Over the past 18 months I've been studying top sales achievers—those who operate in the top 10 percent of their companies in sales volume and/or profitability. My research premise at the start was simple: What they do is more important than who they are. What they do is behavioral, and because of that, we can teach those behaviors. And they do plenty.

I discovered that these are serious business people—they work on their territories as much as they work in them. They run their territories as a business. Top salespeople are organized and, consequently, effective. They stand out in four specific areas.

First, top salespeople spend more face time with customers than other salespeople do. In fact, top salespeople work fewer hours overall, but they maximize the time they work. This is a key reason for their effectiveness.

By following the lead of top achievers, the average salesperson could increase personal earnings by more than $12,000 per year by spending just 30 minutes more face time with customers per day.

These discerning individuals know what to do and more importantly what not to do—where not to waste time. Peter Drucker has said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which you shouldn't be doing in the first place.” He was describing the positive work habits of the top achievers in our study.

Second, top salespeople have a strong sense of priority. They use an A-B-C account system and allocate their time accordingly. They do not spend the same amount of time with all customers. Some customers are worth more time than others. This allows top salespeople to extract more value from their top accounts. They spend 80 percent of their time with the 20 percent that yield the greatest results.

Third, top salespeople have a detailed plan of attack for their top customers. This compares favorably with the general population of salespeople that do not have detailed plans of attack for top accounts. Most salespeople know generally what they need to do to sell to their top accounts, but few have plans on paper. Top sales achievers have worked through these plans on paper. Planning is one of their core competencies.

Fourth, top salespeople wield this core competency to plan their sales calls. This was one of the most striking differences between top achievers and the rest of the pack. On average, top sales achievers plan their sales calls 10-to-1 over the average salesperson. The relationship between planning and success was evident throughout our study. These top salespeople proved time and again that planning and preparation equal twice the performance.

It became apparent to me after examining the results of our study that top sales achievers are not just in the selling business—they are in the business of selling. Top achievers make it a habit to do what others will not or cannot do, for whatever reason. Their sales effectiveness comes from their personal effectiveness.