RULE: Don't bend the client's business model to a generic CRM. Either find vertical SaaS that fits, or add a custom data layer on top.

Rule: When a Candid client's business model doesn't fit cleanly into Account/Contact/Opportunity/Deal (or another generic CRM ontology), do not bend the business to the software. Instead:

1. Check vertical SaaS first — ServiceTitan, Jobber, Clio, Karbon, Tekmetric, or the industry-specific equivalent. The vertical SaaS by definition models the workflow that fits.
2. If no vertical SaaS fits — add a thin custom data layer on top of a generic CRM or QuickBooks, not in place of it.
3. Never lock the client into a generic CRM whose object model misrepresents their business — that's how you get the 50-70% CRM project failure rate (CRM project failure rate: 47% (Forrester) to 50% (Gartner) to 55% (Johnny Grow 2025) to 70% (industry aggregators)) and 26% effective adoption.

Why:

• Generic CRMs are built for sales pipelines (Salesforce SFA roots). Service businesses have assets (tanks, equipment, vehicles), sites (multi-location), contracts (recurring with seasonality), delivery modes — none of which fit pipeline ontology
• The B&J fuel-distribution illustration (Illustration: what "modeling the actual business" means for Boucher & Jones fuel distribution (in-development, NOT delivered)) is the canonical "generic CRM is the wrong shape" example
• 91% of CRM data is incomplete in part because the fields are wrong for the business

How to apply:

• During discovery, map the client's actual nouns and verbs (tanks, sites, contracts, deliveries, technicians, recalls — not "leads" and "opportunities")
• If those nouns fit a vertical SaaS's data model → recommend the vertical SaaS
• If not → recommend a custom data layer (Reference: minimum viable data stack for a $1M-$10M Canadian service business (2026, C$100-C$500/month)), with a generic CRM or QuickBooks as the transactional substrate only
• The "use Salesforce as your everything" anti-pattern is the most common cause of CRM abandonment in service businesses