What's the normal way to do this walking guy animation?

If I understand your project correctly by far the easiest solution to walk cycles is Adobe Animate. It's part of the creative suite.

If that is not an option you could use Puppet Pin and set up a comp with just the walk cycle so that the last frame and the first frame are identical. You only need one walk cycle. You use another comp for your character for each action you want to repeat. To make your character walk all you have to do is drag the walk cycle comp into the timeline, press Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + t to enable time remapping, press K to move to the last keyframe, press Ctrl/Cmnd + Left Arrow to move back one keyframe and set a new time remapping keyframe at the previous frame using the diamond icon in the timeline panel next to the stopwatch, then add this expression to Time Remapping:

loopOut()

You can now extend the walk cycle as many steps as you like by simply dragging the out-point of the walk cycle layer. You can also make your character walk faster or slower by adjusting the space between the time remapping keyframes.

If you have a little money in the budget you can also take a look at DUIK BASSEL.2. It's a very powerful tool and all they ask is a donation. The idea is basically the same for all approaches.  Create a walk cycle that you can loop, drop it in your main comp, position it as needed to line up with the other comp of your character doing whatever they are going to do before they start to walk, and use time remap to control the duration of the walk cycle. There is no need to make your walk cycle comp longer than one walk cycle. All you have to do is make sure that the first and last frames are identical.

If your character is talking or waving their hands then the walk cycle comp could be just the legs and torso. 

There are a lot of decent tutorials on creating walk cycles. The tools and the apps may be different but the technique is always the same when you are animating, if you create a movement that you might want to repeat - make that a separate thing (comp) that you can drop into the timeline any time you need it. 

Interesting i dont know if there is a norm... 🤣🤣

(First thing i do is keep a project file of my character and keep it in its own folder and not touch it. Thats my back up. Then i copy that and make an animation.)

If your character is doing a continuous walk with different versions... 🤔 🤔 I would animate a looping walk the full length of the vid...

- precomp that loop into a main comp 

- now duplicate that precomp layer 4 times (or however many you need) (select comp and press CTRL D 4 times to duplicate)

- now you have 4 copies sitting in one main comp... give each one a name etc....

- now go to 20secnds of the first one and trim it back there ( ALT and right square bracktt or just drag its end in) 

- on the next comp in line... trim its start in to 20 sec...  double click into it and and add a nodding animation to that loop and so on with the other comps

(Remember you can open up two timelines and two viewers if you need to to see your main comp and inside the precomp 😮 but i dont think you need to) 🤔 🤔