I reflect on my encounters with a common challenge in big companies: the misalignment of marketing 🤝 sales.  As I observed, marketing often gets caught up in top-of-funnel activities, like attending conferences, without considering their impact on sales. Surprisingly, it is the sales team that ends up doing the lion's share of marketing work in these organizations 👀💰. I have had the opportunity to witness this issue in multiple companies, and it is concerning how marketing tends to disappear from decision-making, almost like a magic cat under a spell. Meanwhile, sales take on the responsibility and bear the repercussions of this misalignment. 🎯 This experience has led me to explore solutions for marketing and sales alignment. In my opinion, the best way to rectify this misalignment is for marketing and sales to come together and collaborate. I propose that when crafting the marketing budget for the upcoming year, both teams should sit at the table and incorporate demand-generation programs. These could include webinars, top-funnel videos, and leveraging paid demand channels to promote our content effectively 😉. Implementing these strategies can greatly benefit our sales team, as it generates proactive demand instead of waiting for leads to approach us during conferences. By creating the demand we need, we can equip our sales team with the necessary momentum to close deals successfully. This approach allows us to take control of our marketing efforts and ensures a constant flow of valuable leads 💸. #marketingandsales