For business
I work backwards
Start with what you are trying to accomplish. Work out what is getting in the way. Then work backwards to the thing that will actually fix it.
The first question
What are you actually trying to get out of this?
You might just need a photo booth. That one is easy — choose a package and check your date.
But if you are trying to accomplish something specific at an event, grow your business, improve your systems, hire better people, or work out why something is not working, talk to me.
You do not have to know exactly what the problem is before you call. We can talk it through and work backwards.
Sometimes the answer is a photo booth. Sometimes it is a better plan for the event. Sometimes it is hiring, or training, or a system that stops eating your week. Sometimes the answer is someone else entirely, and I will tell you that too.
The short version
Just need a photo booth?
Then you are two clicks from done. Four packages, fixed prices, attended throughout, and no consultation required.
Or start here
What brought you to this page?
Hiring & wage subsidy
Could part of your next hire’s wages be covered?
For a lot of Prince George businesses, the answer is yes — and they never find out, because the paperwork looks like more trouble than it is worth.
WorkBC runs a wage subsidy program that reimburses employers for a share of a new employee’s wages during their first months on the job.
What you can actually claim depends on the role, the person you hire and the program rules in effect at the time. That is exactly the part I take off your desk: I assess whether your business and your candidate are eligible, and I find out what you could qualify for before you commit to anything.
I know this program from the inside, so I know what a complete file looks like before it goes in. That means fewer questions coming back and less time spent waiting on answers.
Who I am on this
Five years inside WorkBC. BC Wage Subsidy Champion. I rewrote the provincial wage subsidy process that offices across the province now follow, and I consulted on the national CRM built to run it.
So when I tell you what an application needs, it is not a guess — I wrote the part you are filling in.
What working together actually looks like
- Find and pre-screen the candidate. If you already have someone in mind, I check that they fit the program before anyone signs anything. If you do not, I work directly with WorkBC to go through the candidates they have on hand — people already registered, already screened, often already eligible — and bring you the ones worth your time. You interview a short list, not a stack of resumes.
- The application. I prepare and submit it. This is the step most employers stall on, and it is the step I know best.
- The hire. Paperwork done properly the first time, so your reimbursement is not held up by a technicality six weeks later.
- Check-ins through the subsidy period. I stay with it — with you and with your new hire — until the placement is through. Most problems are small if you catch them early and expensive if you do not.
This is recruitment and funding navigation, not an HR department. I do not write your policies or sit in on your performance reviews. I get good people hired, with the funding you are entitled to, and I make the process survivable.
What could a wage subsidy do for you?
If you bring someone on at $25 an hour, you can receive 50% of that wage for up to 800 hours. That’s up to $10,000 in wages you’re not paying. You can pay more than $25 an hour — the subsidy just tops out at $12.50 an hour.
What’s important to note is what those dollars are for. This is a training program. That money buys you the time and space to train this person properly.
And you and I both know a properly trained employee is worth far more to your business than $10,000.
Figures are an example and a best-case scenario. Placement length is approved by WorkBC up to the 800-hour maximum.
What’s the cost of hiring? And more importantly, what’s the cost of a bad hire?
Think back to the worst hire you’ve made.
How many weeks of wages did you pay someone who was never going to stay? How many hours did your best guy spend training them — hours that came off billable work? What did it do to the rest of the crew, watching it play out?
Here’s the one that doesn’t get counted. When a supervisor is struggling with someone they’re training, that supervisor’s absence rate goes up. You lose your Red Seal on the job, and nobody traces that back to the hire that caused it.
Then you advertise again. Then you train from zero again. And the person doing that training has less left to give the next one.
You’re not alone in it. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, in its May 2026 report Work in Progress: Bridging the Gap Between Small Businesses and Canada’s Youth, found that among BC small businesses, 48 percent name the cost of training and onboarding as a barrier to hiring and 39 percent name retention. Those are the two things that stop an employer from bringing someone on who requires a bit more training or experience.
The WorkBC Wage Subsidy helps with both of them.
The onboarding cost is the obvious one — you’re reimbursed for a portion of the wages you pay while you train.
Retention is the one people don’t expect. In my experience, retention is higher on a wage subsidy. Once it starts, there’s a well thought out training plan, clear objectives, and additional people to support you and the employee in reaching those objectives. Over the duration of the subsidy, myself and the job developer are points of contact for both of you.
Most new hires hit a wall a few weeks in. They feel like they don’t know anything and it isn’t going well — while their employer is thinking the opposite, that it’s starting to click and they just need to hang in a little longer. That gap is where people quit.
It also opens a door for feedback that’s otherwise hard to walk through. In my experience, employers hold back on constructive feedback while someone is still learning, because they’re worried about losing them over it. I can often deliver that same message in a way that reduces that risk.
And before any of that — were you set up to ask the right questions the first time? Most employers weren’t. Not because they don’t know their own business, but because the screening was never built to catch what actually mattered.
With my experience in employment services, working with me reduces your risk of a bad hire, reduces the risk of time and money wasted, and relieves the burden of bureaucracy and paperwork — because I take care of that for you.
The paperwork is where most employers stop
Employers see the dollar figure and it’s enticing. Then they see the paperwork and put it back down.
The real cost of a thin application isn’t the form. It’s time.
WorkBC staff carry heavy caseloads and they’re stretched. A job developer can only assess what’s actually submitted, so an incomplete application means weeks of back and forth — and while that’s happening, the candidate you wanted takes another job.
What I sell is a file that’s complete the first time.
One more thing that cuts the back and forth.
I know what gets asked for at each stage, because another job developer and I wrote that framework. There have been some tweaks since, but the basis is the same.
So it’s gathered and ready before anyone asks.
Two employers, same subsidy, different result
Two employers can apply for the same subsidy for the same role and walk away with very different agreements. One gets a couple hundred hours approved. The other gets up to the full 800. The difference is the quality of the file put in front of the job developer.
The difference usually isn’t the candidate. It’s what the file put in front of the job developer.
WorkBC makes every effort to ask the right questions and gather what they need. But their capacity is stretched a lot thinner than mine, with heavy caseloads and plenty of other responsibilities on top. Employment consultants have very booked schedules, and once a client is in, only so much fits in that window — they can only ask so many questions before the time is up. What doesn’t get covered waits for the next opening.
I knock it all out and have everything prepared before it’s asked for. And because I’m selective about how many projects I take on at once, I can respond to WorkBC quickly and keep your application moving.
A thin application leaves them guessing. A complete one gives them everything they need to justify the longer term. I know which pieces carry that weight, and those are the pieces I build out.
I’m advocating for you
Have you hired someone, gotten them out on site, and had it quickly become clear that they maybe don’t have the skills and experience they claimed to?
And by then you’re past the point where you can just let them go. I’m not an HR or legal professional and I won’t pretend to be — but I know there are real decisions involved in ending someone’s employment properly, and most business owners don’t have that memorized either. So that’s more of your time, reading up and figuring out where you stand.
Meanwhile the question in front of you is: what do I do with this person? More training? Move them? Start over?
And were you under pressure when you made that hire, because you needed someone on the job now? Nobody digs deep when they’re short a body on Monday.
Here’s something worth knowing about how this process is built. WorkBC is a client-centred program — the job developer’s role is to advocate for the jobseeker, and they do that well. My role sits on the other side of the table. I’m the one advocating for you.
That’s my role. When I’m handling recruitment, I run a prescreen against the must-haves you gave me, and you only see candidates who actually meet them. You’re not sorting a stack.
I’ll also be straight with you about a candidate’s history alongside their real strengths, rather than handing you a polished version. Honest placement is what makes a placement last — a placement that falls apart partway through costs you more than it saved.
And AI makes a strong resume easy to produce now. Very few candidates can back one up in conversation. A paper screen won’t catch that. A conversation will.
It’s your business, your crew, and your call
You know your business better than I ever will. You know what the job actually takes, who fits on your crew, and what you can and can’t work around. My job isn’t to tell you what you should want in a hire — it’s to take what matters to you and screen for it.
Which is why the final call stays with you. I put candidates in front of you and give you an honest read on each one. You do your own interview, you make your own decision, and you hire who you choose.
That’s not me stepping back from the work. That’s the only way it should be. It’s your business, your crew, and your call.
Accommodations aren’t what most employers think they are
When employers hear “accommodation,” a lot of them picture cost. Renovations, exceptions, something that disrupts their team and their workflow.
Most of the time it’s nothing like that. It’s a supervisor spending two minutes each morning running through the day’s priorities. It’s written instructions instead of verbal. It’s a consistent start time.
Most employers aren’t resistant to this. They just don’t know what it looks like — and chances are you’re already doing it for someone on your crew without calling it that.
Here’s the part worth sitting with. You’re already hiring people who need accommodations. A lot of people don’t feel safe disclosing that up front, so it surfaces later — usually once something’s already gone sideways. Most employers have been through some version of that.
My line of questioning often brings it out at the beginning instead. Not every time, but often. Which gives both of you the chance to look at it honestly and decide together whether it’s going to work — before anybody’s committed.
And if it does come up, I build the accommodation into the training plan and facilitate that conversation, so it’s understood on both sides before day one.
One more thing worth knowing. Employers are often surprised to find that the person they gave even a small accommodation to turns out to be their most loyal employee. Being seen does that. You’ll get someone who stays.
There’s more available than the wage subsidy
Think about someone showing up for their first day having pieced together what they could. Cold, because their gear isn’t right for the weather. Borrowing tools, or using ones that aren’t up to the job. Or in old, ill-fitting business casual that doesn’t put your business’s best foot forward.
That’s a distraction from the work, and depending on the role it’s a safety issue.
WorkBC may cover essential work clothing, tools, and short duration tickets — first aid and WHMIS are common examples. Worth asking about every time.
Policy sets what’s possible, and the employment consultants and job developers work within it. In my experience they’re some of the most well-intentioned people you’ll deal with, and they genuinely want these placements to work. What I bring is a file that gives them what they need to rationalize the ask, so tickets, duration, and rates get verified and justified as we build the application.
The items belong to the employee. What you get is someone who starts on the same footing as everyone else on your crew — and people work better when they do.
Myths
Myth: applying means you lose control of your business
WorkBC isn’t there to police you. They’re not looking over your shoulder or telling you how to run your crew. As long as you’re treating your employees legally and ethically, nothing about your operation changes.
That said, they do have the discretion to pull funding if you’re not. And I hold the same line. It’s written into my contract: if I find I’m being given fraudulent information, I stop working with you. No warning, no second draft.
My reputation with these offices is built on every file I put in front of them being honest. I’m not spending it on anyone.
Myth: a subsidized hire is a weaker hire
Wage subsidies exist to close skill gaps. That’s it.
Picture someone in their early twenties with no site experience but real drive, and you can see the potential. You need a carpenter’s helper, but you can’t carry a full wage while somebody learns the job from nothing. The subsidy is what makes that hire possible — and what you get is someone trained to your company’s standards from day one, instead of a helper who’s been on three other crews and already thinks he knows everything.
Or picture a Red Seal tradesman with years on the tools who’s never run a crew, because nobody’s given him the chance. You want him in that role, but you can’t spare the time to teach scheduling, crew management, client conversations and paperwork. Sometimes it’s simpler than that — he’s excellent on the tools and not comfortable with a tablet, and that alone is what stands between him and a leadership position.
My job is identifying exactly what the gap is and documenting it, so the training plan and the support actually fit the person.
That’s not a weaker hire. That’s the one who stays.
Let’s talk
You don’t need much to meet with me the first time. Just a general idea of what you’re looking for.
From there we can talk about which funding fits — a wage subsidy, an employer training grant, or something else you’re eligible for that you may not know about.
I’ll need some key data points to prepare the application, and we can circle back to those. Your WorkSafeBC number and rate letter, your business number, your BCeID login. If you don’t have them readily available, we make a plan.
Ultimately, I’m going to prepare the application for you. We’ll review it together, and I’ll even help you with the tech of submitting it.
Thank you
Your message is on its way. I’ll be in touch to set up a time to talk.
Need me sooner? Call (778) 983-4669 or email hello@ravensoccasions.com.
Systems, sales & operations
The unglamorous parts that decide whether the rest works
Most of what I do comes down to two things: helping people make money, and helping them stop losing it. That is usually where I start looking.
What follows is not a service menu. These are the things I actually get asked about, and what working backwards from them tends to look like.
Your staff have completely different comfort levels with technology
Some of your people want pen and paper. Some want everything on a phone. Both are right, and a system that only serves one of them gets quietly abandoned by the other.
That usually means a hybrid: forms that can be filled out in the field on paper or on a screen, documentation people will actually open, and automation for the parts nobody should be retyping.
There is too much paperwork and some of it could probably be automated
Often true. Not always worth it. The useful version of that conversation is which parts are worth automating, which parts just need a better form, and which parts should stop being done at all.
Practical pieces I can help with: documentation and SOPs, office systems, field forms, a simple CRM that does not cost you a subscription forever, Google Business Profile and Meta Business Suite setup, and the Canva materials you keep meaning to make.
You have a great product and no real sales process
It does not matter how good the product is if nobody knows how to sell it. That is a process problem and a training problem, not a personality problem, and both can be built.
You keep hiring people and the results are not what you need
They leave. They were not trained. They did not have the experience. Or the labour pool simply does not contain the finished person you are picturing, and the real answer is hiring for potential and building the rest.
Where it fits, the WorkBC Wage Subsidy and the Employer Training Grant can carry part of that cost. Eligibility gets assessed, never assumed — that is the hiring and wage subsidy side of this.
Consulting is quoted on what you actually need — the problem, the objective, the scope, and whether anyone else has to be brought in. There is no rate card, because there is no standard job.
Where I stop
I do not pretend to know how to do everything
What I do know how to do is work out what needs to happen, find the bottleneck, and figure out who can solve it.
Sometimes that is me. Sometimes it is someone else, and I would rather send you to the right person than sell you the thing I happen to own. Businesses in this town do better when they refer each other properly, and I take that seriously.
Either way you get a practical answer instead of a sales pitch for something you do not need.
Conferences & trade shows
You are one booth on a floor of hundreds
Two questions worth answering before you ship a banner across the province: what makes somebody stop, and what happens once they do?
Most exhibitors solve the first one with a bowl of pens and hope for the second. A mirror photo booth solves it differently — people come over because they want to, and they stay long enough for your team to have an actual conversation.
What are you spending to be there?
Booth fee. Travel. Hotel. Staff time, which is the expensive one nobody puts on an invoice. Signage, banners, printed material, promotional items. Days out of the shop.
If you are investing that much to be in the room, the question worth asking is not whether you showed up. It is what you want to come home with.
An example: the energy expo
A company is going to an energy expo. Same floor as everyone else, and most of the booths look much the same. The question I usually get is “how do we get people to stop?”
The answer is not automatically a bigger booth. It starts with a different question: what do you want people to actually do?
- Leave you their contact information
- Answer a few survey questions
- Give you a testimonial in their own words
- Remember your company next week
- Understand what you actually sell
- Have a real conversation with your staff
Once we know the answer to that, the booth becomes a tool rather than the plan. It gives people a reason to stop, a reason to stay, and something to talk about while they are standing there. Questions get asked at the moment people are happiest to answer them. The photo goes home with your name on it.
The goal is not “everybody loved the photo booth.” The goal is what your company brought home from the event.
How I run a corporate event
Before
We talk first, and the question is not “what package.” It is what you are actually trying to get out of the room — leads, brand awareness, a product launch, honest feedback from your industry. The setup follows from the answer.
On site
Your branding on the experience and on everything guests take away. Attended the whole time, so your team can talk to people instead of running the equipment.
Capture
Where it fits your goal, the booth can collect contact details and feedback — consent first, every time, clearly asked and clearly recorded. Nothing is gathered quietly.
After
A debrief. What drew people, what they said, what to do differently at the next show. The part almost nobody does, and the reason the next one goes better.
Somebody has to start the conversation
Not everyone likes walking up to strangers. I do.
I will work the room. I will draw people over, get them curious, explain what you do, introduce you, and hand the conversation to your team once it is warm. If your people would rather spend their time talking to the ones who are genuinely interested, this is what frees them up to do that.
I can also train your own staff to do it, which is worth more to you in the long run than hiring me every time.
How I represent you. I will happily get people interested in what you do. I will not make things up to do it. I work with people and businesses I can genuinely stand behind, and a referral only means something if people know I am going to be straight with them.
Insurance. I carry $5 million commercial general liability insurance, and can provide a certificate of insurance on request — if your venue or procurement team needs one on file, just ask.
“Who is going to want a photo at a forestry conference?”
Everybody, as it turns out.
Not because they came for a party. Because people want proof they were there — that their company showed up, that their crew was in the room, that they represented their organization. A good photo of coworkers with your branding on it is a post, a keepsake and a record of attendance all at once.
The point is not that engineers secretly love photo booths. The point is that the photo is useful.
And at most industry events every table looks the same: banner, logo, a couple of people standing behind it hoping somebody stops. The part I add is the reason to walk over in the first place.
A dead phone is an opportunity
I have been the person at an event whose phone is at four percent. You are not networking at that point. You are looking for an outlet.
A charging station gives people a reason to stand still near you for fifteen minutes, and fifteen minutes is a conversation. That is the whole thinking behind it — start with what people actually do, then work backwards to the equipment.
You do not need a marketing department
Plenty of businesses want to be at an event and are missing the pieces. No signage. No swag. Nothing printed. Not enough people to work the room. And no clear idea of what they are supposed to accomplish once they get there.
That is a solvable problem. I can help work out what is actually needed, provide some of it, and source the rest — I have access to custom printed materials, and where something falls outside what I do, I will find you someone who does it well.
The Voice Experience
The same technology behind our audio guest book, pointed at a business purpose. Attendees pick up a handset and record a message — a reaction to a product, a piece of feedback, a testimonial in their own voice rather than a survey checkbox. It is branded to you, and what comes back is usable content instead of a spreadsheet.
Don’t come home with a folder of photos
That is what most booths deliver. Here is what a corporate client leaves with:
- Event photography from the floor, branded to your organisation
- Content you can actually use afterward, cleared for the purpose it was captured for
- Recorded voice feedback, where the Voice Experience is part of the setup
- Contact details and leads, where they were collected with consent
- A written debrief on what worked and what to change next time
Want the event working for you after everyone goes home? Let me curate a social media package to support it — the photos, clips and voice content from your event, selected and prepared for your channels rather than handed over as a folder you never open.
Put the booth to work for your brand
Configured to your goals, consent-first at every step — so it earns its floor space twice over.
Ask your questions
The booth can put your questions to attendees while they play — asked at the exact moment people are happiest to answer.
Capture leads, consent-first
Gather contact information with clear, explicit consent built into the experience — warm leads your team can actually follow up on.
Feed your social channels
With proper consent from your guests, the event’s photos and video become content you can post.
Recruiting & career fairs
Candidates meet a dozen employers in an afternoon and remember two. An approachable, interactive booth signals a workplace with personality, and gives a prospective hire a relaxed way to start talking to your team. Long after the fair, the photos on their phone still carry your name.
Hiring off the back of it? That is the other half of what I do — see hiring and wage subsidy above.
I work most often with organisations in forestry, energy, mining, industrial and construction, engineering, and the resource sector generally — the companies sending teams to conferences and trade shows where the competition for attention is genuine. Smaller organisations are just as welcome; this is simply where I spend most of my time.
Staff parties & company events
The easy one
Christmas parties, team nights, open houses, product launches, service awards, the summer barbecue. No strategy session required — pick a package and I will be there.
Every package includes the mirror photo booth attended throughout, a professional backdrop, professional softbox lighting, unlimited digital photos, a custom overlay branded to your company, and a live online gallery your team can watch fill up during the event. Setup and teardown never count against your booked hours.
Four packages, from $795 to $1,299, with three hours of attended service and four on Gold and Platinum. Prices are in Canadian dollars; applicable taxes are added. The full breakdown — what is in each tier, and the à la carte add-ons — is on the pricing page.
Corporate dates book early — November and December especially. If you have a date in mind, get it held.
Still not sure
Not sure what you need?
That is the most common answer there is, and a perfectly good place to start. Answer a few plain questions, or just tell me what is going on.
Or reach me however is easiest — (778) 983-4669 to call or text, or hello@ravensoccasions.com.
Recent work
See it at a real event
Browse the online galleries from recent bookings — the same galleries guests get on the night.
Not sure which one you need?
Tell me what you are trying to solve and I will tell you straight whether I am the right call.