Leanne Shelton, the 226th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, turned an inconvenience into a life-changing opportunity.

After Leanne had the first of her two children, she found it hard to find a job that gave her the flexibility to juggle work with parenting. So, in the end, she solved the work-life balance problem by becoming her own boss, which allowed her to take her career to the next level.

Leanne’s business, Write Time Marketing, offers copywriting and content marketing training for the health and wellness industries.

For the past decade or so, Leanne has had various health and dietary complications to deal with, which led her to take a keen interest in those subjects.

One of the clever things Leanne does to promote Write Time is publish a weekly podcast, Marketing and Me, which is aimed at health and wellness professionals. Research suggests that most podcasts never get past 10 episodes – but Leanne has recorded more than 120. So she practises what she preaches when it comes to content marketing.

That said, I suspect Leanne’s number one asset is her personality. People want to do business with people, and I know, from having lunch with Leanne and listening to her podcast, that she’s very warm and an excellent communicator. Those are great qualities to have when you’re trying to attract clients and build a company.