SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Every business owner reaches a moment when fear starts making the decisions. The market wobbles, the news turns grim, a marketing channel goes quiet, and the safest move seems to be doing nothing at all. Many companies freeze in that moment. Some never recover.
Richard Hotea, Founder and CEO of Performance Remodeling, has built his company by refusing to let fear hold the steering wheel.
“Scared money doesn’t win,” Richard Hotea said. “I’m not a gambler, but I will bet on myself. Bet on yourself, bet on your people, and just be persistent.”
Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry using a proprietary 5-layer ranking system, is spotlighting Richard Hotea and Performance Remodeling to show what that belief looks like after two decades of real decisions. What began in 2006 as a leap of faith by a former salesman and a good friend has grown into one of Southeast Michigan’s best-known exterior remodeling companies. Today, Performance Remodeling serves 1,500 to 1,800 homes a year with replacement windows, roofing, siding, gutters, and entry doors, and it is working to break the $20 million mark in annual revenue.
The quote is short, but it holds three ideas that explain the whole company. Bet on yourself: take the risk to build something better. Bet on your people: hire well, let go of control, and trust them to lead. Be persistent: keep going through the hard years, because the hard years always come.
“You are always looking. It’s always on your mind how to get better,” said Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, about Richard Hotea. “Those are the commonalities we see across the board in the companies that are going to win.”
Richard Hotea, Owner of Performance Remodeling
Richard Hotea did not start at the top. He started with a hammer, installing siding on homes in Michigan. He was good with people, and it showed. He spent more time talking with homeowners on job sites than he did on the work itself, and the crew noticed. One of the guys told him he should get into sales.
He took that advice. He got his first sales job at a large company and loved it from day one. He admits he did not have much direction before then. He was in college, but he felt he was wasting his parents’ money. Sales gave him a purpose. “I ran a few appointments and I said, man, this doesn’t even seem like work,” Richard Hotea said. “This seems fun.”
That was the first bet: trusting his own instinct that he belonged in front of homeowners, not just on a ladder. He worked his way up, learned the trade from the sales side, and became a sales manager. It was in that role that he saw the problem that would push him to bet much bigger.
As a sales manager, Richard Hotea sold vinyl windows. One day, he lost a sale to an elderly couple who loved him and liked his price. Two months later, he saw another company’s sign in their yard. The couple had bought fiberglass windows that cost about double his quote.
He knocked on their door to ask why. The homeowner said he planned to leave the house to his kids, and he wanted to do the right thing. That moment taught Richard Hotea that homeowners need real options. He could not get the owners of his company to consider a new product, so he left to join friends at a company that sold fiberglass. About a year later, he hit the opposite problem: that company sold only fiberglass, and he could not help homeowners who needed something more affordable.
He caught himself complaining, a lot. Then he and a good friend started asking a better question: what if we could do this better ourselves? They researched other fiberglass products they could get their hands on, and they took the shot. In 2006, Performance Remodeling opened its doors.
“It’s the best thing I ever did,” Richard Hotea said. “It is very difficult. Anybody that wants to do their own thing, just understand it’s extremely difficult to do it the right way. But if you can do it, it’s the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do.”
He is also honest about how little he knew going in. “I’m actually glad I didn’t know how hard it was going to be,” Richard Hotea said. “I think that’s a blessing in disguise.” That is what betting on yourself really means. It is not a guarantee of success. It is a willingness to start before you have every answer, and to keep going when the answers are hard.
Persistence is easy to talk about when business is good. It is tested when business is not. Performance Remodeling opened in 2006. By 2009 and 2010, Michigan and the country were deep in the mortgage and housing crisis. Many contractors closed for good.
Performance Remodeling did not. Richard Hotea says that period was probably the only year the company lost money. It was nerve-wracking, but the company kept going. In the years that followed, it came through more storms: wars in the headlines, rising costs, and COVID. Each time, the company adjusted and kept growing.
Those years gave Richard Hotea something money cannot buy: proof. “When I get a little nervous, I just have to look back to my history and say, hey, wait a minute. I did that. We can do this. We’re in a better position,” he said.
That is the quiet power of persistence. Each hard year survived becomes evidence for the next one. A young company bets on hope. A company that has been through 2009, COVID, and everything in between bets on a track record.
Part of Richard Hotea’s confidence comes from how he sees the market. He believes home improvement is one of the most economy-proof businesses there is.
“There are literally millions of homes here,” Richard Hotea said. “I do 1,500 to 1,800 homes a year. If that’s the case, and there’s millions of homes there, I know that if I go after it, I can grow.”
That view shapes how the company acts when others pull back. When the market gets shaky, some companies cut marketing, freeze hiring, and wait. Performance Remodeling treats those moments as a chance to keep serving homeowners who still need new roofs, windows, and siding. Homes do not stop aging because the news is bad. Michigan winters do not get milder because the economy is slow.
Greg Cummings sees the same pattern in the strongest companies on the Power100 platform. He notes that some contractors are still weighed down by debt taken on during COVID, while others are healthy enough to grow on their own terms. Performance Remodeling sits in the second group, positioned to gain ground while others are simply trying to survive.
“Scared money doesn’t win” could sound like a license to spend freely. At Performance Remodeling, it means the opposite. The company is bold where it counts and careful everywhere else.
“We’re very conservative in terms of the way that we look at money,” Richard Hotea said. “We will spend a fortune in the right area, and we’re very tight in other areas. If something’s working, lean into it, spend towards it. If something’s not working in terms of marketing or sales, get away from it fast. Don’t vacillate. We’re very decisive.”
That is not gambling. It is disciplined betting. You put real money behind what the numbers prove, and you cut what does not work before it drains the business. Many companies fail not because they take risks, but because they keep paying for weak ideas long after the results are clear. Richard Hotea built a company that moves fast in both directions.
He also looks for growth inside the business, not just through more sales. “Figure out ways that you can grow your company and get the most out of it, even if it’s not related to additional sales,” he said. “What can you do on each sale that you’re already doing to generate a little bit more? These tweaks here and there, they add up.”
Greg Cummings points to one example: Performance Remodeling found a way to turn a cost, waste hauling, into a source of revenue by running its own dumpster company. It is the kind of practical, hands-on thinking that adds up over 1,500 to 1,800 homes a year.
The second part of the quote may be the hardest for any founder to live by. Betting on yourself is natural for an entrepreneur. Betting on other people means giving up control.
In the early days, Richard Hotea did it all. “When you first start, you’re wearing 10 different hats, and you might wear seven of those 10 hats in one day,” he said. “Whether it’s unloading a truck, running a sales appointment, you’re your own legal department and HR.”
He eventually reached the crossroads every growing owner faces. Stay small and keep doing everything, or let go and build something bigger. “If you’re looking for something more, you cannot achieve that without letting go of some control,” Richard Hotea said. “You do it selectively, you ease into it, but you have to have good people around you. You can’t be everywhere at all times.”
Letting go did not mean stepping away. It meant a new kind of leadership. “Now I can work on my business, as opposed to working in my business,” he said. “I can go outside of it, look at it, and say, wow, this needs to be addressed. I probably wouldn’t have known that had I been stuck here.”
His rule for delegation comes from Ronald Reagan: trust but verify. “I trust you, but I’m going to verify it,” Richard Hotea said. That balance is what makes betting on people work. Blind trust is careless. No trust at all keeps a company small. Trust with verification lets a leader grow without losing standards.
One of the most telling things about Richard Hotea is how openly he gives credit to others. “That’s one of the gifts I have,” he said. “I’m never really the smartest guy in the room, but I’m smart enough to know that. I’ve surrounded myself with people that can do things better than me, and I have no problem with that.”
That humility is a big part of why his bet on people pays off. Leaders who need to be the smartest person in every meeting tend to hire people who will not challenge them. Leaders who welcome stronger talent build teams that can carry the company forward.
At Performance Remodeling, that team includes Tonya Hotea, CFO; Jason Sawinski, Director of Sales and Business Development; Jana E., Project Coordinator; Deion A., Product Acquisition Manager; and Scott Hildreth, Human Resources Specialist. Together, they cover the financial health, sales, project flow, products, and people that a company serving thousands of homeowners depends on.
Greg Cummings describes Richard Hotea’s leadership style plainly. “You’re really a great delegator. You’re a great teacher. You’re a great foundation,” Greg Cummings said. “And then you provide autonomy for your leaders to go do their job.”
Betting on people works best when everyone is playing by the same rules. Performance Remodeling runs on six core values: Be Accountable, Listen First, Advocate for the Customer, Be Both Fun and Professional, Our Reputation Matters, and Always Give Back to the Community.
These values give Richard Hotea something to verify against. When he trusts a team member to run a sales appointment, coordinate a project, or choose a product line, he is trusting them to act on those values. When he verifies, he is checking that the homeowner experience still matches them.
The values also explain why the company’s growth has not come at the cost of its reputation. Performance Remodeling promises objective guidance, real options for different budgets, and no high-pressure sales tactics or bait-and-switch pricing. It backs its work with a Lifetime Guarantee: for as long as the homeowner lives in the home, they will not pay to correct or replace a defective product the company installed, or for the labor tied to that fix. The company maintains an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, and it says one out of every three jobs comes from a repeat customer or a referral.
Homeowners notice the result. “I have done business with Performance Remodeling since 2016, and I have had a wonderful experience with them,” said Charles Burt. “They respond to any issue you may have, and their workmanship is the best.” John O’Connell, who replaced several windows, said, “The communication and follow-up was clear and timely, and the crew was professional and courteous. They even filed paperwork for energy rebates for us.”
Those are not the words of customers served by a stretched, struggling company. They describe a team that has been trusted to do its job well, and does.
The clearest outside proof of Richard Hotea’s persistence may be the partnership with Infinity from Marvin. Marvin is a U.S. window maker with roughly 110 years of history, and its brand is treated as top of the line by builders and architects. Infinity from Marvin does not hand out dealerships to anyone who asks.
Richard Hotea chased that partnership for five to seven years. “It’s almost like chasing your bride,” he said with a laugh. “You see her, you know you’ve got to make the move, and it took a little while.”
He respects how long it took. “They’re not a company that just opens up points of sale and lets everybody compete against each other,” Richard Hotea said. Today, Performance Remodeling is one of only two dealers of the product in its area. “Being able to pass that vetting process, a lot of scrutiny, that made me feel really good. It made me feel like, okay, I’m on the right track.”
Five to seven years is a long time to keep knocking on one door. Many owners would have given up and settled for an easier partner. Richard Hotea kept improving his company until the answer was yes. That is persistence in its most practical form.
The next step came with Costco. Being an Infinity from Marvin dealer does not automatically open the door to the Costco program. Dealers must hit certain parameters and pass certain gates. Performance Remodeling earned that opportunity, with plans to have its people in as many as 16 Costco warehouses, talking with members about their homes.
For Richard Hotea, partnerships are not just about leads. They are about learning and credibility. “You need these partnerships, whether it’s Infinity, whether it’s Power100,” he said. “If you’re trying to grow and you’re really trying to make a move in the industry, you have to partner with people like them. You can’t do it on your own.”
That openness is another way of betting on people, this time outside his own walls. “I’ve learned so much from just being open-minded to people that know a lot more about the industry than me,” Richard Hotea said.
Greg Cummings sees these partnerships as strong social proof, because major brands put their own reputation on the line when they choose a contractor. “It’s not just about you being able to provide their members with windows, doors, roofs, siding, whatever the case may be,” Greg Cummings said. “It’s about you being able to service them long term. That’s the confidence they have, that you have the best products at the best price with the best people and the best warranties.”
He added that it is rewarding to see Power100’s own findings line up with what these brands see. “It is so nice to see that our algorithms reflect these big box algorithms as well when it comes to trust scores,” Greg Cummings said.
One more thing separates Richard Hotea from owners who delegate and drift away. He stays engaged. He describes himself as somewhat hands-on. He gives his leaders room to work, but he is still in the business every day, looking for what needs fixing and what can be done better.
Greg Cummings believes this matters more now than ever. Customers are changing how they buy, where leads come from is changing, and even who answers the door is changing. “If you don’t have your hands on the wheel and you’re a leader, I don’t care if you’re a billion-dollar company or a $2 million company,” Greg Cummings said. “Times are changing.”
He sees Richard Hotea as one of the leaders already ahead of that shift. “You’re one of the people that is leading the charge, doing everything the right way, staying ahead of the curve, and taking care of the homeowners at a fast, efficient, proper level,” Greg Cummings said. “Your customer experience is one of the best in the country by our standard.”
The last of Performance Remodeling’s core values is Always Give Back to the Community, and the company lives it. Through its Ramp It Up program, Performance Remodeling provides free accessible ramps to senior citizens in need and to veterans with disabilities.
It is fitting for a company built on betting on people. The ramps are a bet on neighbors: a choice to invest in families and veterans who will never sign a contract, simply because it is the right thing to do. A company that was only chasing revenue would not bother. A company that believes in its people and its community does.
Power100 ranks Richard Hotea #37 in its National Power Ranking of CEOs, drawn from a database of more than 7,600 CEOs and built on its proprietary 5-layer ranking system. The ranking reflects the same three ideas in his quote.
He bet on himself, leaving a steady sales management job in 2006 to build a company that could give homeowners real options. He bet on his people, letting go of control, hiring talent stronger than himself, and leading through trust but verify. And he stayed persistent, through the housing crisis, through COVID, through five to seven years of chasing Infinity from Marvin, and through 20 years of daily work that turned a small start into a company nearing $20 million.
The results are visible to anyone who looks: 1,500 to 1,800 homes served each year, an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, one in three jobs from repeat customers or referrals, a Lifetime Guarantee, and partnerships with brands as selective as Infinity from Marvin and Costco. For Power100, that is what a great company looks like, and Richard Hotea is the leader who made it one.
For homeowners in Commerce, Farmington Hills, Macomb Township, Novi, Plymouth, Rochester Hills, Romeo, Shelby Township, and West Bloomfield, and across Genesee, Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, Saginaw, St. Clair, and Wayne counties, this leadership story has a practical meaning. A Lifetime Guarantee is only as strong as the company behind it. A company that has survived hard years, manages its money carefully, and keeps strong people in key roles is a company that will still be answering the phone years from now.
That is the real payoff of Richard Hotea’s bet. Homeowners get a remodeling partner built to last, with a team trusted to do the job right and a leader who still has his hands on the wheel.
“Bet on yourself, bet on your people, and just be persistent,” Richard Hotea said. Twenty years in, Performance Remodeling is the proof.
No. The phrase is about the company’s own decisions, not homeowners’ money. Richard Hotea describes Performance Remodeling as very conservative with money. It spends heavily only where results are proven and cuts what does not work quickly. Homeowners are protected by honest pricing, real options, and a Lifetime Guarantee.
Because it has been tested. Performance Remodeling opened in 2006, came through the 2009 and 2010 housing crisis with what Richard Hotea says was likely its only losing year, and kept growing through COVID. Twenty years of steady operation, careful spending, and a one-in-three repeat and referral rate point to growth built on a solid base, not borrowed momentum.
The company is, and the structure is clear. Richard Hotea delegates to experienced leaders such as Tonya Hotea, Jason Sawinski, and Jana E., but he follows a “trust but verify” rule and stays hands-on. “Be Accountable” is the first of the company’s six core values, and the Lifetime Guarantee keeps the company responsible long after the crew leaves.
Not in the way homeowners might fear. Infinity from Marvin and Costco chose Performance Remodeling because of its service record. Those partners expect the same standards to continue, not drop. The same values, team, and guarantee apply whether a homeowner finds the company through a warehouse, a referral, or a neighbor’s yard sign.
Because it shows two things. Infinity from Marvin is selective and does not open dealerships to everyone, so passing its vetting means something. And it shows Richard Hotea’s persistence. He kept improving his company until it met the standard instead of settling for an easier partner. Today, Performance Remodeling is one of only two dealers of the product in its area.
That is a fair question, and it is why company health matters. The guarantee lasts as long as Performance Remodeling is in business. A company that has already operated for 20 years, survived a housing crisis, manages money conservatively, and keeps strong leaders in place gives homeowners real reason to believe it will be there when they need it.
Power100 is an unbiased third-party platform that ranks leaders through a proprietary 5-layer system, drawn from a database of more than 7,600 CEOs. Richard Hotea’s #37 national ranking lines up with signals anyone can check: an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, a strong repeat and referral rate, and selection by brands such as Infinity from Marvin and Costco.
Spending where it works usually makes a company more efficient, not more expensive. Performance Remodeling cuts weak marketing and sales efforts fast and looks for savings inside the business, such as turning waste hauling into revenue. It does not claim to be the cheapest contractor, but it says that in an apples-to-apples comparison of the same products installed by experts, it will have the best price.
Yes, when that mindset is built into how the company hires, decides, and serves. Richard Hotea’s belief in betting on people shows up in a strong leadership team. His discipline shows up in quick, decisive spending choices. His persistence shows up in 20 years of growth and hard-won partnerships. Greg Cummings puts it simply: Richard Hotea is a great delegator and a great teacher who gives his leaders the freedom to do their jobs.
Performance Remodeling is a Southeast Michigan exterior home improvement company founded in 2006 by Richard Hotea. Serving homeowners across Metro Detroit, the company offers replacement windows, roofing, siding, gutters, gutter protection, and entry doors, backed by a Lifetime Guarantee. Performance Remodeling is an Infinity from Marvin dealer, holds an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, and gives back through its Ramp It Up program, which provides free accessible ramps to senior citizens in need and veterans with disabilities.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry using a proprietary 5-layer ranking system. Through national rankings, leadership spotlights, and industry stories, Power100 helps homeowners, contractors, and partners identify the companies and executives setting the standard for trust, performance, and long-term value.
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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.
