Fiona recalls her first week as one of the Rambutan bunch

And what a week it was! After a whirlwind tour of the office and some mini challenges from my new starter workbook, I was tasked with looking at the company website (next on the list for a revamp) and updating some of the social media streams; two passions of mine which I hope will successfully enhance the business going forward.

By the middle of the week, I found myself putting my publisher skills to the test, working on a business proposal with David. The biggest challenge was getting used to the formatting and branding used by Rambutan, something quite unique compared to other companies I’ve worked for in the past. I think it’s all starting to sink in but no full stops at the end of bullet point takes a bit of getting used to!

It was great seeing the Rambutan team in action and I have really started to feel like one of the bunch. My understanding of what they do may still be a little limited, but it’s quite clear they do it very well. As with any new job, there is a lot to learn but I’m up for the challenge. This Office Maestro is ready to get stuck in…

*¹ The hours spent cutting out those nuggets need not be mentioned

Latest thoughts from Lucy…

I’m an eternal optimist, which isn’t always a good thing; optimists always think there’s plenty of time to do stuff, so time management can be a challenge. However, as an optimist I always keep an open mind and usually see a positive side. My approach was tested to the limit recently, when my husband and I decided to go the local football club ball.

None of our friends were able to join us (so much hair washing that evening) and the organisers were despairing a little as people kept dropping out. In recognition of all the hard work done by the volunteers at the club we decided that we’d still go, keeping an open mind about whether we would enjoy it as much without our pals, and we also said we’d be happy to join any table.

We had a great evening, the event was excellently run, and I sat next to someone called David Scott. After lots of enthusiastic discussions about what we each did (I was working for an organisation that creates links between business and education), it wasn’t long before David found himself in front of 180 sixteen year old students, joining me in a quest to inspire and motivate.

The students responded really well to David’s talk, and they weren’t the only ones to be inspired; so when I finished my time with that organisation I got in touch with David. As luck would have it, one of the Rambutan bunch was due to have some time off, so I was asked if I might be able to ‘fill in’ for a few weeks.

And I’m still here!

I was delighted to be invited to stay with Rambutan as a consultant and I’m very excited about the projects that I’m now involved in. I know that I’m going to have a great time with Rambutan, and that isn’t just my natural optimism speaking!

From everyone here at Rambutan we’d like to wish you all a very happy and fruitful New Year!

We’re very excited about what 2011 holds for us.  Rambutan is two and a half years old now and we’ve got some very exciting projects coming up this year.  We’re hoping to launch our first open programmes in conjunction with a fantastic partner.  Details are being finalised at the moment so watch this space!

We’ve also signed up for the People Development Summit so that we have the opportunity to broaden our contacts and hopefully meet some fantastic new clients.  We’ve chosen this sales avenue as we need time to chat with potential clients in order to fully understand their particular requirements.  We only ever work with people if we truly believe that we can help them – why else would we offer our risk free guarantee?!  (If you need a quick reminder of what this means pay a visit to our home page).

We’re also keeping an eye out for more potential members of the Rambutan bunch.  We are continuing to grow and are therefore always in need of new exciting talent to join our merry tribe.  We’re pretty picky though and have very high standards, but for the right person we can promise a fun, rewarding and exciting place to work.  If you know of that special person, or indeed think you might be them, then please get in touch!

So, lots to look forward to in 2011 and we promise to keep you up to date with all developments on our blog.  Keep reading…..!

Here at treetops, it was getting decidedly cosy working in our 2 rooms. As our team is rapidly expanding we decided to branch out our work space too! Luckily for us our landlord had a spare office going, so we grabbed the opportunity with both hands and moved in!  We may take over the whole building soon so watch this space!

Wow, what a year!  2009 was Rambutan’s first full year in business and it has been fantastic.  We’ve tripled in size, started working with some great new clients including London Underground, Makro and Ned Rail, commissioned our web site and had loads of fun.

From an internal point of view we’ve also formulated our values and articulated why we are refreshingly different from the other consultancies and training providers in the marketplace; afterall, how many do you know who offer a risk free guarantee?!

We can’t wait to get underway with 2010 as we have some fantasitc clients to work with and some big and exciting plans for the future.  We’ll be back to work on 4th Jan ready to put all these ideas into action!

If you feel your business needs a little refreshing in 2010 why not give us a call; in the meantime all of us at Rambutan wish you a refreshing Christmas and a fruitful New Year.

‘Way back at the beginning of my career,  as a trainee manager at Sainsbury’s, I came across a guy who influenced my direction to such an extent I can pretty much blame him single handedly for where I find myself today.

He was a Department Manager at the time and he had a huge and deserved reputation for his retailing skills and his high standards but most importantly his staff loved working for him.  I started to learn from him (and blatantly copy him) and over a period of time started to get the same results.  This was noticed by the powers that be and I was quickly promoted to Department Manager.  As my confidence grew I decided (his idea) to apply to Tesco for what I thought was a similar level job but they offered me Assistant Manager of a £1m per week store and very quickly promoted me to Store Manager.  I was then lucky enough to be head hunted twice in 4 years so by the time I was 28 I was an Executive at Somerfield with a staff of about 3,000.

From there I took the unusual leap into consultancy and the rest, as they say, is geography. So what?  Well last week the ‘guy’ , Lance Oliver, joined the team at Rambutan – a company he inadvertently was part of creating.’

ps. His mug shot is now on our ‘get in touch’ page and we’ll be doing another photo shoot soon for ‘the team’ page.  Watch this space…!

We have a simple reason for being – to help individuals, teams and organisations achieve their goals by refreshing the way they communicate, lead or think.  All of which ends up with more productive, effective and engaging workplaces and communities for people to spend their time with!

We have lots of plans and ideas about how we’ll do this and we’ll be letting you know more as the story of Rambutan unfolds.  Please join in with our thinking and conversations:  ask us questions, let us know what you’d like to know or how we can help you, let us know what you think about anything you’ve read in this blog entry…  We look forward to hearing what you’ve got to say!

Well, we’ve been really, really busy with our clients doing the things we are passionate about! This is great, but has meant that some of the other stuff, such as our website, has been left behind a bit.  So, to help Rambutan grow into the kind of company we strive to help others achieve we’ve invited a few more like minded people to join our bunch.  There’s Craig who’s working his magic with some of our clients, Gemma who’s working out how to spread the Rambutan word and Nicki who runs the office and keeps us all in order.  There’s a new member of the bunch too, and he’s due to join us in the next 3 months once he has worked out his notice in his current job… we’re very excited about his arrival and that’s all we’re saying at this stage!

After a fruitful discussion with another friend and brand communication guru, Tim Bleszynski from the alternative we had a plan for creating our visual brand.  Tim helped us think through what we wanted our brand to stand for and once this was clear (which was no mean feat and we thank Tim for his patience) he tasked a member of his team – the very talented Lauren Archer – to come up with something we’d love… which she did!  Our Rambutan-shaped logo is affectionately known as ‘the splodger’ and we’d like to think that our refreshing people strap-line reflects both what we do and what we’re like to work with.

The next challenge was to decide whereabouts to have an office – not as simple as it may sound given that I live in Leicestershire and Sarah in Kent!  For excellent reasons, we chose my home town of Market Harborough (which is well worth a visit if you have yet to discover it) and my wife Lisa, whose work as an estate agent came in very handy, found us the Treetop Rooms.  These two rooms are the hub of Rambutan’s office-based activity and we love them!

So, we were now a legal entity, with a domain name, email addresses, a VAT number, an office and a bank account – and we won’t dwell on the stories and struggles that awaited us as we undertook these seemingly simple tasks.  Suffice to say, we got there eventually and had reached the point where we could pay the rent and get paid by our clients!  We started trading on 1 September 2008.