Map Out Your DJ Career in 2026 Using This Framework | EF EP 132

Welcome to your weekly elevation, your dose of real strategies for real results in dance music. I'm Olivia and happy new year, happy 2026. New year, same you? Good. Because I'm not here to tell you to reinvent yourself today or hustle harder or add 17 new habits to your routine. The artist crushing it right now aren't doing more than you. They're doing different. They've figured out how to stop being a full-time employee in their own career and start being the CEO. And that shift from working in your DJ career to working on your DJ career is the only thing standing between where you are now and where you want to be by December of 2026. So if you are ready to stop spitting your wheels and start building actual momentum in 2026, this episode is your road map. You've heard me talk about working on versus in your DJ career on Instagram. I decided to do a deeper dive today. So we're breaking down this framework that changed everything for me when I learned it and for every successful artist I know. So by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly what you need to focus on in 2026. This is not just a list of resolutions, but a completely different way of thinking about your career. Ever wonder how top DJs actually built their careers? I had to do 15 years of hard work to get any of the recognition that I wanted. Where I saw a turning point in my career is when I came true to myself. From marketing and mindset to networking and negotiation, I'm giving you the tools you need to build a lasting career in dance music. Give them bits of you and your everyday life. You have to change the way you view the word no. Like me, I'm encouraged by it. Join me, Olivia Mancuso, and industry leaders as we reveal what it really takes to turn your passion into profit. This is elevated frequencies. Let me start by explaining what I mean by working on versus working in your career because this distinction is everything. And if you don't understand this, nothing else I say is going to make sense. So working in your career is all about day to day execution tasks. These are things like making mixes, responding to DMs and booking inquiries, posting on social media, tweaking tracks that probably are already finished and you just can't stop tweaking them. These are the tasks that keep your career moving right now. They're not unimportant, but they feel urgent, they feel productive, but they don't necessarily move you forward. Okay. Now working on your career is completely different. This is strategic thinking and planning. This is analyzing what tracks and content actually get the best response. And sometimes that means really getting grassroots with it and digging through your DMs who replied to your story about your new track, like doing hours of research, right? Putting putting those five, well, you should be doing that. You should be making notes on your progress throughout the year. So it's not that difficult. But doing that grassroots research is working on your career, building systems for consistent content creation instead of just scrambling every week. I don't know what to post. Creating scalable revenue streams beyond just playing games, building relationships with key industry players. Planning your next six to 12 months of releases. These are the tasks that create momentum and compound over time. They don't feel urgent. To be honest, they don't. That's the thing that you kind of keep putting off, but they have the biggest impact on where you'll be a year from now. Okay. So I want to make one caveat because sometimes it's hard to categorize what is working on my career versus working in my career. So let's talk about gigs for a second because a gig could be working in or on depending on the context. If you're taking a local gig just for some quick cash to pay your bills right now, that is working in. And there's nothing wrong with that. We all need to pay bills. But if you're taking a gig because it's a significant brand building opportunity or because there's going to be a specific promoter or label owner in the room that you want to connect with or because it's going to put you in front of a completely new audience, that's working on. So it's the same activity but completely different strategic value. So here's the problem. Most DJs, everybody, not just DJs, most everybody spend 95% of their time working in their career and only 5% working on. But the ones who break through flip that ratio even if it's just temporary and super focused and that's how they build momentum. You can't build momentum if you're constantly in the weeds. If you're responding to every single message, if you're tweaking a track that's already finished, that's survival mode and not growth mode. But it's also a comfort zone and I don't need to harp on comfort zones. And let me tell you something. I am guilty of this too. I often get caught in the weeds with posting and creating content because it's a dopamine hit when my content does well. And I trick myself in thinking, you know, it's working on my career because it's building my audience, blah, blah, blah. And then also I love genuinely connecting with you guys on socials. But sometimes me creating content takes priority over more longevity brand building activities like figuring out how I can cut the time I spend on the logistics of preparing and shooting my podcast. How I can cut that time down or how I want to strategically build certain relationships with independent promoters and brands or how much time I realistically should spend on music related travel that are going to move the needle versus just party trips. So I get caught in this too frequently, frequently. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day that you forget to ask the bigger question. What is actually moving the needle for my career? So why does this matter, especially right now at the start of 2026? Okay, first, there's the momentum problem. You can't see the force for the trees when you're constantly executing. You end up reacting to things instead of creating your own opportunities and you miss chances because you're not thinking ahead. And then you wonder, why am I so busy, but I'm not actually growing. And then there's the compounding effect. Working in your career gives you immediate results. You finish a track, you feel good, you post on social media, you get some likes, you feel good. But working on your career gives you compounding results. Spending an hour, making a track gives you one track. Spending an hour, building a system for how you approach production could give you 10 better tracks over the next few months. So let me give you a real example from my own business. I recently spent an entire day, a full day, analyzing what I actually spend most of my time on with this podcast. I went through my calendar, I tracked my tasks, I looked at everything, figured out what was, you know, taking the most time to do what I enjoyed doing, what I didn't enjoy doing. And I figured out where I need to outsource more to give myself more time freedom. And that one day of analysis is probably going to save me 100 plus hours of wasted effort in 2026. But if I just stayed in execution mode, because I've gotten comfortable with it, you know, you prep the questions, you do the interview, you do get download the transcript, you write the show notes, you pick out the reels, you do the can, you do, I'm in execution mode, like I've gotten comfortable with it. But if I stay in execution mode, I would just keep doing things the inefficient way because I felt productive and there's no like real need to change. I don't need to be making thumbnails on Canva, okay? I need to be doing more important things for my business. Here's the industry reality. Everyone has access to the same tools now. Anyone can learn production from YouTube. Anyone can post on TikTok. What separates successful artists from everyone else is the strategic thinking. The business side is the differentiator. And honestly, building Chicago Music Nexus really drove this home for me. Because for the first six months of developing that event, it was all working on the business exclusively. I wasn't posting content about it every day. I was developing strategic relationships with potential sponsors to fund the event. I was programming the panels and selecting panelists so that people would actually want to show up. I was figuring out ticket pricing for a first year event that had zero brand recognition. None of that felt productive in the moment because there was no immediate output or results or dopamine hit. But that strategic work is why we sold out two years in a row and why we're doing it again this year. Okay? Six months of working on the business. Fucking terrifying might I add. Okay, so what does actually working on your career look like in practice? I'm going to break this down in five key areas. The first is strategic planning. This is about setting concrete goals for 2026. and I mean real goals, not vague stuff like get more gigs or grow my Instagram. I'm talking about specific measurable targets like book three out of state shows by June or release four tracks this year and get on to Spotify editorial playlist. You need to set your pricing strategy for the year. You need to decide your minimum rates for different types of bookings and commit to not going below them even in slow months. This is so important because if you don't set the boundary now, you'll undervalue yourself all year. And then you need to audit what actually worked and what didn't in 2025. Which content got the most engagement? Go look through your analytics. Which bookings led to more opportunities? Which tracks actually moved your career forward versus just adding to your catalog? You need to identify those patterns. You can do more of what works and stop wasting time on what doesn't. And then finally, research new markets and venues to target. So if you're playing the same local spots over and over, you know you're not expanding. So where do you want to be playing next that you're not right now? Start researching those venues and markets now, even if it feels too soon because then you can build your strategic roadmap to getting there. Okay, second is content and releases the second component of working on your business. There's no excuse to not create your Q1 content calendar right now. Like literally in January, well, you have the mental space to think strategically instead of scrambling for posts every week. When are you posting? What's the theme? What's the content pillars? What's the goal of each post? Plan it out. I've an old episode with Sabrina Diamond on content pillars. It's a great one. Go look that up if you need help. Do the same thing with your release schedule for the entire year. Even if it's going to change later on, this is such an important exercise. When are you dropping tracks? What's your rollout strategy for each one? What playlist are you going to pitch to? What blogs or media outlets do you want to hit up? If you wait until a week before the release to figure this out, you're cooked. Okay, don't even bother. This is business planning that protects your creative time later. When you have systems in place, you're not constantly in reactive mode. Okay, third, marketing assets. You need to build or update your pitch deck or EPK. These are the professional materials that many bookers actually take you seriously when they see them. They don't need to be that complicated. There's a lot of debate over whether EPKs are still valuable or not, but having all of your information in one place so that you can easily send that to a promoter, that saves you so much time, and yes, it makes you look professional. If you're still sending them just a sound cloud link and a headshot and hoping for the best, you're making it way too hard for them to say yes. Okay, the next thing. Create a CRM, a customer relationship management system. Maybe some of you recognize this term from your day jobs for venues and promoter contacts. It doesn't need to be fancy. It could literally be a Google spreadsheet where you track who you've reached out to, when you reached out, what they responded, and when you need to follow up. Because here's what happens. You reach out to someone. They say, "Not right now, but hit me up in a few months." And then you forget. And you lose that opportunity because you didn't have a system to remind yourself to follow up. Stop losing opportunities because you forgot to follow up. Okay, relationship building is the next component. And this is huge. And most people skip this or they don't know how to deal it. You need to schedule actual coffee meetings or phone calls with industry people. This is real relationship building where you learn about their work and find genuine ways to support each other. Not, "Hey, can you book me conversations?" Real relationships. And by the way, offer to pay for their coffee. This is someone you want something from. Pay for their coffee, pay for their lunch, or offer to pay for their time. I'm serious. Go to a promoter and say, "Hey, I would love to learn more about how you book artists and what you look for. If you are willing to have that conversation with me, let's grab coffee. Coffee's on me. Let's grab lunch. Lunch is on me." Oh, you want to have it over the phone. I'll send you a Starbucks gift card. I've done that before. It works. Follow up with everyone you met in 2025 while the connection is still warm. If you met someone in Q4 at a festival or a conference or an event, reach out to them in January. Don't wait six months until that festival is coming up again and they've already forgotten who you are. Identify who you want to strategically collaborate with in 2026 and reach out now. Not later in the year when you realize you didn't do anything all year right now. This is going to sound intimidating, but reach out to potential mentors, people who are a few steps ahead of you who might be willing to offer guidance. The worst they can say is no. You'd be surprised at how many successful people are willing to help. If you approach them respectfully and make it easy for them. Number five, career development. Of course, I'm going to say this. Research conferences and workshops you want to attend this year. Because these are career investments. Budget for them. Plan for them. Whether it's IMS or ADE or WMC or Chicago Music Nexus or whatever is relevant to your genre and goals. Put it on your calendar now. Identify your skills gaps. What's actually holding you back? Is it production techniques, marketing knowledge, business skills? Be honest with yourself and then plan how you're going to address those gaps. Maybe it's just an online course or maybe it's finding a mentor or maybe it's just dedicating two hours a week to learning and plan your career development budget. How much money are you investing in yourself this year? If the answer is zero, that's a problem. You should be investing in your education, your tools and your professional development. Okay, so those are the five key areas and yes, they all sound great and theory. But how do you actually implement this when you're already busy as hell? Because I know that's probably what you're thinking right now. I'm going to give you a couple of different strategies. I have four here. So strategy one is the weekly CEO hour. This is where you block off one hour a week exclusively to work on your career. You put it in your calendar like it's a meeting you can't miss. During this hour, there's no social media, no responding to messages, no execution tasks. This is your time to think strategically about the road ahead. Ask yourself big questions. Where am I going? It is what I'm doing actually going to get me there. What needs to change? Treat this like a board meeting with yourself. You're the CEO of your music business and this is when you make executive decisions. Strategy two, the post performance analysis. After every release or gig, you take 30 minutes to analyze what happened. What went right? What went wrong? What did people respond to? What would you do differently next time? And you need to document this. Write it down because if you don't document it, you're you're going to make the same mistakes. One of the panelists at Chicago Music Nexus, Rami Dabura, the founder of rituals has incredible further points about post performance analysis. I have the full video of that panel from Nexus linked on my YouTube channels. So definitely go watch that if you want to dive deeper into this concept. Strategy three, the quarterly planning session. Every three months take half a day, not an hour, a half day, dedicate half a day, four hours to completing your zoom out tasks. This is where you review your goals. You look at what's working and what's not. You adjust your strategy and then you plan the next quarter in detail. This is when you make the big pivots if you need to. Okay, this is the strategy I've tried. I'm not getting any bites when I'm reaching out to these labels. They're not responding. I'm not getting any feedback. Here's what I need to do to pivot. Most people skip this and then they get to the end of the year wondering why they're in the same place they were in the beginning. You need these check-in points. Once a year planning is not enough. Okay, the fourth strategy, the stop-doing list. Working on your career also means identifying what you should stop doing. What tasks feel productive but don't genuinely move the needle. What can you automate? What can you delegate? What can you just eliminate completely? Sometimes working on your career means doing less, not more. It means being ruthless about protecting your time and energy for the things that actually matter. That's what I did in my last strategic planning session and I feel amazing about it. Okay, I'm going to be real with you. This is going to feel uncomfortable at first. Strategic thinking doesn't give you that immediate dopamine hit. Like I said, like finishing a track or posting a piece of content does. You're going to be tempted to check emails or just quickly respond to this DM during those strategic planning sessions. But that is why you need boundaries and discipline. Whether it's your CEO hour, whether it's your strategic planning session, everything else can wait during those time periods. So here's your assignment for January. I'm breaking this down week by week so it's not overwhelming. See if you can follow along. Week one, do a full 2025 audit. What worked, what didn't, what patterns do you see when you look at the whole year? Write down as many notes as you can. Week two, set three concrete goals for 2026 with specific metrics. Not grow my career. Try play at X venue by Y date or release on Z label by X date or grow my email list to 500 people by December, whatever it is. So three concrete goals. Week three, create your Q1 content and release calendar. Map out, February, March, April. What are you releasing? What are you posting and when? And then week four, schedule your weekly CEO hour for the rest of the year. Literally right now, go into your calendar and block it off every single week, make it recurring and protect that time. Here's what I need you to understand, guys. I've said this a million times. You're not just a DJ. You are the CEO of your music business and CEOs don't spend all day in the weeds. They think strategically they delegate, they build out systems, they make high-level decisions that compound over time. That doesn't make you corporate or calculated or any less of an artist. It just makes you sustainable. The artists you admire are doing this. They just don't talk about it on Instagram because it's not sexy. That's why it's my job. But I'm telling you, this is what separates the people who are still grinding in five years from the people who have built something that lasts. Working on versus in isn't about working more. God knows you're probably already working enough. I believe you are. It's about working smarter. It's about zooming out so you can see where you're actually going instead of just running on a hamster reel. The compound effect of strategic thinking is what builds lasting careers. Not one viral track, not one big gig, consistent strategic decisions over time. 2026 can be your breakthrough year, but only if you think like a CEO, not just an artist executing tasks. Only if you're willing to step back, assess, plan and build systems that work for you instead of constantly working for your career. So here's my challenge. Take this framework seriously, implement it, give yourself permission to think strategically, even when it doesn't feel immediately productive, even if it gives you imposter syndrome. I promise you by December of 2026, you will be so grateful you did. And if you want some help creating your strategic plan for 2026, if you want someone to walk through this with you, hold you accountable, you can book a call with me on Greenroom. It's a new platform. The link is in my show notes. They were a sponsor of Nexus. They're incredible. I do want on one artist development calls where we map out exactly what you need to focus on to read your goals. And I would love to help you make 2026 your best here yet. That is your weekly elevation. Remember success in dance music isn't about luck, it's about strategy, and now you have the framework to build out one that actually works. I'll talk to you next week.