Answering the Occupancy Question with PCS

Two Sales Academy Masters were featured by Senior Housing News in “Grow Sales, Not Leads: How Prospect-Centered Selling® Answers the Occupancy Question.” In the article, Edie Smith and Jeff Gronemeyer address the challenge faced by most operators: there are plenty of leads, but most aren’t ready to buy.

From the sales trenches 

Jeff Gronemeyer is a regional sales leader who spends his days side-by-side with community teams, zeroes in on the conversion gap. As he puts it, operators often “get four or five out of ten people” to tour, “yet we have three times that many in” the top of the funnel—a mismatch that wastes marketing dollars and staff time if teams aren’t equipped to help prospects progress toward a decision. 

Gronemeyer’s call for a shift in sales is more cultural than mathematical: “When you have a good sales team, you have a great operation.” That’s the on-the-ground reality he’s seen—sales excellence mirrors operational excellence, and vice versa. When the sales process is human, disciplined, and well-coached, everything from reputation to resident experience improves. 

From the research

Edie Smith, CEO of ProMatura, takes the 30,000-foot view. She notes the product itself has advanced—“I’ve seen tons of growth in this industry, significant improvements in the product that’s offered” — but the industry’s conversion rates haven’t kept pace with demand, she says. In other words: interest is high, but too few prospective residents move in, compared to the number of leads. 

Edie quantifies the upside: in the article, she explains that even a 2% point lift in tour-to-move-in conversion would meaningfully raise occupancy across the sector—a small shift with an outsized impact because it compounds across thousands of communities. 

How PCS builds the bridge

The article notes that Prospect-Centered Selling (PCS) isn’t about chasing more leads; it’s about creating more change-ready prospects and guiding them, empathetically and consistently, to a decision that fits their lives. That looks like:

• Deeper discovery, not faster pitches. Time invested in understanding a prospect’s story builds trust and reduces no-decisions—turning “not now” into a clear, supported next step. The payoff is higher tour-to-close without flooding the funnel.
• Purposeful advances, not generic follow-ups. PCS replaces “just checking in” with tailored next steps that move the internal decision forward—home visits, meaningful homework, and creative, personal touchpoints that keep momentum.
• Manager-as-coach, not scheduler. When leaders coach to quality Time in the Selling Zone, salespeople spend fewer hours chasing new names and more hours helping “warm” prospects make a change. 

The opportunity right now 

With development constrained in many markets and demand set to swell, occupancy gains will increasingly come from doing more with the demand you already have. That’s why Smith’s two-point lift matters so much: it’s achievable through behavior change (coaching and process) rather than keeping the status quo. Pair that with Gronemeyer’s culture-first lens—build great sales teams to build great operations—and you have a practical, immediate path to sustained occupancy growth.

Read the article on Senior Housing News and book a demo of Sales Academy where you can watch Jeff's and Edie's instructional videos along with a growing list of member resources.