I'll add a couple of comments. If you want to build yours unattended you can use the BATCH=yes option that will pick up the defaults and leave you with the same options that packages use.

make can work even without a Makefile, for example:

flynn@scienide% echo "int main(void) {}" > foo.c
flynn@scienide% make foo
cc -O -pipe -march=pentium3 foo.c -o foo
flynn@scienide%