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The smarter I tried to sound, the dumber my audience felt.

I remember spending an hour explaining to stakeholders why merging two mobile apps was complicated. I shared everything: technical details, architecture diagrams, flow charts.

But all I got were blank stares.

Then I remembered this saying from marketing: “It’s better to be clear than clever.”

So I simplified my message and scheduled another meeting. This time? Heads were nodding. “Oh, I see!” “That makes sense now!”.

You see, the difference wasn’t what I said. It was how I said it.

Here’s how you can simplify your message without dumbing it down:

1. Find the Core

Most people in tech are eager to explain every everything in so much detail and accuracy that it becomes useless.

Every idea has a priority hierarchy.

Simplicity isn’t about saying less, it’s about saying the most important thing. That means choosing one idea that matters most and letting everything else support it.

Ask yourself: “If my audience remembers only one thing, what should it be?”. Then make that line the centerpiece of your script, slide, or headline.

For example, ‘‘maximizing shareholder value” would make sense to a CEO but not to an air stewardess. That’s why Southwest Airlines simplified their strategy by saying: “We’re THE low-fare airline.”

That single idea guided every decision, from no meals to fast turnarounds.

2. Avoid Jargon

Complex words don’t make you sound smarter. They make your audience work harder.

In corporate, you’d hear jargon-diarrhea like this: “We need to leverage our core competencies to facilitate cross-functional collaboration enablement and drive synergistic outcomes.”

Man that hurts my brain…

Here’s what it looks like in simple language: “Let’s use what we’re already good at to help teams work better together.”

See that? Same idea, zero translation required.

There’s a misconception that using simple language isn’t professional. That’s nonsense!

Warren Buffett is a billionaire who writes shareholder letters that even high school students can understand. He’s not dumbing things down. He’s respecting his audience’s time.

Remember Stephen King’s rule: “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.”

3. Make It Concrete

People in tech often give accurate, but intangible examples.

Imagine if Steve Jobs only explained the technical specs of the iPod:

That’s technically correct. But the audience might be thinking:

• “5GB - How much space is that really?”
• “MP3 player - Don’t these exist already?”
• “USB connectivity - Why would this matter?”
• “10-hours - Is that a lot? Do I need to carry batteries?”

Let’s compare that to what he actually said:

Now the audience would think:

• “1000 songs - That’s my whole music library!”
• “In your pocket - I don’t need to worry about the bulk.”
• “Cool. Now I want to know the details.”

See the difference?

When the example is concrete, people can see the transformation and they get curious. Once you’ve earned their attention, it’s easier to guide them to the next piece of information.

In copywriting, this is called the ‘slippery slope’ - the job of the first sentence is to get people to read the second sentence, and so on.

Wrap up

We all accidentally sound smart because we know too much, so don’t feel bad 😉

Simplicity isn’t about dumbing things down, it’s about:

• Finding the core
• Avoiding jargon
• Making it concrete

But principles alone don’t tell you what to do when you’re actually explaining something complicated to non-tech people, e.g. “microservices architecture” or “machine learning models”.

Lucky for you, I’ve broken down three specific techniques that make this easy. These are the exact methods I use every time I need to explain complex tech concepts to stakeholders, clients, or anyone outside engineering.

Check out this next video to find out more.

Cheers 😁

Adam