Learn about the Oracle Business Development Consultant salary, culture, and role. This review guide covers the entry level Oracle Class Of program.
Role Basics
What are SDR's called at Oracle?
They are known as Business Development Consultants (BDC). You might also hear ‘Class of’ as Oracle onboards 3 cohorts of BDC’s. Two cohorts start in summer (June, August) and one cohort starts in the winter (February). The cohorts are anywhere from 50-100 kids depending on the office.
What experience do you need for this role?
Most people have 0-2 years experience as most BDC’s are fresh out of college. Oracle recruits on campus for this role at several universities in the US. Most people have no sales experience at all, and many even have no intern experience. They primarily just check for a decent GPA and some extracurricular involvement, and of course decent social skills as you’ll be interacting with customers all day. Bottom line, 0 sales experience needed.
You can come in from other SDR or even non-sales related entry level roles from other companies, and the work experience will definitely give you a leg up in interviewing. Again, not required.
How is the Oracle sales org structured? (Company Structure)
Oracle has three main sales orgs, also known as pillars: Cloud, Applications, and Technology. These are separated by product set – Oracle applications, Oracle cloud technology, and Oracle on-premise technology.
Within those three pillars, sales orgs are further siloed by account size, ranging from SMB to Strategic Accounts. From there, sales orgs are lastly segmented by account location.
How is the BDC role structured?
You will be on a team of about 8-12 BDC’s. Some teams also have a ‘Team’ Sales Engineer’ who will hop on all the BDC calls on your team and you can ask the SE any technical questions throughout the day.
You’ll be mapped to 1-3 different territories depending on your Org. Your territory / list of accounts is predefined and determined by Sales Ops. The number of accounts you get depends on your Org (SMB, Enterprise, Strategics, etc.). Each territory will have a field rep (some also have an inside sales rep [OD Rep]).
Which Oracle offices do BDC's work out of?
All BDCs are currently WFH. But, when in office, the main hubs are Boston MA, Reston VA, Austin TX, and Santa Monica CA. Austin has the most BDCs/salespeople and is the newest and nicest office. However, all of the offices are very modern and equipped with top of the line office equipment.
Culture and Daily Life
How is the work-life balance?
Your life as a BDC depends on your frontline manager. Some require face-time, multiple daily meetings, excessive reports, some do not require any of this.
Overall, depending on how much effort you put into the prospecting, you could work anywhere from 8-40 hours per week.
What does a business development consultant do?
Your job is to prospect so 70% of your day is cold calling and cold emailing, 15% is building prospecting lists, and 5% is administrative work, 5% internal meetings, 5% customer calls.
Customer calls generally only last 30 minutes so depending on the week 0-2 hours is spent on customer calls. As a BDC, your role on customer calls is pretty much just kick off the call and pass it over to the rep. Some reps let you run your own calls but many of them want to be the one running the call.
Every BDC team has daily prospecting requirements. Most teams require 250 interactions a week, 50 per day. Half of those need to be calls, half of those need to be emails.
What is the office culture like?
The sales offices are very lively places. Most everyone in the office is young. 50-60% is in their 20’s, 20% in 30’s, and the rest 40+. It’s common to have team happy hours every week/other week, team outings to mini golf, etc. If you’re moving to a Sales Hub office from out of town most of your friends will be people you meet at the office as Oracle makes it very easy to meet people your own age.
People in the office are always playing ping pong, foosball, or hanging out in the break rooms or roaming the floors.
What is the BDC turnover like?
About 20% of the BDC’s leave in their first year. Firings & PIP’s rarely happen. To get fired, you have not be working at all or faking interactions.
Many BDC’s, of varying competence, go on to get promoted to an account executive job.
Salary, Benefits, and Quota
How much does a business development consultant earn?
Compensation is standardized at the BDC level across all of the hubs. As of 2020, BDC’s are paid a $50,000 base salary, $25,000 in bonuses (commission), and a $2,000 signing bonus.
The $25,000 commission is actually not really commission – it is a ‘pool plan’ bonus. The pool plan bonus depends on how well your Org did and how well you did individually on your team. How well your Org does is out of the BDC’s control, as that depends on closed revenue from the reps and BDC’s only are responsible for setting qualified meetings for their reps – so there is some luck involved.
You’ll get a bonus every quarter. Assuming you hit your metrics, you should receive the full $25,000 over the course of a year (about $6,000 to $7,000 per quarter), and many people receive far more – the top BDC’s make over $90,000. The worst performing BDC’s will get a small bonus per quarter – around $1,000. So, expect around $75,000 if you’re having a decent year.
To learn more visit Oracle sales compensation.
What employee benefits do you get?
Oracle has very strong benefits for their sales employees.
You will receive full medical, dental, and vision benefits. You will also receive a 50% employer 401k match for 6% of your base salary. Other benefits include an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), as well as roughly twelve days PTO to start.
These are some of the high level benefits, and note that there are several other benefits Oracle offers.
Where do people go after this role?
A large percentage of BDCs stay on to get promoted to OD Account Executives (inside sales). Oracle does an excellent job of promoting from the BDC program.
Other than moving up to OD, many leave to SDR roles at other companies, including Google Cloud, AWS, Salesforce, or other startups. Many also launch into inside sales roles at other companies too, although these tend to be smaller companies if going right into a closing role and not the aforementioned companies. As its many’s first job, a lot go do something else whether its sales engineer, marketing, real estate, finance, etc.
How are quotas structured?
Metrics
BDC’s metrics vary from Org to Org. A BDC’s quota breakdown might look like:
40% – number of opportunities (qualified meetings they set for their reps)
40% – the $ amount of those opportunities
10% – total # of meetings set
10% – manager discretion
Usually, you’ll need to get 8-12 opportunities per quarter, and 3 meetings per week. It’s a very doable quota.
Success in the Role
How big of a role does territory play in your success?
At the SDR level, territory does not play a role in your success. Oracle’s name is strong enough to set a meeting with most customers regardless of territory or Org you’re in.
What is the Oracle Sales Training like?
Oracle’s BDC training (Class of, Oracle Sales Academy, etc.) is well known. You have 12 weeks of training before you officially get in-seat, with a mix of classroom and on the job/shadowing. The training is sandler-based sales training (pain point selling), and is tailored specifically to the SDR role.
The training is excellent – you have a dedicated sales trainer you’ll work with for the training period and they’ll also bring in current SDR’s, SDR Managers, other trainers, Field Reps, etc. While it feels like high school sometimes, it is a fun experience as you’re there with your Class Of cohort where everyone is around your age and right out of college. After training many people will hang out together, go out, etc.
What advice would you give to a new BDC?
Do your daily interactions, don’t fake them. If you do them, you’ll hit your number. Develop a relationship with your field/OD reps as they can help you out with opps at end of quarter if you’re short. Network with as many people as possible as promotions to OD rep (Inside Sales rep) pop up all the time, so if you have a good reputation you can literally get offered an OD job on the spot.
Is now a good time to join the company in this role?
Yes. Oracle’s BDC program is a great stepping stone for any future SaaS/Tech sales career. Oracle continues to heavily invest in the program and Oracle as a company isn’t going anywhere soon.