I think the gentleman earlier gave some excellent advice and if I may piggyback on it a little based on my limited experience with manufacturers reps and vast experience in business development consulting, another good start while you are building up your big contacts is to start lower level. There are always small retail operations and small product manufacturers that could use a commision based rep. You may always consider specializing in something that you have a degree of confidence in being able to a) sale and b) close quickly so that you arent wasting a lot of time in the beggining.

I run a business center in Texas (www.texasbizcenters.com) that operates nationally and if you need any start up assistance, feel free to contact me directly.