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The Way Alua Arthur Helps Thousands of students rediscover the meaning of death

Mar 28, 2023

Alua Aruthur's unique founder's journey started on a bus in Cuba. Shortly after being diagnosed with depression that was clinical and quitting her legal career, Alua found herself sitting alongside a passenger with a terminal cancer of the uterus. It was a surprise what was going to happen when the conversation unfolded between the two of their lives would impact the direction of her life completely.

"I have asked her a myriad of questions about death -- the type of questions you'd never have to ask someone you don't know, however she was so open to me. We discussed for hours what she was scared of, what she couldn't bear to be left behind, as well as her wishes for what she might had done differently in her life," Alua recalls.

"Coming away from this exchange, I kept wondering why I hadn't engaged with my partner in meaningful conversations regarding death during my 34 years of living. The more I thought about it the more I was like"I'm going to take action about that.'"

When she returned after a trip to the United States, Alua threw herself into trying to find ways to help people during the process of preparing for their death. Coming from a law background, she knew that she wasn't going to be into medicine or social work. While psychology was not exactly what she wanted to do but she was able to decode the code the need to go into a psychology course that was focused on the spiritual and death. However, shortly after her graduation, her brother in law got terminally ill.

"I was able to support him throughout the final two years of his life. I was there every day, day out -- lying on the couch or lying on the floor and sleeping and running errands. I also picked patients up from hospitals taking medications as well as doing the necessary research" she says.

"I found myself feeling increasingly frustrated that there was no one I could just call who would have these answers for us, or at least somebody who wasn't part of our network of friends who would acknowledge and validate how difficult what we're going through could be. In those times, I was convinced that, if I didn't have the answer, I would have to make it."

This realization was the catalyst for Going with Grace the funeral doula education and end-of-life planning organization that aims to improve and redefine the concept of death by using the individual experiences as the basis.

Alua is now accepted over 1,800 students to her "End of Life Training program', and has gathered more than 15,000 subscribers to her newsletter, and earned $2.5 million in sales. Here's how she achieved this feat.

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She translated her personal experience into her company's mission

From day one, Alua has been intentional regarding allowing Going With Grace to originate from a personal place. Her belief is that, despite there are many who try to differentiate the personal from the professional both are one and one.

"How you present yourself at home will reflect on your behavior in your professional life. This was always a personal goal that I set out to fix what I struggled with during the final stages of my life. Going With Grace was born out from that ."

Alua's personal experience has enabled her to walk in the shoes of her customers with a distinct way- she understood all of their needs before they even came across her offering.

"The end-of-life process is so isolated. My main hope was to ensure that people don't feel alone while they work through their struggles. It's hard enough, even when you've got one of the most skilled doctors as well as the best support system -- it's crushing ."

She continues: "The mission of Going with Grace is to help people to answer the question 'What must I do to be at peace with myself, so that I live in the present and pass away gracefully? No matter what the answer of a person is, we support them -Sometimes it's about healing their relationships or confronting their fears about death, sometimes it's looking for their ideals that they wish to live their lives by. That's our focus ."

She remained consistent in her organic, personalized messaging

In the process of translating her unique message into a campaign for marketing, Alua stuck to her home base. She built her online presence to achieve one objective -- to create permission for people to discuss death and grief with authenticity.

"When I saw that this kind of space was not available and I wanted to facilitate it since I believed there was someone else looking for this. It could be one in a million, however, surely someone had experienced something similar to my experience," she says.

"As a result of my thinking process my marketing came about organically, and I think it's the reason people connected with it so deeply."

Yet Alua recognized that her natural messages could only go as far without coherence.

"When something is sparked within someone, that's worth some thing. The size of that spark doesn't depend on you -- but it is up to you to fan the flame. If you keep passionately and authentically discussing similar topics, in time you'll see them come back to ."

  During her initial rollout, Alua was also able to appreciate the significance of having an authentic and authentic persona. At first, she wasn't conscious of her image in the public eye, but by finding her voice and establishing her voice, she could level up her credibility and marketability.

"One important element in marketing and branding is being authentic. I'm not gentle, slack-talking human, yet people often believe that we have to whisper and tiptoe around issues of the dying and death. Being unapologetic about my own self, I attracted my community ."

In her early days, Alua started posting one-minute videos on social media that focused on her own experiences and her mission statement and the online course she was starting to develop. Prior to her knowledge, Alua had pre-sold 57 subscriptions, before she even begun to build the course. In addition the list of her email subscribers, which was 400 strong started growing exponentially.

"I genuinely thought that maybe 10 people would register. In that moment, I realized I actually had the commitment of the following ."

She clarified her course outline with a practical approach

Once she had established her target viewers, Alua started to wrap her mind around the daunting task of creating her very first online course called 'The Art of Dying'. As with many course designers, she formed a skeletal framework that she developed modules by modules.

"It was very helpful to think about the blocks of information that my students would require at various points throughout the course. I'd think to myself, 'Here's the base. This is the next step. If we're going here What do we require for us to achieve our goals What do we need to know?" It is important to think about the goal of the course in mind, and then cut the lessons into chunks that are bite-sized," she explains.

This framework eventually took form in an actionable way -It was then Alua was able to break the course down into three fundamental segments. The first part lays the foundation of 'What do funeral doulas actually do? What is the role of medical professionals? What are the signs of dying? What is the reason we should pay attention to the death of our loved ones? The next segment focuses on the natural aspects of death as well as funeral home operations and funeral legacies and rituals. Finally, the third section integrates all of these elements into practice.

  Alua has created a number of classes using this model, all with completion rates of 76% , and overall scores of 4.9 stars. She believes none of this would be possible without .

" is the one thing that really made my dream come to life. At the beginning I looked around in search of an online learning platform however none could be made accessible or simple enough. I'm an analog girl I'm not sure what to do about changing my phone's ringtone however it was straightforward, but extremely effective. This is how we came to where we are today." she says.

She integrated her real voice into her classes

Apart from introducing this efficient course structure, Alua has been intentional about allowing her personal style to influence her online course offerings.

"I tell a lot of stories about the clients that I've worked with, so that my students can be able to learn more about my practice live. I'm very clear about speaking directly to cameras, and I don't keep my personal life in the shadows," she says.

"I think my online courses could be beautiful snapshots at the moment of my work and my identity as a person. I published 'The Art Of Dying' in 2018, and in four years, I might be a entirely different person from the one I was at the time. When I design my classes, I try to refrain from binding myself to how I feel in the moment, while also loosely holding on to what the future might be. ."

She prioritized community when diversifying her revenue streams

Alua has also placed great emphasis on celebrating community, both inside and outside of her curriculum. Utilizing the strength of study groups, she's been able to naturally expand her revenue streams.

"One one of the great things about our courses is the fact that we provide all the materials online. But then we also have regularly scheduled group studies where people discuss things on Zoom in real-time. The students are able to think through their discussion questions which not only keeps them engaged however, it also helps to build a stronger sense of community. They get close to each others, and they develop relationships and ultimately, I've created the space to allow them to do the things that they naturally would do anyway ."

She continues: "I'm simply following the breadcrumbs in the places where they are already present. For example one of my students got engaged not long ago, and seven students from their online class were in attendance. This to me is the real power of our work. ."

Apart from her online education, Alua has created various community-driven initiatives to support her model of business.

"Another important part of our income stream is our Death Doula Den -- it's a member-only community in which members meet to discuss dying and death. We also host separate Zoom calls where we talk about "hot topics", and provide support that in a way" she adds.

"Ultimately We have communities for those who are looking for services, as well as communities that seek to understand how to offer services to other people."

She was able to overcome the principal obstacle course that creators have to overcome

When looking at Going With Grace's achievements up to this point, Alua is very transparent about her struggles to overcome various obstacles during her journey as a creator -- yet, these challenges have made her more resilient on the professional and personal level.

"The biggest leap I have ever taken was hitting the "Publish" button on my first course. I cried hysterically as I pressed the button. The only thing I thought of was"Oh my god What have I done? What do I believe I really am? What is the reason I would make a decision like this? ?'"

  A few years down the line, Alua has a few tips she'd say to herself:  

"The ideal thing to do is silence the voice that says, 'It's impossible. "You're not enough. You're not worthy. You don't know how you're performing.' Dismiss those thoughts and push on because somebody in the world is in need of what you provide. Take the leap It's probably not going to be perfect and it's most likely to end up being extremely messy and embarrassing look back on in a few years. But it's a million times better than absolutely nothing. ."

Inspired by Alua's story about building a thriving online business for online courses? Do you want to try it for yourself? Register for the course and start today.