While I _do_ agree with ShadowSystems' comment, I must say that the post is clearly written from the perspective of a big or at least medium-sized company.

As a self-funded startup entrepreneur, there are legitimate cases when you really need your salespeople pushing the envelope with what they are selling.

If the salesperson acted like it was shrink-wrapped software and ready to ship, then yeah, that's a _huuge_ problem. (Then again, just calling him back and saying "No, we're sorry, that salesperson was mistaken and he's on leave now" would work as well.)

Ideally, you'd not fall into the trap of building custom one-off software for one client (unless that's your longterm business goal as a consulting services player).

Basically... I'm just trying to say that when your paycheck isn't guaranteed by big sugardaddy clients or monopolies (*cough* MS, etc), this salesperson could be doing you a huge favor by selling a giant contract on some new software that you'll have to knock out to stay in business for a while.