ODU Professor Reveals Importance of Personal Branding with TEDx Talk

ODU Adjunct Professor Bianca Negron moved regularly as a military spouse.

Her interest in building a personal brand sprouted from the need she felt to define herself and highlight what she wanted to see, whether she lived in Alaska or Puerto Rico or if people found her through her speaking engagements or classes.

"If you're not working on and developing your brand, someone else is doing that for you," said Negron, who teaches a certification course for au pairs in the School of Continuing Education. You have to take an active role in putting your best self out to the world."  

Negron's work with personal branding landed an invitation to discuss the topic with the leadership focused TEDx River Oaks in Northern Virginia.

Here, Negron chats about her TEDx talk and why personal branding is vital to everyone.

ODUGlobal: How does being a military spouse inform your identity?

Negron: I was 20 when I got married, and my family didn't have someone in the military. I did not have a role model, so I learned independently. I saw it as an adventure when I was younger, but then I needed to figure out how to build a career and create stability. That's why I fell in love with personal branding. I had to learn to use my skills, pay attention to my weaknesses and build my strengths. You're moving around, so you must discover how to use the resources you have at hand. I completed my master's degree in Alaska, and I had to use my creativity to continue building my brand and moving forward because it could be isolating as a spouse in a military lifestyle and so physically far from the rest of my support system. I learned how to be independent and make connections.  

ODUGlobal: What advice would you give to military spouses?

Negron: Connect with the community, and then connect beyond the military community. Go outside the base. Searching for other Latinos and connecting with retired military families in the community were crucial; this helped to create more connection points.

ODUGlobal: Who needs to focus on building a brand, and why is it important?

Negron: Everyone has a brand, whether we like it or not. There is a misconception that personal branding is only for entrepreneurs. The part of personal branding I'm passionate about is the emotional part.  How can we connect emotionally with people? How can we leave a legacy? It is important to work on and project our brand so that people can know who we are and what we are good at. You never know who's looking at you. We can present our brand through social media, such as LinkedIn, a website, or videos. This allows you to control how people and potential employers discover you. Your online and offline presence can help you establish an emotional bridge with those who come across you.

ODUGlobal: What advice do you give people in constructing a personal brand?

Negron: Don't underestimate the power that you have in the way you talk, the way you act, the way you connect with people. And when you meet someone, you must match what they've found online. You should analyze yourself. Understand how and why your feelings, emotions, and reactions support or limit you in your brand. Think about what makes you different. Why and how do you stand out? Once you discover those answers internally, you can start building those qualities externally into your brand. The best investment you can make is in yourself. The best work we can do is to understand ourselves. We cannot ask others to do something we're unwilling to do for ourselves.