Join Firat Education’s team of educational consultants to grow an independent educational consulting practice under the Firat Education brand.

The Firat Education Educational Consulting Business Apprenticeship covers everything an educational consultant needs to build and grow an educational consulting practice.  The Business Apprenticeship is an ongoing one-on-one program with CEO Josephine Firat and Chief Educational Consultant Ibrahim Firat that covers everything you need to know about running your own IEC practice.

The apprenticeship will include:

• Close work with Josephine Firat to build your market, client base, and community relationships to start/grow your IEC practice
• Close work with Ibrahim Firat to learn about the educational consulting trade he has refined over 17 years.
• Site visits to your market to assist with workshops, events, and community relationships.
• Building your educational consulting practice with the 15-year experienced Firat Education as your backbone.
• All marketing materials available to you, tailored to you and your market
• A specialized webpage built just for you and your practice
• A team at Firat Education to handle your billing, services, client intake, administrative tasks.
• Financial support to get your practice off the ground.

Welcome to the Firat show!  If you are an Independent Educational Consultant looking to grow your business and become an established counselor under a nationally recognized brand, this Business Apprenticeship is right for you!  We are looking for self-motivated educators who want to take their business to the next level but need the guidance and support from a well-established educational consulting firm.

Requirements to Apply:

• BA/BS or advanced degree
• Entrepreneurial, self-motivated, go-getter
• At least 3 years of college advising, school counseling, or similar experience.
• Provide independent educational or college counseling services as a favor or side job
• Working towards a steady influx of student clientele each admissions cycle
• Excited by the idea of generating new clientele through innovative means
• Long-term goal of owning a successful independent educational consulting practice
• Excellent communication skills, verbal and written.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, amiable personality.
• Excellent time management, detail oriented, results-oriented and excellent organizational skills
• Extremely familiar with technology (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PPT, Apple, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Zoom, Basecamp, Gmail…etc)
• Meets all the requirements to become an Associate Member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association.

If you already own your own educational consulting business and are interested in merging or working under Firat Education, please visit our Expert Acquisitions page.

Over the course apprenticeship and beyond, you will gain entrepreneurial skills and techniques that you need to grow and market your educational business. 

You will have the opportunity to build a national network of other entrepreneurial consultants like yourself, whom you can turn to for advice and support.  Lastly, you will be supported by Firat Education’s resources, credibility, and administrative staff and as you transition into one of Firat’s Independent Educational Consultants.

Orientation

During Orientation, you will be introduced to Firat Education and leaders within the organization.  You will also become familiar with educational consulting industry and entrepreneurship.

The Firat Way

Over the last 15 years, Firat Education has developed a great team, a robust set of services, and a streamlined way of providing those services to our clients.  As you join Firat’s team, you will learn what makes our operations so successful.

Your Why and Your Exit

Just like we do for our students, we will start with the end in mind with you.  What is your ultimate goal with your educational consulting practice?  And unlike most entrepreneurs, we will think about and plan your exit strategy out of your practice.  We will also share with you Ibrahim and Josephine’s exit strategy.

Opportunities in Your Market

The entrepreneur is continually identifying and assessing opportunities in his or her market.  Using the foundation of Firat Education’s marketing strategy, we will discuss how to identify your opportunities in your market.  After identifying those opportunities (and risks), we will teach you the steps to assess those opportunities for taking action.

Your Customer & Building Relationships

We will share with your Firat Education’s buyer personas and then adjust those buyer personas for your specific market.  We will discuss our customer’s journey and how to utilize those as tools for marketing communication.  We will end with sharing with your Firat’s strategy in developing long-term professional relationships that help build your practice.

Messaging

Firat Education uses multiple types of messaging to reach and communicate our value to clients.  This week we will discuss our customer value proposition and how to translate that into clear messaging for our target clients.

Communication Tools/Platforms

We put into practice our marketing communication messaging to our buyer personas by working on communication tools and platforms.  

Your Leadership and Communication Style

As an educational consultant for Firat Education, you are considered a leader.  You now work with an exceptional administrative and business team.  You work with an exceptional group of colleagues.  Understanding your leadership and communication style will make you a more highly effective leader, at Firat Education, in your practice, and in your community.

The Money and Your Metrics

Let’s talk about what Firat Education measures in terms of your success, and what does the money piece look like?  We forecast, we track, and we grow revenue AND profit.  What does that look like for a Firat educational consultant?

Your Goals

During the Business Apprenticeship, our educational consultants will set long-term goals and short-term objectives and create an action plan to achieve them. 

Ibrahim Firat, Chief Educational Consultant & Co-Founder

Ibrahim Firat identifies and asses’ student’s goals from high school, college or graduate school to find the best fit and provide academic assistance, test prep, and school/college counseling solutions to achieve results.  Ibrahim is currently the only College Counselor in Houston who specializes in test preparation and is a professional member of the IECA.

He has visited over 200 colleges and has more than14,000 hours of consulting resulting in $32.8 million in total scholarships, over 800 college acceptances and 19 IVY acceptances. 

Additionally, Ibrahim is author of the Firat Guide which is offered in two versions and is a tool for parents to utilize when deciding the best fit school for their child.

In addition to his role at Firat Education, he also serves as Chief Growth Officer for Firat Group LLC where he is responsible for providing strategic, financial, operational, marketing and tactical growth strategies to small and mid-size businesses around the globe. Additionally, he serves as a Curriculum Developer for Scale Smarter Partners providing instruction in operations management and growth for mid-size businesses that are surging.

He is currently a professor at Houston Community College where he has taught business administration for over 12 years. Ibrahim has a bachelor’s degree and an MBA with a concentration in marketing from the University of St. Thomas.

Josephine Firat, CEO & Co-Founder

Josephine has started four businesses since co-founding Firat Education in April 2008 with her now-husband Ibrahim Firat and gas taught business and entrepreneurship at the college and high school levels.  She has been an Adjunct Houston Community College professor teaching business courses for 14 years, was a founding faculty member of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses at HCC and Babson College, the #1 Entrepreneurship college in the country.

Her consulting company, Firat Group, now provides curriculum development and delivery for Babson’s Executive Education Center to teach current entrepreneurs all over the world how to grow their businesses.

Josephine has her BBA from the University of St. Thomas in Houston in management and two masters degrees, MBA with a concentration in Marketing and Finance, and MIB (Master of International Business), from the University of St. Thomas.

Cost of Apprenticeship:

Investment of time and effort

Requirements:

Each apprentice must commit to working as an educational consultant for Firat Education for at least one year.  In addition, all consultants are required to sign a five-year non-compete agreement.

Compensation Post-Grad:

Compensation is commensurate with experience. 

The pay is commission based and translates into $50-$120 per contact hour.