We’re racing toward the finish line, with year-end in sight, and that means it’s time for sales reps to make one final push. If you want to finish the year as a top-performer, don’t let the busy holiday season slow you down. Let’s take a look at three techniques that will help make sure you are at the top of the rankings in 2015, and poised for greatness next year!

Be First.

Sometimes it pays to be first — literally. A study from InsideSales found that 50% of deals are won by the rep who responded first. Getting in early gives you the chance to influence the entire buying process. You can frame the conversation around your strengths and challenge your competitors’ weaknesses. If someone else beats you to the punch, you may find yourself playing defense. Being first means that you need to operate like a well-oiled machine, with protocols, systems, and alerts in place to make sure you reach out with a quickness — at just the right time.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should hound every lead with endless calls until they answer. But it does mean that you should know immediately which of your leads is displaying strong buying behavior.

Be Relevant.

Don’t be so eager to be reach your prospect quickly that you flub your first impression! What you say (or write!) matters just as much as when you say it. In fact, it can even turn what might have been an unwelcome sales conversation into an valued interaction. A 2015 study conducted by IDC in partnership with Salesforce found that 83% of decision makers appreciate being approached by a vendor if the interactions are relevant and contextual.

How can you make sure your message is relevant to each individual buyer? A lot of data and a little bit of auto-magic. Make sure that sales is armed with the full activity history for each prospect, so that they can understand how their customers are interacting with your brand and where their strongest interests lie. Reps can use this information to tailor conversations and choose the right follow-up messaging. Marketing can assist by creating approved email templates, making it easy for sales to send out targeted mini-campaigns with just a click.

Be Productive.

We asked our own sales reps what their biggest challenge was, and over and over again they said TIME. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. Luckily, there are ways the leverage technology to help you work a little smarter.

[ Hear from Salesforce reps and industry leaders about how they use Marketing Automation to be more productive in 25 Marketing Automation Tips Straight From Sales. ]

One quick wins to get you started? Implement a scoring and grading strategy for new leads to help you understand where to focus you efforts. When you know which leads are ready to engage, and which ones need more education, you can automate the warming up process for early stage leads while focusing manpower on hot leads.

Want more hear more about how to put these strategies into action? Join us on Wednesday, December 9, for a live webinar featuring sales leaders Daryl Mason, AVP East Sales at Salesforce Pardot and Mike Grotell, Sr. Director, Sales & Marketing Operations at eMarketer.