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1 HeimLantz Financial Advisors www.1stGlobal.com © 1st Global 2015

Firm Success Story

Kathie Sulick, CPA, PFS, accompanied a group from HeimLantz Financial Advisors to the stage on the concluding night of the 2014 1st Global National Conference to accept a Three Diamond Eagle Award. This special recognition is given to firms that reach $1 million in revenue from wealth management, a significant threshold when one considers the number of people the firm had to help live a brighter financial life in order to achieve this milestone. Serving such a broad client base requires an extraordinary commitment to the industry, the community and, most importantly, the clients of the firm.

Little did Sulick, a partner of the firm,

know that she would return to the same stage for another round of recognition.

As a video played honoring a Success to Significance Award winner, Sulick briefly turned her attention to tablemates, still reveling in HeimLantz’s success. Then came one of the greatest shocks of her life as Awards Dinner emcee and Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Al Prentice announced the winner: “Kathie Sulick!”

The Success to Significance Award is one of six Founders Awards chosen by 1st Global Chairman and CEO Tony Batman to be awarded at the annual National Conference. This award

recognizes leaders who are committed to establishing enterprise-level wealth management firms that will continue to serve clients for generations to come.

“I had no idea I had received the award until I heard Al call me up to the stage,” she said. “I remember when I attended my first conference and sat at a table with Tony and Al. The fact that the people I have looked up to for 13 years gave me this award . . . I still don’t have the words to describe it.”

She should describe it as well-deserved.

HeimLantz Financial AdvisorsAn Overnight Success More Than a Decade in the MakingBy Jack Fehr

Carter Heim, Kathie Sulick, Paul Abbou and Sheri Winegardner


Firm Success Story

The BreakthroughSulick’s success is a microcosm of HeimLantz’s achievements, a product of a lot of hard work that began before success and continued through significance. One million dollars in revenue was little more than a long-term vision back then, but a shared belief in purpose and a commitment from Sulick and the HeimLantz partners to take the necessary steps to build the business the right way made it a reality. As with any story of success, there were moments that challenged them and tested their convictions.

F. Carter Heim, CPA.CFF.CGMA, MST, President and Managing Partner of the CPA firm, remembers the seeds planted 14 years ago when his public accounting firm merged with another CPA practice. The merger created a strong regional accounting firm but there was one big problem: there was no one in the newly merged firm who could grow an almost non-existent financial advisory practice. Enter Kathie Sulick, who had been finance director for the City of Annapolis for 13 years.

“At that time, I had known Kathie for over 15 years, and I was sure she would be ideal to spearhead the financial advisory part of the business,” Heim said. “We wanted something to fit our consultative approach to clients. We knew where we wanted to go, but we were starting from the ground floor.”

Success in those early days didn’t come easily.

“Our financial advisory business was commission-based (as was the model for most firms in the early 2000s), and I was making no money. In addition, we had gone down a dead end for a couple years…one that didn’t fit smoothly with our values,” Sulick recalls.

HeimLantz changed direction, and based upon extensive research by Sulick and meetings among the firm’s partners and 1st Global leaders, HeimLantz joined with 1st Global. With the

benefit of hindsight, Sulick and Heim both agree that this was the right decision.

Sulick recalls there were some difficult times during the early years of the partnership with 1st Global. “I borrowed from my home equity, and I was at the end of my rope. That’s when our 1st Global financial consultant told me to hold on. He said that 1st Global was introducing something new at that year’s national conference and that it “would change everything.”

It did.

In 2004, 1st Global introduced the Investment Management Solutions (IMS) platform and its fiduciary, advice-based model during the annual conference. Now HeimLantz and other CPA/wealth management firm partners of 1st Global had a model that more closely aligned with the accounting side of the business and provided the firm with recurring revenue to match their recurring services. For Sulick, it was a financial lifeline that helped her jumpstart a practice that has grown tenfold in 10 years.

A Continuous Improvement ProcessThe IMS platform may have jumpstarted HeimLantz’s development in the financial services arena, but a subsequent series of conscious decisions propelled that growth. Growing a financial advisory practice is not to be taken lightly, so HeimLantz has adopted many of the best of best practices—offered by 1st Global and other leaders—with an uncommon zeal. The firm proactively seeks new tools and procedures that align with the firm’s culture of growth and development.

Wealth management services represented 15 percent of total firm revenue for HeimLantz in 2011. HeimLantz grew its gross revenue from wealth management services from approximately $620,000 in 2011 to $1,040,000 in 2014. In 2014, the firm’s gross revenue earned from non-wealth management services totaled

“We don’t do anything with HeimLantz that we wouldn’t do for our other firms,” 1st Global President David Knoch said. “What is exceptional is the willingness of the people in the firm to learn. Relative to the size of the firm’s accounting practice size, HeimLantz’ wealth management practice is enormously successful.”


Firm Success Story

$3,800,000. HeimLantz’s growth in the wealth management area of its practice directly results from the strong efforts of Sulick, the HeimLantz team, and the regular and valuable support provided by 1st Global. This area of HeimLantz’s business now represents 21 percent of its total gross revenue.

Two of the top concerns of CPA firms considering a financial advisory practice are market volatility and conflicts within their existing client base. HeimLantz tackled these concerns and other philosophical conflicts head on.

“When we researched barriers of CPA firms considering a financial advisory practice, we found that CPAs are often concerned because they can’t control outcomes like they can the accounting side of their business,” Knoch said. “This lack of control makes them nervous they will lose business if clients lose money because of an ancillary service.”

“We had many conversations with David, Tony and Al over the years,” Heim said. “They painted a compelling picture and presented solutions that closely aligned with our values. Sometimes they dragged us kicking and screaming into change. Other times, we saw ‘bright and shiny’ and went for it. Over the years, 1st Global has given us great advice, and we implemented most of what they recommended.”

The challenge, in the beginning, was to meld a clash of mindsets. Heim says that the firm had to change from a culture of “getting paper off the desk” to one that looks at a stack of paper and sees opportunities where clients need their help. The new focus was different—it was about adding value.

“It has been 15 years of learning, and there have been zigs and zags along the way integrating a financial advisory team into a CPA firm,” Heim, a former board member and active member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) said. “But we are fully integrating learning into our culture.”

This change was far-reaching, extending all the way to the top, where majority rule among partners typically prevails in CPA firms. In work with Bill Reeb and the Succession Institute, the firm revised its management structure. Heim was named managing partner, making management by committee and lack of commitment to decisions (which led to ineffective execution and inconsistent sustaining of changes) less likely now that the firm designated a final decision-maker. Firm leadership,

which includes Tax Manager Jacqueline Nicholson, CPA, CFP®, PFS, and Paul Abbou, CPA, CFP®, who leads the Alexandria Office, also made partner engagement a priority, a new experience for many of the firm’s accountants who were now encouraged to introduce tax and audit clients to the firm’s wealth management side.

Making Lives BetterHeimLantz’s commitment to improvement and growth is aided by the firm’s ability to tap into expertise wherever it can find it. Less than two years ago, the firm submitted to an integrated marketing audit to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of its wealth management marketing programs. The Growth Partnership, a leading consultant to accounting firms, and 1st Global conducted the audit of HeimLantz’s entire business and recommended new marketing activities via a 24-month Growth PlanTM.

The comprehensive plan includes marketing campaigns and client events. HeimLantz recently hosted its first The Growth Partnership event, shining the spotlight on the firm’s wealth management services and three other non-traditional service areas in which the firm has significant experience and expertise. The firm is also working with 1st Global and The Growth Partnership to redesign its website and is offering 1st Global encouraged seminars about Savvy Social Security and Savvy Medicare Planning from Horsesmouth.

“1st Global has been unflagging in its support, and that has made for an incredible relationship,” Sulick said. “They introduced us to great new programs, which have helped us strengthen our business culture throughout the firm.

“We interact with 1st Global consultants every day,” she continued. “Our firm would need to hire three to four people to duplicate what they do for us every day. There isn’t a time I’ve asked for help when I didn’t get it.”


Firm Success Story

“On the wealth management side, Kathie and Sheri Winegardner worked hard on a client segmentation process,” Heim said. Kathie went on to say, “We segmented accounts by assets under management by whether they have a CPA relationship and other factors. It was important to get out of the silo mentality. As a result, we increased the average size of our wealth management accounts.”

The team at HeimLantz employs other management tools to keep them fully engaged with change. On the Succession Institute’s advice, the firm adopted Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership practices to manage and develop its people. Monthly team meetings and employee-led meetings called “Lunch and Learns” also became part of the firm’s whole-hearted initiative to blend its practices and accelerate the team’s professional growth.

“Other firms embrace what 1st Global offers, but HeimLantz differentiates itself by fully embracing our programs from start to finish,” Justin Liggitt, Director of Brand Consulting at 1st Global said. “This is a company in which the right hand talks to the left hand. They are very, very smart, enterprising business people.” HeimLantz also engaged Bob Shannon, a Gazelles Coach with the strategic planning company Gazelles International, to help the firm put the right words together to succinctly describe its core values.

“Accountants are kings of the run-on sentence,” Heim said. “Bob helped us pare down our purpose to three words—Making Lives Better.”

When you think about it, there are few things in life more significant than making lives better. It’s something HeimLantz has worked tirelessly to achieve. And Making Lives Better is a purpose the firm hopes to accomplish for generations to come, for its clients and its team members. (See Sidebar)

Bridging the Generational Divide While Building a Firm for the AgesAs crucial as Kathie Sulick and other partners are to HeimLantz Financial Advisors’ success, the firm is greater than the sum of its parts. This is no more evident than in its efforts to mentor and engage those employees who are critical to bringing in the next generation of clients. Just look at Sheri Winegardner, CFP®.

“For the firm to grow, we had to adopt a new perspective and understand the unique characteristics of Gen Y, Gen X and Millenials,” Sulick, herself a Baby Boomer, said. “1st Global really helped us understand this gap, and Carter and the firm have taken the right steps to take us into the future.”

One of the steps HeimLantz took is to require new partners to possess a securities license, a common-sense move since wealth management is the fastest growing segment of the business.

Perhaps the most visible change, however, is the emergence of Winegardner, a former wealth management assistant who is now a licensed associate financial advisor. She also recently earned the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation, one of the most difficult designations in the industry to obtain. As a Millennial, she is helping the firm reach a group that has, thus far, seemed elusive to many companies.

“Sheri has already gotten together with the firm’s millennial CPAs to bring in new and younger clients,” Sulick said.

Heim added, “Sheri soaked it all up. She had the ability, and Kathie fertilized the seeds. If the firm is to continue to grow, it must adapt.”

Adapting is exactly what HeimLantz is doing by implementing the programs needed to ensure its future remains bright long after Heim, Sulick and other partners retire.


Firm Success Story

About HeimLantzHeimLantz Financial Advisors is a Maryland-based financial services firm driven by a skilled team of financial professionals dedicated to a single purpose: Making Lives Better. With a full Wealth Management division, certified Business Valuation experts and specialists in a host of other financial disciplines, HeimLantz is well-positioned to help companies and their principals maximize value through every phase of growth and transition. Visit www.heimlantz.com to learn more about why HeimLantz is the trusted business and financial advisor of choice helping clients achieve their goals today and in the future.

About 1st Global1st Global was founded in 1992 by CPAs who believe that accounting, tax and estate planning firms are uniquely qualified to provide comprehensive wealth management services to their clients. 1st Global provides CPA, tax and estate planning firms the education, technology, business-building framework and client solutions that make these firms leaders in their professions through dedicated professional client relationships built around wealth management.

More than 400 firms have chosen to affiliate with 1st Global, making us one of the largest financial services partners for the tax, accounting and legal professions.

The Diamond Eagle award is given to firms based on the criterion of the firm’s production volume across all product lines.

1st Global Capital Corp. is a member of FINRA and SIPC and is headquartered at 12750 Merit Dr., Suite 1200 in Dallas, Texas, 75251; 214-294-5000. Investment advisory services offered through 1st Global Advisors, Inc., an SEC-Registered Investment Adviser. Additional information about 1st Global is available via the Internet at 1stGlobal.com

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and federally registered CFP (with flame logo), which it awards to individuals who successfully complete initial and ongoing certification requirements.

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