How to Earn L.E.E.D. Certification as a Contractor

Determine which LEED accredited professional (LEED AP) certification suits your skills and career. All AP exams come in two parts: the first focusing on the Green Associate material and the second focusing on the specialization. Select between Building Design and Construction for architects, Interior Design and Construction for designers, Homes for home builders, Operations and Maintenance for those maintaining existing buildings, or Neighborhood Development for those who design and develop neighborhoods. Contractors starting out in the field may elect to take the Green Associate and then select an accredited professional exam in the future.
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Document work experience and education to qualify to take the exam. To sit for the LEED AP exam, the applicant needs to document work experience that includes involvement on a project registered or certified for LEED. Applicants also need to submit to an audit and agree to the appeals process and certificate maintenance. Contractors starting out in the field without work experience can qualify to take the Green Associate exam by completing an educational course that covers green building practices and then sit for specific AP exams after gaining more work experience.
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Apply for the exam through logging into the Green Building Certification Institute website. Enter your personal information. Credentials and experience on the website. Ensure that you enter your name exactly as it appears on your identification that you plan to use at the exam center. Double check to ensure you are applying for the correct exam, and upload your required attestation documents in the form of an image. For Accredited Professional exams, ensure that the project submitted is a LEED certified project. Select the Prometric testing facility to take the exam. Be prepared to pay for the non-refundable exam fee at this time.
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Review the LEED AP specific course materials available from the U.S. Green Building Council to ensure that you are prepared for the exam. Use the practice questions to identify areas to study. A variety of courses are available through the U.S. Green Building Council or through approved training facilities to help you prepare for the exam.
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Take the closed-book exam at the Prometric testing facility that you selected during registration. Prometric recommends arriving at least 30 minutes prior to your scheduled testing time. At the end of the two-hour exam, a preliminary score will be shown, indicating if you have passed. The LEED certificate will be mailed to the address you provided during registration.
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How to Make $1,000 a Month on the Internet

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Think Long Term
Making money online is a slow process. If you're in a rush, buy a lottery ticket and keep your fingers crossed. But if you manage to be patient, you can build up a substantial income. Best of all, a lot of your income will be 'passive income', meaning that even after you stop working, the money keeps rolling in. Sort of like being an author, actor, or musician, and collecting royalties or residuals for work you did long ago. Online income starts as a trickle...perhaps just a few cents, or a dollar, for a month's work. But it grows to a few dollars a month, then $50 a month, then $100, and with dedication (and again, patience), a thousand a month will be in sight.
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Start at eHow
About half of my online income I get right here at eHow. If you can write decently, you can write a How-To article. And if you can write How-To articles, you should be doing it right here, and starting to earn money. eHow is the easiest and surest way I know to begin earning an online income. With practice, each article you write can earn about ten cents a day. Doesn't sound like much, but that's $3 a month for each article. Write 100 articles, and you've got $300 a month coming in. You're already well on your way to a thousand a month. The Resources section includes a lot more information on how to get started making money online with eHow.
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Find The Right Content Opportunities That Work For You
It's possible to make money online by blogging, building a website, uploading photos, videos, or music, and numerous other options. These all entail providing 'content' -- materials that people want to see or use on the web -- and getting advertising (Adsense and affiliate) income from the content. For instance, I have numerous websites and blogs that I've created on my own, all of which bring in small income streams from advertising revenue and affiliate sales. My most successful is my Newspaper Archives site at XooxleAnswers.comThere are dozens of other content opportunities, described in the Resource article, Make Money on the Internet.
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Get a Job
The rest of my online income comes from work that I do in a somewhat more traditional vein. I am an online researcher and consultant, handling a wide variety of research tasks for people who need business information, or personal research (like family history), or health and legal research, and so on. Some of this I do through a service called Uclue.com Online research is not for everyone. But it's not the only online work option. Opportunities range from secretarial and administrative work, to programming, and even to mock jury duty (really!). Take a look at the Resources article, Making Money on the Internet, for more possibilities.
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How to Build a Savings Interest Calculator in Excel

Open a new spreadsheet in Excel.
Label row 1 as follows: A1 is 'Date,' B1 is 'Balance,' C1 is 'Additional deposits' and D1 is 'Interest.' Format columns B, C and D as currency by selecting the columns and clicking on the dollar sign button in the 'Home' tab. (Users of Excel 2003, click the dollar symbol on the Formatting toolbar.)
Call your bank or look at your account online to find out when the bank adds interest payments to your account.
Fill in column A with interest payment dates, starting with the most recent date your account received an interest payment. If your bank adds interest payments monthly, use monthly dates (October 1, November 1, etc.); if it pays annually, add dates by year. For example, if your last interest payment was October 1, 2009, the next date will be October 1, 2010.
Type the current balance of your savings account into cell B2.
Fill in column C with additional deposits. If you deposit $500 into the account in the interval between interest payments, enter '500' in cells C2, C3, and down as far as you'd like. If you deposit irregularly, leave those cells blank but enter figures each time you make a deposit. You can combine these approaches, entering a minimum figure and adding to it if you make more deposits.
Enter the following calculation in cell D2, without the quotation marks: '=B2+C2+x
(B2+C2)' where x is the interest rate. The interest rate type--daily, monthly, annually or other--must match the intervals between the dates in column A (step 4). Remember to multiply the interest rate expressed as a percentage by .01. So a 1.5 percent interest rate calculated once a year gives you a multiplier of 0.015. In this case your formula would be '=B2+C2+.015
(B2+C2)'. If the same interest rate was applied monthly instead of annually, your formula would be '=B2+C2+(0.015/12)*(B2+C2)'.
Copy cell D2 and paste in cells D3, D4 and on down as far as you'd like.
Navigate to cell B3 and type (without the quotation marks) '=D2'. This will cause Excel to display the formula result--your account balance after the interest payment--in cell B3.
Copy cell B3 and paste in cells B4, B5 and on down as far as you'd like.
Save the spreadsheet and close it.
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How to Make Money with T

Write a business plan. Name your business, list your goals for the business and clearly identify how you will make your service worth paying for. Develop strategies for working through adversity, including initial rejection from clients. Start a professional website for your T-shirt advertising business. Determine how much you will charge for the service. Consider starting with a daily rate.
Begin by offering some free advertising to advertise your business. It's a great way to show and prove what you do and how good you are at doing it. Wear the client's company logo on printed t-shirt, and take photos and make a video of you wearing the shirt and describing the company and what it does. Circulate these widely on social networking sites.
Present the free video to the proposed client to demonstrate your ability to effectively showcase the company's products and services to a vast number of future customers. Place emphasis on the bottom line: with the help of your savvy and unique advertising skills, the company will reach a wider audience and become more successful.
Get noticed by the broader community. Place ads in newspapers and on social media. Contact your local chamber of commerce to list your business. After you sign your first client for free on a trial basis, contact a business reporter at your local newspaper or TV station to introduce your new business to the broader community.
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How to Have a Successful Counseling Private Practice

Begin outlining a business plan for your counseling private practice by assessing your goals and needs. Write down the answers to the following questions: How much do you need to earn? How much will you charge per session? How many clients can you reasonably expect to see per week? What type of clients do you want to work with? What specialty areas are you most interested in? How much time will you need to devote to managing your business? Will you accept insurance? Do you currently have any clients? What is your client turnover rate? Do you have established relationships with other providers or organizations that will provide ongoing referrals to your practice? What relationships could you develop to establish ongoing referrals to your practice? Be certain to reassess your practice and goals at least monthly to stay on target.
Establish a network of potential referral sources to your counseling private practice. One way to establish a referral base is to make referrals to others. Sending new clients to other providers will open the door to future reciprocal referrals. Ask other providers for referrals. Contact organizations and providers you know or that work within your area of specialty and ask for referrals. Set up meetings with potential referral sources to discuss their needs and how you might be able to help. Maintaining good relationships with current referral sources and continuing to develop new referral sources will be critical to the success of your counseling private practice.
Decide early on whether or not you will accept insurance. Living off co-payments while waiting for reimbursement from insurance companies can intensify the challenges of starting a private counseling practice. Do you have enough savings reserved to see you through until you have an established clientele? Accepting insurance also means incurring additional costs to handle coding, billing and following up to collect payments. Accepting insurance may also mean accepting a lower rate for your services. Be certain you weigh the long-terms costs of filling your practice with low-paying insurance agreements. Expect to hire an experienced individual or company to handle your billing and bookkeeping. Establish and clearly communicate your rates and payment terms to clients during your initial conversation with them. Maintain clear boundaries when it comes to payments. Bending your rules repeatedly to accommodate patients who do not pay can have damaging therapeutic results, in addition to impacting your income.
Spend less than you earn and always spend less than you budget. The spacious office in the swanky office park might feel good, but it increases the amount you will be required to earn and collect each month. Aim for a quality space that is less than what you have budgeted, never more. Shop for furnishings at home stores, not office supply stores. If you do not want to work alone in your office, consider sharing office space with other professionals before hiring a receptionist you might not need. Carefully consider the need for hiring employees and understand the full cost of salaries, benefits, employment taxes and payroll preparation. Question each business expenditure and the underlying reason for it before you purchase. Avoid long-term financial commitments for business services until they have proved to be essential.
Provide excellent care to your clients and thank them for the hard work they put into their own counseling. The quality of care that your clients receive from you is your greatest strength in creating and sustaining a successful counseling private practice. Consider placing a sign in the waiting room thanking clients for their confidence by referring others. Clients may not know that it is okay to refer family and friends. Providing excellent care in your counseling private practice also strengthens relationships with referral sources as clients report back to them the high quality of care they are receiving. Be certain to keep in touch with referral sources by providing regular progress reports. Always thank your referral sources and update them on your availability.
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