Do you ever feel like the more you repeat yourself, the more people around you don’t understand you? It’s not a rare occurrence for entrepreneurs to feel frustrated that even after explaining things over and over again to investors, employees, vendors, customers – they still don’t get it. And all while you think you’re being crystal clear.

“Take pride in developing good communication skills.” 

Colin Powell said, “Leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” As a leader, one of your most important jobs is to communicate effectively with the diverse set of constituents that your company engages. Whether you are speaking with a customer, employee, investor or advisor, you must be able to quickly and succinctly convey your business to them. Simple. Comprehensible. Clear. Yet, there is a consistent disconnect between the entrepreneur’s understanding and explanation of an issue, plan or expectation and the interpretation of the customer, employee, investor, advisor or relationship on the other end. While we may think our constituents have a secret club where together they plan new ways to screw with us, in turns out we are the common denominator in this negative repetition. If, as entrepreneurs, we continue to stubbornly insist that we are the ones communicating clearly, our words eventually will fall on deaf ears. Because, in reality, we are likely the ones not making any sense.