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.

When you’ve got a new product or service you believe will change the world—or at least your industry—naturally, you’re excited. And it’s tempting to slip into exaggeration about what you can or will do—but don’t.

Presenting goals as facts, stating best-case scenarios without qualification, hyperbole (“best,” “cleanest,” “most advanced”), and other forms of exaggeration are credibility killers.

Why? They trigger BS detectors, subjecting you to extra scrutiny. When people realize the statement is not quite true, they’ll doubt everything else you say. And they set you up for failure if you can’t deliver the best case.

Stay credible and create confidence in your enterprise by making the strongest claims that you can support. Don’t say you’ll have product on the market next year unless you absolutely know you will—give a conservative target date, and explain (briefly) what needs to happen for you to meet it. And don’t say your technology delivers the “world’s lowest emissions” or some such unless you’re prepared to back it up with an honest comparison of your performance with everyone else’s.

In short: if you can prove it, say it; if not, don’t.

GreenBiz.com released its second annual State of Green Business report Feb. 2, heralding the report’s release with a daylong forum that drew nearly 500 people from 20 states to San Francisco.

One report conclusion highlights a trend we’ve followed for over a year: green marketing is failing to communicate. While green is going mainstream, and many companies, large and small, are doing good, there’s also a lot of greenwashing. And surveys show that people are overwhelmed and befuddled by vague and conflicting claims. The report notes, “…with the new players and products has come a new wave of claims that companies aren’t doing enough, aren’t telling their stories well, or both.”

The upshot, says the report, is that “despite the continued upswing in green business activity, there’s no concomitant rise in consumer awareness or trust.” The challenge for companies is credibility. Green messages and sustainability claims need to be specific and substantiated. That will help not only with customers but also with internal audiences: The report points out that while green has had C-suite attention for years, companies are failing to engage lower ranks. Communications (backed by genuine actions) are key to bringing management and lower ranks on board. Green can make people feel good about their company.

Forum participants readily admitted that there’s little consensus about what is green. For instance, everyone is talking about the new green economy and how it will spur job creation, but the definition of a “green” job varies.

But I think we’ll soon see less greenwashing and less confusion all around. Marketers are realizing that people want credible information, and universal standards and independent verification will help. (Two recent developments: Just last month, Underwriters Laboratories announced UL Environment, its green verification service, and in 2008 the Federal Trade Commission began a serious review of its environmental marketing guidelines—a year earlier than planned, due to the storm of green marketing.)

Green is also an imperative for the new administration, confirmed panelists who provided an insider’s view during the forum’s closing session. President Obama is following through with his commitments to curb global warming and promote a green economy. And it’s not just an add-on: green policy is coming out of the White House economic team.

You can see webcasts of all the forum panels at http://www.greenbiz.com/stateofgreenbusinessforum.