Los Angeles, CA -November 16th, 2005– The Association of Free Community Papers (
AFCP) awarded Martha de la Torre with the AFCP’s first Entrepreneur Award. De la Torre is the founder of
El Clasificado, the nation’s largest audited free classified Spanish Language weekly.
Orestes Baez, President of The Flyer in Tampa Florida, presented the award to de la Torre in San Francisco at the AFCP’s 2005 Annual Convention, attended by over 500 members. The Entrepreneurship award is awarded for outstanding success in overcoming the challenges of building a successful enterprise in the free community paper industry.
“We joined the AFCP in 2001 and it has been one of the most worthwhile organizations to help grow our business” states Martha de la Torre. “It took us 13 years to reach annual sales of $3,000,000 but since joining the AFCP we have grown to over $7,000,000 in annual sales in just four years. We could not have achieved this growth without the training and networking opportunities provided at AFCP conventions and the resulting relationships from mentors like Dick Mandt, of the Tampa Flyer; support from Pete Gorman, Orestes Baez, and Carlos Guzman from Harte Hanks and direction from Peter Lamb, our strategic consultant. The AFCP is what a trade organization should be, a place where colleagues and competitors in the free community paper industry come together and develop “Best Practices” for all member publications. In particular, El Clasificado learned from AFCP members how to sell more value to customers, how to expand effectively and strategically and how to maintain and hire the right people to carry out our mission. El Clasificado is a much stronger organization since joining the AFCP and we look forward to our future opportunities with their support.”
El Clasificado’s growth and financial success in the Latino community has been recognized in the past by ICIC and
Inc Magazine as one of America’s 100 fastest growing inner city companies. El Clasificado is an
Hispanic Business 500 Company, and in previous years has been honored for its entrepreneurial spirit and success by the
United States Small Business Administration, the
United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
Loyola Marymount University and as a finalist for the
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.
El Clasificado is a free Spanish-language weekly publication that blends classified advertising with community service editorial. Now in its 18th year, the magazine has a weekly-verified circulation of over 220,000 and is distributed in over 160 cities in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties to over 950,000 Spanish-speaking readers.
The Association of Free Community Papers (AFCP) represents publishers of more than 3,000 free-circulation community papers, reaching an average of 40 million homes weekly. The combined circulation of all free papers is larger than all daily newspapers in the United States.
For more information please visit www.elclasificado.com or www.afcp.org.
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