# Forming Relationships with Industry Insiders Can Quell Sales Cycles and their Length of Time

By Geoff Kohl · Published 2024-04-23 · Updated 2026-06-09 · Engineering & Construction on MarketScale
Canonical: https://www.marketscale.com/industries/engineering-and-construction/forming-relationships-with-industry-insiders-can-quell-sales-cycles-and-their-length-of-time
Creator hub: Experts Talk

> Building trust with industry veterans accelerates deal closure and shortens the path to revenue

## Key points

- Trust built with industry veterans can compress the length of sales cycles in engineering and construction.
- Relationships with insiders provide credibility and reduce friction during the procurement process.
- Proactive relationship-building before active sales conversations positions vendors for faster deal closure.

Block Field

New companies are facing more and more challenges in the security industry as sales cycles are experiencing lengthier times. One of those reasons is due to the complexity of the security industry itself, along with the unique and special business models every new company will come in with.

But there is a solution to amending this problem with longer sales cycles, and it will require companies to actively build relationships with industry insiders, such as high level end users and integrators.

> It will require companies to actively build relationships with industry insiders, such as high level end users and integrators.

On an episode of **MarketScale**'s premier roundtable discussion show, [Experts Talk](https://marketscale.com/shows/experts-talk/), to highlight current industry concerns for [ISC West 2024](https://www.discoverisc.com/west/en-us.html), [**Geoffrey Kohl**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-kohl-5102729/), the Senior Director of Marketing at the [Security Industry Association](https://www.securityindustry.org/staff/geoff-kohl/), offered some insight on the necessity for new entrants in the security sector to form strong connections with industry vets and understand the intricacies of the market

“There’s not a guidebook out there that says, 'Here’s how you run your business in this space.' You have to figure it out on the way. It’s absolutely a big challenge for companies that come in that realize, 'Oh, wait. I’ve gotta go through an integration sales channel, and I need to build that if I want to scale my business … and I need to also have all these things in line if I want to be able to be trusted by, you know, top level, you know, end users,'” Kohl said.

> There’s not a guidebook out there that says, 'Here’s how you run your business in this space.' You have to figure it out on the way.
> *— Geoffrey Kohl, Senior Director of Marketing at Security Industry Association*

Tags: Geoffrey Kohl, industry insiders, ISC West 2024, sales cycles, Security industry, Security Industry Association, Software and Technology

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