Los Angeles, CA –October 7, 2008– Based on a study performed by Spanish-language classifieds weekly El Clasificado of 300 of its customers, close to 30% of them still don’t use email or have a web presence. Additionally, many Latino micro enterprises do not use technology or software to run their operations. To confirm El Clasificado’s findings, a 2007 Pew Hispanic Center Study found that although US Hispanics have really embraced new technology, Spanish-dominant Hispanics in the US tend to lag far behind: for example, fully 78% of English-dominant Latinos use the Internet, compared to only 32% of Spanish-dominant Hispanics.
To help close this technology gap, on September 16th El Clasificado hosted dozens of Latino entrepreneurs from the Los Angeles community to a “Su Socio De Negocios” Breakfast networking and interactive presentation to learn about customized low cost technology applications as well as a brief Quickbooks tutorial in Spanish.
“We wanted the focus of this event to be technology because although Latino small businesses are growing in record numbers, far too few of these entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the tools that are available that would allow them to cut costs and maximize productivity,” explained Martha de la Torre, Founder and CEO of El Clasificado. “In my early days of operating El Clasificado, the simple switch to desktop publishing alone was enough to catapult us into a new level of growth and success, at a relatively low cost. There’s no telling what a customized IT solutions package can do for our clients’ small businesses.”
Raquel Gonzalez, small business owner of Medical Management Services and an attendee at last week’s event noted, “We were a bit apprehensive particularly about the costs that come with investing in new technology for your business. The presentations were very informative, however, and have motivated us to seriously consider this important investment.”
Small business owners were treated to two interactive presentations in Spanish: “Customized Technology Solutions for a Small Business” by Adriana Lopez of Get The Edge, Inc. and “Financial Management Using Quickbooks” by Carmen Felten and Agustina Lyman at Quick Seminars LLC. Sponsors for this event included State Farm Insurance, Time Warner Cable, Bancomer and Sprint. The next “Su Socio de Negocios” Small Business breakfast event will be held on December 2, 2008.
“Su Socio de Negocios” is a free series of small business training workshops in Spanish held in different Hispanic grassroots communities throughout the year. The expo series is presented by El Clasificado, a multi-media print, online and grassroots event marketing solutions company connecting buyers and sellers in the Hispanic community since 1988. El Clasificado is the weekly source of information for more than 1 million Latinos on everything from health and education to consumer alerts and real estate. El Clasificado is a verified publication with a weekly circulation of over 360,000, and is distributed in nearly 200 cities in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego Counties.
