When it comes to finding individual shares to buy, I've learned time and again to 'water your flowers, not your weeds' and to 'let your winners run, be quick to cut your losses'.

While finding the 'flowers' amongst the weeds can seem tricky, at first, I've found that the hardest part of the process is holding on once you find them.

The first part, finding the companies, is something I'll detail below. There are a few hacks you can use.

However, if you plan to invest this way in practice (i.e. buy and hold great businesses) it's important you work on yourself -- that is, your behaviour.

How to Find High-Quality Companies 

When most people talk about the 'best' companies, they typically mean 'highest quality'. Companies with good brands, consistent sales growth, long-term upside, founders or families running the show, etc.

Tracking down the highest quality companies using qualitative skills (reading, pattern recognition, etc.) isn't nearly as hard as it seems -- you can learn it over a couple of years -- but it takes time.

Time to research.

Time to tweak your investment process.

Time spent reading.

Time to learn from mistakes and successes.

There's a famous story I like to recall. It goes like this: Charlie Munger, the investing partner of Warren Buffett, read Barron's magazine for 50 years -- and only made one investment from what he read. After 50 years!

"I read Barron for 50 years. In 50 years I found one investment opportunity in Barron out of which I made about $80 million with almost no risk." - Charlie Munger

Later, Charlie would invest some money with Li Lu -- and turn that $80 million into much more.

10 Top ASX Companies?

OK. So no we know it can be time-consuming but can be learned. Let me give you one quick way to work on this.

One 'hack' any investor can use to identify a shortlist of high-quality companies is to look at historical financial results that illustrate what a high-quality company should look like.

Below, I've searched through the ASX for companies with long-term (10+ years) share price growth, low debt levels, long-term revenue growth and high returns on capital. For me, while these factors aren't perfect (there is no 'formula for investing' despite what anyone says), these qualities are hallmarks of high quality businesses generally speaking.

I've included a list of 10 of my favourite companies that have been an outcome of this search. You could put them on your watchlist.

1. Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) - I recently covered Altium in a Selfwealth Live show. Altium is an Australian multinational software business that was founded in 1985. It now has offices globally in places like San Diego, New York, Boston, Munich, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney. Its software focuses on electronics design systems for 3D PCB design and embedded system development. Its services include Altium Designer, Altium Vault, CircuitStudio, CircuitMaker, TASKING and Octopart.

2. Dicker Data Ltd (ASX: DDR). Dicker Data is unique on this list because it is a capital-intensive business with low margins. But it's founder-run, which is an advantage. Dicker Data is Australia largest and oldest distributor of information technology products. Having started in 1978, it has been operating for over 40 years and was listed on the ASX in 2011. Some of the brands Dicker Data sells include HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Lenovo, Symantec, RSA, Toshiba, Samsung, ASUS and so on. Dicker Data has over 5,000 reseller customers.

3. Aristocrat Leisure (ASX: ALL). Founded in the 1950s, the original Aristocrat Leisure business is based around casino games. Aristocrat is one of the largest players in the world being licensed in approximately 300 gaming jurisdictions in over 90 countries. The company now also has online digital games “ both casino versions and free-to-play social games.

4. Technology One Ltd (ASX: TNE). Technology One is one of Australia largest software as a service (SaaS) businesses with offices in six countries. It has been operating for more than three decades and now has over 1,200 businesses, government departments and statutory authorities as clients.

5. Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX: MIN). is a mining and mining services business based in Adelaide. Together with its subsidiaries, the company provides a wide range of general mine services, contract crushing, infrastructure provision and recovery of base metals concentrate for export.

6. Allkem Limited (ASX: AKE). Allkem is a lithium chemicals company with a global portfolio of diverse lithium chemicals. Allkem is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Allkem has lithium brine operations in Argentina, a hard-rock lithium operation in Australia, plus a lithium hydroxide conversion facility in Japan. Allkem subsidiaries include Galaxy Resources.

7. REA Group Ltd (ASX: REA). REA is the owner of Australia most popular real estate portal realestate.com.au. It owns other property sites such as realcommercial.com.au too. It also has stakes in several other international property sites in the US, South East Asia and India. The core business model is hyper-scalable -- charging real estate agents (i.e. their clients) to sell or rent properties.

8. Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST). Northern Star Resources is one of Australia largest gold miners, with operations in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Alaska. NST claims to have tier-1 world-class mining projects in very promising regions thanks to their low sovereign risk. NST shares have performed exceptionally well since 2010 when they traded at just 2 cents! thanks to its very savvy management team and carefully executed acquisitions.

9. Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd (ASX: DMP). We've spoken about Domino's (the Australian version - DMP) and its US parent (Domino's Pizza Inc - DPZ) on Selfwealth Live. DMP is the largest pizza chain in Australia in terms of both network store numbers and network sales. It is also the largest franchisee for the Domino Pizza brand in the world. The company holds the exclusive master franchise rights for the Domino brand and network in Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Luxembourg and Denmark with more than 2,500 stores.

10. CSL Limited (ASX: CSL). CSL is one of Australia's 5 largest companies, and best performers, over 20 years. Indeed, CSL is Australia largest (and some might say best) healthcare company, specialising in biopharmaceuticals. Founded in the late 1900s as the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, CSL was sold by the Australian Government to Australian investors via the share market in 1994 at $2.30 per share, at which time it doubled its size through an international acquisition. CSL is a global leader in blood plasma vaccines (think: the flu) and antivenoms, providing relief for potentially life-threatening medical conditions.

Summary

Finding great companies using backward-looking filters like this is relatively straightforward. The hard part is taking the time to research the business models and people in charge, to carefully consider if you think they'll continue to do well going forward. You should also take some time to consider valuation and the risks to their business models over time. Both of these factors also play a major role in successful investing.

Tune into Selfwealth Live every week as I try to cover all of these concepts... in less than 60 minutes.

Cheers!

Owen Rask

Disclaimer: This article contains general financial advice only. It is not personal financial advice as it does not take into account your needs, goals or objectives. So please speak with a financial adviser before acting on this information.