Timber Moose Lodge 2025
Today I’m headed to Heber City, Utah to the famous Timber Moose Lodge! This is basically holy ground for the d2d sales industry and every major team or company goes here at some point along their journey! Some would argue that you’re not really in the industry until you’ve had a retreat at TML!
This is my second time attending a retreat here, the first was a little over a year ago! Then, I left a note in a well-known book in the library! I’m curious to see if it’s still there and if anyone else has seen it/taken action on what I left in the note!
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02/03/25 Update:
I have officially just wrapped up the retreat and roughly the content for the retreat! Wow. It was an insanely fun time, lots of moving parts and activities, overall elite! One of the best parts is seeing the growth of a group of guys I’ve seen and worked with for over 6 years (starting way back in 2019). I got to personally witness their evolution (pun intended, their group is called Evolution) from rep, to manager, to leader, to regional. This group installed over 1,000 solar deals in 2024, which is insane, and has a big goal to triple over the next year.
From a shoot perspective there were several firsts and lessons learned. 1) there were 3 other shooters at the event for different people participating. I have never been to a regional retreat where teams within the retreat hired their own freelance video guy to shoot the event. Normally me and my team have had exclusive access. This added a unique challenge of all of us all trying to capture key moments while also trying to not be in each others way. Fortunately, all the shooters were super chill, helpful and we all were excited to see each others content. This can be hit or miss but it was a hit here. 2) I was shooting on both Sony and Canon. The age old argument Sony v. Canon has been polluting my office and creating divisions with my video team…well mainly me holding on to Canon while they tell me Sony just has this look to it that we can’t replicate with Canon. So with a new year and a new equipment budget, I decided ahead of my Costa Rica trip to buy an FX3 and feel the difference myself. And granted the FX3 is an amazing cinema camera worth the hype. I do love the portability and size difference compared to the Canon R5 Mark ii, but, I cannot replicate my photo shooting style on the FX3, the UI is clunky and unintuitive and while the dual native ISO in lowlight is very impressive and helpful — My Canon shots on this shoot looked the same if not better than the FX3, in fact I favored shooting on the R5 not because of habit but because it was just more convenient to easily switch between video and photo with the dedicated body switch. When you’re IN the action, you can’t be waiting to press buttons and update settings. It also is so much easier for me to use one camera that solves my needs vs trying to switch in the middle of a live event. With that, I personally would rather shoot on Canon than Sony. I gave Sony a super fair shot, and all credit to the FX3 being a beast. I’m sure when the new edition of the FX3 drops in April we’ll be re-exploring this debate! 3) My preparation has been fundamental to my success on these shoots. Every shoot I’ve had this year, I’ve prepped by gathering examples and building mood boards, documenting shots I want + visual examples pulled from other creatives. This gave me a ton of confidence going into shoots and asking people to be quick talent so I get the specific shot I’m looking for. Now I feel like there’s so much I could’ve improved on with this shoot in terms of getting the right shots and being at the right places at the right times…but…I got some really baller shots because of the work done before departing on the trip. Thus proving my goal for this year to be a worthy cause.
Thank you for following this story, I’m going to post one of the key videos/reels from the trip below but I’ll have all of this updated on my personal portfolio website here within the next day or so: willhaddock.com!