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Spanish classifieds entrepreneur recognized as Women of the Week shares key insights and her achievements over the 24 years of building a leading media company
Martha de la Torre’s enterprising spirit, her need for taking calculated risks, and her thorough understanding of the Hispanic market have brought both Martha and her company impressive achievements. Her steadfast leadership has fueled the aggressive growth of El Clasificado making it the largest Spanish classified advertising publication in the United States. El Clasificado’s success story is more impressive considering its survival of two economic crises while maintaining an average annual growth rate of 20% since its inception.
“The truth is that when I began I never thought that I would achieve so much. We only had eight employees and 40,000 issues. Now we have more than 170 employees and with more than 475,000 copies of El Clasificado we reach from Tijuana, Mexico to Fresno in the Central Valley of California. People definitely keep reading newspapers,” stated the proud business owner during her interview with journalist Mercedes Soler.
During the interview, Martha de la Torre also mentioned her focused attention on digital advertising, which has added significant value to both small business clients and to the larger corporate clients. “Elclasificado.com has all the services business owners need to prosper and for the past few years we have organized the “Su Socio de Negocios” events so that this community can succeed. The best part of them is that they are free and in Spanish.” Su Socio de Negocios impact in the Hispanic community has brought the attention of Google who has teamed up with Su Socio de Negocios as the sponsor of the workshop series in 2012, kicking off Wednesday, April 11th.
As a Women of the Week, Mrs. de la Torre emphasized the importance of female entrepreneurs in El Clasificado’s success. “More than half of our clients are women,” stated Martha de la Torre. “They bring a lot of passion because they have to help their families so they begin businesses such as
bakeries or accessories stores.”
As far as her philanthropic work, Martha de la Torre actively participates in non-profit organizations such as the Los Angeles of Education Foundation, which helps low-income children from the
Latino community have a better future.
