As with all or most loan agents, a major portion of my time was spent soliciting Realtors, hoping they would recommend me and introduce me to their clients. We spent untold hours designing financial flyers to show buyers what types of loans were available, what house payments would be, and so on...

With a little imagination, I built features into my flyers that others didn't have, accuracy of information, an "income needed" calculation, etc. I recognized the repetitiousness of the process and found that Microsoft Excel had the formulas to do the number-crunching for me, plus it had graphics capability for artwork.

After putting together the page layout, format, formulas, and artwork, I possessed the ability to create entirely new flyers in less than two minutes each, and boy did I! Other loan agents developed an interest in having the same type flyers, in fact they wanted mine but in a format they could use easily. I ultimately created a set of macro instructions that would take a user from start to finish easily and flawlessly.

Unfortunately, it was programmed in Excel 4.0, so anyone without that program couldn't use it. Outside our office, there were only a handful of potential users. In 1994, ten or so fellow loan agents bought copies for about $200, which I felt to be a good price for the results it achieved.

In time I visualize having this re-programmed professionally in Visual Basic so that anyone with Windows can run it on their system. You are invited to light a fire under me, so consider sending email to me with comments. Should I pursue this more agressively?

Perhaps a joint venture would be good for both of us.