Who knew spilling a Diet Coke would lead to good fortune?

By Cindy Landrum  

JANUARY 20, 2012 9:33 a.m. (0)

She and her husband, Kevin, just wanted to find a way to teach her then 2-year-old daughter, Lena, to share her toys at school.

Patton had an artist friend draw a cute bee. She added a one-word character trait she wanted her daughter to learn – bee kind, bee fair, bee honest.

In the morning, when she was getting her daughter dressed, they’d have a short conversation about what that day’s t-shirt meant.

“In the long run, it wasn’t about the shirt. It was about the conversation,” Patton said. “The shirt was a prompt.”

Her success prompted other mothers to ask Patton for advice.

“You’ve never met anybody more ordinary than me. I grew up in Campobello, went to Chapman High School and now live in Clinton,” she said. “I’ve had some extraordinary things happen to me. But I’ve met extraordinary women who have much better ideas than I do.”

The problem, Patton said, is they don’t think they can start a business or don’t know how.

“Some of them think they can only be moms,” she said. “But moms are multi-taskers and problem-solvers and make great business people. They just need something to push them off the ledge.”

Patton has started University of Mom, a website and blog to help women who want to turn their ideas into businesses, from business planning, manufacturing, intellectual property, licensing, publicity and social marketing.

“I’m still trying to digest why is it this happened to me, why I had this great fortune,” she said. “I feel like University of Mom is sort of my calling, something I should be doing. Moms need a place to go to get the information.”

Patton and her husband were running a successful restaurant in Clinton when they came up with the idea for Bee Tees.

Other parents saw the t-shirts and asked where they could buy them.

Although the Pattons did not have experience with the apparel industry, they decided to start selling the shirts. They had a couple of Laurens County stores selling their product.

Then, Mast General Store began carrying the shirts and Patton, who by then found out she was pregnant with twins, decided she would not be able to run a restaurant with a preschooler and two more on the way.

She needed to find more stores to carry Bee Tees.

In July 2009, she exhibited at the Atlanta Gift Mart, three buildings of 15 floors, each packed with every kind of gift, apparel and home décor items for store owners and buyers to pick from.

She opened some new accounts the first day but got her biggest break at lunch on Saturday.

When she went to the food court, she saw several tables in the crowded cafeteria where just one person sat. She asked a woman if she could join her.

The woman worked for Cracker Barrel, a national restaurant and gift store chain that Patton was told just the day before didn’t want to carry her t-shirts.

As she ate her burrito, Patton pitched her product. The woman agreed to come see her booth.

And then Patton spilled a Diet Coke on the woman’s white linen pantsuit.

When Patton got home, she sent the woman some samples, marketing materials and an American Express gift card to cover her dry cleaning bill.

“Who would have guessed that most embarrassing moment would have turned into such an important moment,” she said.

The Bee Tees line now includes adult t-shirts, a line of Christian-themed shirts, stationery, hats and tote bags.

Patton will conduct two free workshops at the Spartanburg County Library headquarters, the first on Jan. 23 from 10 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. and the second, Jan. 28 from noon until 1:30 p.m.

She will conduct a lunch and learn in Mauldin on Jan. 26 from noon until 1 p.m.

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