Ready or not, football season is here! Teams all over the country have spent the last weeks of summer in daily doubles, developing and practicing plays, getting in shape, and building team camaraderie. Now the fun and, yes, the pressure begins.

The parallels between playing sports and making sales are easy to see. We invest time learning skills, practicing them and then combining them with natural talent to make things happen. However, knowing exactly what to do in the moment is the key to winning – whether it is in sales or football.

Exceptional training not only focuses on skills but establishes a high-achieving atmosphere as well. Help great players become coachable, develop a love of learning and welcome advice along their journey. The best teammates want to become better continually.

Football coaches don’t relax once the actual season begins, but their roles do change. Sales training is the same. Your role changes from teaching skills and providing practice opportunities to coaching on what to do and say in particular situations. Just as football players don’t run the same plays repeatedly, salespeople won’t have the same conversations with every prospect.

Football coaches are on the sidelines during games. They decide which plays to run, and the players simply execute them (at least, that’s the idea). Sales leaders are also on the sidelines, but they don’t have the luxury of being physically present to listen to each sales conversation and suggest what to do next.

Technology and virtual coaching can elevate performance by providing recommendations in the moment, as if a real coach were right next to the salesperson. Since you, as a trainer or sales leader, can’t be everywhere all the time, technology fills the gap, providing salespeople with intelligent content and coaching recommendations in the moment and in the context of the situation. And instead of the salesperson wasting time searching for content, the content finds the salesperson. Ideally, technology and sales enablement platforms work within their daily workflow, integrate directly in the CRM, and can be accessed from any device, any time.

For example, in the medical equipment field, the advice or prompt might be to use a video demonstrating the company’s new device. While sharing this video with a prospect, the salesperson can address the prospect’s hesitancy, since the video shows an actual successful procedure. Another option may be a short module on best practices for presenting the video and overcoming obstacles that salespeople have encountered in similar situations. The content is important, but so is what to say about it and how to predict the next interaction.

Here are five quick tips to building trust during training and the transition to virtual coaching:

1. Create content in small, bite-sized pieces.
2. Integrate prompts and content reminders into the daily workflow.
3. Use case studies to bring your company’s story and message to life.
4. Build trust among salespeople that a two- to five-minute module will provide the relevant information and coaching to move the sale along.
5. Make content easily searchable.

According to ImpactCommunicationsInc.com, over 70 percent of people base their buying decisions on trust and the believability of promised value. Offering the tools to keep your salespeople knowledgeable and having great sales conversations boosts prospects’ expectations and confidence that your company has the solution they need.

Like during football’s pre-season practices, initial training is critical for providing sales and product knowledge . However, continued coaching builds important interpersonal and communication skills. This type of just-in-time information and preparation helps beat the competition on any playing field.

Chanin Ballance is CEO of Veelo, an award-winning, cloud-based marketing and sales performance platform.