The ADDIE Framework Step Most Companies Miss

Paul Leon: Today, we are going to walk through a framework that has helped hundreds of companies generate millions in revenue. If this is the first time you and I have met, my name is Paul Leon. I have worked with over 500 teams, and I create content like this so other trainers, and people like you, can level up and help members of your team improve the skills they need to be more successful.

We are starting now.

The first letter in this framework is A, and this is what they call the ADDIE framework. If you have never heard of it, stay with me. I am going to walk through it letter by letter.

A is for Analyze.

I am going to speak from personal experience from working with more than 500 teams. When it comes to analyze, what I typically recommend is this: always look at your primary data first. What data points can you use to start building the content? That is always where you want to begin.

For example, if I were building sales content, and primary data was not available, I might use secondary data. So maybe I would go on Google or ChatGPT and start sifting through research. A common data point you will hear is that 80% of salespeople never follow up past the fifth follow-up call. If you follow strong trainers in sales, you know that sales often starts after the fifth call. Another data point is that 54% of salespeople do not even follow up once.

Those are examples of data points you might use when you begin analyzing before building the content. You also want to gather as much information as possible from your primary stakeholders. Usually, a marketing department is going to have a lot of that if you are working for a large company like I do. Start leveraging those key stakeholders. You are all on the same team.

If you do use secondary data, especially if you are creating something externally facing, make sure you cross-check it with stakeholders and the right internal teams. The one thing you do not want to do is go in blind, start shooting for the moon, and not cross-check with your stakeholders. That creates a real mess. Do not do that.

The next letter is D for Design.

Let me explain what I mean by design. The first thing you want to get are the brand colors. A lot of big companies are very strict about the brand they use, and they spend a fortune on design and marketing teams to make sure they are choosing the best colors. So ask: what are the prescribed color codes, and what are the approved fonts that we need to use in this content?

You can always push back if you have a different opinion, but at the end of the day, brand is usually going to win. For example, I personally like Calibri. I do not even know if I am saying it right, but that is usually the font I like. I do not like thinner fonts like Times New Roman or others along those lines, especially when creating core content. They can be harder to read, and the older you get, the more your eyes may feel it. I know for me, I wear a pretty strong contact lens prescription, so I have always had bad eyes.

The next letter is D for Develop.

So now you have done your analysis and your design. You have the fonts, the colors, and everything else you need. Now it is time to start building the content.

One thing you can obviously do is use AI. In fact, I would encourage you to do that if you know how to prompt it properly. There is a framework I use a lot before I work with AI like Copilot. I like Copilot in companies because there is usually little to no data leakage, and it is typically approved by most organizations. Before I use AI, I usually frame my thinking in a Word document first.

Here is the framework I use:
What is the goal of what I want to do in this conversation or chat?
What is the context of what we are doing?
What is the command?
What is the format?

That framework is not mine, but it is something I have seen, used often, and recommended from other leaders I work with.

So let us say I am building a guide. I will put the goal for the guide in bullet points. Then I will add the context, the fonts, and anything else relevant. Then I will add the command. Then I will define the format. For example, if I do not want first-person language like “you,” I make sure I put that in the prompt.

Here is another important point. Once you have your prompt written out, end it with a question like, “Confirm your role in this chat.” I do this a lot with AI, especially Copilot. What happens is that when I structure my inputs better, my outputs get much better too.

I would also encourage you to include this in your prompt: “Test all of this content through the ADDIE framework.”

So we have now gone through Develop.

The next letter is I for Implement.

You have analyzed the content, done the design, completed development, and now it is time to implement it. By implementing it, that simply means putting it into play.

If it is internal, you are probably going to deliver the presentation to your stakeholders and begin using the content. If it is external, and you are training field reps or people out in the field, then the next letter becomes extremely important because these two go together very closely.

That last letter is E for Evaluate.

Once you get past implementation, these two stages become heavily linked. I would probably call this the improvement phase. If I were mapping this out further, I would say this earlier part is your development stage, and this part is your implementation and feedback loop stage.

For whatever reason, people miss the evaluate stage in about nine out of ten companies I work with. Whether you are a sole proprietor, an LLC, a mid-sized business, or a large company, it does not matter. Most companies skip evaluation. I do not know if it is insecurity. I do not know what the reason is. But what matters about this stage is that every time you do training, you need a debrief within 24 to 48 hours, usually on a business day.

All a debrief session is meant to do is answer a few simple questions:
What were the gaps in the training?
What could have been better?
What should we improve next time?

Here is the truth. You might build the world’s greatest content. But let me tell you from experience, it does not matter how great you think it is. It only matters how great the team and the customer think it is. You have to obsess over the customer experience.

Let me give you an example.

I was doing a training once, and a guy in the session said, “You are just trying to make money off me. You do not really care about me. You do not really care about my success.”

At the time, we were training on software that cost a couple hundred dollars. I did not think my response was bad. I said, “You are right. I am trying to sell you something for two hundred dollars because I believe in this solution. I believe that if you fully maximize these features and implement them in your process, you are going to give better quotes, create stronger customer experiences, and win more sales. Yes, I will make money as a result, and you will make money as a result, and we will both win. The only thing I want to challenge you on is this: do you really think I do not care about you?”

He did not say anything for a moment, and then he said, “I am sorry.”

We ended up being fine. We became buddies, and everything worked out well.

But then we had the debrief session. Even though I felt like I handled it well, because I think sometimes we are all guilty of ego, myself included, another person on the team gave me feedback. She was a little more soft-spoken and did not speak up often. She said, very calmly, “I liked how you handled it for the most part. My only concern is that because other people were in the room, he could have felt publicly embarrassed. Next time, if somebody says something like that, it might be better to say, ‘Can we take this offline and talk to the side? I want to make sure I give you the attention you deserve.’”

Everybody got quiet.

I think there was a moment where she may have felt nervous.

And I said, “You know what? You are right. That is really strong feedback, and I needed to hear it so I can get better. Thank you for sharing that with me.”

That is why the evaluation stage matters so much. This is where growth happens faster. This is where the ignorance tax gets reduced. This is the stage that feeds back into your process and helps level up your overall experience much faster.

For more free content like this, visit our website at TheManagersMic.com. If you sign up for our newsletter, we automatically send you a script, and you will also get some AI frameworks that you can copy and paste if you want to level up your sales scripting or build stronger guides in the future.

That is it for me. My name is Paul Leon, and I will see you on the next video.