E27: What CMOs Are Thinking About! With Brooke Janousek
Hosts: Michael Hyam and Liane Caruso
Guests: Brooke Janousek, CMO of Garage Experts
On the LFG Podcast, Garage Expert’s CMO Brooke Janousek shared valuable insights about AI, franchise development, CRMs, franchisee communication, digital marketing partners, and MORE. This episode outlines all the topics that CMOs are thinking about right now, and advice from a CMO doing the work every day.
Meet Brooke Janousek: Dual-Brand Marketing Leader
Brooke Janousek serves as CMO for two brands – Garage Experts, a franchisor with 83 locations across the United States specializing in garage renovations, and Versatile High Performance Coatings (VHPC), the manufacturer that provides floor coatings to Garage Experts.
Before taking on this role about eight months ago, Brooke worked as a fractional CMO and has decades of experience with brands both large and small.
Her current position requires frequent mental shifts between the two brands, which she compares to needing a “severance-style” chip in her brain to compartmentalize each brand’s needs. Despite the challenges, this multi-brand experience allows her to cross-pollinate successful strategies and gives her a great perspective to share insights from a CMO on this week’s episode.
Embracing AI in Customer Experience
When discussing AI implementation, Brooke firmly believes that AI isn’t coming for marketers’ jobs – rather, “if you’re not using AI to help advance business objectives, that’s what’s going to replace you: people who are using it to their advantage.”
Garage Experts is implementing AI agents through Podium to enhance customer service. These agents:
- Are trained on company FAQs
- Learn the brand voice and can display appropriate emotions
- Remember customer details for personalized follow-ups
- Seamlessly transfer to human agents when necessary
Brooke shared a compelling anecdote about AI’s effectiveness: “A lot of people would come in and say, ‘Hey, I want to talk to Jerry. He was so helpful,’ and they’d have to tell them, ‘Well, Jerry’s not a person.'”
CRM: The Critical Foundation
When asked about CRMs, Brooke didn’t hesitate to emphasize their importance: “As a fractional CMO, that was almost always the first thing I asked: ‘What is your CRM?’ And if they didn’t have one, I would decline working with them.”
At Garage Experts, she’s overseeing a transition from Hubspot to Service Minder for franchisees while maintaining Hubspot for franchise development and NetSuite for VHPC. Key CRM priorities include:
- Cleaning up lead sources (eliminating duplicates)
- Ensuring proper attribution for marketing spend
- Creating reliable reporting systems
Brooke emphasized that clean CRM data is essential for marketing decisions: “We can’t make decisions on where to spend our money if we don’t know what lead source is performing well.”
Finding the Right Digital Marketing Partner
Brooke is currently managing an RFP process to select a digital marketing partner for the franchise system. Her approach includes:
- Gathering recommendations from fellow CMO peers
- Including agencies she’s worked with previously
- Creating an objective scorecard with the same 10 questions for every agency
- Not asking for spec work, but focusing on how they would structure packages for franchisees
The process has yielded valuable insights, especially regarding website migrations and SEO concerns. “Everybody has said that’s an outdated way of thinking… there’s so much you can do to preserve [SEO]. You can’t not have a little dip, but it’s not like what it used to be.”
Franchise Development Marketing Success
Unlike many organizations where franchise development operates independently, Brooke is deeply involved in franchise development marketing.
Brooke’s approach has included:
- Securing appropriate resources (3x budget for 3x sales goals)
- Setting up Hubspot CRM properly for tracking and reporting
- Implementing effective lead generation through Facebook (generating 27-28% of qualified leads)
- Adding PR efforts through Fishman PR
- Hiring a lead qualifier as lead volume increased
- Fine-tuning email sequences based on performance data
Launching New Franchise Locations Successfully
For new franchisees, Brooke Janousek has created a structured approach to make marketing less overwhelming:
“I said, what if we think about it as, ‘You only have to dedicate one hour a day to marketing,’ and I’m going to break it down for you minute by minute.”
Her checklist includes:
- 10 minutes daily on Facebook engagement
- 10 minutes on Nextdoor community platform
- 10 minutes responding to Google reviews
- 30 minutes for grassroots efforts like door hangers and yard signs
- One networking meeting weekly with someone outside their circle
She emphasizes that while corporate marketing provides support, franchisees must also contribute to local marketing efforts: “This is a two-way street. You’re going to have to do some of this and help yourself, too.”
Communication with Franchisees
To keep franchisees informed about marketing initiatives, Brooke is implementing:
- Monthly newsletters covering operations, sales, and marketing updates
- Monthly webinars with educational topics (first half) and open Q&A (second half)
- One-on-one calls with franchisees and franchise business coaches focused on marketing
These communication channels ensure franchisees understand the marketing strategy, can voice concerns directly to the CMO, and receive coaching on implementation.
Final Thoughts
Throughout the conversation, Brooke demonstrated the complexity of modern marketing leadership in a franchise system. Her methodical approach to assessment and commitment to both technological advancement and franchisee education highlight the multifaceted skills required of today’s CMOs.
Listen to the full episode now to hear more from Brooke Janousek and the LFG Podcast team!
