There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to get your message across to other people, especially when it happens frequently with your colleagues. Fortunately, if you identify the roadblocks that stop information from getting through, you’ll be able to craft strategies to get around them and make people understand. There are four significant roadblocks that might be in your way. First, you believe in an education model, and not an influence model—meaning that you think that explaining all the details to something will be enough to make your audience understand. This might be the case in academia, but in the world of business, you need to find ways to connect with the people you’re talking to. The second roadblock is that you feel the pressure to jump straight to the conclusion when people ask questions. By structuring your answers to include the question, you will buy yourself time to properly find the words to answer that question while making it easier for the other to follow what you’re saying. Third roadblock: you might be worried that if you just come right out and deliver your message, you’ll experience immediate rejection, which makes you take a longer, alternate route to your key point. Rather than worry about exposing your idea too soon, find why the audience would care about your idea and focus on the best way to explain it. The last roadblock is that you care too much about sounding smart. Guess what? Your audience doesn’t want to be dazzled by your brilliance–they want to get your point quickly. Make your idea loud and clear, and watch your audience connect with it.