Across the home improvement industry, many leaders are carrying more than most people see. They are leading teams, serving homeowners, building trust, fixing problems, and trying to grow while life keeps moving around them. For founders, owners, and CEOs, the pressure can feel even heavier. The job is not only to build a strong company. It is to keep showing up with purpose, even when the path has been hard. That was the heart of a powerful PowerChat hosted by Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, with Michael Flory, Founder & CVO at Custom Built Design & Remodeling, a trusted Greater Lansing design build remodeling company known for helping homeowners turn houses into homes they love.
In the conversation, Michael Flory shared how deep loss, family, faith, grit, healing, and service shaped the way he leads today. The interview did not focus only on what happened in his past. It focused on what he chose to do next. Michael spoke about the power of moving forward one step at a time, even when life changes in ways no one can plan for.
“We’re resilient people, we move forward, and I just took the next step day after day after day after day,” said Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling.
That message connects closely with the mission of Power100, which exists to bring attention to leaders who are changing the home improvement industry through real values, strong service, and lasting impact. Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry.
The PowerChat with Greg Cummings and Michael Flory was built around a simple but powerful idea. Life can change fast, but leaders still have to decide what they will do next. For Michael, that choice became the center of his story. He spoke about deep loss, the long path of healing, and the daily choice to keep moving forward. The purpose of the conversation was not to show a perfect life. It was to show how a leader can take hard parts of life and turn them into purpose, care, and service.
Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
That message matters across the home improvement industry because many contractors are leading through pressure every day. They are serving families, managing teams, meeting high homeowner expectations, and trying to build companies that last. Michael’s story gives those leaders a clear lesson. Resilience is not one big moment. It is the steady choice to take the next step, learn from pain, and keep building something good.
“We’re resilient people, we move forward, and I just took the next step day after day after day after day,” said Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling.
The conversation also showed why Michael’s work is bigger than remodeling. Custom Built helps families shape the places where life happens. That includes decks, kitchens, baths, additions, and outdoor living spaces, but the deeper work is about trust. Homeowners are not just buying a project. They are asking a team to step into their home, listen well, protect their vision, and help create a space that feels right for their family.
Michael also shared how his personal growth shaped the way he leads his team. He spoke about values, people, mistakes, learning, and the need to build leaders from inside the company. His view of leadership is not built on control. It is built on care. He wants people to grow as workers, but also as human beings. That makes the impact of the conversation larger than one company. It gives owners and CEOs a clear picture of what can happen when a business is built around people first.
The scale of the impact can be seen in how far the story reaches. It touches homeowners who want a better space. It touches team members who want to grow. It touches young people who need hope and direction. It touches the trades, where Michael sees deep value and real opportunity. Most of all, it shows that a company can be built from more than services and sales. It can be built from healing, purpose, family, and the choice to serve the next person well.
In his PowerChat with Greg Cummings, Michael Flory did not talk about leadership as a title. He talked about it as a daily choice. The conversation moved through pain, healing, family, work, service, and the way a leader’s life can shape the company they build. For Michael, the lesson was clear. A strong company is not built in one big moment. It is built when a leader keeps taking the next step, even when the next step is hard.
Michael’s story carries a message that many business owners, founders, and CEOs need to hear. Resilience is not always loud. It is not always a speech. Many times, it is quiet. It is waking up, putting one foot in front of the other, and doing the next right thing when life has changed.
That idea became one of the most moving parts of the interview. Michael spoke about how people are never the same from one day to the next. Life keeps moving like water in a river. What happened yesterday changes us. What we face today shapes us. But the question for every leader is the same. What do we do next?
“We’re resilient people, we move forward, and I just took the next step day after day after day after day.” Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
That line gives the whole conversation its heart. It also speaks to leaders in the home improvement industry. Contractors face slow seasons, hard markets, job site mistakes, client pressure, hiring issues, and personal stress. Michael’s message is not that leaders must have every answer. His message is that they must keep moving with purpose.
For homeowners looking for a trusted remodeling contractor near Lansing, that same belief shows up in the way the company works. Custom Built’s story is not just about projects. It is about people who know that strong work comes from steady choices, clear values, and care that shows up again and again.
Michael was open about the fact that healing is not a clean or simple path. He did not present his life as a story where everything was fixed in one moment. He shared that old pain can return in new seasons. He shared that growth keeps asking more from a person. That honesty made the conversation stronger because it showed the truth behind his leadership.
For Michael, healing became more than a private journey. It became part of how he leads his family, his team, and his clients. He has learned that failure does not have to be the end of the story. It can be a place to learn, change, and become better. That view matters in business because no company grows without hard lessons.
“I get to fail at things, and then realize that I really haven’t ever failed because I’ve never stopped learning and then trying again.” Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
This view gives leaders a simple but strong reminder. A company can only grow as far as its leaders are willing to grow. When the leader learns, the team can learn. When the leader changes, the company can change. When the leader becomes more honest, the culture becomes safer and stronger.
That is why Michael’s story has value far beyond one interview. It gives a real example of Michael Flory remodeling leader in Michigan, not because he has avoided hard things, but because he has kept learning through them. His leadership shows that service can come from healing, and healing can become a gift to others.
Michael brought the conversation back to a simple truth. A house is not just wood, walls, rooms, and fixtures. A house holds memory. It holds family meals, childhood moments, holidays, hard talks, quiet mornings, and the people who matter most. That is why remodeling is personal work.
Custom Built helps homeowners reimagine the places where they live and gather. The company works on spaces like decks, kitchens, baths, additions, and outdoor living areas, but Michael sees the deeper meaning behind the work. A project may start with a space that does not work well anymore. But the goal is to create a place the family can love again.
“We get to take places that people live and turn them into homes that they love.” Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
That belief matters because homeowners are not only looking for skill. They are looking for trust. When they invite a remodeling team into their home, they are asking that team to listen, care, plan well, and protect the feeling they want the space to carry.
During the interview, Michael made it clear that doing the job right starts long before the job site. It begins with vision. It begins with values. It begins with knowing who the company is and who belongs on the team.
He spoke about core values like being family focused, productive and helpful, passionately committed, willing to grow, and able to have fun. Those values are not just words on a wall. They guide how the team learns, how they treat clients, how they handle mistakes, and how they keep raising the standard.
“It really starts with a unified vision, and the vision really starts with core values.” Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
That kind of value system matters as projects become more complex. A small deck, a large outdoor living space, a kitchen, a bath, or a full home change all require trust. The team must know what they are building and why it matters. When something is missed, the answer is not blame. The answer is learning, fixing, and getting better.
For an outdoor living contractor in Mid-Michigan or a custom backyard renovation contractor, the message is clear. The best work does not come from tools alone. It comes from a team that is aligned, trained, honest, and willing to improve.
Michael also shared one of the clearest business lessons in the interview. If a founder wants to build a real company, they cannot be the only person who can do the work. They have to grow people. They have to trust people. They have to help leaders rise inside the company.
Michael Flory with the Custom Built leadership team
That lesson is not always easy. Michael spoke about the hard part of investing in someone, helping them grow, and then seeing them leave to start something of their own. Many owners see that as a loss. Michael sees it in a bigger way. When good people grow, the whole industry can become stronger.
“Investing back in your people and pouring into your people, that’s how the business becomes a business.” Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
His view of leadership is not only about teaching skills. It is about learning what people want, what drives them, and how they can grow as humans. That is how a team becomes stronger. That is how a business becomes bigger than one person. That is how a company can keep serving clients well without the founder standing in every room.
This is also why the story matters for any full-service remodeling contractor in Mid-Michigan that wants to grow with care. Strong systems matter. Clear roles matter. But people matter most. Michael’s leadership shows that when a company pours into people, the work, the culture, and the client experience all become stronger.
To learn more about the leaders and companies shaping the home improvement industry, visit Power100.
The final part of Michael’s story brings the whole message together. His work is not only about remodeling homes. It is also about giving back to people who need hope, care, and direction. He spoke about supporting children who are grieving and young people who need a path forward. That mission is personal to him, and it has become part of the company’s culture.
Michael highlighted the impact of organizations like Ele’s Place and Mikey23. Ele’s Place helps grieving children process loss. Mikey23 helps young people connect with the trades, hands on work, and the pride that comes from building something real. For Michael, these efforts are not side projects. They are part of the why behind the work.
“All of a sudden the light bulb goes off. Man, I got to lighten up one person’s life. And that will change a culture.” Michael Flory, Founder & CVO, Custom Built Design & Remodeling
That line shows how service moves through a company. When team members serve together, they see that their work can reach beyond a job site. They see that a business can lift people, families, and the local community. That sense of purpose can change how a team shows up for each other and for every client.
Michael’s story shows that a remodeling company can build spaces, but it can also build hope. It can help the next generation see a future. It can remind young people that their life has value and that their hands can create something good.
To learn more about Custom Built’s story and work, visit Custom Built Design & Remodeling.
Michael Flory’s message of taking the next step is also showing up in the way Custom Built Design & Remodeling is being seen across Michigan and beyond. The company’s growth, service record, and customer care have earned outside recognition that adds proof to the story shared in the PowerChat. For a leader who spoke about resilience, values, and building with purpose, these honors show that the work is not only felt inside the company. It is being noticed by the wider business and remodeling community.
In 2024, Custom Built Design & Remodeling was named a Michigan Celebrates Small Business 50 Companies to Watch Award Recipient. This honor points to the company’s role in Michigan’s small business story and reflects the kind of steady growth that comes from strong leadership, clear values, and service that lasts. For Michael, the award fits the deeper message of the interview. The company did not grow by chasing attention. It grew by taking the next right step, serving families well, and building a team that could carry the mission forward.
That growth continued with national recognition through the 2025 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, where Custom Built was also listed as No. 83 in Michigan. For an award-winning home remodeler in Lansing Michigan, this kind of recognition helps show that the company is not only trusted locally. It is also part of a larger group of growing private businesses that are shaping their markets through focus, care, and strong execution.
Customer service is another place where Custom Built’s work stands out. The company has also been recognized as a GuildQuality Guildmaster Award Winner, an honor tied to strong customer experience in the home building, remodeling, and home service space. That matters because Michael’s leadership is built around more than finished projects. It is built around trust, listening, and the feeling homeowners have when the work is done. This recognition supports the same idea he shared in the interview when he said, “We get to take places that people live and turn them into homes that they love.”
Together, these honors show what Michael and his team are doing right. They are building a company that grows, serves, listens, and follows through. They are proving that a Greater Lansing design build remodeling company can earn trust at the local level while also gaining state and national attention. Most of all, they show that the company’s impact is rooted in the same message Michael shared with Greg Cummings. Keep moving forward, keep getting better, and keep using the work to serve people well.
Michael Flory’s story began with deep loss, but the message of this PowerChat does not end there. It ends with purpose. In his conversation with Greg Cummings, Michael showed that resilience is not one single moment of strength. It is the daily choice to keep moving, keep learning, and keep serving when life asks more from you than you ever expected.
That choice has shaped the way Michael leads Custom Built Design & Remodeling. What started as a personal fight to keep going became a model for building a company with care at the center. The same belief that helped him take the next step now shows up in how his team serves homeowners, supports each other, and builds spaces where families can gather, heal, grow, and make new memories.
For Michael, remodeling is more than the work done inside a home or outside in a backyard. It is a chance to care for people during an important season of their life. It is a chance to listen well, build trust, and help families create places they love. That same heart also reaches beyond the job site through team growth, trade advocacy, youth support, and community care.
The deeper lesson from the PowerChat is clear. Resilience is not only about surviving the past. It is about using the past to build something better for others. For Michael Flory and Custom Built Design & Remodeling, that belief now lives in every home they improve, every team member they help grow, and every young person they help see a bigger future.
This PowerChat matters because it shows the person behind the company. Homeowners do not only want to know what a company builds. They want to know how a company thinks, how it treats people, and what kind of leader shapes the team. Power100 publishes original journalism, feature interviews, and rankings that help bring those leadership stories forward in the home improvement industry.
Power100 uses a five-layer evaluation system and publishes interviews, rankings, industry news, and leadership stories tied to real company impact. This gives homeowners, contractors, and partners a clearer way to learn from leaders who are building strong teams, strong service, and better customer experiences.
Custom Built is known for custom decks and outdoor living, but the company also handles kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions, sunrooms, roofing, and virtual design. Its website describes the company as a design-build remodeling firm serving homeowners across Michigan, with locations in Okemos and Boyne City.
A design-build model can make the process easier because design and construction are handled under one roof. Custom Built says this helps reduce project delays and prevent costly miscommunication between separate firms. The company also points to clear communication, honest pricing, licensing, insurance, and local experience as key reasons homeowners choose them.
Yes. Custom Built says every project comes with a Lifetime Workmanship Warranty, and the company stands behind its work for as long as the homeowner owns the home. Its home addition page also says the relationship does not end at the final walkthrough.
Custom Built lists several awards and honors, including the MCSB 2024 50 Companies to Watch Award, the 2025 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, No. 83 in Michigan, and the GuildQuality Guildmaster Award for Superior Customer Service. These honors support the company’s record of growth, service, and customer care.
Michael’s leadership story connects closely to the company’s support for children, families, and the trades. Custom Built says it donates a portion of revenue to local charities such as Ele’s Place, which supports grieving children and families, and Mikey 23, which helps young people grow through skilled trades training.
Custom Built is a Trex Pro Platinum Builder, a status the company says places it in the top 1 percent of contractors in North America. Its deck page also highlights a 10 year labor warranty through Trex Pro Platinum status, trained installation, and a Lifetime Workmanship Warranty on craftsmanship.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry. Built to support the CEOs, founders, partners, and companies shaping the future of the industry, Power100 highlights leadership stories, company impact, customer trust, community work, and the values that help great businesses stand out. Through rankings, interviews, PowerChats, and industry features led by Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, the platform gives top home improvement leaders a trusted place to be seen, heard, and recognized for the work they are doing to move the industry forward.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
