Great articles don’t always get the readership they deserve. We’ve posted the 10 most-widely read practice-management articles for the past year here. Below are another 10 that you might have missed, but I believe merit reading:

1. Seven Tips for a Firm Name Prospects Won’t Forget
   by Sara Grillo, 11/19/17
   
   Most firm names are so bland and nondescript that it’s like having no name at all. There’s zero brand identity. Here are some of the worst mistakes advisors have made naming their firms.
2. Don’t be Misled by Studies on the Value Advisors Add
   by Dan Solin, 4/24/17
   
   A recently released report assessed the value of an advisor to be approximately 4.08% a year. This should have been encouraging news to beleaguered advisors coping with a rapidly changing competitive environment. It had the opposite effect on me.
3. One Question You Should Ask Every Couple
   by Dan Solin 11/13/17
   
   Over time, I’ve come up with one strategy that has been a positive way to begin the meeting with couples. Ask this question…
   
4. The Five Points that Belong on Every Advisor’s Website
   by Bob Veres 8/28/17
   
   Shouldn’t clients be able to look on a financial planner’s website and see what services they can expect to receive for the fees they expect to pay? Shouldn’t the profession evolve a pricing model where people who do more for the client can charge more, and those who do less will charge less?
   
5. Seven Surprising Insights about Advisory Fees
   by Bob Veres, 7/17/17
   
   I asked the readers of my Inside Information service, members of the Advisor Perspectives community, and others, to tell me how they were charging their clients, and how much. The most interesting conclusions related to a key question that has arisen from the DOL Rule: what is a “reasonable” AUM fee to charge clients?
   
6. The Bernie Madoff Fraud: Five Lessons for Investors from 'The Wizard of Lies'
   by Seaborn Hall 6/5/17
   
   Here are the top five red flags – and lessons – that more seasoned investors should have seen and that average investors should learn from the Bernie Madoff scandal.
   
7. Five Surefire Ways to Lose a Prospect
   by Dan Solin, 9/19/17
   
   It’s been challenging to limit this list to five surefire ways to fail to convert a prospect, but these will be a good start.
8. New Tools to Prove You Acted as a Fiduciary
   by Bob Veres, 1/16/17
   
   This article, the first of two parts, is a review of some of the more prominent new tools that advisors can lean on as they prepare for the full DOL rule implementation on April 10. Each of them addresses a different aspect of the rule, and they all approach it from different angles.
9. My Journey toward a Better, Simpler Fiduciary Rule
   by Bob Veres, 4/24/17
   
   I have no problem whatsoever with the intent of the DOL fiduciary rule (may it rest in peace). But I was dismayed with the rule’s final form. In fact, I believe that the DOL’s voluminous tome can be distilled to a single sentence.
10. Why Clients Ignore Your E-Newsletters
    by Dan Richards, 11/27/17
    
    Even if you don’t mislead or offend clients, if you bore them, the time and effort to communicate with clients is wasted. There are six components to doing a great job of communicating online. While some advisors get two or three of them right, almost no one nails all six … and as a result, you aren’t getting the return that you could.

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