Ask a newcomer here how the pipeline looks and they'll point at the live opportunities: the deals with a document and a deadline attached. That's the part you can see. By the time you can see it, the part that mattered has usually already happened.
In this market the deciding happens upstream of anything formal. A buyer works out who they trust long before they work out what they're buying. So the request that lands in your inbox isn't the start of a deal. It's a late milestone in one that has been running quietly for months, often without you, if you weren't already in the room.
That changes where the work goes. Engage when the opportunity appears and you're introducing yourself to a decision that is most of the way made. The vendors who win here were in the conversation before there was one: present when there was nothing to sign, and a known quantity by the time the requirement got written down.
It makes an honest pipeline look uncomfortable. Most of the activity that decides next year's deals is invisible today, because it isn't attached to anything yet. Manage only what has a close date and you are managing the leftovers.
The best time to start the relationship was before you needed it. The second best time is now, on the deals you can't yet see.