If clothes make the man then visual identity makes the business. In an ever-accelerating world, decision-makers use your brand’s identity as a short-cut to make instant judgements about your business, your offerings, your values and, ultimately, your worth to them. That’s why it’s so important to understand, exactly, what your brand is saying about you in any given moment.

Every business (or product, service, campaign, event, project, nonprofit, whatever) that needs to be marketed, has to do what it can to minimize competition and maximize income. This requires the organization in question to position itself properly within the vast landscape of brands that are out there. The world is full of other brands, competing, commanding attention, cluttering up the minds of buyers. In such a world, no brand can succeed for long if it is not positioned in a way that makes it most attractive to its best prospective customers while also putting its competition at a disadvantage. Proper positioning takes some effort. No one person can be in command of all the competing narratives in the world, so you can’t just trust your instincts alone. Every brand needs a formal positioning statement.

Want to kill the festivities at your next party? Ask for a show of hands. How many in the room think there will be an economic downturn in the near future? You’ll see a lot of hands go up, however reluctantly. You’ll also see a lot of moods come down and you’ll probably be asked to leave the party. Don’t expect to be invited next time, Debbie Downer.

China. North Korea. Syria. Terrorism. The less-than-inspiring election in the US. The fact that Wall Street is still too big to fail and still operating with very little adult supervision. There is quite a bit of instability out there and just about anything could set off another recession. That’s bad news for all of us but it should be especially alarming for any business, B2B or B2C, that has been neglecting its brand(s). Weak brands suffer disproportionately during a downturn. When budgets get tight, decision makers and purchasers start looking for two things: Safety and bargains.

Oh no. It’s happened again. Another major brand has been caught stealing from its own customers. This time, it’s Wells Fargo, the massively huge banking juggernaut that uses, as its logo, the iconic, horse-drawn stagecoach, symbol of one of the few institutions that could be trusted in the old west. The Wells Fargo message? You can trust us. When all you’re selling is trustworthiness and then it turns out you can’t be trusted, well that just stabs you in the back and then puts salt in the wound. This betrayal of trust does serious damage to the Wells Fargo brand. Because trust … well, actually, that’s all a brand really is.

The positioning statement is a vital document for any business because it describes how a company wishes to be perceived by its market. Actually, a good positioning statement answers the question: “How do we want our market to feel about us?” In the heart of any good positioning statement there is, or there ought to be, a brand promise. The brand promise articulates that one, unique, differentiating feature that sets the business apart from its competition. It reveals the company’s true competitive advantage.

That differentiator can be anything from Google’s original algorithm to KFC’s original-recipe eleven herbs and spices. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it needs to be expressed, as a brand promise, through the positioning statement. There are a lot of brand promises out there and some of them are pretty strong. Unfortunately, there are some weak ones as well. Here are eight characteristics shared by the strong ones. Your brand promise has to be …