The advent of the internet introduced a new era of challenges for independent business owners. Just as big box stores started crushing independent retailers in the 1990s, the internet made it possible for large corporations in every industry to directly compete throughout their verticals — often against their own customers. Smaller manufacturers and suppliers with localized distribution were suddenly feeling the same pinch that retailers had been feeling.

But the thing that makes it possible for large corporations to compete in every corner of the market also makes it possible for smaller players to compete. You just need to learn the rules, and how to apply them.

Our company exists to give independent business owners the tools they need to compete. We believe that healthy small and medium-sized enterprises lead to healthy communities, by increasing wages, jobs, real estate values, and increasing public services. A nation of strong independent businesses will lead to less income inequality, which will contribute to to less poverty and more social justice.

Our customer philosophy can be expressed in a few key principles:

1. Live By Our Principles. Our company principles aren't just an internal thing. We use our principles to guide every aspect of customer care.
2. You Deserve Experts. We will only offer advice and solutions in areas in which we have genuine expertise. 
3. No Golden Handcuffs. We want you to stay with us  because we are delivering every-day value. Every solution we set up for you will be fully in your control and easily transferrable to another provider.
4. Shared Knowledge. We will share our knowledge, train you and your team, and make sure you understand why and how we conduct your marketing activities.

Just because you can use a hammer or a plier doesn't mean you know how to make jewelry. And just because you can create a website or write a blog doesn't mean you know marketing. 

Marketing isn't a set of tactics to be deployed by the computer savvy. Marketing is the discipline of promoting and selling products and services, using market intelligence, buyer psychology, and the ability to create, communicate, deliver, and exchange offerings that have value for customers.

There's a big difference between selling technology and using technology to solve problems for customers. Technology solutions should be tailored to fit each customer's business strategy, marketing objectives, and brand.

For example, Wordpress, Joomla, Shopify, and Magento are all perfectly viable website platforms, with different pros and cons associated with them. Which platform you choose should be based on the relative strengths and weaknesses of those platforms compared to your business needs.

The same thing is true of CRM systems. Keap, Hubspot, Greenrope, Salesforce, and Zoho are all excellent systems with very different super powers and different price points. Which CRM system you use should be tailored to your specific business objectives and budget.

At WerxMarketing, we're technology agnostic. What that means is that we can implement and support all the systems mentioned here (and dozens more). We're committed to giving you the right solutions for your business. That means mastering many different systems and constantly staying on top of new technology advances, and we're fine with that.

Our commitment to providing the best software and technology solutions to meet your business needs, combined with our Principles and our determination to never put our clients in golden handcuffs, lead to this one significant (and unique, from what we can tell!) commitment and responsibility:

We must learn about, master and certify in as many website platforms, CRM systems, marketing technologies, and business systems as we can to support our clients and their myriad requirements. Our employees are not just encouraged to spend time learning and certifying — they are paid to do it.

You deserve expertise, to be treated with principled behavior, and to be given the tools you need to achieve your business goals. So we are committed to doing the work necessary to deliver on those promises. That's our philosophy.

Our company is principle-based, which means we don't operate off a handbook or a rulebook — we all live by a shared set of principles that guides our personal and team behavior.