Cindy Edelstein Named a Community Choice Honoree

Cindy Edelstein, aka the JewelryBizGuru, 

Named a Community Choice Honoree

in the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards

Cindy Edelstein has been voted a Community Choice honoree in the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards. Edelstein achieved the designation as the result of receiving top votes in the popular voting segment of the Awards, from the small business community. Edelstein was one of the top five popular vote getters, out of more than 300 nominees, in the category of Experts.

The Small Business Influencer Awards honor those who are influential to small businesses in North America, through the products, services, knowledge, information or support they provide to the small business market.

Edelstein was the only person from the fine jewelry industry nominated and was among a wide field that included New York Times best-selling authors and other seven-figure experts who come from much broader business fields than Cindy who specializes in the designer sector of the fine jewelry business. This makes her win even more impressive considering the width and depth of the competition.

The Awards are designed to recognize the unsung heroes of small businesses - those who support and encourage entrepreneurs and small business owners, and help them achieve success and stay successful, said the event organizers.

The Community Choice designation recognizes those whose communities have supported them with top votes.

Says Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends and one of the co-founders of the Awards, "Influencers are those who play crucial roles in the small business ecosystem, but who often are in the background. Many of the Community Choice honorees are themselves small business owners, entrepreneurs or small businesses."

There were more than 2000 votes for Edelstein, who's social media handle is JewelryBizGuru, during the contest and she also racked up one of the highest amount of Facebook likes, tweets, comments and testimonials. Here is a sampling of what her community had to say:

Robert Lee Morris, designer: “Cindy is a natural born leader and enabler. Her emotional intelligence soars off the charts as witnessed by how many people have been supported by her alone, on a gut personal level. She has already won this accolade many times over as far as I am concerned.”

Peggy Jo Donahue, Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers of America: “Cindy is, by far, the most passionate advocate for jewelry designers working in the U.S. market today. Her commitment is real, enduring, and long standing. I have been an admirer for as long as she has been in business. She deserves this award, and many others.”

Jennifer Dawes of Dawes Design: “Cindy has been a champion of jewelry designers in every capacity. The large household names to the small indy designers. Her passion has helped our industry in innumerable ways. She has my vote and support for anything she believes in!” 

Laurie Cavanaugh, designer:  “Cindy is doing a great job at demystifying the business of designer jewelry and encouraging new designers and "designpreneurs.” The industry is a better place for her participation!”

Robert May, previous Director of the Natural Colored Diamond Association: “Cindy’s devotion and passion to help designers new and old grow their business is nothing short of inspirational.”

 

About  Cindy  

Cindy Edelstein is an award-winning entrepreneur who has made it her mission to support the growth of designer fine jewelry as a retail category, an art form, and a community. It is a micro-niche but one she has dedicated her whole career to supporting.

Cindy is an author, speaker, consultant and owner of Jeweler's Resource Bureau, an umbrella marketing firm specializing in helping designers grow and prosper with unique trade events, publications, seminars and the industry's first Project Runway-like Business Incubator Contest called Future of Design.

She works with big organizations, as well, helping them understand the designer community. She helps trade shows, membership organizations and even foreign export entities work with the design world. Her social media profile (often under the JewelryBizGuru twitter and blog name) spans the worlds of design, manufacturing and retail across the fine jewelry, fine accessory and fine craft industries.

She is the co-author with her husband Frank Stankus, of the book "Brilliance: The Art of the American Jewelry Design Council" and together they produce an annual designer business conference, a series of a specialty trade show called globalDESIGN and an online marketing intelligence community for designers.

Cindy often addresses design schools, industry gatherings and networking events to help design professionals understand more about entrepreneurship. She is a passionate communicator and creative problem solver and many in the jewelry world avail themselves of her expertise every day. As a business coach she offers insights not found anywhere else to a population rarely addressed in larger venues. She's a champion of the entrepreneurial artist which she has dubbed design’preneurs.

 

About the Small Business Influencer Awards

The Small Business Influencer Awards, now in their second year, enable the small business community to nominate and show their support for those that influence and support them. The Awards have an open nomination period, followed by community voting, and then a judging period by a group of industry-knowledgeable judges.

The Small Business Influencer Awards initiative is produced by Small Business Trends, an award-winning online publication, serving over 4,000,000 small business owners, stakeholders and entrepreneurs annually, and SmallBizTechnology.com, a media company that produces online content and live events educating small and mid-sized companies on how to strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses. The Awards can be found on the Web at: SMBInfluencers.com.