It's wonderful when sales and marketing are working together and finishing one another's sentences. Unfortunately, this tends to be the exception and not the rule. More often than not, the sales team see all that marketing isn't and often struggle to see the true value that great marketing brings to the sales organization.
To be fair, not all marketing is great. But for the purpose of this article, I'm going to focus on effective marketing that actually drives sales. If your company's marketing isn't accountable and isn't driving sales, then there is a bigger issue at play (and we can tackle that one separately).
The bottom line is that, when done correctly, marketing provides the air cover for the salespeople on the ground working hard to close deals and increase revenue. It's a partnership, to be sure.