In this solo instructional video, entrepreneur Nolan Rich shares the six low‑cost tactics that helped him grow his agency, Platter, to roughly $3 million in annual revenue and land clients such as Nike, Athletic Greens, and Neuro. He frames each tactic as a relationship‑building habit that can be replicated by any founder. The first tactic is to launch a simple content series (e.g., sauna talks, podcasts, runs) that gives a platform to higher‑profile people, thereby opening a door without asking for anything. The second is to send handwritten thank‑you cards to a curated list of people who impacted you, creating a memorable, personal touch. The third is to curate physical or virtual rooms—founder poker nights, sauna‑cold‑plunge events—where the right people meet and deals happen, positioning the host as the connector. The fourth is to proactively add value on calls by uncovering a prospect’s pain points and offering introductions or solutions before any ask, illustrated with a demo call to a logistics firm (AMZ Prep). The fifth is to send regular (monthly or quarterly) update emails that recap wins, losses, asks, and shout‑outs, keeping you top‑of‑mind and fostering reciprocity. The final tactic is to bond through shared challenging activities (e.g., running over a bridge) that create deeper trust than casual coffee. Throughout, Nolan emphasizes the principle of “add value, add value, add value” and encourages viewers to adopt these habits to scale their own businesses.
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I've been an entrepreneur for 6 years. I went from giving up a job at a Big 4 consulting firm straight outta college to building my own multimillion-dollar business. During my entrepreneurial journey, I went from knowing no one to closing deals with brands like Nike, Athletic Greens, and Neuro. And with all these people and businesses I've closed as clients or ended up working with in one way or another, I used the same simple strategies. They helped me meet new prospects, turn them into customers, and retain them for years, ultimately growing my business to $3 million a year in revenue. These strategies cost little to no money. Anyone can do them, and I'm gonna walk you through them right now. Now, number 1, start a content series. Doesn't have to be high fidelity. It doesn't have to be overcomplicated. You can do a sauna series like the one I did. You can do a podcast like Turning Pro. You can go for runs with people. You can eat food with people. The point of starting a content series is to basically go to someone that's above you from your perception in terms of like wealth or accolades, someone who you think might be hard to get into a room with, add value to them first. It's valuable if you're giving them a platform to tell their story and it allows you to get into a room with them to break down that barrier without asking for anything as a way to start building that relationship. Reaching out to someone, just being like, hey man, can I talk to you for 10 minutes? Yeah, sure. You see online a lot of people respond to those messages and we'll do it once in a while. It's not that sustainable because very busy people and very successful people would rather spend those 10 minutes with someone who can actually bring them value. Think about using a content series as a way to give value to someone else to build your own network and relationships. The second tool you can use is sending handwritten cards. I just started this year, but what I did was at the end of the year I made a list of 60 people that had a profound impact on my life in 2025. And every single day I try to write 3 to 5 thank you cards to these people. It takes 5 minutes to write a card, but it's so memorable and so impactful because you're doing something to stand out from the rest of the people. I'll show you right now. I sent out a handful of cards, like the first batch last week, and I had a friend who texted me, 'Your card is very touching. Thank you for being so thoughtful and writing me. We're both on amazing journeys worth pursuing. We got this, brothers till the end.' Just like, pick 5 people that had an impact on your life. Tell them thank you. Tell them that you remember the thing they for you. Most people don't do these things, and that's how you stand out from everyone else. The third thing: build an environment where you can host and you can curate the rooms of people that you want to be around. We did a founder poker night where I watched deals get done. People found new clients. I saw someone get hired by another founder that was at the event. We've also done sauna cold plunge events. The guy behind the camera, Adam, I actually found him through one of our sauna cold plunge events because another founder here introduced me to him. It's so amazing how many things can happen by just putting the right people in a room. And if you're the person that creates the room, they remember you as the that opened up these doors for them. Very good way to build and manage a network. Another easy way to build your network is by helping people solve their problems. Every time I get on a call with someone, I want to understand what's keeping them up at night or who are the type of people that they are trying to meet. Because if I can add value to them upfront without asking for anything in return, it leaves them looking at me in a good light. Watch, I'm going to jump on this call right now and show you exactly what I'm talking about. Hey Ben, what's up guys? How are you? Good, man. Nice to meet you. You too. Nolan Rich, I've been watching Ben's, uh, Sonnet interviews since the heydays. Ben's an OG, so it was about time we met at some point. I love a lot of the brands that you work with. Oh, I love it. You guys got plenty of whales on your roster as well. We do, but I was thrilled when you were going to give us some time because we don't have a nice preferred Shopify agency partner that we can leverage. Let's make some magic happen, man. I think there's a huge opportunity here. Yeah, no, I love it. I want to start sending some brands your way as well. We'll make it work. Awesome, guys. Have a good one. See ya. I just finished a call with a company called AMZ Prep. They are a massive logistics company that works with mega brands, and they'd reached out to me to get on the phone because they want to do a partnership because they don't have a Shopify partner at the moment. So any time a brand currently asks them for recommendations for someone to help them with their website, they don't have anyone to send them to. And so we got on the phone for me to basically explain to them what Platter does, and then also for me to better understand their business because we have a ton of brands that they are either working with or want to work with. And so again, back to what I was saying before, I jumped on the call, basically just asking who are they trying to meet so I can make introductions for them, so I can add value to them. The most basic level of building and maintaining relationships successfully is adding value to other people. Just remember that every time you think about wanting to build a relationship or manage it, add value, add value, add value. Figure out what people's problems are and help them solve those problems. The goal of this is to invest in the long term of this relationship where it will hopefully come back to us as a mutually beneficial outcome, whereby sending them brands that we work with that can hopefully become their customers, they will then start sending brands to us that we can turn into customers. And so despite the fact that I will add value up front and be seen in a positive light, it might actually become something that benefits us as well. Another key part in all of this is not just building relationships, but figuring out the most effective strategies to manage those relationships. It's actually timely when I'm filming this video because one of my good friends Adrian did what I was about to tell you guys earlier today, which is send a monthly or quarterly update to a circle of people that you want to keep track of what's going on in your life. You have to understand, when you fill them in on your wins, your losses, asks that you might have, they just become more invested in you and your journey. He has a company. He didn't raise money, but every month he sends an email. Just as an example, it has like a recap on how their month went, new clients, case studies, asks they have, shoutouts to people who've shown up for them. It's a very easy way to stay top of mind for people. And when you put that out into the world, you can just continue to add other people to that list. And by shouting people out and showing appreciation, it just continues to compound. Compound and multiply. So create a monthly or a quarterly email update. Add me as the first person on the list. I will be the accountability person as you start doing it. And as you start to meet more people and build more relationships and identify people that you want to get closer to, start adding them to that list to stay up to date on what's going on in your life. And the easiest way of them all to build deep relationships is to do hard shit with people, like running over the bridge in New York City with my internet friend Zach. Zach said it's not hard, but I think that if you do things with people that are challenging, it will build a bond between you versus going and down for a beer or coffee. That's the end of this video. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll see you next week. Subscribe to me and then Ben. Zach said to subscribe to him and then me. Okay, that's it. Peace.
