All Spin Class articles
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News
Spin Class: Back to reality
Now that the coronation is over – the coronation of Sweden’s Loreen as this year’s Eurovision winner (Soph and I voted for Finland’s Cha Cha Cha) – it’s back to the mundane world of real estate.
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News
Spin class: AI
After seeing the BBC headline ‘Is your job at risk from AI?’, Soph and I were heartened to discover the answer is not yet. When we asked Google’s AI bot Bard to “write an amusing 250-word column on a UK real estate PR firm, called Pastis Communications, founded by Soph ...
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News
Spin class: the power of three
Soph and I often advise our clients to stick to the power of three when communicating. “When you’re on a panel or writing a column or a LinkedIn post, focus on making three points. Two is too few and four is too many,“ we say.
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News
Spin Class: Consultation
Public consultation is a misnomer. The word ‘consultation’ implies a two-way discussion that leads to a mutual decision.
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News
Spin class: return from Mipim
Our week away in the south of France at Mipim is over for another year and it’s back to a banking crisis.
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News
Spin class: MIPIM 2023
When Soph and I land in Nice on Sunday, the temperature is forecast to be 24°C. This is a little nugget of information we like to share with our cold UK clients.
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News
Spin class: start-up
Soph and I have been targeting start-ups and newish companies for new business, so it’s a surprise that our only approach so far this year has come from a sizeable European investment manager.
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Online
Spin class: four-day working week
Soph and I enjoyed reading that British challenger bank Atom said it was delighted with the changes brought about by its new four-day work week (adopting a change that was pioneered by Pastis Communications).
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News
Spin class: nice in Nice
The trade magazine Tunnels and Tunnelling was always known by hacks as Bores and Boring. This sobriquet sums up nicely the current state of the real estate PR world.
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News
Spin class: Annulus Horribilus
Now is the winter of our PR discontent. It’s cold, everyone’s on strike and there’s bugger all client news for us to announce.
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News
Spin class: in the name of good PR
Soph and I like to think we give PR a decent (LOL) name. We don’t lie to journalists; we don’t bully them; and, if they’ve stacked up a story early, we confirm it (off the record, of course).
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News
Spin class: CEOs
Excessive remuneration, high carbon emissions, tax avoidance… Our real estate CEOs are not held in the highest regard in the outside world, and we PRs tend to be very cautious about letting them loose with the press in case they slip up.
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News
Spin class: portfolio sale
Bafflingly, Soph and I are living in a parallel world. While the UK has slumped into financial chaos and turned into a laughing stock, our little business has been doing rather well, mostly.
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News
Spin class: mini-budget
The sun shone and 40,000 of us packed Munich’s trade halls, but the mood at Expo Real was decidedly gloomy. As if the prolonged war in Ukraine was not enough, the Brits were reeling from the chaos caused by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget.
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Professional
Spin class: mini-budget
The “oh shit” moment came when a client told me the cost of real estate debt had soared to 7.5% and was rising rapidly.
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News
Spin class: quiet quitting
At last, we’ve picked up a new client. Well, his business is new – life sciences – but he’s not, as we worked for him when his previous company, a flexible workspace provider, went bust during one of the Covid WFH lockdowns. His business model is simple: chase trends, jump ...
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Professional
Spin class: August
August is the nerviest month. Granted, it’s nice to be lazy and go on holiday, but doing no work for clients, having meetings cancelled and receiving out-of-office replies to emails does not bode well when you’re sending your monthly retainer invoices to them during a downturn.
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News
Spin class: heatwave
What a slow week it has been. The stifling heat on Monday and Tuesday meant Soph and I barely moved. We both have fans but they seemed to make little difference. And the emails slowed down, too. The summer lull has started very early.