Tammy Levent: Keynote Speaker, Business Strategist, World Travel Expert, Best-Selling Author & TV Travel Correspondent!
Tammy’s Ventures
Tammy Levent is the founder of Elite Travel, an award-winning national travel agency. For 3 years she educated viewers with travel-related news and advice during her weekly segment Just Go Trav (NBC Daytime). She’s also the creator of T.A.S.K. (Travel Agent’s Success Kit™), a consulting business to help startups and/or struggling travel agencies successfully adapt to this new age of travel. Her non-profit It’s My Bag is an organization that donates suitcases, and more, to children in foster care. Tammy recently launched her latest business enterprise – Heavenly Puffs – the first frozen authentic Loukoumades for food service & markets.
The Travel Agent’s Agent
Tammy is a travel agent’s agent. She created Elite Travel in the wake of 9/11, during the collapse of the airlines, in the face of natural disasters, the recession, and the onslaught of online booking engines. This is why she knows better than most how to create a successful business in an adverse climate. She understood that the travel industry was in need of help, and she forged ahead to restore dignity to the art of travel. She states, “To win our clients back, we need to change the way we think of travel agents and redefine the business”.
In 2013, she partnered with several top entrepreneurs, including Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank and As Seen on TV. The goal was to develop The Travel Agent’s Success Kit ™ or TASK, to help struggling travel agencies successfully adapt to traveling in today’s world.
Building Brands
Tammy is quite the sales expert and business strategist! She knows how to build brands from scratch. She’s conducted dozens of workshops and seminars on how to motivate employees, increase sales, generate leads, and create strategic partnerships. She shares her vast knowledge at every event and states that with the right mindset, anyone can achieve anything! As a one-of-a-kind keynote speaker, she always provides attendees with actionable takeaways.
As a private consultant, Tammy uses her personal Rolodex along with one-on-one coaching to help others create new businesses and new brands that can reach potential multimillionaire clientele within a 6-month time frame. Her goal is to teach you her proven ways to success!
The Beginnings of Her Entrepreneurial Spirit
Tammy’s business building experience began at the age of 16 when she drove to New York and found a job working as a secretary for a wholesale appliance store. After 1 year of learning the business, she reached out to a shipping partner as she had an idea to combine the two businesses into one full-service company. That’s how she became a founding partner of 7 Islands Shipping at the young age of 17, which went on to become a top US company well-known for export shipping to the Mediterranean in the ’80s and ‘90s. This was just the first of many Strategic Partnerships Tammy went on to create, supporting her lifelong philosophy of successful entrepreneurship!
Overcoming Life Struggles
After 7 Islands Shipping was sold, Tammy moved back to Florida and started a successful jewelry business. In 1994 two armed robbers stole more than 95% of the inventory, forcing the business to close. Tammy quickly took a job as a telemarketer selling timeshare packages and soon became the top salesperson in the company. One year later, she was training new employees on how to do sales calls.
Responding to a crisis is nothing new for Tammy Levent. Even before COVID, her life was a rollercoaster of unfortunate events that she somehow transformed into greatness. She’s rebounded from child abuse, depression, homelessness, and a massive fire that destroyed all she owned. An armed assault destroyed her marriage, leaving her with a brain-injured husband and mountains of debt and bankruptcy. She then lost her grandmother in a car crash that severely injured her children. Tammy also battled cancer and survived a surgery-gone-wrong.
It was a nurse’s question that helped change the course of her future. When Tammy’s children were in the ICU, a nurse asked, “if it had nothing to do with money, what would you do?” Tammy replied, “I would travel the world”. With a family to feed, no assets, and a deficit of $180 thousand dollars, Tammy began to create strategic partnerships to build Elite Travel, her current travel management company.
Opening in 1996, Elite Travel has gone on to win numerous awards and has become one of the fastest growing, most trusted travel agencies in the nation! The company specializes in corporate incentive travel, luxury travel, destination weddings, and honeymoons. As of today, Tammy’s done more than $120 million in travel-related business.
Tammy’s Latest Venture – Heavenly Puffs
Tammy Levent ran a flourishing travel enterprise… until COVID hit.
HOW AN ANCIENT GREEK DESSERT HELPED ME SURVIVE THE 2020 CRISIS
Woman Turns Food Truck Side-Hustle into National Rollout!
To make ends meet, she and her husband began working full-time at their weekend side hustle: Heavenly Puffs, a Tampa-based food truck serving up “Loukoumades”. Levent is the first to create these delicious Greek donut holes as an authentic frozen option.
Levent said, “The idea started in March 2020 when in quarantine. Even though I’ve been making them for years, developing the freezable kind was extremely challenging. If you try to freeze traditional loukoumades dough, it completely changes the texture. Some people try to get around this by not using yeast, but not using yeast also changes the texture”.
These sweet treats offer a pleasing crunchiness on the outside and a unique fluffy, airy softness on the inside. Customers can choose the honey or cinnamon style, with all-natural toppings including chocolate, powdered sugar, Nutella, caramel, white chocolate, churro, jelly, and a create your own option.
Word quickly spread among Greek Restauranteurs about this shippable, preservable, fry-on-demand snack! What started out as a small Tampa-based food truck side hustle became a national Greek dessert sensation. She recently partnered with Delectables Fine Catering and now Heavenly Puffs are being shipped wholesale nationwide to grocery stores, diners, restaurants, catering companies, wedding vendors, schools, and more. This female-founded, minority-owned business has also been selected to be an official vendor at the NFL Super Bowl LV Experience Event.
Heavenly Puffs can be found on Facebook, Instagram or by visiting HeavenlyPuffs.com.
Tammy Levent’s Best Selling Book!
Tammy Levent’s Sink or Swim shows us that all things are possible with conviction and determination. She demonstrates that with the right mindset, anyone can achieve anything! In this book, she shows us how she was able to break free from her past history and reinvent herself.
Tammy Levent is also a featured author in the best-selling book, Women Who Mean Business. She reveals her top techniques for creating a business and lifestyle around your passion. Through practical, real-world examples, Tammy guides other women to find their courage, declare their goals, and use Strategic Partnerships to make those goals happen.
Tammy Levent’s writings have also been featured in:
- Business Fundamentals 2013
- Brides.com
- AOL’s Aisle Dash
- Peter Greenberg’s Travel Website
- Agent to Agent on Travel Pulse
- Panache Vue Magazine
- What’s Hot Tampa Bay
- Women’s Day National Magazine
- Travel Market Report
- TRO
- Prestige Magazine,
- Marvelless Mark
- Business Observer
- Travel Institute