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Martha de la Torre's Speech at the NLBWA

By June 7, 2010January 16th, 2015The Reluctant Entrepreneur

NLBWA June 2010


NLBWA winners and nominees

Thank you to the National Latina Business Woman’s Association for this lovely event and wonderful honor. I also want to thank all the sponsors, our readers, advertisers, supporters, families and especially our employees who make going to work such a pleasure, for their continued contribution to our success.

In 1988 when we published and mailed our first issue of El Clasificado, I didn’t know if anyone would open it, read it or like it. Ten thousand dollars worth of magazines was taken to the post office for delivery and we just prayed that for success. Within a week I saw a man standing by his car holding a magazine and got really excited. Then the man took the magazine, wrapped it on his side window, and rolled up the window so he could use El Clasificado as a window shade…

Fast forward: Now I am happy to say that 1.5 million Latinos read one of El Clasificado’s 29 editions each week, from Bakersfield to Los Angeles and San Diego to Palm Springs. And contrary to rumors you have heard, print is not dead in the Hispanic market. We are still growing at a clip of 18%.

But yesterday I gave a presentation to a bunch of 7th & 8th graders at San Miguel Catholic School in Watts. The students all said they were familiar with El Clasificado and their parents read El Clasificado. But when asked if they plan to read and use El Clasificado print in the future for their shopping needs they all overwhelmingly said NO.

No problem, that’s ok… I am happy to report that El Clasificado.com just passed 4 million page views last month, and mostly from young and local Latinos. We’re ready for the next generation with Al Borde mobile, Quinceañera.com, Pacoslist.com. We are using and engaging Facebook, Twitter and as my nieces say “Whatever” the new generation want to use. We look forward to continue being the grassroots, Hispanic media of choice for you and continue with your children in the future to provide empowering information for our Latino neighborhoods.