Matt Payne

We created and sent out digital versions of these three comic books—highlighting the key statistics and accomplishments of Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Jordan Clarkson—to the media members voting for the 2020-21 NBA awards. I created the stories and provided the content for the comics and then worked with the design team and freelance animators to bring those stories to life.

The 2017/18 season marked the first year of a partnership between the NBA and Nike, and the unveiling of the team's new Nike uniforms—especially the Statement and City editions—was perhaps the biggest project of the year for our marketing group. I provided the copy for the website, and I also wrote the script for the movie that introduced the much-anticipated, southern Utah-themed City edition.

If you’re not getting feedback directly from your buyers, you’re just guessing.

Guessing if your sales pitch hits the spot.

Guessing if your messaging resonates.

Guessing if your product solves a pain point (or if it even works at all).

Guessing why you win and lose revenue—the lifeblood of your business.

Do you feel comfortable staking your own success—or the success of your company—on anecdotes? Or consistently unreliable CRM data? Or on your sales team’s (useful but often biased) feedback?

On a guess?

We don’t think that’s good enough—which is why we created this Definitive Guide to Win-Loss Analysis.

It’s more critical than ever for businesses to understand exactly why they’re winning and losing deals.

At least that’s what 98% of respondents told us in our 2023 State of Win-Loss Analysis survey.

We reached out to the sales, marketing, product, and executive teams at hundreds of organizations to learn how they approach win-loss analysis—the practice of reviewing past wins and losses to uncover the trends and insights that can influence future success rates.

In this report, we explore how real companies are seeing real value from win-loss analysis. This includes everything from identifying win-back opportunities and defining ideal customer profiles to significantly improving their sales training and boosting their win rates.

I create or edit all editorial content—including email, social ads, case studies, blog posts, microcopy, landing pages, sales collateral, and more—at Clozd, a venture-funded startup that provides innovative win-loss analysis to help companies improve their win rates, build better products, and strengthen their competitive advantage.

One of my primary responsibilities is to create a series of client stories that highlight the different ways our win-loss platform is helping our clients succeed. The Calendly (cross-functional success), Hello Heart (uncovering win-back opportunities), and Xactly (reducing customer attrition) case studies are all unique in focus and have armed our sales team with a variety of use cases to share with prospects.

At MX, I oversee the editorial process for case studies, reference sheets, internal client stories and employee highlight stories. I wrote this case study about WaFd Bank’s process of breaking away from their previous online banking provider and embarking on a project they call a “Path to Freedom.” Now aligned with more modern, agile vendors who share their same vision, WaFd is all-in on providing cutting-edge technological solutions to their consumer clients.

At MX, I oversee the editorial process for case studies, reference sheets, and internal client stories. This client spotlight story highlights Umpqua Bank’s collaboration with MX to support thousands of local small businesses at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Utah Jazz Mural

We collaborated with a local artist to design and install a huge mural in downtown Salt Lake City. I researched and provided the timeline of people and events that were featured in the mural.

Jerry Sloan Infographic

The Jazz organization celebrated legendary head coach Jerry Sloan's career with a banner-raising ceremony during halftime on January 31, 2014. Each fan in attendance that night received a poster that I helped create. I researched the statistics and milestones, and provided the content for the infographic.

All-Star Promos

We created different types of promos—a newspaper for Donovan Mitchell and a pizza-style menu for Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Bojan Bogdanovic and Mike Conley—to highlight our players in a push to get them selected for the 2020 NBA All-Star Game in Chicago.

I created much of the messaging that was used throughout the Utah Jazz's digital channels. This includes headlines and captions for feature articles and social media posts; paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram; feature content on utahjazz.com; push notifications for the Utah Jazz app; and more.

I also worked with various departments (ticketing, corporate partnerships, community relations) to write all the emails that come from the Utah Jazz account.

At Clozd, I run our company's LinkedIn and email accounts, and I write all the copy for our website, landing pages, event presentations, and more.

On April 1, 2015 the Utah Jazz announced a new addition to team's uniform set—Three-Quarter Court Pants. This was a joke, of course. I wrote the press release announcing the change for the Jazz website, and the news quickly spread on social media. ESPN picked up on our "announcement" and my work ended up as the theme for the Jazz vs. Nuggets highlights on SportsCenter that night. Also, ESPN's Darren Rovell—arguably the most popular sports business analyst on social media—gave us some great recognition for our prank.

Late in the 2013/14 season, I wrote a letter to Jazz season ticket holders who had not yet renewed for the following season. When they got to the game, their seats were covered in a blue wrap and this card was waiting for them in an envelope.

The Jazz organization celebrated legendary head coach Jerry Sloan's career with a banner-raising ceremony during halftime on January 31, 2014. Each fan in attendance that night received a poster that I helped create. I researched the statistics and milestones, and provided the content for the infographic.

Outside of the game recaps, much of what I do for the Jazz doesn't have my name attached to it—and in some cases my work will have other people's names on it. Most notably, I've created messaging for Jazz owner Gail Miller, Jazz president Steve Starks, Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey and Jazz head coach Quin Snyder. 

I interned at BYU Magazine during my final year of college. During my year there, I did lots of editing. And more editing. Besides the editing, though, working at BYU Magazine expanded my comfort level in various types of writing. I learned that writing something short—like a photo caption—takes just as much focus and attention to detail as writing a feature profile.

I covered the Salt Lake Bees Triple-A baseball team for the Deseret News (one of Utah's two main newspapers) during the 2010 season. This is one of the features I wrote. It ran on the front page of the sports section.