Never assume the person you’re speaking with already understands what you want from the conversation or relationship. Dropping a hint or sending a vague email is indirect and unlikely to help you get what you’re looking for. You need to understand that nobody is inside your head. The colleague you casually mentioned a referral opportunity to is not sitting at home thinking about how to help you. If you did not say clearly what you wanted, needed, or were offering, you might as well have said nothing at all.

This plays out constantly in business development and networking, two areas where professionals are most prone to being indirect. There is a fear of appearing too eager, too transactional, or too forward, so people dance around the point. Don’t be the person who has coffee with a contact and spends an hour talking generalities but never asks for the introduction you actually came for. Directness is not aggression — it is respect. It respects the other person’s time, it respects the relationship, and it gives the conversation a chance to be useful. Know that ambiguity is where opportunity goes to die.

These principles apply to every business context. When you make an ask, make it specific. When you set an expectation, name it. When you are interested in working with someone, say so directly. Professionals who master this are not perceived as pushy — they are perceived as someone who knows what they are doing, which is exactly the impression you want to leave.

The good news is that being direct is a skill you can build, and the returns on it are immediate. Start by getting clear in your own mind about what you actually want from any given interaction before you walk into the room. Then say it, plainly and without excessive hedging. People respond well to clarity. It cuts through the noise, it builds trust faster than almost anything else, and it dramatically increases the odds that the other person may actually help you — because they know what you need. You can’t presume they know. You have to tell them.