Owner of Flowerama Steve Ozmet and Congressman Balderson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's bring on. He is the owner of Flower Rama
and his name is Steve Osmond. Steve is joining us now.
Now I've known Steve a long time, and so I
reached out to Steve. You know, with all the tariffs
and everything that, you know, that seems to be the
buzzword right now. That's the thing that is happening a
lot that a lot of social media's talk. You know,
you look around and depending on which way they lean,

(00:23):
is the type of you know, narrative they're going to
throw out there. And so we know, just not too
long ago, it looks like the one with Mexico. The
president there Shinebaum. She said, you know, they're going to
put ten thousand troops at the border. And I was
telling you this Congressman when we went on, I was like,
you know, all of a sudden, Wall Street bounces back,

(00:45):
and Wall Street does not like everything going on with tariffs,
and rightly so I understand that. But they bounced back
as soon as all of this information comes. They're putting
ten thousand troops, Mexican troops at the border. They're going
to stop the flow effect. I mean that their job.
The fentanyl is the big problem here. That's the reason
Trump was doing this, I meanly reason. Yeah, and so

(01:07):
they were all there was all this speculation with the
twenty five percent, but he's I believe it's a thirty
day hold, basically a pause on this to let them
kind of get this underway. And then you know, Canada
is still I think ready to go tomorrow. From what
I understand, they are the twenty five percent tariffs there,
and then there was I believe an additional ten percent

(01:28):
tariffs on energy energy gas oil and gas from Canada
as well. So anyway, back to Steve, who is on now,
local business owner Flower Rama and so, Steve, you and
I talked and and by the way, welcome to the show. Brother,
how are you?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thanks? I'm great man.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
How are you doing well? Doing well?

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Hi? Roy?

Speaker 4 (01:47):
How you doing Steve? I know you?

Speaker 1 (01:50):
And so yeah, so I was like, you know, saying,
talking to you about this going is this going to
affect you? Because there are a lot of local businesses
clearly this is going to effect and let's be honest,
Columbia was the thing that it came in a way,
it was very fast. As a matter of fact, they
barely started talking about it and boom that went away.
That was cleared up, They got that figured out, and

(02:11):
there was talk during that time that it's going to
affect flowers, which by the way, is exactly what Steve
does with Flowerama. And as we know, your super Bowl
is coming up here with the with Valentine's Day Steve
and you know, basically, and it was like, oh, it's
going to affect that, and then it went away, and
then it went away. So where are you at now

(02:33):
with this? Do you get stuff from Canada? Do you
get flowers?

Speaker 4 (02:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Oh yeah, we get we get we get a lot
of blooming plants from from Canada. They grow most of
our Valentine's Day product. So any blooming plant that we
get in it's gonna come with the tariff. It's just
part of the deal. Can I make a comment about
the tariffs? Sure, you know, I look at look I

(02:58):
know tariffs are considered attack, but I kind of look
at it more like it's a it's a behavioral tax. Right,
So you know Donald Trump is trying to three you know,
three D chess everybody, but the behavior he's trying to
a tariff designed to modify behavior either being you know,
you're either going to change your behavior, or you're going

(03:19):
to be part of the solution. And in Mexico's case,
so say we're going to be part of the solution.
Therefore the tariff goes away. And I'm hoping that Canada
and whatever Trump's trying to get accomplished with them, whether
whether it's ventanol or any other I trust the process,
is my point. It's a terriff, it's a tax. It's
likely going to going to go away as long as

(03:39):
we get a you know, modify the behavior. So you know,
for us, you know, I'm I trust that. You know,
he's he's got a long term play in this. And
for for us, we are. You know, we're going to
pay a little bit of the price for it, and
you know that's just part of being an American citizen
in my opinion. You know, we are, we will we

(04:01):
will pay a part of the tariff, or will pay
the entire tariff and our thing. But one thing I
know is that I've been in business in Columbus for
thirty some years, thirty five years. I have a loyal following.
I've had loyal customers for a long time, and loyalty
has to go both ways. You know, we we will
not pass along the tariff to our customers. That's my

(04:22):
way of being loyal back to my customers that have
been so loyal to me for all these years and
I appreciate them to death. And we're going to be
working real hard on the next few Wow. So wow,
we won't pass it on.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Talking to Steve Osmond, he owns Flower Rama, you have
a couple of different locations here locally. You just what
what three? What I just heard from you is staggering.
You are not going to pass on the tariffs that
you are going to be having slapped on you if
you will, You're not passing that a lot.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
No, well, it is even if even if they even
if something happens with Columbia and there's a terrif put
on that, I won't pass that long either. I mean,
my customers have been loyal for a long time. It's
just the way I look at it, and I think
this is a long term play. You know, we've got
to be part of the solution to get to get
the balance sheet balance back to being fair. This is

(05:16):
this is something that they're doing, in my opinion, in
order to affect you know, an endgame that's going to
be beneficial for everyone involved, and so we got to
fire apart.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
It's going to cut into your that's cutting into your
profit then, I mean right, I mean I'm not, I
mean equal for okay, I'm just making I'm hearing this right,
I'm like.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay, it's definitely cutting into our profits. And that's just
I mean, you know, I'm not I'm not going to
stand here and say, oh gosh, I'm so happy, you know,
but I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna you know, I'm
not passing them. I'm gonna it will not be passed through.
Ferris will not be passed through. That's just the way
it's going to be. And if if it's you know,

(05:58):
if it goes up, if it bumps up, it will
not be passed through. We will be we will stay
with them. Are the plans right?

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Just cutting into profit? This is this is essentially a loss.
I mean over the next eleven days between now in
Valentine's Day, who knows what's going to happen these you're
talking about fresh flowers, you know, forty eight hours from
picking to get what could happen in the This guy's
willing to be loyal to his customers and take a loss.
That's pretty awesome.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
That's a sign of a true that's America and that's
an American small business owner and that's what they do.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
That's crazy, absolutely good for you. So the other thing, well.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
I appreciate the compliment, but thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. Well there are I don't know how many other
small businesses, and I hope a lot of them are
doing this kind of thing. I feel like this is
a unicorn myself. I'll just say it. I don't know.
You were bringing up troya a lumber.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Joel in Coshockton, ohioshocked and lumber. Yeah, And he and
I were talking a little bit about it this morning
on the telephone. You know, it's going to impact him.
And he said, look, Troy, you were a christ our dealer.
We're small businesses. We figured out, we'll deal with it.
We're going to take care of our customers. They've been
loyal to us, uh, and we'll get through this. I'm
going to do it same thing as you see. If

(07:15):
you're doing it for the greater good of this country,
then he knows what we need to do to get
it back on track again. And if that means that
he has to absorb some of it. Then then he
will and it's a short term you know, pain for
the for the gain of the long haul here.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
So let me also say something else real quickly. I
want to point out that the the grower that we're
buying from, has reached out to us and he is
also telling us, hey, we're going to participate. We're going
to cut your cost a little bit because we want
to make sure that you're successful too. So I'm going
to be eating it and the grower is going to
be eating And I think it kind of alludes to

(07:50):
the idea that you know, Trump is having an impact,
I mean effectively what he's doing, and he's also lowing
is so you know, on a twenty five percent, you know,
increasing my cost that on that product. The grower on
his side is going to be participating in some of
that costs so that I don't have to bear the
whole weight of it. So I want to you know,
point out that you know, we're still you know, we

(08:11):
still want to do business with our friends in Canada,
and that loyalty that he's expressed to us, I'll continue
to buy from him from this point forward as a
result of it. So I think I think everybody's trying
to figure out a way to get it done. Sorry
to interrupted Troit.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
No, No, you know what. Here's here's what I would
like to do. Also, I'll throw this out if you're
within the sound of my voice right now, if you
own a business, or you are part of a business,
or you are buying from a business where you happen
to know like small business and they're doing this, I
what I want to do is get all of these
people on the air and here's why, Just to give

(08:46):
them a bush, a push, a spiff, if you will,
because I feel like that's unbelievable that people are doing
this right now. That is unbelievable, Steve. And I know
that there's probably other small business owners and I'm sure
you're you participate in all kinds of small business type
stuff where you maybe no other owners who could be

(09:06):
doing this, and not that you do off the maybe
off the top of your head. But that's incredible. And
your friend in Kashoktan who owns yeah, that's participating in this.
I feel like there needs to be a reward there,
you know. I mean, it's and I know Steve, you
might be going no, no, no, no, that's not because I
know you man, I know and I don't know that

(09:28):
your friend Troy, it feels that way as well. But
that's incredible that you guys are will you guys have
you know Steve and then you Troy that you know
people that are doing this for the really because you know,
you get it, you understand the long game part of this.
And and by the way, it's not going to probably
last very long either, it.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Shouldn't and it will if it does, it does, and
we will, you know, we will, you know, have to
figure it out from there. But the goal here is
to modify behavior, to get people to be partners and
economies on both sides of the border, on both borders
and everywhere else. It's finest solution to the pendel. Let's
not find some of these other solutions and work together
to get there. And and uh, you know it should

(10:13):
cost company or countries or you know, businesses to some
some form of you know, we're the largest economy in
the world. People want to do business with us. There
should be some sort of a you know, I'm not
advocating for for terriffs, don't get me. Having said that,
I'll do my part I'll do my part, and they're

(10:34):
important to me and they've been loyal and I'm just
not going to I'm not going to pass it through,
just not doing it.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
And your money where your wallet is told, I told
Blazer Steve.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
When I got in, I ran into I stopped at
Kroger to pick up some supplies to take back with
me to DC, and I ran into a farmer. Same
thing that you said to I mean, just look, I
support the president one hundred and twenty. It makes me
a little nervous, but I'm gonna do it for the
good of the contrary.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
So toche to all of you.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Thank you for what you're doing. Do you know Greg Ress,
he's a ram a guy up in tests. Well, he's
got him an acron canon too, so great, Yeah, so's
he's a Testcross County commissioner also so well.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
He's a good dude. I like him. I've known him
for a minute. There's a lot of great flower shops
in the Columbus market too. I mean, I appreciate the
play we're getting, but there's a lot of hard working
floors in our backyards that have vans, that have coolers.
I want everybody to shop with me. I know that's
not realistic. I encourage anybody, you know, shop Valentine's Day,
shop local. Make sure they've got a six one four number,

(11:39):
make sure they've got an address that's that's local. These
people are, you know, working their tails off to get
ready for Valentine's Day. There's a lot of pressure on
all of them. And you know, there's a number of
times where each of us floorists reach out to each other.
We're out of something, that we're low on something, and
you know, it seems like they're all willing to lend
a hand. Hey, you need white roses.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
You need it.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
It's a good community. And you know, I appreciate the plug.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
You know, and they sell it to you. They sell
it to you for fifty percent tariff on there.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Just kidding to take take Blazer up on his offer
because he means what he says.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Now, that's really good. He wants you to.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Make sure that the small business people communicate with him.
I mean, I'm done Blazer now for eight years, and
there's one thing about it.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
His word's gold.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
So when he tells you to have small business people
reach out and he'll get the message out.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, that's really cool, very very cool, and I'm glad
that you didn't bring up because I asked it. I'm like,
please don't bring up that time when I was I
wanted a sexy Valentine for my wife and I said,
can you put this certain thing in the in the
flower And he was just like, I don't know if
I can do that?

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Man?

Speaker 1 (12:50):
What what is it? And I showed him and he went,
what what?

Speaker 3 (12:53):
What is going on with living gift card? Wasn't it?

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah? Right? It was a Lulu living gift card? Sure?

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Sure, yeah, you asked for those things and truck he
asked for the very White album.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
We don't get those requests very often, but yeah, I
think the last time we got a request for that
was you.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Oh oh gosh, man, he's putting everything out there on
all my business. Uh yeah. And Steve with Flower Rama,
you said you had three locations here in the Columbus area,
right you're in Where are you?

Speaker 2 (13:29):
I'm sorry, Whitehall Renoldsberg. And we've got a location in Columbus.
And then we've got a really good website. You know,
you can shop on their twenty four hours a day
and we service all of Columbus. So yeah, we're everywhere.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, gorgeous, gorgeous stuff with Flower Rama, no question about that.
Steve Osman, who owns Flower Rama, thank you for jumping on,
Thank you for being a great American and and this
is amazing man, what you're doing. I think, like I
said there, I got a sneak in suspicion that there
are a lot of local businesses that are are on

(14:08):
board with something like this because they know it's long
money we're talking about, and it's really going to benefit
overall at some point. But Steve, thanks for jumping on.
Appreciate your pay, thank.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Your great show. You do a great job.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Thanks man, I appreciate you all Right there he is, Steve,
Thanks again, man,