CE Pro December 2022 - 28

INDUSTRY
CE Pro Masters
England rep firm, Jarmac
Marketing. The two partners
started out with two-channel
audio brands but mostly
made their mark in high end
car stereo until the mid to
late 1990s when they picked
up Niles and decided to
forgo car audio and go all in
with CI. This led them to the
realization that, in addition
to their rep firm, they should
also become a distributor.
After a first CEDIA Expo
when they found out they
were too small for any big
brands to pay them attention,
they, and several other
small distributors, thought,
" what if we banded together
with other like-minded
distributors across the
country to come to market
as one value-added national
distribution chain? "
And thus began AVAD
whose first brand was
PRONTO from Philips, a
game-changing product for
the CI industry followed by
Fujitsu, RTI and other great
brands. " Presenting as a
national distribution network
with 200 salespeople and
22 warehouses, the big guys
started knocking at our
door, " Dyroff says.
In 2000 Dyroff went back
to work, solo this time, with
the goal to ramp up Jarmac
Marketing again. During this
time, Jarmac became the first
Savant rep in the country
and worked with all the Core
Brands products until in 2012
as Savant let go of its reps
and the Core Brands roll up
was not going so well.
As luck would have it,
Frank Stearns, who Dyroff
knew well from Niles, landed
at Sony and Jarmac was the
first rep firm he called.
Things were going well and
then 3.5 years ago, Dyroff
got a call from a partner at
New England-based Yusen
Associates, one of the oldest,
largest and most successful
Lutron reps in the country,
to discuss how the two firms
might work together.
Says Dyroff, " They were
total lighting and shade
specialists but were lacking
in other important areas of
CI, and Jarmac had the CI
know-how and many of the
best CI brands. " Many hours
of conversation later, they
ended up closing Jarmac and
Yusen to form a new company,
Strateres.
As if this were not enough,
a couple of years ago Dyroff
had the idea to start up a
new venture, now called
PureTech Alliance, a national
rep network with first-class
reps in every major market,
similar to the AVAD concept
but based on wellness and
health tech products. Offerings
include the Pure365 air
purifier and Broan air filtration
products. The Alliance
was named the national reps
to the CI and home security
channels for Google, selling
thermostats, video doorbells
and more when products
debut down the line.
Franklin Karp, Founder,
Franklin Karp & Co.
dise Manager, met and married
the boss' daughter.
" This first third of my
GROWING UP in Brooklyn,
N.Y., Franklin Karp caught
the hifi bug early on. He built
his first stereo at 13, a Scott
Casseiver, then traded up a
few years later to a Kenwood
KR70 which he loved until
his senior year in high school
when he found Marty Guttenplan's
Stereo Warehouse
and upgraded yet again.
He ended up with a
Pioneer integrated amp, a
Dual turntable, Wharfedale
speakers... and a part-time
Saturday job paying $25/day.
He liked the work and after
college, he went full-time,
got promoted to Merchan28
| CE Pro December 2022
career gave me a tremendous
education in the basics
of retail, " Karp says. Later,
when Guttenplan purchased
Rabson's in Manhattan, Karp
ran the stores and learned
how to manage and grow a
more upscale retail concept.
In late 1990, a fortuitous
call to Alec Chanin and Art
Shulman resulted in a new
job as merchandise manager
for Harvey Electronics,
the pre-eminent specialty
hifi chain in the New York
metro area.
During his early days at
Harvey, though already
well-versed in product assortments
and negotiating
skills, Karp found himself on
a steep learning curve, understanding
how to manage
inventory with a POS system,
honing his writing skills
and learning how to work
with a first-class advertising
agency.
In 1993, Karp became VP
merchandising and eventually
president in 1997. " This
was an exciting period in our
industry, " he says. " We started
our own custom division
from scratch and grew it to
more than $21 million. "
In its heyday in the early
2000s, Harvey was grossing
more than $46 million in
sales in seven stores. " At that
time, " Karp notes, " we had
a Harvey's President's Club
for salespeople writing more
than $1 million a year in sales
- and we had 10 or 11 guys
who made the club. "
Incongruously, Harvey
was always part of a larger
publicly traded company,
the Harvey Group, which
ran into trouble in the early
'90s and ended up bankrupting
the entire enterprise.
As president of the Electronics
Division, Karp was
instrumental in exiting the
company from bankruptcy,
re-opening stores, taking
Harvey public a second time,
navigating through a second
bankruptcy and then raising
capital through VCs to
soldier on. He was ultimately
let go under the new regime
of VCs who led Harvey to its
final demise.
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CE Pro December 2022

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