Date: September 2012: Good Life gets better in Wyomissing

It was busy at Good Life Financial Group in Wyomissing one day last week.

Business partners Courtnie E. Nein and Conor F. Delaney each had their babies at work. The financial-services firm they founded looked a little like a day-care center that day.

In a side office stuffed with baby carriers and a Pack N Play, Delaney held his pride and joy, Blake, and Nein held hers, Graham. Blake will be 5 months old and Graham 2 months old, both on Thursday.

But Delaney, 27, and Nein, 26, have another baby they are nurturing in Good Life.

Since they started Good Life in February, Delaney and Nein have grown their company from $45 million under advisement to $47 million and they expect to reach $60 million by the end of the year.

Delaney and Nein left their former employer, Waddell & Reed, Spring Township, on the same day, Feb. 3, to start Good Life at 711 Spring St., Wyomissing.

They will be adding offices in Arizona, New Jersey, another site in Pennsylvania and potentially in New England by year's end.

Delaney and Nein own Good Life and have a combined practice within it.

Good Life expansion comes as the pair signs up financial advisers who are independent contractors bringing their own clients with them.

As Delaney explains it, Good Life provides the platform, infrastructure, manuals, models of portfolios and various other key services, while the independent contractors get a fee of .5 percent to 1.5 percent from clients for managing their portfolios. The independent contractors pay a percentage of their total revenue to Good Life.

He said Good Life's business model allows the advisers to keep more money than standard arrangements in other financial-services companies.

"This is like our baby that we're growing," Delaney said, referring to the concept and nurturing of Good Life.

LPL Financial is Good Life's platform for technology, brokerage and financial services.

While Delaney and Nein vet prospective advisers, LPL also helps screen them.

Delaney and Nein also have a value principle that is part of their business model: All of the advisers, including themselves, have to give back to the community.

They rented a box at the Reading Phillies and when they are not using it, they donate it to groups such as the Boy Scouts.

"I was initially impressed by their knowledge and professionalism and their youthful vitality," said Richard C. Gromis, a friend and banker at Customers Bancorp. "They have a very clear vision of where they are going and who they want to be. And they have a well-thought-out plan on how to get there."

Gromis said he became close friends with them and Nein joined his Rotary group where she is a great member.

"They have their values straight," Gromis said. "They work very hard and have a blue-collar work ethic."

Delaney and his wife, Elizabeth, and Nein and her husband, Justinn, live within a mile of each other in Bern Township.

On the day Blake and Graham came to work, clients, visitors and employees fussed over the babies. The babies are not strangers in this family-friendly work environment. But normally, Blake stays home with her mother and Graham stays with a neighbor.

As for Delaney and Nein's other baby, Good Life, their joy will be compounded Oct. 19 when Delaney and Nein help LPL open the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, an honor Nein compared to having the Stanley Cup for the day.

Contact Business Editor Karen L. Miller: 610-371-5049 or money@readingeagle.com.