1. 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
broadclientbaserequiresanextraordinary
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 Advisors
An Overnight Success More Than a Decade in the Making
By Jack Fehr
Carter Heim, Kathie Sulick, Paul Abbou and Sheri Winegardner

2. 2 HeimLantz Financial Advisors www.1stGlobal.com © 1st Global 2015
Firm Success Story
The Breakthrough
Sulick’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 Process
The 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.”

3. 3 HeimLantz Financial Advisors www.1stGlobal.com © 1st Global 2015
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 Better
HeimLantz’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.”

4. 4 HeimLantz Financial Advisors www.1stGlobal.com © 1st Global 2015
Firm Success Story
“Onthewealthmanagementside,KathieandSheriWinegardner
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
meetingscalled“LunchandLearns”alsobecamepartofthefirm’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 Ages
As 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
ofGenY,GenXandMillenials,”Sulick,herselfaBaby
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.

5. 5 HeimLantz Financial Advisors www.1stGlobal.com © 1st Global 2015
Firm Success Story
About HeimLantz
HeimLantz 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 Global
1st 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.