Dale Underwood, president of EchoQuote, says, "Self-service pricing has begun to catch the attention of B2B sales teams as they look for ways to engage prospects ahead of the competition. Reaching prospects early is especially important for companies that have complex products or services to sell. A vendor's sales team needs the advantage of delivering their value proposition before the competition and EchoQuote helps accomplish that."

Until recently, self-service pricing was virtually unavailable in the B2B market, in spite of industry research showing that pricing is the top concern among technology buyers throughout the purchasing cycle. Vendors were also faced with the dilemma of frustrated prospects turning to other websites to find the budgetary pricing they need.

EchoQuote, which is added to a product manufacturer's website as a link, is an extremely economical way to generate B2B sales leads. In a matter of hours, vendors can set up the system and begin generating high-quality leads. According to Underwood, "Our research shows that we can generate a higher number of qualified leads for about one-tenth the cost of pay-per-click. For example, a $25,000 opportunity captured by EchoQuote costs only $25, or one-tenth of one percent.

In addition to helping sales and marketing teams generate leads, the pay-as-you-go service also offers a guarantee that eliminates any risk on the part of the vendor. According to Underwood, vendors have either 30 free days or 100 free leads, whichever takes longer, before they are billed for the service. "We want all potential clients to be guaranteed at least 100 quality leads for trying EchoQuote no matter how long it takes," he says.

Because most B2B vendors have a 6-18 month sales cycle, hard figures on close rates won't be available for quite some time, but the early results show that self-service pricing provides a solution to the pricing dilemmas that sales teams have encountered in the past.

EchoQuote has already found considerable success among vendors who are passionate about generating more B2B leads. Johnny Klemme of Indiana-based K.L. Security Enterprises has been using EchoQuote to generate leads for ioSafe, a fireproof, waterproof data backup device. The company has been generating 4-5 leads a day since it began using the service in December of 2007. "For me, the biggest benefit of EchoQuote is the ability to be the first one in the door," says Klemme. "I don't even have to be at my computer. I receive a request on my Blackberry and I'm able to send the prospect a pricing proposal PDF with a logo and my contact information on it. I think it's really beneficial to the way the world works today."

Meant for small and medium B2B companies with lean sales and administration resources, EchoQuote is designed specifically to help increase lead generation in concert with SEO and PPC programs. The tool allows prospects to select and receive a custom pricing proposal via email within minutes with minimal interruption by the sales team. When a quote is requested, the vendor's sales team is immediately tied into the process to simply approve the request. The system does the rest.