A Global Win for a South Florida Standout: Yanei Perez and Baptist Health Plantation MOB Take Home BOMA International TOBY Award
A huge congratulations to Yanei Perez, Property Manager with Baptist Health Enterprises, on receiving the BOMA International TOBY Award in the Medical Office Building category for the Baptist Health Plantation Medical Office Building in Plantation, Florida.
This well-deserved recognition was presented during the 2025 BOMA International Conference & Expo, where industry leaders from around the globe gathered to honor top-performing properties and the professionals behind them. Yanei Perez and Baptist Health South Florida are members of BOMA Fort Lauderdale/Palm Beaches and represented the local association in the Medical category. Yanei’s award reflects the strength and caliber of talent within the local association.
As someone who has worked closely with many TOBY participants over the years, I understand the level of detail, strategy, and effort that goes into earning a win at this level. The TOBY Awards go far beyond aesthetics—they honor operational excellence, sustainability, tenant relations, emergency preparedness, and community impact. It is clear that Yanei brought a thoughtful and high-performing approach to every aspect of the building’s management.
The Baptist Health Plantation MOB isn’t just a facility—it’s a place where medical professionals deliver care in an environment that’s clean, well-maintained, and supportive of their mission. Yanei’s leadership plays a key role in making that possible. Her commitment to delivering a premium experience for tenants and patients alike is what makes this recognition especially meaningful.
Congratulations again to Yanei and to Baptist Health for representing South Florida on the international stage. It’s an honor to see this kind of excellence recognized—and celebrated—by peers across the industry.
Applying Branding Best Practices to Tenant Relations
Here’s the structure I shared during my presentation. It mirrors the way we approach building a brand or launching a marketing campaign:
1. Understand the Building User Journey
Not just the leaseholder—but everyone who interacts with your property. From move-in to maintenance, parking to package pickup, every touchpoint either builds trust or chips away at it.
In marketing, we map our a customer journey into six separate sections:
Are you aware of those moments? Are you engineering them—or just reacting to them?
2. Define the Experience You Want to Deliver
This is where branding really kicks in.
- What do you want people to feel when they walk into your building?
- What do you want them to say about it when you’re not in the room?
You don’t need to be luxury to deliver a luxury-level experience. You just need to be clear, consistent, and intentional.
That starts with defining what your “brand” is as a building—and how that brand shows up in your communication style, service standards, amenities, and even your team culture.
Let’s take it one step further.
Exercise: Create a style guide or a mood board. This helps you visualize the feel you’re trying to evoke.
3. Create a Playbook
Here’s where strategy becomes repeatable.
Once you’ve mapped the journey and defined the experience, your next step is to document how to deliver it.
A simple tenant relations playbook might include:
- A welcome checklist should go beyond giving rules and regs. Let’s make it stylized. Let’s make it friendly!
- Communication templates (emails, service notifications, surveys)
- Touchpoint calendar (appreciation days, check-ins, events)
- Service standards for responsiveness and team tone
Guidelines for how your brand shows up in physical space (signage, uniforms, common areas)
Think of it as your internal brand manual for tenant experience.
The Red Napkin Moment
Right before my session, I got an email from entrepreneur Dan Martell that underscored this entire approach.
He told a story about a restaurant where the staff places a red napkin at tables for first-time guests. To the team, the red napkin is a signal: this is someone new—create a moment worth remembering.
The manager walks over. Engages. Offers a small token (a free slice of cheesecake for next time). It’s not about dessert—it’s about planting the seed for return and referral.
That’s a customer experience system. And it works.
So, what’s your red napkin in tenant relations?
Is it a personalized welcome note?
A same-day service check-in?
A thoughtful onboarding packet?
It doesn’t need to be grand. It just needs to be intentional.
As a Property Manager, You’re Already a Marketer—Whether You Call Yourself One or Not
Every email, every repair follow-up, every touchpoint is either building your brand or diluting it.
If you’re thoughtful about those moments, you don’t need a big marketing budget to win tenants.
You just need a repeatable system that delivers value, connection, and care—over and over again.
So, what’s the experience your building delivers?
More importantly—does your team know how to deliver it?
Let’s stop thinking of tenant relations as a list of tasks.
And start treating it like the product it really is.
— Jackie Awve
A Note About the Work
I’ve spent the last decade helping commercial property teams shape those experiences. I founded Awve Marketing in 2012 and have worked with some of the top brands in real estate. Every week for the last 10+ years, I’ve published a curated newsletter with the top 4–5 trends from over 30 CRE sources—designed specifically for South Florida property professionals. (You can sign up here)
I’ve also had the privilege of writing BOMA International’s TOBY Award entries for more than 30 buildings—with three international wins, including:
- 2018, Global Innovation category (inaugural) – Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China
- 2024, 1Mil+ category, – HaiTian Center, Qingdao, China
- 2025, Medical category, Baptist Medical Health, Plantation, Florida, managed by Yanei Perez
Jackie Awve Marketing & Design specializes in helping businesses create marketing initiatives that drive results. Our industry experience includes commercial real estate, retail properties, executive suites, trade associations, contractors and agency consulting.