About ten years after starting the Walker Mower marketing program, I had been thinking about publishing a newsletter or some other customer communication piece. There was advice from marketers from several directions that pointed to the effectiveness of staying in touch with customers and prospective customers. One day in the middle of 1992, a magazine came in the mail called Beechcraft Business (incidentally, I look at all the mail that comes to the company, including junk mail; no screening just so no opportunity is missed as in this case). As a company owner and private pilot, I had never flown or owned a Beechcraft, but apparently I was on a mailing list of prospective customers.
Looking at Beechcraft Business there were three things that caught my attention. First, it was the mechanics; a high quality presentation with beautiful graphics and printing on fine paper stock. Second, the format was not hard-selling the airplane but simply focusing on people, their business and how they used the Beechcraft to improve their business and quality of life (telling a story). Lastly, I noticed a stamp for the magazine publisher “Johnson Hill Press, Fort Atkinson, WI”. I knew these people because they published two trade publications in our industry, Yard & Garden and Pro magazines.
I made a phone call to Pat Nadler at Johnson Hill (whom I had known for several years) telling him I wanted to create a magazine like Beechcraft Business for Walker Mowers. He visited my office a few days later on July 1, 1992 with a proposal, and then with a handshake, Walker Talk was born. It happened fast. The Johnson Hill folks were experienced in producing company-sponsored publications, and by late September 1992, the first Walker Talk was in the mail.
Today, Johnson Hill Press is part of Cygnus Business Media but the people behind the publication have stayed true to the mission and vision we had in the beginning while refining and improving as we go. It is remarkable to think that over 1,000,000 copies of Walker Talk have been printed and distributed in twenty-five volumes, plus three special editions. That is quite a ways from my original newsletter idea. I want to say thanks to the folks at Cygnus for making it happen; to Rod Dickens and Tim Cromley, our editors; and most of all to our readers for your encouragement and support of Walker Talk.
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