Talk to enough global B2B teams and you see the same pattern. Performance softens. Budgets get tighter. That is why growth feels harder than it should. Not because demand vanished. Because the business is no longer aligned around a clear position, a sharp go-to-market motion, and an operating model that can support both. Before you accelerate, you have to align. Before you spend more, you have to find the drift. At Agency X, we call this the Three Drifts.

Ad Age’s recent spotlight on the rising demand for B2B marketers was an encouraging read, and has no doubt piqued the interest of many people at mainstream agencies thinking about their next career move.

Entrepreneurship can be an exhilarating rollercoaster ride—one where bold ideas and big dreams can catapult a small venture to success or crash it into the ground. As a founder on my fourth and fifth businesses, I’ve experienced plenty on both sides.

If consumer advertising is Hollywood, B2B is more like YouTube

Gen Zers want to add an extra touch, extra emotion, extra creativity and extra parts of themselves into everything. It’s like a survival tactic as they search for purpose and stability, but it can be turned to benefit if harnessed the right way. Here are some things I’ve learned as a millennial mentoring younger colleagues: