Q: Who has been the biggest motivator in your life and why?
A: My father, Bruce Bates (83) and my husband, Tom Sedoric-both with long careers as wealth managers helping hundreds of families. Both motivated me to take my experience as an estates and trusts paralegal together with my organizational and planning skills to create a comprehensive guide and resource to help any adult at any age plan for the inevitable.
Q: What has been your most challenging journey?
A: On a personal level - Finding myself again was one of the challenges I faced decades ago when I became a single parent with two small children in the wake of an unexpected divorce.
In terms of a business journey- taking an idea, born out of the personal experience of my mother’s sudden death, and following it to fruition by creating a comprehensive and beneficial tool and launching to business to help others.
Q: Tell us about Lasting Matters and why this was started.
A: LastingMatters is a company launched to help people plan for the inevitable. Trained as an estates and trusts paralegal, I was inspired to act following the sudden death of my mother. We were unprepared for her death. I founded LastingMatters to help people leave the complexity and fear of planning behind. My goal has been to provide an easier, more personal and practical way to help anyone
tackle this inherently difficult and often avoided topic. The Organizer was designed to help anyone, at any age, reduce the costs, time, stress, and the family pressure associates with the death of a loved one.
Q: What has been your biggest challenge(s) since you started Lasting Matters?
A: Everything has been a learning curve. Marketing is probably the most challenging in terms of scope-getting the word out to wider audiences take time and perseverance. I am the PR, Marketing, Sales and spokesperson for the company and work daily to spread the news of LastingMatters through a variety of traditional media and social media channels. I intend to find a publisher as it is self-published and sold through Amazon. I wish to have the organizer distributed nationwide to independent bookstores and large book chains.
Q: What kind of feedback have you received since starting the program?
A: The feedback has been amazing. “Very impressive” “Brilliant” “You beat me to it” “Remarkable” are some of the terms used.
This tool facilitates one of the most meaningful conversations people might ever have.
Keith Sabella, a 55-year-old college professor and father of two, initially thought his wife was being "morbid" when she came home with “The LastingMatters Organizer.” “But we walked through the process together and there
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