As someone who has spent their life working to support, train and educate people, I have learned again and again how important it is to be able to explain difficult concepts quickly and clearly. A good explanation can help everyone involved leap forward in their understanding and productivity. There are few tools as powerful as a good explanation to help people work to their highest potential, but there is a bit of an art to creating and delivering great explanations and answers to tough questions. Here are a few guidelines I have developed over the years to help me be better at explaining and always work towards making concepts and ideas clearer, not more confusing.

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Know it all, then distill

In order to explain something clearly, you need to have knowledge that is both wide and deep. You need to understand every aspect of a task or problem, so you can determine what works best in any given situation. Unfortunately, this extensive knowledge is often your greatest impediment to explaining the concept or task to others. Since we know so much about the topic, we can be eager to share all that knowledge with others. Of course, those around us often don’t need (or want) that much detail. They need a basic understanding of the issue and a few good ways of dealing with that issue. When you try to unload every fact, figure and concept on them, they quickly “fill up” and tune out.

Instead, once you have gained your deep understanding, your next step is to distill that knowledge down to its very essence. Knowing what you now know, what are the most important facts that need to be shared? What advice, tips, rules, procedures can be developed that anyone — even without your deep knowledge — can use to be more productive, accurate, effective, whatever? It can be difficult to distill large amounts of knowledge down, but it is so critical. Your expertise comes not only from deep knowledge. If you can’t share it effectively, it is almost worse than not having the knowledge at all. Knowledge that can’t be share is wasted time, potential and productivity.

Less, then more

Always start with less information when communicating. Like the pyramid method taught in journalism school, start with most important piece of information first, then the next, then the next. Make sure that your listener clearly understands what you are saying at each point before moving on. Also, learn to recognize when they have enough information. Some may need only the basics while other may need, or desire, more detailed information to both better understand the issue themselves and be better able to explain to others. Each person is different. Each role is different. You’ll have to watch carefully for what each person needs from you and seek to provide that. Remember, the communication isn’t about you and your knowledge. It is about your listener’s wants and needs.

Use your listener’s language

When you are extremely knowledgeable about a topic, it is easy to fall into using the specific technical language of that topic when speaking to others. Don’t. Use the language of your listener so that they understand you best. Remember the last time you visited your doctor or dentist and they started talking about Maxillary lateral incisors and third metatarsels. Did you really understand them or just nod your head? I know I find myself stopping them and asking for simpler explanations all the time. Don’t be like them. While it may be important they they know and use their own very specific vocabulary, speaking in the patients own language greatly speeds and facilitates understanding.

Speak in your listener’s language. Use metaphors and examples from their life and work. If they are an artist, speak in artist’s terms of composition, balance and design. If they are a lawyer, you’ll need to be able to use basic and correct legal terminology to get your point across. If they work in finance, then financial metaphors and examples are your best tool. Don’t think that you can dazzle people with the brilliance of your own specialized vocabulary and language. They will simply stop listening. Trust me, I have explained the difference between RAM and Hard drive space more times than you can count and still the best metaphor I can use is that of the desktop and a file cabinet. I can talk bits, bytes and kilobytes until I am out of breath, but all they will hear is blah, blah,blah.

No matter how complex, technical or difficult an issue, always seek to make it clearer, not more confusing. Better knowledge, better quality and better productivity only comes from a clear understanding of an issue. If your explanation only adds to the confusion surrounding it, you are making your life — and the lives of those around you — much more difficult. Gain wide and deep knowledge. Distill that knowledge down to its essence and then communicate that essence using the language of your listener. This is just one more way to build the career you deserve and the careers of those around you.

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Come and join me in the garden while I talk of new media consulting, YouTube and more. Strictly an old school, talking podcast today. Off the cuff. Stream of conscience. No editing. Just me, the Zoom H2 and a cooling beverage in the garden.

Listen to this podcast

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Previously in the Dog Days of Podcasting 2014:

• Video: In the garden short…August 5, 2014 – Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 – 6/30
• The Client Dance — from the Career Opportunities Podcast – Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 – 5/30
• MacLeod Ale Brewing Co – Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 – Day 4/30
• Video: Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 – Making Cornbread – Day 3/30
• Audio: Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 – Dr. Rosanne Welch on Television and Movie Writing – Day 2/30
• Video: Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 – Risotto Rosso – Day 1/30
• Dog Days of Podcasting 2014 Introduction – Day 0/30

What is the Dog Days of Podcasting?

“Essentially, it is a challenge to do a podcast for 30 days in a row.

In 2012 Kreg Steppe was looking to give himself a little push in regards to recording his own personal podcast since he wasn’t recording it very often. That turned into a challenge for himself to record a show everyday for 30 days believing that after 30 days it would turn into a habit. Once it was mentioned to Chuck Tomasi he took the challenge too and they decided it would be a great idea to record starting 30 days before Dragon*Con, culminating with the last episode where they would record it together when they saw each other there.”

Working with any client is a dance — or at least it should be. Dancing partners have to learn a lot about each other — how they move, where they move, how they communicate their moves — and working with any freelance client is much the same. Just as when you are learning to dance, there will be mistakes, missteps and a few toes are sure to be stepped upon. It is part of the nature of learning and developing any relationship.

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Still, despite the difficulties, freelancing and working with individual clients can be very rewarding. You have the ability to more directly effect the life and business of a client than you ever would in a larger, more corporate environment. You can develop personalized and unique solutions for their needs. You also learn much about yourself, your work and your own wants, needs and desires. You find your likes, your dislikes, your preferences. You’ll also learn what you do best, what you need to improve and what you need to learn.

It can sometimes feel like a harsh learning environment for you, but despite whatever stress you may feel, it will benefit you greatly. Sometimes the only way we come to understand our skills and expertise is in being forced to exercise them. We have to try — and fail — and succeed — to truly learn our own limits and where our interests lie.

This is another part of the client dance. Many will come to you with one question, but that might lead to other questions in far reaching areas of their life and business. With each question, you will need to decide how much expertise to you can bring to your answer — or, sometimes, if you have any expertise at all.

For example, In my New Media work, I am most comfortable working with the technology and the underlying philosophy of how it can be used to improve a person’s life, career and business. Due to the nature of New Media being used in all aspects of business, though, clients will often start to ask me questions about sales and marketing, business plans, billing, pricing and a host of other topics which are outside my usual areas of expertise. It is important for me to actively defer many of those questions elsewhere.

In any client relationship, I want it to be very clear where my expertise lies. I might offer my personal opinions on these questions, but I am always sure to preface my thoughts with the standard disclaimer, “I am not a (enter expert’s name here)” It is not in my best interest, nor yours, to pretend expertise in something you do not have. In fact, it can greatly damage your relationship with a client if you do. Do not put yourself in the position to disappoint your client. Be honest and clear with them the limits of your own expertise and the client dance will be much easier and more productive.

Sure, you might feel a bit inadequate or fear that the client will think less of you, but I have found over many years that people respect honesty in others and that will far outweigh any perceived inadequacies. They will see your honesty as respect and appreciate it more as your relationship grows. I never want people to feel I have taken advantage of them and this honesty about my expertise is one way of avoiding such situations.

That doesn’t mean you don’t still have a role with that client, though. I have often become a translator of sorts between the client and another consultant. Often clients can’t speak the language of a web designer or programmer. Perhaps I couldn’t help develop the program or site for the client myself, but I can help them communicate their desires to these consultants and translate the consultant’s technical talk into something the client can better understand. This focuses on one of my strengths instead of disappointing my client by claiming expertise that I do not have.

If you are considering freelancing, I hope you will see it — as I do — as a long and complicated dance. Starting the dance can be difficult and fraught with mistakes, but over time you will come to be better partners who can anticipate each other’s movements and needs. It is at this level where the best work, the best products, the best lives are created. Do the client dance well and you are well on the road to building the career you deserve.

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