Start with the official EAA Judging Standards. Take a hard look at the "aircraft scoring decision tree", the 11 point tic list in paragraph IV-H of the Custombuilt section, and the actual judging sheet. In basic, a judge looks at the aircraft one section at a time, scoring per the decision tree. Although fit and finish is the paramount issue, safety trumps all; a safety problem will take you out of contention.
The top airplanes are often within 3 points total. They're all nice, so little things count....sometimes as little as how you bent and trimmed your cotter keys. I'm not kidding.
Judges can only judge what they can see. Top finishers stay with their airplanes and open everything for inspection. In general, judges will open things that are readily accessable (baggage doors, oil doors, canopy, etc), but they will not remove an RV cowl. If they can't see inside your engine compartment, they can't score it better than average. You just lost a few points.
Put together a nice presentation book, one that shows the build process, in particular the fact that you built it. See that "judges discretion" at #9 on the judging sheet? That's where you'll lose enough points to take you out of the top spot if the judge suspects you're a checkbook builder. Judges use that discretion in other ways too. Difficulty factor has an assigned point scale in Warbirds, but not in Custombuilt. None the less, Custombuilt judges will often award an extra point to a slowbuild project vs a quickbuild, and spectacular paint you clearly did yourself is always good for another point or two. You get the idea.
Speaking of checkbooks....a lot of folks think simple airplanes don't stand a chance compared to those with (for example) $100K instrument panels. Not true. Nothing in the Standards offers points for cubic dollars.....and most judges are Regular Joes on the income scale. I've seen Grand Champions that didn't even have a radio.
I'd suggest keeping the selling to a minimum. Do answer questions, and if you have an interesting feature, do point it out. Don't follow him around, blabber on, or try to peek at his sheet. Judging requires a certain degree of concentration; let the guy do his job.
A regional fly-in might have 25 or 30 RV's entered in judging and only award Champion and Reserve. That means (like it or not) the judges will eliminate the obvious non-contenders with a quick look for the most common RV "errors". I put "errors" in quotation marks because none of them result in a bad airplane; they are merely a quick way of sorting out the perfect from the less-than-perfect. Examples are (1) elevator counterweights don't equally align with the stabilizer, (2) wingtip light lenses are not flush or badly fitted, (3) poor gear intersection fairings, upper or lower, and wheelpants at different AOA's, (4) uneven cowl gaps and edges, (6) the ever-popular ugly tail intersection fairing, (7) obvious sheet metal and riveting errors, and (8)generally poor paint. The top airplanes are likely to be near-perfect on all these items, and the judges spend serious time on a much deeper look.
If you know you have a really nice airplane, it can be worthwhile to include at least one interesting innovation, cool trick, or doo-dad. Maybe a sexy throttle quadrant, a useful safety addition, or better service access...
something that might be worth an extra point. However, don't go nuts. If it is just a stupid pet trick and adds 5 lbs, the judges won't be impressed.
Most of the best builders are not satisfied with their own airplanes, which tells you an awful lot about their mindset. It's a mental illness of sorts; perfect is not quite good enough <g>