When Barnett Klane decided to start his own business, his father wasn’t happy. He worried his son would have a difficult time juggling academics and a social life, let alone all the work that comes with being the CEO of a company.

But at 19 years old, the sophomore marketing and management major successfully launched Klane Consulting LLC this past February, a business dedicated to providing high-quality audio and lighting equipment to fraternities.

‘The general consensus among fraternities is that they just aren’t satisfied with the current way of buying their speakers,’ Klane said.

Klane attributes his knowledge of the speakers business to his father, who works as a sales manager for Electro-Voice, a major manufacturer of audio equipment. When Klane’s friends discovered this connection, they badgered him about getting speakers, and he realized the high demand for such products.

Klane profited on this need and has started touring other college campuses to sell equipment. On April 3, Klane Consulting traveled to Cornell University, broadening its appeal to other universities.

Klane founded the company as a sole proprietor, but recently decided to become a limited liability company, or LLC. The transition established Klane Consulting as a more legitimate business, he said. This is when Klane enlisted the help of his friends, fellow Syracuse University sophomores Keegan Slattery and Jack Farley.

‘We’re putting out a very professional brand, but with a little swagger to it,’ Klane said.

Now the three students act as partners and market a variety of products from Electro-Voice, as well as 150 other brands to their fraternity-based clientele, Klane said.

Before, fraternities were limited to getting equipment online, such as Guitar Center, which is more tedious than having suppliers come to their houses and letting them test the products themselves, Klane said. His company provides a more convenient alternative to those options.

Slattery, an information management and technology and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major, is a brother of Sigma Chi and sees firsthand how many speakers are damaged during the school year. Klane Consulting tries to counter this by providing higher-quality, reliable products rather than cheaper brands that don’t measure up.

‘We found that (Electro-Voice) fits the market for fraternities because of the capabilities of the speaker,’ Slattery said.

Slattery acts as the chief operating officer for the company and heads the design of business cards and the website. The partners hope the site will add another dimension to the business by making products available to everyone — even those outside of their door-to-door customer service range.

Jack Farley, chief sales officer for the group, wasn’t initially on board with the idea of a startup, but quickly changed his mind when he realized what kind of opportunity it could be.

Farley, an international relations major, said having three opinions on everything works well because it creates a checks-and-balance system for the group.

Klane and his partners are currently holding demonstrations at SU and Cornell to test a new product line. At Cornell’s April 3 demonstration, the majority of the university’s fraternities came out to hear their sales pitch, Klane said.

The partners are now in the process of closing some of those deals, but because it’s the end of the school year, many of the fraternities’ budgets are strained. However, some are interested in buying for the fall.

‘When the semester starts and all the fraternities are collecting their dues, they have a budget to spend on certain social aspects,’ Slattery said. ‘That’s when we can help them upgrade their systems and make sales.’

Carlos Cancela, a sophomore American studies major at Cornell, got in contact with the company through the representative in his fraternity. Cancela is a DJ and purchased a stereo from Klane Consulting after its demonstration.

‘It’s a good group of guys who are very relatable,’ Cancela said. ‘We got to test the speakers, and they were unbelievable. Everyone who walked in was blown away because it was insanely loud and you could hear it throughout the entire house with perfect quality.’

The ultimate goal of the company is to get a representative on every major college campus in the country, Klane said. The partners hope to have at least 25 campuses on board by the end of 2011, he said.

‘Not many people have the chance to start a business in college,’ Slattery said. ‘It will be a great experience for the rest of our lives to have started one on our own.’

egsawyer@syr.edu

Published on April 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Liz: egsawyer@syr.edu | @3sawyer