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The Way Alua Arthur Helps Thousands of students redefine death

Mar 28, 2023

Alua Aruthur's unique founder's journey began on a bus ride in Cuba. After being diagnosed with clinical depression and quitting her legal career, Alua found herself sitting with a traveler with a terminal cancer of the uterus. It was a surprise what was going to happen when the conversation took place between them would change the course of her life forever.

"I asked her a lot of questions regarding deathkind of questions you would never ask a stranger, but she was so honest with me. We talked for hours about what she feared, what she couldn't bear to be left behind, as well as the things she wishes she could had done differently in her time," Alua recalls.

"Coming away from the conversation, I kept contemplating why I didn't engage in a meaningful conversation regarding death during the 34 years I've lived. The more I considered it, the more I thought"I'd like to do something about that.'"

Upon returning home to after returning to the United States, Alua threw herself into trying to find ways to support people in their end-of-life transition. As a lawyer, she knew that she did not want to go into medicine or social work. Although psychology wasn't exactly what she wanted to do but she was able to decode the code to enroll in a psychology program that was centered around death and spirituality. Yet shortly into her degree she discovered that her father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal illness.

"I was able to support him throughout the final two months of his life. I was there day in and day out, lying on the couch, lying on the floor and sleeping and running errands. I also picked patients up from hospitals, getting medications, and trying to do research," she continues.

"I was feeling increasingly frustrated that there wasn't somebody I could call that would have these answers for us, or, at the very least, someone outside of our circle of support who could acknowledge the difficulties we were going through was. In those moment, I realized that if I couldn't find it, I was going create it."

This realization was the catalyst for the idea of Going With Grace, a death doula-training and funeral planning company that seeks to redefine and improve the end-of-life experience using individual life experiences as the basis.

Alua has welcomed over 1,800 students into her "End of Life Training program', and has gathered nearly 15,000 new subscribers to her newsletter and earned $2.5 million in revenue. 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 her decision to allow Going With Grace to originate from her personal experience. She believes that even though there are many who try to differentiate the personal and professional from each other, they're one and the same.

"How you present yourself on the inside will be reflected in how you show up in your professional life. For me, this has always been a highly personal mission -- I wanted to rectify what I had faced during my death process. The idea of Going With Grace was born out of that place ."

Alua's personal experience has enabled her to walk in the shoes of her audience in an unique manner -she knew all their requirements before they discovered her service.

"The end-of-life process is so isolating. The main goal was to help people not be a burden while working through the challenges. It's enough to be difficult, even when you've got the best doctors and an excellent support system- it's crushing ."

She adds: "The mission of Going with Grace is to assist people to answer the question "What can I do to find peace within myself so that I live in the present and live my life with grace? No matter what the answer of a person is We are there to help them- sometimes it's about healing their relationships or discussing their fear of death, sometimes it's seeking out the values that they want to live with. This is our main focus ."

Her message was consistent with her organic, personalized messaging

When it came to translating her unique message into a commercial campaign, Alua stuck to her home base. She built her online presence to achieve one objective that was to give permission for others to talk about the loss and grieving process in an authentic way.

"When I realized this type of space didn't exist and I wanted to make it happen because I knew there was someone else looking for this. Perhaps it was one in a million but surely, somebody had experienced something similar to me." she says.

"As a result of my thinking process My marketing took place naturally, and that's why people resonated with my message so much."

However, Alua realized that her organic messaging could only go so much without coherence.

"When something is sparked in someone's mind, it's worth something. The amount of spark is not up to you -- but it's up to you to help ignite that flame. If you're constantly passionate and authentically discussing similar topics, in time they'll get to ."

  During her initial rollout, Alua was also able to appreciate the importance of having an authentic personal brand. At first, she wasn't aware that she had a reputation, however, by focusing on her own voice and establishing her voice, she could level up her credibility and credibility.

"One of the key elements in marketing and branding is being authentic. I'm not gentle, slack-talking human being, and yet many people believe that we have to whisper and tiptoe around the topics of the dying and death. By being unapologetically myself I was able to attract my peers ."

At the beginning of her career, Alua started posting one-minute videos on social media that delved into her personal experience as well as her mission statement as well as her online course that she was beginning to create. Prior to her knowledge, Alua had pre-sold 57 subscriptions before she had even began to create the course. In addition, her 400-strong email list increased exponentially.

"I honestly believed 10 people would sign up. In that moment, I realized that I needed the commitment of this ."

She fleshed out her course outline using a concrete method

Once she had established her target audience, Alua started to wrap her thoughts around the challenging procedure of creating her first online course entitled 'The Art Of Dying'. Similar to many course creators she crafted a framework that she developed each module.

"It was really useful to consider the various blocks of information my students required at specific points throughout the course. I'd think"Here's the foundation. This is the next step. If we're here, what do we need to do in order to reach our goal What do we need to know?" It is important to keep the course's overall goal in mind, and then cut the lessons into smaller chunks of information," she explains.

This structure eventually came into existence in an actionable way -- Alua could divide the program into three core components. The first segment lays the basis of "What do funeral doulas actually accomplish? What is the role of medical professionals? What are the indicators of death? Why do we need to bring attention to the death of our loved ones? The next segment focuses on the natural aspects of death and funeral home logistical issues, and the funeral rituals and legacies. In the final section, it puts all these aspects into practice.

  Alua has developed a variety of courses using this framework and has all of them with completion rates at 76% and overall scores at 4.9 stars. She believes none of this could have been achieved without .

" was the thing that truly helped me realize my idea. In those early days, I searched a lot to find an online platform for courses however none was accessible or easy 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. It's how we got to where we are now." she claims.

She integrated her real voice into her lessons

In addition to introducing this efficient learning structure, Alua has been intentional in letting her personality influence her online course offerings.

"I tell a lot of tales about clients I've had the privilege of working with to allow my students to understand the process at a moment's notice. I'm intentional about talking directly to the camera, and I refrain from keeping my personality at bay," she says.

"I consider that my videos could be beautiful snapshots into the present of my work as well as my identity as a person. I published 'The Art Of Dying' in the year 2018 And four years later, I might be a entirely different person from the one I was back then. Therefore, when creating my classes, I try to refrain from binding myself to how I'm feeling in this moment and also allowing myself to hold onto what the future could be. ."

She emphasized the community in her decision to diversify her income streams

Alua has also placed great focus on fostering community both inside and outside of her curriculum. Through leveraging the power of study groups, she has successfully increased her income streams.

"One among the most appealing aspects concerning our classes is that we have all the materials online. But there are also regularly scheduled group studies where people discuss things through Zoom in real time. It allows them to answer their discussion questions which will keep them interested and engaged, but also creates a greater feeling of belonging. They are able to connect with each others, and they develop relationships to the point that I've just been creating the space to allow them to do what they would naturally perform in their own way. ."

Then she adds: "I'm simply following the breadcrumbs in the places where they are already present. For example one of my students was engaged not many years ago and seven students from their online class were present. For me, this is the true power of the work we're doing. ."

In addition to her online courses, Alua has created various community-driven initiatives to support her model of business.

"Another significant part of our income stream is our Death Doula Den -- it's a community of members where people gather to talk about dying and death. Additionally, we host distinct Zoom meetings where we speak about 'hot button issues', and provide support that in a way" she adds.

"Ultimately there are communities for those who are looking for services, as well as groups for those who want to know how to serve others."

She overcame the main obstacle course that creators have to overcome

In analyzing Going With Grace's success so far, Alua is very transparent about how she has struggled to get over various challenges during her journey as a creator yet the struggles she has faced have helped make her stronger on both the professional and personal level.

"The biggest leap I have ever taken was hitting the "Publish" button in my very first class. My heart broke when I clicked it. The only thing I thought of was, 'Oh my god What have I done? Who do I think I am? How come I could do something like this ?'"

  Now, several years down the line, Alua has a few tips she'd give herself at that point:  

"The best thing you can do is stop the voice saying, "It's not possible. 'You're not good enough. You're not worthy. It's not clear how you're performing.' Dismiss those thoughts and keep pushing because somebody in the world needs what you have to provide. You should take the plunge It's probably likely to not be perfect, it's probably gonna be very messy and embarrassing to review in the next few years. But it's much better than nothing . ."

Are you inspired by Alua's tale of creating a successful online business for online courses? Ready to take the leap yourself? Join and begin right now.