When Expertise Gets Lost in Translation

My three-year-old has a fascinating relationship with the word “yesterday.” 

In his world, yesterday covers a lot of ground. Something we did three weeks ago happened yesterday. A trip to the park this morning happened yesterday. The birthday party he’s excited about next weekend might also fall under the broad umbrella of yesterday if you catch him at the right moment.

Now – I’ve spent more late nights than I care to admit watching documentaries about space, black holes, time dilation, and how the universe works. So when I found myself trying to explain yesterday, today, and tomorrow, I naturally started heading down that road… 

Maybe time is a human construct. Maybe it’s just our way of measuring movement through space-time. Maybe the fact that we’re all standing on a giant rock hurtling around a ball of fire at 67,000 miles per hour should factor into the explanation somehow. 

At one point my mind even drifted to the Drake Equation, the idea that there could be thousands of intelligent civilizations scattered throughout the cosmos, and how we’d probably never meet any of them because the distances involved are so absurd that everyone would be long gone before anyone arrived. Then I wondered if I even understood time myself…does anyone?

Then I remembered he was three. So rather than create a core traumatic memory and send my anxiety-stricken son into therapy at the ripe age of 3, I stripped it down….

→ Today is right now. 

→ Yesterday already happened. 

→ Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. 

I left the aliens out of it. 

My explanation wasn’t especially sophisticated, but it was something he could understand. A few yesterdays later, he started using the words correctly. Not every time, but enough that I could see the gears turning.

But the whole thing got me thinking about how easy it is to forget what it’s like not to know something. Time feels obvious when you’ve spent decades living inside it. The concepts become automatic. You stop thinking about them altogether. Then someone asks a simple question like, “What is yesterday?”, and you realize that understanding something and explaining it are two very different skills. 

I see the same thing happen all the time when I’m working with clients. Founders, engineers, consultants, and subject-matter experts spend years becoming fluent in their fields. Eventually, they know it so well that they lose sight of where everyone else is starting from. It’s almost like the folks who know the most about a subject tend to be the ones who struggle the most to explain it in a way their neighbor can understand.

I figured I couldn’t be the only one thinking this way, so I reached out to a few business owners and marketing experts to get their two cents on the matter.

“Expertise blinded me to the fact that I was the only person in the room who’d seen this before”

The funny thing about expertise is that after a while, you stop noticing it.

The things that once required effort become automatic. Terminology becomes part of your everyday vocabulary. Processes become second nature. Entire explanations get compressed into a handful of words because everyone around you already understands the context.

You Might Also Like: How To Project Brand Authority as a New Player

Damien Zouaoui, Co-Founder of Oakwell Beer Spa, ran into this problem when introducing a concept familiar in parts of Europe but largely unknown in the United States. Before opening Oakwell, Damien spent 14 months visiting beer spas in 25 different countries. By the time he launched the business, the concept felt completely normal to him.

His customers had a different experience. “Expertise blinded me to the fact that I was the only person in the room who’d seen this before,” he told me.

People wanted to know if they were supposed to drink the bathwater. Others struggled to understand what a beer spa even was in the first place. Questions that sounded strange to Damien made perfect sense to someone hearing the idea for the first time.

The longer we spend around something, the more obvious it becomes. We stop remembering the questions we had when we first encountered it. We stop noticing the information we’re taking for granted. It’s easy to assume people know more than they do because the knowledge has been sitting in our own heads for so long.

What To Take Away From This: The longer you’ve worked in an industry, the harder it becomes to see your knowledge the way a newcomer sees it. Expertise changes your perspective. Questions that feel obvious to customers often disappear from view because you’ve been carrying the answers for so long. Something To Try: Ask someone outside your industry to explain what your business does after reading your website. Pay close attention to where they hesitate, simplify, or misunderstand. Those moments often reveal the assumptions you’re making without realizing it.

“What seemed like standard industry terminology to us was a foreign language to someone who just wanted to get around their house”

Customers generally come to your business with a specific goal in mind.

They’re trying to solve a problem, make a decision, or fix something that isn’t working. Very few arrive hoping to become fluent in your industry. They just want to know whether a product or service is worth their time and money.

Rina Gutierrez, Marketing Coordinator at MacPherson’s Medical Supply, saw this happen when her company reviewed the language it used to describe products and services.

“What seemed like standard industry terminology to us was a foreign language to someone who just wanted to get around their house,” she told me.

It’s an easy thing to forget when you spend every day inside a profession. The words that feel natural internally often require translation externally. Customers aren’t thinking about classifications, specifications, or the like. They’re thinking about whether they can safely move from the bedroom to the kitchen without assistance.

It’s a pretty universal pattern across industries.

“What seemed like standard descriptors to us was confusing code to coffee lovers who just wanted a smooth, balanced morning cup,” said Rory Keel, Owner of Equipoise Coffee.

A coffee professional might spend years learning how processing methods, roast profiles, origin characteristics, and tasting notes influence flavor. Most customers aren’t standing in the grocery aisle hoping to absorb that knowledge. They’re trying to decide whether they’ll enjoy what’s in the bag.

You Might Also Like: Using Founder-Led Content To Build Trust Without Building Dependency

Buying decisions often happen long before someone understands every detail. 

People ask practical questions. 

• What does this do? 
• How does it help me? 
• Why should I care? 
• What happens if I choose this option instead of another one?

The businesses that communicate clearly tend to answer those questions first.

What To Take Away From This: Most customers aren’t trying to become experts in your field. They’re trying to solve a problem, make a decision, or improve a situation in their lives. The language that feels natural inside your business isn’t always the language that helps someone understand why they should care. Something To Try: Review your homepage, product pages, or sales materials and highlight every industry-specific term. Then ask yourself whether a first-time visitor would understand it without additional explanation. If the answer is no, rewrite it in plain language and focus on the outcome instead.

“We thought it proved our credibility, but it actually created a barrier.”

Every industry develops its own language.

Some of that language exists for good reason. Specialized work often requires specialized terminology. People working in the same field need efficient ways to communicate complex ideas to one another. Over time, those terms become part of everyday conversation.

The friction comes when the language created for colleagues finds its way into customer-facing communication.

David LoPresti, Founder and CEO of ADA Compliance Professionals, discovered this while reviewing the way his company described its services.

“To me it was shorthand. To a buyer, it was noise,” he told me.

That sort of stuck with me because it captures something many businesses experience without realizing it. A term can feel perfectly clear inside an organization and completely lose its meaning outside of it. The people writing the website understand it. The sales team understands it. Industry peers understand it. Customers often don’t.

That doesn’t happen because businesses are trying to confuse people.

In many cases, they’re trying to do the opposite.

They’re trying to be accurate and thorough. They’re trying to communicate expertise in a way that feels professional and precise.

Wayne Lowry, Executive Director and CEO of Sunny Glen Children’s Home, saw something similar in his own organization.

“We thought it proved our credibility, but it actually created a barrier.”

A lot of communication problems start with good intentions.

The people closest to the work often feel a responsibility to explain it completely. They add context, insider terminology, and complex detail. Eventually, the explanation begins to reflect how the organization understands itself rather than how a customer understands the problem they’re trying to solve.

Language serves different purposes depending on who it’s written for.

The words that help professionals communicate with each other aren’t always the same words that help customers make a decision.

What To Take Away From This: Complexity often enters communication with good intentions. Most businesses aren’t trying to confuse people. They’re trying to be accurate, thorough, and credible. The challenge is that language designed for peers doesn’t always translate well to customers. Something To Try: Look through your website and identify a sentence that sounds impressive to someone in your industry. Then ask yourself whether a customer would describe the same thing using those words. If not, you’ve probably found an opportunity to simplify.

“Nobody buying a drill wants to hear about torque specs. They want the hole in the wall.”

One misconception that shows up in conversations about communication is the idea that clarity means you have to sacrifice accuracy.

The folks I spoke with described something very different.

David LoPresti wasn’t changing the services his company offered. He wasn’t removing expertise from the process. He wasn’t cutting corners or reducing the complexity of the work.

“Same work. Different doorway,” he told me.

Most businesses spend years developing expertise and then lead with that expertise. 

• The certifications. 
• The methodology. 
• The terminology. 
• The process. 

Customers encounter the mechanics before they understand why any of it matters. The businesses that communicate clearly often reverse that order. They start with the problem, the outcome, and the reason someone showed up in the first place.

The expertise is still there. It just arrives later.

Runbo Li, Co-Founder and CEO of Magic Hour AI, reached a similar conclusion while refining how his company talked about its products.

“Nobody buying a drill wants to hear about torque specs. They want the hole in the wall.”

You Might Also Like: How Often Should You Publish Content?

It’s one of those observations that feels obvious the moment you hear it. People usually arrive with a job they need done or a problem they need solved. They care about how the product fits into their lives before they care about how it works under the hood.

That doesn’t make the underlying technology less important, but it does change where the explanation begins. As Runbo put it: “Show the output, hide the engine.”

What To Take Away From This: Clear communication doesn’t require removing expertise. It requires changing the order in which expertise is presented. People generally care about outcomes before they care about processes, methodology, or technical details. Something To Try: Take one product, service, or feature and rewrite the explanation without mentioning how it works. Focus entirely on what changes for the customer after using it. Once that’s clear, add the supporting details back in.

“That’s the real test of clear messaging, whether your customer can sell it for you at a dinner table.”

Every explanation has a shelf life.

At some point, the sales call ends, the website gets closed, the webinar wraps up, or the pitch deck goes back into a folder somewhere. A few hours later, or maybe a few days later, someone is trying to remember what they learned.

They aren’t replaying your explanation word-for-word.

They’re remembering their version of it.

Runbo Li believes that’s where messaging either succeeds or fails. “That’s the real test of clear messaging, whether your customer can sell it for you at a dinner table.”

People talk to coworkers. They discuss options with business partners. They compare vendors. They summarize products for decision-makers who weren’t part of the original conversation. The explanation keeps traveling long after you’ve finished giving it.

David LoPresti has seen the same dynamic play out with referrals. “Buyers can only refer you if they can explain what you do.” A surprising amount of business depends on that ability.

People don’t recommend products they can’t describe or advocate for services they don’t understand. They don’t become confident buyers when they’re struggling to explain the value to someone else.

Most businesses eventually reach a point where expertise alone isn’t enough. The challenge is turning years of experience into something another person can understand, remember, and repeat.

What To Take Away From This: Customers rarely remember explanations the way businesses deliver them. They remember the version that makes sense to them. That understanding shapes referrals, recommendations, and buying decisions long after the original conversation ends. Something to Try: Ask a recent customer how they would describe your business to a friend. Their answer will tell you far more about your messaging than another internal brainstorming session ever could.

Squeezing Years of Experience Into a Few Minutes

A few themes kept showing up as I dug deeper into this topic.

The first is that expertise changes the way people communicate. After years in an industry, certain concepts become automatic. Terminology becomes second nature. Entire chains of reasoning get compressed into a few words because everyone in the room already understands the context. The trouble starts when customers, prospects, and readers aren’t in that room.

The second is that understanding and explaining are clearly two separate skills. One doesn’t automatically come with the other. Plenty of brilliant people struggle to communicate what they know, while some of the most effective communicators spend their time translating complex ideas into language that feels familiar and useful.

What struck me most was how similar the stories were. I talked to folks from different industries, with different customers, and sold different products or services. Yet everyone seemed to reach the same point eventually. They realized they were explaining their work from the middle of the story while their audience was still trying to understand the beginning.

That’s a big part of the work I do with clients. The expertise is already there. The challenge is helping other people see it, understand it, and connect it to a problem they care about solving. If you’ve noticed a disconnect between you and the people you are trying to reach, contact me or book a call and let’s talk.