CH Robinson confirmation rate

Next to no one will give you their best pay. Who would ?? Like selling a car. Do you just put a price on it then drop to your lowest selling price to the first caller??

Brokers are the same, they're in this to make money like everyone else, the more they can keep the better for them
usually what I do is take the load if I know it's paying really good or if I am in a really bad area with few loads. Otherwise I always ask for more and more times than not I get it

 

First, forget about THEIR compensation. Not your business.
I'm not sure exactly what your question is but it sounds like you might be fairly new to this negotiating game. If you call an agent about a load you should already know about how much money you need to haul it. Keep in mind that these guys haggle over rates all day long every day. Let's say he shoots you a number, and he will, that's too low. There's no shame in countering with a number that's too high. Somewhere in the middle is a happy medium that both parties can live with. THEN, when that's settled, they will send you the confirmation which you should look over before you sign and return. It's a done deal, it's your load.
CHR has a bunch of agents and most are easy to work with. It takes a little time to find out which ones are not and should be avoided.
The other thing to remember is who has the upper hand in the negotiation. If you call looking for a load, they know they probably have the upper hand. Unless of course you just happened to be calling about a load that is getting a little old and needs to be moved soon. If they called you and you know it's needing to be moved soon then you have some power. It all depends on the situation at the moment. They have lots of people calling about loads so the competition might be stiff or you may be the last chance they have of getting that particular load moved on time.
Do the negotiation carefully and once they send you the confirmation and you sign it, it's your responsibility to do what you said you would do, even if you lose money. You will learn how to work their system quickly. The main thing is to provide good reliable service. They do track your performance and your future rates are completely dependent upon that record. If you're good, you can get better rates because the agent knows he's getting what he's paying for. Otherwise don't expect much.

 

I almost always ask for more money. It is rare that a broker or shipper will put all the money on the table with the first offer. I have dealt with a couple of people who just give me their best offer and I can then make my decision. Every load is a negotiation. Unless you are skilled at negotiating or willing to learn, you may find it difficult to get the better rates. There is no reason to pay a carrier $3/mile when there is someone willing to haul that load for $1.50/mile. The broker/carrier or shipper/carrier is an adversarial relationship to a point. It is more of a love/hate relationship. Brokers and shippers need carriers, but they don't want to pay more than necessary. Carriers need shippers and/or brokers but want the highest rate possible. It is up to you to decide the minimum rate for which you will haul a load. I have a minimum for which I will haul freight. That rate is different for some areas of the country. I won't go below a certain rate for going into Florida or parts of the Northeast, for instance. I also have a minimum haul rate for OD loads. Some people will haul for less, but I am fortunate to be in a position where I don't have to run every day or as hard as I did at one time. I have always had a minimum haul rate. You need to be competitive in the marketplace, but you also don't need to give your service away.

One of the first thing anyone needs to do when buying a truck is to sit down and come up with your breakeven point. It is different with everyone. You can take ten owners and each will have a different breakeven point. It is difficult to come up with an accurate breakeven point when you first start in business. OOIDA (www.ooida.com) has a spreadsheet on their website you might find helpful. You can download the spreadsheet and plug in your own numbers. I never take a load that is below my breakeven plus a profit. One other thing that I do is run the miles myself. I use PCMiler, but Mapquest will also work. You can't rely on the accuracy of the miles quoted by brokers. Some are accurate, but most will quote short miles.

 

You always have a window open on that laptop with googlemaps on it and your start point plus blanks for your pick and end point. Always... When someone is giving you load details you are punching that stuff in on googlemaps while they're talking. If you're driving and someone calls punch it on your GPS and give your quote off that. Always, always check the miles. And base your quote on the route you will run. Not short miles. Not zip code miles. Not TQL wishful thinking as the crow flies miles. Real miles... If you've looked at several loads figure where you need to be on any given one of them. Then call and feel them out on if they're needing a truck and will pay. Or on ITS if you click on the load they can see that and will sometimes call you because you clicked on it. Always know what you need on anything you click on so when they call they don't catch you off guard and you can get to the nitty gritty quicklike. Make the fast talkers slow down. Don't be pressured by anyone.

 

If you know nothing else, assume their opening offer has at least 20% profit in it for them (brokerages average 15% profit after negotiations). So if they volunteer $1,600 assume they are getting at least $2,000.

Counter with $2100 or $2050 and feel out their response -- a defensive "we don't even have that much in it" is probably true. They'll counter, probably around $1750, you'll say "is that the best you can do?" (get them to negotiate against themselves) and they may move to $1800-$1850. Then you say "I can do $1925." They'll feign indignation, remind you how much they've conceded, & ask you to meet in the middle. You'll stall about 10 seconds, let out an audible sigh, and then say "alright, I'll meet you at $1,900." They'll say great, and as they ask where to send the rate confirmation you can hear their little wheels churning going "hey wait a minute, that's not the middle!" but they send you the confirmation anyway and you're on to new business.


Of course when you're in a bad area they'll just laugh and hang up on you on the 1st counter... Or they say "we move it all the time for xyz" which means 'you're in the ballpark of what you can get, but you wont get that from us until the load is already late.'

I find it easier to do a better job negotiating when you really don't want the load. It's like "#### I don't want to go there, but I didn't think you'd pay me $3.50 -- guess I should have asked for 4!

 

Ran for CH Robinson in the 1990's, they were good then!

 

When I'm feeling pizzed off I click on TQL loads going to Washington, DC or NYC then don't answer the phone

 

I have been involved in negotitating union contracts for several years and one of the big mistakes I have seen in negotiations is one side negotiating from a position of weakness so hopefully this will be helpful. When you assume the brokers profit you are inadvertently putting yourself in the "weak"position for negotiating. What this means is now you are working off of their proposal instead of yours.

For example; in a union negotiation one side will say "We will give you a 2.5% raise and we really can not go any higher then that!" If the other side had a proposal of 10% but then said "Ok if they are offfering 2.5% I bet we can get them to 4.5%" they just weakened their position...They are now negotiating off of the other sides proposal...... The problem is they have their own proposal of 10% but instead of putting it on the table they are now working off of a 2.5% raise and doing all of the "giving" in the negotiation. If that makes any sense....

Like G/MAN stated..You have a rate in mind when you call a broker... So in double yellows example you would already be ready with 'your" proposal. So lets uses the same example but negotiate from the position of power... They offer $1600 but you ran the numbers ahead of time and know that you need to $2100 to pay the bills and generate a comfortable profit to pay yourself or average up the fact you are going to a poor freight area with this deliver. You counter with $2400 because that was your proposal before you even called... Make them work off of YOUR number.. If he will move to $1900 you know you got him..Hes coming off of his proposal by almost 20% so you come off of yours to $2250..... He counters with 2k so you say I can make it work for $2100... Somewhere near YOUR number youll find a common ground. Even if you dont you were always in the stronger position and the rate was not one you could work with... Passing on a bad offer is better then running below your margins.

Obviously these numbers are made up and you might have a rate in mind that is close to the brokers offer.. But dont give up the power and work off of their number. If a broker is "averaging" 15% profit that means he is getting a lot more than that on some loads and less than that on others. But you have the higest risk not to mention you are extending them the credit so why also give them the power in a negotiation. Work off of your proposal and set a floor that you can not operate below since you will be losing money if you do.

I have a friend who works for a broker and he showed me his numbers...He had to show a 23% return on loads or he would get nastygrams from the front office. I can tell you it didnt look like he was having too much trouble making that every month. In order to outperform those requirements he had to have the upper hand in negotiations the majority of the time. So work off of your numbers not theirs... And if there is no profit in it for you say no thanks.

 

I got a call from TQL once in a panic. I could tell and he was not trying to hide it. He did all the talking once he knew I was in Hubbard, OH. He had a load leaving right down the road to Charlotte and said the rate right up front and was twice what I would have done it for. He told me it was all the customer had in it plus money from TQL. The truck didn't show up to take it the day before. I took the load and got yelled at when I delivered for being a day late. I knew why and took the beat down.

 

You should wrangle them for more money in a case like that. Very rarely do I ever accept anything from them at their offered rate BUT oddly enough I did just that very thing on a couple of back to back loads I booked from the same agent a couple of weeks ago. He too was desperate. For me it was an out and back deal from my home. I'm just arrogant enough to tell any one of them my home base anyways. I don't care because if the rate is not up to.my criteria then they can move along to the next caller that's how it is. The rate out paid ok. The rate back paid much, much better. That was the load he really wanted to cover in the first place. My equipment was set up for the freight and he had specific needs there. Plus I am sure it saved them from.getting gouged at some point. With hindsight I could have played hardball but you feel differently about things when it's been slower than normal. It was a winner chicken dinner regardless.