For companies introducing advanced technologies, one key to credible communications is honesty about the challenges you face—market barriers, infrastructure gaps, and the like. People often think they can head off market skepticism by putting on a brave (problem-free) face, but that can backfire.

• People who understand the challenges may assume that you don’t—or that you don’t have a plan for overcoming them.

• People who don’t understand the problem may develop false expectations, and feel misled when they learn the full story.

• Your silence leaves skeptics free to exaggerate the problem.

Real courage calls for facing up to challenges. Do that publicly, and you’re more likely to be perceived as trustworthy and farsighted. The best approach: bring up known issues yourself, so that you can describe your plan for overcoming them, or show how the positives outweigh the negatives, or talk about why the negatives don’t apply in your case.