Catalytic Leadership

Agency Freedom: The Shift From Overworking to Sustainable Growth

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 4 • Episode 2

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Scaling past seven figures shouldn’t mean sacrificing your health, family, or freedom. Yet too many agency owners find themselves buried in broken systems, unclear handoffs, or team bottlenecks that steal time and drain margins.

That’s why I invited John Henao, Founder & CEO of Go Staffy and eWiser, who scaled his own digital agency to seven figures with a fully remote Colombian team. In this episode, John and I unpack how agency freedom comes not from chasing revenue, but from building sustainable systems, leveraging AI-ready teams, and making the right next hire at the right time.

You’ll hear how he grew from $15k MRR to seven figures in just over two years, why profit without freedom is a trap, and how to redesign operations so they stop breaking every time you hit a new revenue level. If you’ve been searching for practical strategies to reduce burnout, delegate smarter, and scale profitably, this episode gives you the blueprint.


Books Mentioned

  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

  • Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven

  • Atomic Habits by James Clear

  • The Bible


Connect with John Henao on Instagram or Facebook at John Henao, or visit GoStaffy.com to explore how his team can help your agency scale sustainably. Keep an eye out for his upcoming book The Freedom Agency and his new podcast Go Accomplish More.


Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm excited today to have John Henao on the podcast. John is the founder and CEO of GoStaffy, a virtual staffing company that helps US-based marketing agencies grow with top remote talent from Columbia. Before starting GoStaffy, he built his own digital agency, ewiser, and scaled it to seven figures with a fully remote Colombian team. Now his mission is to help other agency owners create real freedom by delegating smarter, growing sustainably and building businesses that support their lifestyle. John's currently working on his upcoming book, the Freedom Agency, which is all about helping agency owners to scale sustainably using systems, remote teams and smart delegation. He's also launching a podcast soon called Go Accomplish More, where he'll be sharing real conversations with entrepreneurs, agency leaders and high performers about what it really takes to grow Outside of work. John's a proud dad, a man of faith, and he's passionate about a healthy lifestyle, and you'll often find him out on a walk with his dog, chase. John, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

John Henao:

Super excited, William. It's a privilege to be on your show and my goal today is just to share a lot of wisdom and hopefully one person can get just one action item to take action and it's going to better either their personal life or their agency. So super excited to be here.

Dr. William Attaway:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. We've been talking about having you on the show for quite a while and I'm thrilled we made it happen Absolutely. This is going to be.

Intro:

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway:

Let's start today with you sharing some of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started All?

John Henao:

right. Well, leadership for me has been a journey right. When I grew up, I always struggled. I was that shy little kid, you know, when I was back in, when I was eight years old, 10 years old, and whenever class started I wanted to hide behind the covers and not read in front of class. I hated public speaking. And so when I started getting into self-development I would say in college, I started reading books about business, reading books about self-development, and I remember reading a book, many, many years ago called the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which really changed my life, getting closer to God, I think so.

John Henao:

I think my development as a leader started, I would say, in college, but then it started evolving. Once I got into entrepreneurship. I started listening to Tony Robbins, you know, ed Milet, and I started realizing that these people are just like me. Right, they have the same struggles, they have the same things that I'm going through, and what made the difference is just building those habits right. So, little by little, I started applying some of the habits that successful leaders apply and I started noticing a change, started noticing how, if you just do one good habit, that good habit is going to lead to other good habits and it just multiplies, right? So it started, I would say, back in college and little by little it's a work in progress, right? You know I'm still trying to figure it out in many areas in my life and just getting better as a leader.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that and I love the progressive nature of it, John, and I think that's something that's important. It didn't all happen at once.

John Henao:

John, and I think that's something that's important. It didn't all happen at it comes to leadership, you start realizing that what makes them different is their habits right and their discipline within those habits, and I think that once you start applying those tiny little habits in your life, it just makes a difference right? One scenario is I never used to fix my bed. I was a disaster when I would wake up, never fix my bed, and I can say that I'm proud. It's been over five years that I fix my bed. Even if I'm in a hotel, I will fix my bed and it sounds ridiculous, but that little tiny habit will lead to great habits in your life 100% little tiny habit will lead to great habits in your life.

Dr. William Attaway:

A hundred percent Fantastic book called Make your Bed by I think it's Admiral McRaven. Just a little short book, but man, what a difference. That one thing can I totally agree, Totally agree, Absolutely. So how did you get into marketing?

John Henao:

So I was a print marketer back in the days. That was one of my first major businesses that I had. Well, besides selling baseball cards when I was younger right, I did a lot of entrepreneur things, but my real major business was I started getting into graphic design because I really liked graphic design, and then that led into becoming like a print broker, and back in the days when postcards were alive like right now, not that many people are ordering print marketing. That's why I started. I started offering print marketing and then that evolved into offering more digital stuff, because most of my clients were saying hey, do you offer websites, do you offer SEO? So those clients, those clients, eventually became my clients because we started pivoting. We started pivoting into offering website design. Then, from website design, we started offering SEO. Then, from SEO, we started offering social media.

John Henao:

So we started, we started recreating ourselves from from the ground up, because we were noticing that my audience was asking for it and that was back in. That was back, gosh, you know 20, 20, 20, 20, sorry, 2003. Wow, it's been so long. So that was back in 2003 when we did the shift, and little by little yeah, I mean, this game is about just shifting as you're growing, because a lot of times we think like we have to stay in our lane forever. But as things start evolving, you need to learn how to recreate yourself in every stage. That's good.

Dr. William Attaway:

And you built E-Wiser into a seven-figure agency.

John Henao:

That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, so we we got into a mastermind group back in 2019 and you know seven figure agency, as you know. So we joined that group and when we joined that group, we were pretty much around that 15K MRR and literally within two and a half years, we grew it to seven figures and we really just followed the model right, josh's model. Very grateful in meeting Josh and the team and the coaches there have been instrumental and yeah, I mean the agency is still running. That's part of that's another business I have going and it's been great. It's been great it's been able to just work on its own in regards to having the agency there. And then, of course, we have the virtual staffing agency that was born three years ago as well.

Dr. William Attaway:

And I want to talk about that because one of the things that I read in your bio is that you scaled E-Wiser with a fully remote Colombian team. Now, you know there's a lot of opinions on how you scale an agency, what this looks like, what your team needs to look like. You did this. You got the T-shirt, like you know, you made it. But with a fully remote Colombian team like? Was that your strategy, going in from the beginning?

John Henao:

Yes, yes, the beginning, yes, yes. So when I started my agency, we started with one team member because my family has an export import company and they had their business in Colombia. You know it's a US company, but they had an office in Colombia and we were I mean, all of our team members at that time, back in 2005, 2003,. We had, you know, all of our team members. At that time, back in 2005, 2003,. We had, all you know, all of our team members were here in the States.

John Henao:

And my older brother told me once hey, john, I think you know it would be a great idea that you could hire in Columbia to lower your cost. Start with one. You can borrow a space here in my office, that's okay. And we did, we started, we started doing that. We hired one person. Then eventually I moved out of that office, got my own office and that's how it all started.

John Henao:

I mean, we didn't have a niche, we weren't as structured when we joined a seven-figure agency. That's when things started happening in regards to getting our things aligned, to getting our things, you know, things aligned. And the biggest thing, william, is that a lot of people think that when you're growing a company, a lot of times you're just focusing on revenue and they're saying, yeah, my company is reaching, but in the end they forget about that. You know, profit I mean profitability is very important, right, that's right. So that's been.

John Henao:

One of the great advantages of having a fully remote team in Colombia is the fact that you're going to be more profitable and you're going to have people that are really smart in regards to because that's the idea you start thinking, well, if I outsource remotely, they're not going to do the great job as if they were hiring here in the States, do a great job as if they were hiring here in the States. But you know, it's totally. I mean, that's not true, right, because we, like, our niche is legal. On the agency side, we deal with law firms and we have account managers that are calling from Columbia speaking to lawyers, and it hasn't been an issue. I mean, there's always going to be that one lawyer, right? That outlier that you know doesn't like the accent or whatnot, but in the end it's been working. It's been working.

Dr. William Attaway:

It's remarkable. And now you take what you learned through your experience with your agency and you're teaching other people and through GoStaffy, you're helping them these other agencies now to create that freedom that you found through eWiser. I love that. I love the methodology of being a conduit of what you've learned and helping other people to take a step up because of what you've discovered. Like, was that your plan all along or did this just? Was this something that was birthed out of your experience?

John Henao:

Yeah, it was birthed Like we. Like I said, we started Go Staffy three years ago. Yeah, yeah, it was birth Like we. Like I said, we started GoStaffy three years ago 2022, around there and we were actually servicing local businesses and that was with my wife and we had a couple and then the idea came up. It's like wait a minute, you know I have a lot of experience with agency. I have an agency. It's been successful. We grew to seven figures. I can help other marketing agencies and that idea started. We spoke with Josh and and we started with that community. Then now we're we're part of three communities. Right and fast forward. It's. It's been working.

John Henao:

You know, we have close to a hundred team members already and my goal is just to be impactful. Right, the fact that we're creating job opportunities. I always tell this to people that when you hire one person from us, you're not hiring one person. You're not impacting one person's life. You're impacting their family, because most Colombians live with family members, and you're impacting their spending power because now they're working for a good company, they're being more giving at their church, more giving to their friends, so you're probably impacting a 10x fold within that person. So it's very impactful. It's very fulfilling when I see what's going on with Ghostaffy. I love that.

Dr. William Attaway:

So where do you go from here?

John Henao:

Definitely so we're. We're becoming more like growth partners. You know, in the end, like whenever agencies want to hire us, we're, we're actually I, I, I, I love coaching as well, you know as much as I can, and but in regards to where GoStaffy is going, I mean, our goal is to, you know, have 500, 500 hires in the next five years. Right, that's the goal. We're also implementing a lot of AI, so we're making everybody AI compliant. As you know, AI is very popular nowadays, right, and so we're making everybody AI compliant.

John Henao:

We're making sure that we're becoming that growth partner for those agencies that are looking to scale right, and that goes with giving them any SLPs they need, giving them any onboarding tips, right, right in the end. And a lot of times we come in and we want to start that agency, but we don't think about the amount of time it takes to build that agency and the amount of lack of freedom that most agencies don't have, like most agency owners don't have the freedom in the beginning. So our goal is to be that growth partner to help that agency owner figure out the hiring process structure and just helping them, you know, guide them along the way right, and not just be that agency, that virtual staffing agency that just says we're just going to find you someone and that's it, you're on. You know, go on, you can do it yourself. So we try to stick along and help them grow in the stages that they're in.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, and I think that growth partner model is one that is sorely needed. You know, I'm sure, like me, you've heard a whole lot of people talk about the bad experiences they've had with different. You know virtual assistant staffing companies or trying to figure it out on their own, and you know you just keep running and tripping, and running and tripping, and running and tripping, no-transcript, future team members and what the strategy is for that we can help. I think there's a whole lot of people who need exactly what you're describing there.

John Henao:

Yep, and not only just on where they're going, but who their next hire is supposed to be. A lot of times agency owners come and they say, hey, I need this particular role, and after speaking to them they realize that that's not the right role that they need to hire right now. Right, so, just guiding them and even in the beginning stages of hiring and whatnot. But yeah, it's fun. It's fun to really guide someone and help them.

Dr. William Attaway:

So you got a new book coming. Can you talk about that a little bit? When is this going to be available and what are you hoping to achieve through that?

John Henao:

Yeah, so the Freedom Agency should be available within two months from now, about a month and a half, two months from now. Yeah, so excited for that. And the premise of the book, or why I wanted to write something like this, was the fact that most agencies struggle with having the freedom, right, and I think that they get so involved in building something and they're passionate about it which is true, right, but in the end, they forget why they're even building an agency, why they're even building an agency and even when they're successful and when they're receiving the amount of money, the revenue, they're still neglecting why they did it. Like, for example, they start neglecting their family, or they start neglecting their health, their physical. You know what I'm saying. So the Freedom Agency talks a little bit about that.

John Henao:

The Freedom Agency also talks about different chapters on how to use AI, how to build a successful team, how to do the right onboardings. So we do give out very practical like SOPs or steps that we're using in our agency and also within virtual staffing in case they want to hire themselves, right? A lot of agencies want to go that route, which is fine. So I think, yeah, so I'm excited about that. You know the whole premise of just them having the freedom is what I'm looking for, you know, for them to grab from the book I can't wait to read it.

Dr. William Attaway:

It sounds like something that's going to be very helpful and something that I can recommend to a lot of my clients who you know. You don't always know what you don't know, and I think what you're describing here as a resource is going to help people to discover that I love that you're making this available, thank you.

John Henao:

Thank you for that For sure.

Dr. William Attaway:

And a podcast coming soon. Yes, go accomplish more. Yes, when is that coming?

John Henao:

Yeah, so that's. We're actually almost done. We have a few people already in line. So I would say within the next two to four weeks we're going to start interviewing successful agency owners. And, yeah, the whole idea of the podcast is just interviewing others that are accomplishing more in their life and they can share a little bit about their struggles, because everyone goes through struggles before they hit that success or they're in that success mode. People never see what happened before, right. They never see the pain and the tears that it took in order to reach what they have. So that's going to be fun in regards to interviewing those individuals.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that. Well, I'll be subscribing and we'll talk more about that in the days ahead You're going to be on the podcast.

John Henao:

I mean, you're going to be part of our speakers as well, so get ready.

Dr. William Attaway:

I'd be honored. I'd be honored, it'd be fun. I love it.

John Henao:

Super excited for that.

Dr. William Attaway:

John, you're a person of faith and we've had conversations offline about this and how important that is in your life. As you think about the whole sphere of your life as a business owner, you know, I mean, how does faith play into that? Like, where do you see that flowing, not just as a part of your life but through you?

John Henao:

Okay, not just as a part of your life, but through you. Okay, yeah, I mean I got close to God when I was 20. Like I never grew up in a Christian background I mean my parents were Catholic Nothing wrong against Catholics or anything but never had a relationship with God, right, and at the age of 20 is when I really surrendered and my life started changing. At that point, met my wife, started getting involved in church, was part of the worship team and all that. So, definitely from the age of 20 until now, faith has been really a big part of my life and really giving honor to God and with everything that I do. Right, I believe that everyone has a platform, right. Whether you know people think that the closest people to God is the pastor, right, or the person that is above, but that's not true, right. In the end, I think we all have a calling and I think that God has called me to be an entrepreneur and I think that there's a voice. There's a voice or there's. You have a voice in the platform that God gives you, and I think for me, it's been in the entrepreneur space and how that's played is pretty simple, like on my personal side, whenever I feel because we all go through struggles.

John Henao:

Whenever I feel struggle, I pray, I pray, get into God's word. Whenever I feel struggle, I pray, I pray, get into God's word. Sometimes I just need to hear a worship song right, and really just meditate on the words and I feel like God tells me hey God, you know, john, don't worry. Like you know, things are gonna get better. And I feel like he speaks to me in a certain way through God's word. Obviously, what I need right, and sometimes it's not just on what I'm reading biblically, but it could be maybe a friend of mine that I call that. I know that he gives me sound advice. So I think just being surrounded with the right people, getting into God's word right as much as you can, and listening to worship music has been instrumental in my life and the people that you hang around with. It makes a difference.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that Absolutely. You know you have to lead at a higher level today in the businesses that you run than you did five years ago, and the same thing's going to be true two, three, four, five years from now. How do you stay on top of your game, john? How do you level up with the new? I think that has helped, surrounding myself with the right people, right.

John Henao:

Just like iron sharpens iron, we got to sharpen each other with the right people, right? Besides that, I think, continuous learning right, I know it sounds cliche, I'm sure people have heard it, but you need to be constantly reading, listening to audio, to audiobooks, podcasts, and what you feed your mind, right it's, it's what's going to allow you to, and those struggles that you're having, and because business is hard, right, running an agency is not easy and you're gonna have those ups, and so, I think, always reminding yourself that other people are going through similar situations or went through similar situations that you did. So, hearing their story on a podcast or listening to a certain book and hear their story, it's really motivational. So I'm constantly feeding myself the right information and I have like two or three people that I'm constantly calling and if I feel like I'm stuck, I ask them questions about hey, what should I do?

John Henao:

And that's why I'm once you're part of a mastermind group, that's why you're going to build friends like yourself, like well, I mean, I mean, definitely, I know that I can call you and you're going to give me sound advice, right, I mean, and you're part of the same, you know, you know the same group that we're in right, but I really believe if, if the leader is not growing, your organization is not going to grow. You're the ceiling of your growth, and so sometimes I'm hard on myself on that, because if I'm not growing, my team is not going to grow. I mean, that's simple and, like Tony Robbins says, if you're not growing, you're dying. So that's constantly reminding myself that I need to be growing, and that's in every area, not just in leadership and what I'm doing, but in every area, because everything you know how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Dr. William Attaway:

That simple yeah, yeah, no so true, and I think Robbins is correct. You know stasis only exists in a laboratory. You're either growing or you're going the other direction. You know you're not the same. Nobody stays the same Correct, and I think sometimes we have this misconception that we can, and it's a cute myth. It's just not true, not rooted in any kind of reality. As you are continually learning and continually in that growth posture, is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you'd recommend to the leaders who are listening?

John Henao:

I would say the two books that stand out are Atomic Habits by James Clear. That's a great book, yeah, so good. And then one that I said earlier, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I love that book. I mean, besides the Bible, of course, I think you can get a lot of wisdom from the Bible too, but I think those two are by far stand out.

John Henao:

Doing the habits, like just acquiring new habits every day, is not rocket science. I mean, I think people know what they have to do and I think what overwhelms people is that they, I think that people need. They feel sometimes like, let's say, if you want to start working out, sometimes people think that they have to go to the gym Monday through Sunday and be at the gym for two hours. If not, then I'm not going to start at all. But right, and like, what am I going to? You know, if you, you know, if you tell yourself, oh gosh, but I just don't want to go to the gym and just work out twice a week, well, start twice a week, start some momentum, right? So yeah, I think At think atomic habits says one thing they I mean the book talks about how you need to become the identity of what you're trying to accomplish.

John Henao:

So if you say I am athletic, I am a fitness person, what do fitness people do? They work out. So if, if you're going to the gym once a week or twice a week, you start with something, you're developing an identity within that habit or what you're trying to accomplish, and when you build an identity, then it's going to be really hard to not follow through right, because then you're going against your identity. So that's what stood out for me in the book. That's one of the things.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that. Two great reads, to be sure, john. I think sometimes people can look at the highlight reel that a leader like you has on social media online and they can get a misconception that oh man, john is so successful. He's never struggled, he's never dealt with the stuff that I deal with every day, he's never had to really wrestle like I do. And that's because the highlight reel only shows certain things. One question that I love to ask the people who we have on the show is you know, if I had the ability to snap my fingers and solve one problem in your business right now, what would you want me to solve?

John Henao:

I would say, to fix all my like operations and automations that are taking place right now, because it's either going to be a systems problem or it's going to be a people problem. I always look at when you know if you're having any issues with retention or sales, like either revenue or retention. Right, there's either going to be two problems it's going to be either a system problem or a people problem and I think right now, yeah, because people. I think if we had to grade ourselves, I think that we have a great team you know we're not perfect by all means, but usually, usually the people have the capacity but their systems need to be tweaked. So I think if you are that system engineer, if you are a system you know, engineer, professional systems person, then that's what I would want to go in there and just snap everything, get all the automations in place and have it done within 24 hours. I would pay whatever you want, but it's a work in progress, of course it's a work in progress.

Dr. William Attaway:

A hundred percent and unfortunately I can't snap my fingers, Unfortunately, right.

John Henao:

Yeah, and you know what and this is for everyone out there that they think that their operations is never going to break or whatnot. But every time you reach a ceiling, every time you reach 1 million, then you reach 2 million things are going to break. Things are going to break and that's okay, right? Yes, once things break, then that gives you the opportunity to find out how can I improve this, how can I make it better so that that area won't break again. But then something else might break.

Dr. William Attaway:

And that's the beauty of operations, I guess. Well, I think it's something that we can get excited about, as odd as that sounds. Yep, you know, because that means we've hit a new level. You know, correct. And as the old saying goes, new levels bring new devils. You know, I mean, you know you've got to. As you hit new levels, you're going to have different problems. You're going to have new problems, that's okay. That means you hit a new level to be able to do that Exactly.

Dr. William Attaway:

That means you hit a new level to be able to do that, so now you get to deal with that. That's not something to cry on our soup.

John Henao:

And you can apply that as well in your personal life. You know, before you hit that level, you got to be broken, right. There's sometimes you got to break, or there's a point that you're like, okay, I give up, I need to learn this right. Or you surrender yourself to God and say, hey, I need help in this area. I got to humble myself, I need to find help, I need to find the right mentor, and so I feel like everybody is going to have a breaking point and in regards to and then it's what you do from that breaking point that's going to allow you to grow.

Dr. William Attaway:

So good, John. As always every time we talk, I just want it to keep going, because I learned so much just listening to you, man. It's amazing what God has done in you and through you in so many different arenas. I know our listeners are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you and more about what's happening over at GoStaffy and how you guys can be a part of their business, their agency. What's the best way for folks to connect with you?

John Henao:

Well, they can connect. If it's on social, they can connect. On Instagram it's John Hanau. They can go there. I publish a lot of content there. On Facebook, the same thing. It's John Hanau. Or just search my name and you'll pop it up. It's John Hinauer. Just search my name and you'll pop it up If it's the website. If you're interested in staffing or just want maybe guidance on your operations with no commitment, you can go to GoStaffy. That's G-O and then Staffycom, so GoStaffycom. You can just fill out the form and we can talk. I love it.

Dr. William Attaway:

We'll have all those links in the show notes. Great John, thank you for your time and your generosity today, man, and sharing so freely from what you've learned so far in your journey.

John Henao:

Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure, william, I appreciate it.

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