“Target Rate”

"Target rate" means nothing I've found. Broker could be keeping 50% of that load or as little as 10%. You never know. I've found what works best for me is #1 never haul anything you think is cheap. #2 if the rate is too good to be true, it prob is and comes with a ton of headaches. #3 know your true cost per mile to operate. #4 see what that lane averages and personally I never go much below that.

#3 is the biggest imo. If you take a load you're happy with the profit you make on that lane that's really all that matters in the end.

 

That right there sets you apart from 95% of the other carriers out there. It's small wonder people will try and get you to do other stuff for them.

 

Lots of ways to do it. Being polite and personable will get you a long way forward with folks who like that. I'm one of those folks. The rest is, "does he say what he'll do?" IE: Are you going to make it there on time for pick up, and are you going to deliver at the time you're telling me? Are you going to keep me in the loop, in case of any unforeseen circumstances, or similar? If yes, you're headache insurance. Headache insurance is worth the extra cost. If no, then you're a headache, and no matter how cool I thought you were when we were doing the initial booking, I'm probably not gonna be likely to reach out to you again. Won't say we won't work together, but I'm not going to actively try and hook you up.

 

There's a lot of good info already posted by other brokers in here, but one thing I will add is that the above is a good rule of thumb, but you want to be cognizant of the time of day and the lane when negotiating.

If it's early in the day on a hub to hub move (think Chicago to Los Angeles, Atlanta to Dallas, etc), I probably have 25 calls in the queue on the lane and won't have a ton of time for back and forth. In those scenarios, if you really need the load you are going to want to make tighter counter offers (maybe start at $2,500 and see what you can do). Otherwise you risk the broker essentially say, "Sorry we are too far off the rate, have a nice day" and moving on to the next call in the queue.

I tell our brokers the same thing when the situations are reversed (E.G its 3:00PM and we are calling the lone carrier with his truck posted on a lane like Shelton CT to Cheyenne Wyoming).