You’ve got a great product idea. Now, how do you find a manufacturer? For leads, first go to your industry’s manufacturing association, says Joe Rodriguez, senior managing partner of Global Innovation Leadership Inc., a manufacturing consulting company. “Those associations usually have good lists of who does contract manufacturing,” he says. “That’s a good [way] to find out who’s who in a particular industry.”

For Pamela Barsky, manufacturing has mostly been a learn-as-she-goes proposition. When she started out, the Los Angeles entrepreneur made her eponymous line of funky luggage tags, journals, buttons and stationery from home. Today she does business with manufacturers–both domestic and in Asia–to create her bevy of products.

Barsky, 48, scours the internet for leads and asks questions of prospective manufacturers, but her research doesn’t end there. “Often I’ll give someone a really small project or ask them to send samples of what they do,” says Barsky, whose company earned about $500,000 in 2007 sales. “Find people who need your business as much as you need them.”