Locally owned. Professionally run.

Some of you already know me from around Prince George. If you do not, this is the short version.

I am good at working out what is actually wrong. Asking the uncomfortable question that turns out to be the useful one. Finding the bottleneck. Then working backwards from what you are trying to accomplish to the thing that will get you there.

WorkBC, and the pattern that came out of it

I spent several years at WorkBC. I became a Job Developer, which meant learning the wage subsidy process quickly — and what I found was a procedure that created a lot of unnecessary back and forth with employers.

So I streamlined it. Our office became the highest performing in the province for wage subsidies. I was then asked to rewrite the procedure, and I led a working group of Job Developers from across British Columbia on delivering the service better. I was named Wage Subsidy Champion of BC.

None of that was really about paperwork. It was about knowing a system well enough to walk somebody through it — the employer who assumes the funding is not worth the trouble, the candidate who does not know a door is open.

That is the pattern behind everything here. I see a process that is not working. I figure out why. I simplify it. Then I build something better.

I still do that work directly: wage subsidy applications, the Employer Training Grant, recruitment, and training plans for businesses that need them. That side of things lives on the consulting page, where I put the employer first.

Why there is a photo booth

I was at my desk trying to come up with swag for another business. After years in employment services — conferences, trade shows, career fairs, every kind of event — I had seen every promotional item there is. Most of it ends up in a drawer and then in the garbage.

Then I noticed a photo strip sitting on my desk. It was from an event I had gone to with a coworker years earlier. I had kept it that whole time. It had the organization’s branding on it, their website, and the memory of the day.

I could barely remember any of the other businesses from those events. I remembered that one.

That is a large part of why I bought the booth. Be memorable, and give people something they actually keep.

A different kind of expertise

Your expertise is in what you do, and it should be. Most businesses don’t have a dedicated salesperson. I’m available to be contracted for outside sales, but often the more economical approach, and the one with better long-term return, is for me to build the system and train your team to use it, including how to handle customer objections. Then you own it. I’m not another subscription.

Sales is its own discipline, and it’s the one I’ve spent my career in. When your team is in front of a customer, it isn’t about convincing anyone. If you’re trying to convince people, you’re in the wrong business. It’s about working out how your product or service is the solution to what that customer actually needs.

And when a business isn’t getting the outcome it wants, that’s a different question. Where are the inefficiencies, and how do we build a funnel that fixes them? Sometimes the answer is bringing on another person, and through the wage subsidy that can mean paying half the wages while they train. Sometimes it’s upskilling the staff you already have, and there’s up to three hundred thousand dollars a fiscal year available to businesses for training. I can help navigate you to an approval for some of that funding.

At WorkBC I optimized the wage subsidy process, then led a provincial group of Job Developers, coaching them to do the same in their own centres. I built systems that produced data for stakeholders, and left the written procedures behind so the people who came after me could run them.

And a brand activation is where that training happens. I’ll be right beside you on the floor, sharing my marketing, sales and engagement strategies — how to open a conversation, keep people engaged, and handle objections in real time with real customers.

Where it started

I started in telemarketing as a teenager, which is where I learned to hear an objection as information rather than a wall. Later, as an apprentice hairdresser, I took a side gig selling product for Sexy Hair Concepts. The CEO noticed how I delivered information and offers, and trained me as a platform artist before I was licensed — I had to ask him to reschedule a booking because I wasn’t yet legally allowed to teach.

Once I was, I moved from product representative to cutting instructor across the Cariboo, teaching technique and sales strategy. By the time an account was established, they carried the product, they knew the season’s collection, and they were loyal to the brand. That’s what a brand activation is meant to do.

Recent work: Moose Country Cabinets

Scott provides high quality cabinets sourced right here in Canada, and he has deep relationships across Prince George. People trust him, because his first instinct is always to help. That’s a genuine advantage, and it isn’t the same skill as running a sales process. So I built one: a funnel, the pipeline behind it, and I worked the home show with him to bring warm leads in.

Rather than suggesting Scott retain me, I listened to what he wanted for his business, and I thought he’d be better served by owning the systems than by keeping me — I built systems curated for his business needs, so the outcome wasn’t dependent on retaining me to run them. It’s now his daughter in the office, which supports exactly what he’s building: a sustainable family business.

Bringing me in doesn’t mean I keep my fingers in it forever. I’ll absolutely run the systems for you, or contract out your outside sales if that’s what you need. But I build for autonomy, so you have agency over your own operation.

Build it so it belongs to you.

Private events

Not every event needs data. Sometimes it needs someone paying attention.

Often a bride planning a wedding is planning the first large-scale event she’s ever run, and family systems can be complicated. As a mother of five children who, like most families, are blended, I know that a bit of finesse and strategy when approaching these events is what gets the host the outcome they’re hoping for. We discuss that beforehand, and I bring a mother’s warmth to operating the booth and interacting with your guests, putting them at ease so you get that photo booth picture of you and your divorced parents, for example.

Most event services set up and run their equipment. I work the room.

Not sure how to handle, source or approach something? Ask me. If I don’t have your solution, I likely know who does. Connecting people has always been my strength — I love to see people shine, and I’ll always provide a referral if it will help.

Where I draw the line

I won’t sell something I don’t believe in. If my face is on it, you should know it isn’t nonsense. If a client provides deceptive or fraudulent information, I terminate my working relationship with them. My services don’t only sell your products and services to the community — I also help businesses apply for funding with the government. Working in recruitment, sales and marketing, I know that maintaining my straightforward, no-nonsense approach is something I want my customers to always be able to take to the bank.

Organizing things, and the people who come with them

I have served on boards of directors, and I volunteer across Prince George — PG for Ukraine, the Phoenix Society, the Take Back the Night march committee, the Prince George Humane Society, and the Red Warrior Spirit Drummers, as a member, volunteer and ally. Raven’s Occasions is a proud sponsor of PG Pride Week.

I have coordinated job fairs, employer and business events, and events on disability employment and employer education, including work with organizations such as the Disability Alliance of BC. I hold a Certificate in Project Management Fundamentals from the College of New Caledonia.

Animals have been the constant. I have decades behind me in dog showing and dog training, including training service dogs when I lived in the United States — work that mattered to me deeply then and still does. I volunteered with the Colorado War Dog Memorial while I was there.

That world is also where I learned events. Working with kennel clubs in the States — Terry-All Kennel Club, Arapahoe Kennel Club, and the Great Dane clubs of Greater Denver and Houston — I sat on boards of directors and held the positions of show chair and vendor chair: as show chair for large shows, thousands of entries, a venue, a volunteer roster and a schedule that could not slip; as vendor chair, selling every vendor spot and ensuring the show maintained compliance with superintendent regulations. Running an event well is the same job every time: plan it thoroughly enough that on the day you are free to handle whatever actually happens. That is what I bring to a booking, and it is why clients tend to stop worrying about the logistics once we have talked. The scale changes — a birthday party in a back yard, an event filling a stadium — but the job does not.

That is part of why the Prince George Humane Society is on that list. It is a real pillar of this community, and I think we should all be doing what we can to support their work.

Distance is not the problem people think it is

I want to work with smaller communities, remote communities and First Nations communities, and I mean that practically rather than as a line on a website. If you are outside Prince George, tell me where you are and we will work it out. Give me a two-way radio and I am on my way.

None of that is separate from the business. This is a small city, and the people who show up for it tend to know each other. Showing up is most of the job.

I am the proud mother of five, all adults now, and I built this business on terms that fit the life I have — deliberately, and with the same standards I brought to everything before it. If you have met me around Prince George, you already know how I work. If you have not, that is the short version.