How to Build Trust in the Transforming Landscape of Enterprise Security

Security leaders today face a perfect storm of escalating threats and rapidly advancing technologies, putting pressure on them to make faster, smarter decisions about the tools and partners they rely on. At the same time, the security industry is changing. Many security technology manufacturers and software developers, especially those selling advanced technologies, are bypassing traditional integrators and going straight to the end user.

For security vendors – including product developers, manufacturers, and integrators – this new reality presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that Chief Security Officers (CSOs) and other security practitioners are inundated with noise. The opportunity lies in standing out. Thoughtful, credible, and mission-aligned vendors are winning the trust of buyers who are under enormous pressure to get it right.

This article offers a practical framework for vendors to build trust. Based on conversations with industry leaders, it outlines five key dimensions that separate credible security vendors from the pack: expertise, analysis, consultative sales, brand, and mission. Each plays a distinct role in helping vendors earn and sustain the trust of modern security buyers.

A Transforming Landscape

As I wrote in these pages earlier this year, the global security threat environment is increasingly tense. Political violence, active shooters, assassinations, terrorism, sabotage, cyberattacks, and geopolitical tensions pose direct and growing risks to businesses across the United States. The complexity of this threat environment, particularly how physical threats, cyber threats, and political threats intersect, is top of mind for many security leaders who are struggling to keep up.

Into this threat landscape, we’ve witnessed the introduction and improvement of cutting-edge security technologies, many of which are now augmented with AI. This includes significant developments in weapons and gunshot detection, counter-UAS radars and jammers, video surveillance and access control that leverage AI analytics, security patrolling robots and drones, and software platforms that help to integrate increasingly smart and pervasive security systems.

Finally, we are seeing shifting business models across the security industry. In the Security Industry Association’s annual Security Megatrends report for 2025, the “evolution of the channel” received top billing. Security manufacturers, especially those with advanced technologies like AI-enabled cameras or weapons detection systems, are eschewing the security integrator channel and selling directly to CSOs and other security end-users. According to the report, “As security devices become both more advanced and less expensive, system developers and providers are more often adopting a ‘direct to end user’ model of sales.”

Thought Leadership in Security

For security buyers, namely CSOs and their staff, this transforming landscape is noisy: diverse threats, rapidly maturing security technologies, and a growing pool of vendors coming in to sell their products directly. This noise is making purchasing decisions for CSOs more complex. With so many threats, technologies, and competing vendors, who can you trust? In a recent interview I conducted with Brian Harrell, the CSO for a large critical energy infrastructure company, I asked him what he wants to see from vendors that will help them stand out and make him feel confident buying their product.

His response: “I love thought leadership. I would like to see vendors provide some analysis—whether it's in an article, a presentation, or a video—that highlights what the threat is and how I, as a CSO, can mitigate that risk. Vendors need to be informed solution providers, rather than just organizations filled with empty promises.”

The data backs this anecdote. According to the 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report prepared by Edelman and LinkedIn, more than half of decision-makers and C-suite executives spend more than an hour per week reading thought leadership content and 9 in 10 of those “say they are moderately or very likely to be more receptive to sales or marketing outreach from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership.”

But what exactly is thought leadership? Sometimes derided as a fluffy or meaningless term, thought leadership is in fact a highly effective marketing and sales tool. The Edelman/LinkedIn report defines thought leadership as “content that offers expertise, guidance or a unique point of view on a topic or in a field. It includes content like thought pieces, essays, videos, webinars, live presentations, PowerPoint slides, and research reports that organizations make available to the public for free (or in return for registering or giving contact information). In this context, ‘thought leadership’ does not include content that is primarily focused on describing an organization’s products or services, or thought leadership that you pay to receive — such as client deliverables, subscription services, or reports that must be purchased.”

A Framework for Trust-Building in the Security Industry

Thought leadership is so critical and effective because it helps vendors build trust with their customers. It is a key ingredient for security vendors seeking to cut through the noise and stand out as true partners to security practitioners. Over the last few months, I’ve had many discussions across the industry to understand how vendors can leverage thought leadership to build trust with executive security buyers. Informed by those discussions, I have developed a simple five-point trust-building framework - 1) expertise, 2) analysis, 3) consultative sales, 4) brand, and 5) mission – that security vendors can implement to grow revenue.

Expertise: Developing security and risk expertise is the foundation for trust-building in the security industry. While strong marketing and sales professionals are essential for any growing company, these individuals only rarely have deep security subject matter expertise. This has created a gap between security buyers, who are often security experts who understand threats, risks, and the protection of assets, and sellers, who may have little domain knowledge. Some security vendors have solved this by hiring customer-facing CSOs or similarly titled security experts. For example, Verkada, which builds and sells AI-enabled video surveillance and physical security technologies, recently hired Mike Evanoff as its Global CSO and Strategic Advisor.

Evanoff is the former Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security at the State Department and a 3x Fortune 500 CSO. According to Evanoff, “Verkada recognized that they have outstanding engineers and sales. However, what was missing was the security expertise from people who have worked through these challenges on the other side of the table. In my role with Verkada, I help our internal teams understand security, threat, and risk, and I also engage with our customers on the challenges they’re facing.” According to Rachelle Loyear, VP of Integrated Security at Allied Universal, who plays a similar role, “This concept of having thought leaders available as a resource to clients is something that I am starting to see in the security space. Allied Universal is ahead of the game on this one, because we have long understood that trust is earned through expertise and understanding where our customer is coming from.”

Analysis: Tapping into security subject matter expertise enables vendors to conduct analysis, which provides substance to the thought leadership materials they disseminate. Alert Enterprise, a SaaS provider focused on connecting physical security, IT, OT, and HR systems, has identified cyber-physical convergence as an area that requires deeper analysis to benefit its customers. Willem Ryan, SVP of Marketing at Alert Enterprise, says, “Thought leadership plays a huge role in how we connect with today’s security buyers. CISOs and CSOs want more than a product pitch; they’re looking for partners who bring real insight. At Alert Enterprise, we lead with expertise and customer success on cyber-physical convergence, AI-driven security intelligence, mobile access, and Physical GRC. It’s about building trust by starting the right conversations and offering a clear vision for the future of enterprise security.” Alert Enterprise posts its analysis – in the form of white papers, case studies, blog posts, podcasts, and more – on its website.

Consultative Sales: Expertise and analysis should also permeate the sales process. This requires vendors to establish a culture of consultative selling. “Sales teams and vendor-provided experts must work collaboratively with customers to gain a deep understanding of their unique security needs, risks, and strategic goals. From there, vendors can tailor solutions that align with the customer's requirements,” according to Rick Mercuri, a Senior Advisor at Rebel Global Security and previously the Director of Security & Fraud Advisory Services at Diebold. The idea here is that solutioning is part of the sales process, even for standalone products that are relatively straightforward. Solutioning, of course, requires that the vendor have some proficiency in discussing the customer’s risk environment. In Loyear’s view, “If you are helping a client with their program, it's vitally important to understand their threat landscape and vulnerabilities before you start talking about any solution.”

Brand: One often overlooked area to build trust is in a company’s brand. The security industry is not usually the place that comes to mind when people think about the coolest brands. But as millennials take over the B2B purchasing landscape (they now make up almost 75% of B2B buyers), brand is set to become a much more critical part of building trust in security. According to Douglas Brundage, Founder of Kingsland, a brand studio which advises security companies, among other clients, on branding and marketing, “Millennials are now in decision-making positions on both the client and seller side. Speaking to millennials in any kind of marketing, including niche B2B like security, is different than speaking to Boomers or Gen X. Brand and design language matter more to them, as do general factors like ‘would I like to wear this company's merchandise?’”

Strong branding will help companies get more opportunities, especially in an “old-school” industry like security. Companies that under-invest in brand and positioning aimed at resonating with younger decision-makers may be perceived as out of touch, quickly losing trust with the new generation of CSOs. Updated branding can also provide a nice, modern wrapper to the expertise, analysis, and consultative selling discussed above.”

Mission: Finally, it should not be forgotten that in the security industry, we operate in a space that saves lives and makes people safer. With that comes a responsibility for security companies to value mission, not just profit. In our recent discussion, Brian Harrell complimented Dragos, the industrial cybersecurity company, for its focus on mission, saying, “it’s apparent to me that Rob Lee and the Dragos team value risk reduction to the nation over a new business account.”

Security vendors must be able to articulate how their products and services contribute to a safer, more secure society, and “walk the walk” by instilling trust in their customers that they care about this mission beyond financial gain.

As security threats grow more complex and technologies advance rapidly, security vendors have an indispensable role to play in working collaboratively with their customers to make the world a safer place. Vendors that invest in developing expertise, analyzing pressing problem sets, consulting with their customers, building resonant brands, and demonstrating a genuine commitment to the mission will gain trust and therefore grow revenue. The result of more engaged vendors, who work to understand the security environment beyond just selling their products, will be a more efficient industry and a safer society.