From Agency to In-House to Founder: Q&A with Sophia Tavakol on PR That Actually Moves the Needle

We’re continuing our series of Q&As with industry peers and friends who are making waves in marketing, RevOps, and communications.

Today we’re featuring Sophia Tavakol, founder of SMT Communications and a seasoned PR professional who’s been navigating the world of B2B tech communications for over a decade. Sophia made the leap from in-house communications at Moveworks to launching her own consultancy earlier this year, and she’s been crushing it ever since. We’re proud to call her both a friend and colleague.

What makes Sophia’s perspective particularly valuable is her dual experience - she’s been both the client hiring PR agencies and the consultant being hired. This gives her a unique understanding of what actually works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to building meaningful PR strategies that move the needle for growing companies.

We dove into some fascinating topics around the current state of PR in tech, what founders get wrong about media coverage, and why brand building isn’t just a nice-to-have for B2B companies. Her insights on navigating the consulting world and building client relationships are gold, and we know you’ll walk away with some serious takeaways.

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Thanks for chatting with us at The Growth Stack, Sophia! Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’re building with SMT Communications!

Thanks for having me! I’ve been in comms and PR for over a decade now. I was at agencies for the early part of my career (Suzanne was actually my boss at one point - shout out, Suz). And then I went in house at a startup called Moveworks to lead comms for about 3ish years before starting my own consulting business at the beginning of this year. My goal was to offer startups more senior support who could both execute and build a strategy that was actually meaningful and could move the needle.

You’re fairly new to the consulting/business owner role. How are you liking it thus far? What made you decide to start your own business?

I love it. There was about three months in the beginning where I was fully in fight or flight trying to figure it out. I started without any clients at all, so I really had to build from the ground up. But once I brought on clients and was officially out of “survival,” I was able to settle into things and really start to enjoy myself. Now I can’t actually imagine working for someone else again.

In all sincerity, I started my own business because I was tired of answering to people who didn’t have my best interest at heart. Since COVID, it felt like employee well-being became a swinging pendulum of “we care about you” and “you better work hard or else a layoff is coming.” And I just didn’t jive with that. I wanted to call the shots and I wanted to hustle for myself.

I had also had some conversations with Suzanne early on about her experience with Shape & Scale, and that gave me the confidence to make the jump early on. Forever grateful for that support.

Any hard lessons about being a business owner you feel comfortable sharing?

The voice in your head will be screaming at you to not do it. Even after you’ve made the jump, the self doubt will creep in, and that voice becomes so incredibly loud. I had to learn how to push through it every day, keep moving forward, and focus on the activity. Even with something like building my own website. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, and frankly I’m shocked it’s still standing, but I got through it and made it happen by taking it one step at a time.

The other is really learning to let go. My recurring lesson in life is learning to trust that everything will work out how it’s supposed to. And nothing could be more true for that than starting a business. It will teach you so much about yourself and what you’re really made of, but it’ll also force you to let go and trust in really important ways.

What do you like about PR?

PR, especially for B2B tech companies, challenges my mind in a very unique way. B2B brands have a tendency to get lost in their own sauce. And what I mean by that is they’re so focused on getting every little value prop in their messaging that it essentially loses all of its meaning.

I love helping brands take a step back and find the bigger “so what.” What about their brand makes them someone worth paying attention to? Why should the media spend the time to write about them? It’s rewarding work to find that “so what” and then see it resonate with the larger media landscape.

What are your thoughts on PR in the technology industry lately?

PR is changing at a rapid pace. The sad reality is that there are fewer journalists than ever before, and the ways people are engaging with the media is evolving. Some days it feels like I have a handle on it, and others it feels like I’m diving head first into a new learning experience every day. It actually makes it kind of fun because I’m constantly learning.

That said, I’ve also never seen expectations so incredibly high on the founder side of things. I can’t tell you how many founders I’ve talked to who are expecting The New York Times or Wall Street Journal to cover their $5M seed round. Don’t get me wrong, $5M is nothing to scoff at, but we have to be realistic about what’s possible in this current landscape. So I’m doing a ton of educating on what’s realistic and what it takes to get to that next level. I choose only to work with the folks who are receptive to that feedback or it’s a recipe for disaster.

We hear a lot of Growth Marketers these days doubt the value of Brand and PR. What is your response to that doubt?

To put it bluntly, I think it’s incredibly naive. Marketing tends to over index on buzz words, and often approaches audiences with a lot of prior assumed knowledge. PR and Brand help the average person understand why they should give a shit about you to begin with.

If people feel connected to your mission and what you’re doing for the larger industry, it makes sales cycles a million times easier. In fact, I heard a stat on a recent podcast that said “90% of people will choose the first company that comes to mind when they’re shopping for a product.” So if no one has ever heard of you, you’re kind of SOL.

What do a lot of your clients get wrong about PR? Is there a conversation you’re finding yourself having over and over?

They try to make it all about them. It’s the natural instinct to want a story about how great your business is just because it exists. But that’s advertising, not PR. PR is about connecting your brand to larger industry or societal trends. You have to find a way to insert yourself into the current discussion and show the audience who you are and why they should care at this exact moment in time. I find myself reminding clients of that multiple times in a week, if not multiple times in a day. PR truly is such a unique lens and it’s challenging to see unless you’ve been in it for a while.

You grew your business incredibly quickly and it’s been really impressive to watch as a colleague and friend. Any pieces of advice you want to give other consultants on winning business? What is your take and strategy?

Thank you! I really appreciate that. My advice would be to genuinely be yourself, and try to show clients that you are also evaluating whether they are a good fit for you and not just the other way around. I’ll often have several conversations with the team and almost always ask to meet the CEO to see what their personality is like. I truly believe a “vibe check” can save a lot of grief down the line on both ends.

The other thing is to not be so precious about “giving away strategy” without having a signed contract first. Having worked in house, there’s nothing more special than when you can find an external partner who feels like a part of your team. Jumping in and offering ideas off the cuff like you would in a regular working relationship has gotten me far in just showing people how I show up in the day to day.

What makes a great client/consultant partnership in your opinion? And what expectations do you have with your clients?

Trust. 100%. A consultant is brought in because the client lacks expertise in a specific area. They’re relying on you to guide them and provide clarity on what it takes to succeed. From there, it’s on the consultant to show up fully and make strong, actionable recommendations that actually land.

That said, if a consultant is telling their client (based on experience) what will work, and the client is choosing to ignore them or dismiss that council, it will quickly degrade the working relationship and frankly your results. There’s nothing more important than trusting the people you hired to do the work you hired them for.

If you could give one piece of advice to a founder who just hit $5M ARR and is thinking ‘maybe I need PR help’ - what would you tell them?

You probably do lol. Awareness is a long game, and in the B2B world, the minute you come out of stealth, the clock is starting to tick. You have to remember, you’re up against brands like Cursor and Lovable, who are coming out of stealth and absolutely taking off within just one year. If you can come out and tell a meaningful story early on, the momentum will carry you so incredibly far. And it’ll make things like fundraising, hiring, and selling 10x easier.

This goes back to when you were in-house. What are the top 2-3 qualities you look for out of a PR vendor and why?

The biggest one is can they be real with me. PR agencies in particular have a tendency to be overly polished. And I love professionalism, but I also felt like I needed a thought partner and someone who could be in the room and hold their own when my CEO wasn’t happy about something. When you’re in-house, it’s not about “client service.” It’s about getting shit done and sometimes that means having blunt conversations about what will work and what won’t. If PR vendors were shy about that, it was an immediate no.

The second was, can you tell me the ingredients to land a strong story? I worked in agencies, so I saw right past the slides where they would show me all of the reporters they thought would land in our space. The media landscape is constantly changing. I want to know if you understand how to craft a good story and how to get a reporter’s interest. It’s truly an art and only a handful of people really “get it.”

Lastly, were they good writers? Simple, impactful writing is genuinely one of the most underrated skills you can have and is shockingly uncommon. ChatGPT actually made the issue worse because if you didn’t have the discernment for good writing before, you sure as shit weren’t going to have it when the draft was written for you first. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent leaving feedback on poorly written copy only for me to just give up and write it myself. There’s a shocking amount of writing that goes into PR and comms, so strong writing skills are an absolute must.

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Thank you for spending time with our audience, Sophia! For anyone looking to get in touch, feel free to reach out to Sophia at sophia@smtcomms.co.

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