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 Going green
By Kathryn Koch
Tue Nov 13, 2007, 03:21 PM EST
PLYMOUTH - Six months ago, business owner Lisa Fosdick took her company to a new eco-friendly place on the cutting edge of a developing "green" sales industry.
At Fresh Impressions in the Sherman Building at 310 Court St., an offshoot of First Impressions, her promotional products company, Fosdick, a self-described hippy at heart, promotes green products to her customers.
"We're trying to teach companies that they can be green fairly painlessly," she said.
In both her personal and professional life, Fosdick makes an effort to "go green." She and her husband bought the first Toyota Prius hybrid car that went on the market and live in an old house in Plymouth that they restored.
Fosdick read about other kinds of companies going green and couldn't think of a reason why she shouldn't start a new company like Fresh Impressions. She has targeted several companies that she thinks could be candidates for her services.
"You can be an environmentally responsible corporation or business and buy environmentally-responsible promotional products," she said.
Fosdick said her goal with the new company is to be ahead of the curve. The eco-friendly products Fosdisk promotes are organic, biodegradable or made from recycled materials. There are soy and bamboo-based products. The initial response many people have to hearing that she can provide companies with eco-friendly products is that they cost more, but Fosdick said that isn't necessarily the case.
Eco-friendly greeting cards and pens, seeded paper that be planted into the ground, bamboo cell phone holders, organic cotton T-shirts and organic lip balm are examples of products available to companies. Of the 13,000 companies in the consortium that Fosdick belongs to that can buy from her, about 150 are green companies, she said.
Twenty years ago, Fosdick worked in the warehouse of a promotional products company. Every day after school she would go to work filing catalogues, distributing samples and other jobs. One day she asked the owner about a sales job. Though hesitant, her boss put her to work in sales on a commissioned basis. In 1992, Fosdick was rewarded with an industry award as salesperson of the year.
Fosdick took a few years off from sales but then returned to work as owner of a consulting business, Sky's The Limit. After two years on her own, she accepted a position as director of training for Adventures in Advertising, where she worked for five years. When the owners sold the company, she struck out on her own again.
In 2001, Fosdick started First Impressions. Her first big account was Plymouth-based PartyLite. At first she ran the business out of her basement, but when she decided to look for condominium space, her first thought was of 310 Court St., formerly occupied by Ethan Allen furniture before the owner turned it into condos.
"If you could have seen it, it was just a shell of a building," she said. "Now, it's the perfect space for us. We love it."
Fosdick employs two sales representatives for First Impressions and another sales representative for Fresh Impressions. Tomorrow (Thursday) First Impressions and Fresh Impressions will host the Plymouth Area Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. She's also working on building her new Web site, firstimpp.com, with a growing range of products.
Fosdick hopes Fresh Impressions will be a resource for companies looking to find green items, whether it's a small business or large corporation. She's particularly interested in reaching out to hotels and companies in the building industry that are open to green products.
"It's becoming more of a focus for companies," she said.
Fosdick wants her two young daughters to live in a world that's green, and she feels like she's making a difference to that end.
"Having a successful business helpful to the environment keeps me going," she said.
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