job to take that person and convert them from an interested, potential volunteer to a fully processed, trained, equipped and released volunteer.  That means you need to close the sale.  Remember you can’t close a sale if you don’t have any leads, you must always be generating “warm leads.”

I have learned through the “Law of Numbers” that for every three volunteer interest cards I pass out I get one completed card back.  That means if I have a goal to recruit 3 new volunteers per week, I need to pass out nine cards.  If I want fifty new volunteers every year, I need to pass out one hundred and fifty cards every year.  If I’m not passing out cards and making them accessible in my ministry booth, in the adult service and in the office, I am not getting the full potential out of my “warm leads.”