Explaining difficult concepts and ideas can be quite a daunting task for any anyone. Clear communication is always a must for any business owner, but due to the different levels of familiarity and background that each person has, getting a message across is not always that simple.

I recently conducted a business planning session for one of my clients. During the workshop, the team was able to piece together a target audience, the product advantages and benefits, the business’ delivery model, and financial plan. During one of the discussions on marketing, there were some blank stares that were telling me that a most of the discussion went over their heads.

I said to the participants that this was expected because most of the audience were from academic backgrounds, and marketing terms were not their cup of tea. It was at that moment I decided that I would need to use other means of communication to get most of the marketing concepts to the audience in the most effective way.

Just a few days before the workshop, I was also crafting a communications plan for a different client; and I once again struggled on how to express marketing terms to an audience without any marketing background. It was then that I realized that I was going down the same path I trudged on many times before. I now needed to create a certain process for myself and my clients that would solve this dilemma for good.

I’ve spent countless hours crafting proposals in the past, and I was actually convinced that customizing each one was part of my non-generic approach. After some reflection about the business and its direction, I’ve come to realize that even though each proposal and document are unique, my way of piecing them together wasn’t really helping anyone.

What I did then was I lay out all my marketing materials on a desk, brainstormed on a new approach; until finally, a new strategy came into mind.

Out of this strategy, I crafted a two-part approach to a clear communication plan. The plan contains a strategic rationale that determined the different phases of the work and also laid out each objective. Moreover, a spreadsheet matrix that plotted all the programs against the months of the year was produced. This document also contained the projected budgets of each plan, some information on contacts, and a project timeline.  In a blink of an eye, I had one file with all the information I needed.

I tested out this file and rolled it out during the most recent workshop. In order to make the audience understand marketing,  I shared my file with everyone. I did produce the expected results, and, of course, there were still some blank faces, but now they’re only reduced to less than a handful. With the process I crafted, the workshop’s focus shifter from the marketing jargon to more tangible terms like  deliverables, the objectives, and the timeframe.

It would really help all businesses out if we can get a communication plan together to better explain more advanced concepts to our audience.