This is so unbelievably true. I worked at a firm where the opposite was true. The VP of Marketing spent a lot of time inviting himself to existing customer me

This is so unbelievably true. I worked at a firm where the opposite was true. The VP of Marketing spent a lot of time inviting himself to existing customer meetings, wasting exec time on magic quadrants, and hiring his buddies to do marketing collateral. Inevitably every hour of their time took up four of executive, sales and developer time. It was impossible to point to even one sale that they influence. This could also be due to their incompetence, rather than a general condemnation of the topic.