Consultants – first they con you and then they insult you! These were the first words the man said to me! Cynical, because he had used many other Consultants before he heard my pitch.

Today he is a 9-year-old client after 18 months of pitching and I started with only a toe space in his group of companies.

Indeed it is not easy for a Chartered Secretary to secure a consulting job, where on the one hand, the word "Consultant" is not a regulated word and just about any Mutu, Ali or Ah Kow can use it with no fear of regulators’ retribution. And on the other hand, there are the Consultants from the big 4.

We are Owners and Co Owners of management consultancy practices. Hence our interest to know how a Chartered Secretary can become a preferred Consultant? How do we differentiate ourselves as a service provider – that our fees are cheaper? Or our knowledge better? Are these 2 factors enough to hold onto an existing Client? Can it bring in new Clients? Can MAICSA help us on these matters?

Traditionally, MAICSA's role is to provide us with a strong technical resource, be it through our training programs or via our CSP chat sessions. Not to mention the regular dialogues it holds with Regulatory Authorities, the research it conducts and the literature it publishes.

Indeed, MAICSA has done a lot for us even in terms of profiling: from an unheard of nobody 46 years ago to having a prestigious address at Mid Valley. And the strong emergence of the profession CHARTERED SECRETARIES MALAYSIA on the façade of our building, in our stationeries, Journal and Annual Conferences - Councils and Committees past and present have done a lot.

My eternal question is not what MAICSA can do for us, it is more what else can MAICSA do for us? It can do a lot, it has a lot of muscle but do we know what we want it to do for us?

Recently MAICSA posted the PC Holder’s Scheme onto its website and allowed information on the services of its PC Holders. Council even approved a hyperlink between a PC Holder’s website to that of MAICSA’s website.

Hopefully, this will give public knowledge that you are a qualified, professionally disciplined practitioner verifiable by virtue of being included in MAICSA’s directory of PC Holders – now that’s backing for you from your Institute, you are not a bogus Consultant, Secretary, etc. You are a MAICSA PC Holder.

The inaugural chat session in October last year was very encouraging because we had participation from PC Holders who openly spoke their mind. Whether the opinions differ with each other or how they may later converge is not so important as that it was actually spoken.

I am fully aware of the demands on your time, but shall we stretch?

By which I mean shall we take out some more time for active participation in MAICSA affairs. Shall we be seen and be heard and our presence felt even within our own Institute, in the further shaping of the PC Holders Group?