As a trucking company (a carrier), you're going to be running loads with hundreds of different people (brokers). 50% of the people you'll be talking to on the phone are going to be Carrier Sales Reps. So what is a Carrier Sales Rep?
"A Carrier Sales Rep is responsible for developing carrier relationships with trucking companies. The goal of a Carrier Sales Rep is to understand a carrier's equipment, the number of trucks they have, and help them move the broker's loads with their truck(s) — a.k.a. booking and scheduling shipments with carriers they can partner with to run loads regularly for customers."
These are the people who work for brokerages, reporting directly to brokers — their bosses — who sell carriers' loads.
It's important to know how brokerages work and who to be networking with within them, since these brokerages are going to be giving you 90% of all the loads you run on a yearly basis. Let's look at the hierarchy. First, at the top you have BROKERS — the people doing business development, finding customers like U.S. Foods, Publix, or Walmart, and asking them to outsource 500 loads a year to carriers. Second, underneath the brokers you have CARRIER SALES REPS — the foot soldiers who sell the loads directly to carriers, negotiate the price, and email you the Rate Confirmations.
It's the Carrier Sales Reps you need to be building relationships with, because their job is to build relationships with you, the carrier. These are the people you want to become friends with ASAP. Some small brokerages won't have a specific Carrier Sales department, but you should still network with everyone you can, especially people handling great-paying loads, because they probably get that load regularly and you need to stay in touch to run it as many times as possible. That's what brokers want to see from carriers: trucks running regular lanes consistently. When you book your first load with big brokerages like Landstar, C.H. Robinson, Nolan Transportation, J.B. Hunt, XPO Logistics, Coyote, or TQL, tell whoever's selling you the load: "I would like a Carrier Sales Rep assigned to me, ABC Trucking, so I can have one point of contact with your brokerage." They'll gladly say yes and assign you one — now you have a single point of contact to help you find loads within that brokerage. You're working smarter, not harder.