Scaling to $140M with an Offshore Team: The Culture and Systems Behind TOA’s Growth with Nick Sinclair

Building a team sounds simple in theory. Hire good people. Delegate well. Free up your time.

But it’s rarely as simple as that.

Nick Sinclair has scaled his accounting business TOA to more than 4,500 team members across five countries, and scaled it to over $140 million dollars.

A major part of that growth has come from building an offshore team that isn’t treated like cheap labour but like a core part of the business.

In this episode, we unpack how he structured it, how he hires for capability and leadership overseas, and what founders need to get right internally before offshore will actually reduce pressure instead of creating more of it.

Key moments:

0:00 - The hardest season of building TOA and what it taught Nick about leading a fast-growing business while everything feels unstable

11:51 - What to look for in a leader if you want your company to run without you, not just around you

13:40 - Why Nick is now exploring acquisitions and how to think about growth once organic scaling isn’t enough

18:40 - The real reason offshore hires fail for most founders and how to avoid becoming the problem yourself

22:43 - The level of high-skill, senior work overseas teams can actually handle when you train and structure it properly

25:14 - Why going deep in one niche made scaling simpler, more profitable AND easier to systemise

29:30 -   The first role you should outsource if you’re overwhelmed and need immediate capacity back

32:51 -The specific tasks to hand to an EA in the first 30–60 days so they actually reduce your load

36:33 - How to maintain standards and consistency with an offshore EA without micromanaging them

39:37 - How Nick structured TOA so the business could operate without him being in every decision

41:32 -What to do if you can’t stop jumping back in and unintentionally becoming the bottleneck

43:21 - The leadership lesson Nick learned after nearly firing senior team members over a process mistake

46:09 - The one core metric Nick tracks now that he’s stepped back from daily operations

49:02 - The order of hires early-stage founders should follow to protect delivery and avoid burnout

56:10 - The culture and engagement plan that keeps offshore teams loyal motivated and aligned with the rest of your business

1:02:00 - How to handle resistance from your onshore team when introducing offshore support

If you want to know more what TOA are doing, visit the website www.toaglobal.com/au/.

And if you want more of Nick, then check out his IG @nicksinclair_ or on Linkedin here.

If you want help building your offshore team, send me a message over at @jesswhatman_agentsync - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/jesswhatman_agentsync/⁠

Not sure what you could delegate or the next role you need? Ask Andy - https://agentsync.com.au/meet-andy

Find out more about off-shore employees over at ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agentsync_/⁠ and ⁠https://agentsync.com.au/⁠

And see behind the scenes content over at https://www.instagram.com/built.to.lead.podcast/

AgentSync