Creative tips and tricks

How Alua Arthur Helps Thousands of Students Redefine Death

Mar 28, 2023

Alua's intrepid founder's trip started when she boarded a bus in Cuba. Shortly after being diagnosed with clinical depression and quitting her legal career, Alua found herself sitting alongside a passenger suffering from terminal uterine cancer. She had no idea, but the conversation that was afoot between them would change the course of her life completely.

"I asked her a lot of questions on death- the type of questions you'd never have to ask someone you don't know, however she was so honest with me. We discussed for hours what she feared, what she didn't want to be left behind, as well as what she wished she would have done differently during her time," Alua recalls.

"Coming out of the conversation, I kept thinking about why I had not engaged with my partner in meaningful conversations concerning death throughout my 34 years of existence. The more I considered it, the more I realized"I'm going to take action about the issue.'"

When she returned after a trip to after returning to the United States, Alua threw herself into trying to find ways of helping people through their end-of-life transition. As a lawyer and a law degree, she was aware that she wasn't going to be to social work or medicine. While psychology was not exactly what she wanted to do but she was able to decode the code to enroll in a psychology course that was focused on the spiritual and death. But shortly after completing her studies, her brother in law became seriously ill.

"I am able to help him through the last 2 months of his existence. I was with him day in and day out, lying on the couch, resting on the floor doing errands, taking people up from the hospital as well as obtaining medications, as well as doing the necessary research" she continues.

"I found myself feeling ever more dissatisfied that there wasn't somebody I could call that could provide these solutions for us, or, at the very least, someone not in our circle of family and friends that could understand and validate how difficult what we were going through is. In those times, I was convinced that if I could not find the answer, I would have create it."

This realization planted the seed for Moving with Grace, a funeral doula education and end-of-life plan organization which aims to improve and redefine the concept of death by using the individual experiences as the basis.

Alua has since admitted over 1,800 people to her 'End of Life Training program', and has gathered nearly 15,000 new subscribers to her newsletter and generated $2.5 million in revenue. Here's how she accomplished it.

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She turned her own experiences into the mission of her business.

From day one, Alua has been intentional about allowing Going With Grace to originate from a personal place. Her belief is that, despite many people try to separate the personal and professional from each other, they're one and one.

"How you present yourself at home will be reflected in the way you present yourself on the job. This has always been a very personal goal -- I wanted to address what I been struggling with through the end-of-life support process. The idea of Going With Grace was born out from that ."

Alua's personal experience has allowed her to step into her customer's shoes in an unique manner -she knew all their needs before they even came across her offering.

"The dying process can be so isolated. My goal was to make people feel alone while they work through the challenges. It's hard enough, even with the best doctors and the best support system -- it's crushing ."

The author continues: "The mission of Going with Grace is to assist people to answer the question "What can I do in order to feel at peace with myself so that I live in the present and live my life with grace? Whatever someone's answers may be We are there to help them- sometimes it's about making amends with their relationship, sometimes it's about confronting their fears about dying, and sometimes, it's about trying to figure out the values that they want to live by. That's our focus ."

The message she sent was always her natural, personal messages

When it was time to translate her personalized messaging into a marketing campaign, Alua stuck to her home base. Alua created her website with one goal in mind that was to give permission for people to discuss the loss and grieving process in an authentic way.

"When I realized this type of space didn't exist, I was determined to make it happen because I knew there was someone else looking for it. Maybe it was just one of a million but surely, somebody has had a similar experience to my experience," she says.

"As as a result of that idea my marketing came about spontaneously, and it's the reason people connected with it so deeply."

However, Alua realized that her organic messages could only go as much without consistency.

"When sparks are ignited within someone, that's worth something. The magnitude of the spark is not up to the person who ignited it, but it is up to you to fan the flame. If you keep passionately and honestly expressing your opinion on similar topics, in time they'll come close to ."

  In the initial phase of her rollout, Alua was also able to appreciate how important it was to have an authentic brand for herself. Originally, she wasn't even conscious of her image in the public eye, but by finding her own voice it was possible to level up her credibility and marketability.

"One of the key elements of branding and marketing is being authentic. My personality isn't quiet, calm, human, yet people often think that we should talk and tinker around with issues of death and dying. Being unapologetic about my own self, I attracted my community ."

In her early days, Alua started posting one-minute videos on social networks that focused on her own experiences, her mission statement, and the online course she was beginning to create. Before she knew it, Alua had pre-sold 57 subscriptions before she had even started building the course. In addition the list of her email subscribers, which was 400 strong increased exponentially.

"I really believed that perhaps 10 people would register. At that point, I realized that I had the commitment of this ."

She outlined her course outline in an actionable way

After establishing her audience, Alua started to wrap her head around the difficult task of creating her very first course online entitled 'The Art Of Dying'. Like many course creators, she formed a skeletal framework that she fleshed out module by module.

"It was extremely helpful to think about the information blocks that my students needed at certain times during the course. I'd think that to myself: "Here's the foundation. This is the next step. If we're going here then what are we going to need in order to get there What do we need to know?" I'd always think about the goal of the course in mind, and then divide the course into chunks that are bite-sized," she explains.

The framework was eventually developed with a concrete approachit was a practical framework - Alua could cut the course into three core parts. The first segment lays the foundation of 'What do die doulas really accomplish? What is the role of medical professionals? What are the signs of death? What is the reason we should bring attention to the death of our loved ones? The second section focuses on the natural aspects of death, funeral home logistics, as well as funeral legacies and ceremonies. The third segment puts all these aspects into action.

  Alua has since developed numerous programs using this structure that have been completed with a completion rate of 76% , and overall scores that is 4.9 stars. The instructor believes that nothing would have been possible without .

" is the one thing that really brought my vision to life. In those early days I searched for a long time for an online course platform however none were easy or accessible enough. I'm an analog girl and I'm not even sure what to do about changing the ringtone on my phone, but was not only straightforward, but extremely effective. That's the way we got to where we are today." she claims.

She has incorporated her own voice into her lessons

Apart from rolling out this effective format for courses, Alua has been intentional in letting her personality be reflected in her online courses.

"I tell a lot of stories about the clients that I've worked with, in order to let my students understand the process live. I'm very clear about speaking directly to cameras, and I don't keep my personality at bay," she says.

"I think my online courses are a stunning snapshot into the present of my work as well as what I'm like as an individual. The Art of Dying' in 2018 and in four years it is possible that I will be a totally different person than the one I was at the time. So when I'm creating my classes, I try to refrain from binding myself to how I am feeling at the time, while also loosely holding on to what the future might be. ."

She emphasized community when diversifying her revenue streams

Alua is also putting a lot of importance on celebrating the community within and beyond her curriculum. Through leveraging the power studies groups she has been able to naturally expand the revenue streams she earns.

"One one of the great things about our programs is that we offer all the materials online. But in addition, we have regular group study sessions in which participants discuss topics via Zoom in real-time. The students are able to think through their discussion questions which will keep them interested however, it also helps to build a stronger feeling of belonging. They get close to each others, and they develop relationships -- ultimately, I've been facilitating the space to allow them to do the things they're naturally inclined to do in any other situation. ."

Then she adds: "I'm simply following the breadcrumbs where they already exist. As an example, one of my students was married not too long ago, and seven students from their online class were in attendance. This to me is the real power of our work. ."

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

"Another big aspect of our revenue 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 call where we discuss about 'hot button issues' and offer support in that way," she adds.

"Ultimately, we have communities for those who are in need of services for themselves, and communities that seek to understand how to provide services to others."

She overcame the main hurdle course creators face

In analyzing Going With Grace's success so far, Alua is very transparent about the struggles she's had to conquer various hurdles during her journey as a creator yet the struggles she has faced have helped make her more resilient on the professional and personal level.

"The largest leap I've ever taken was hitting the "Publish" button on my very first class. My heart broke when I pressed the button. My thoughts were"Oh my god What have I done? Who do I think I really am? Why would I act like this? ?'"

  A few years later, Alua has a few words of advice she would give herself at that point:  

"The ideal thing to do is to silence that voice that says, 'It's not possible.  You're not worthy. It's not your time to be worthy. It's not clear the way you're going. You should forget about those negative thoughts and push on because somebody is out there who is in need of what you give. Make the move -- it 's unlikely to be flawless, it's probably gonna be extremely messy and embarrassing be able to look back at in a couple of years, but it's more effective than doing absolutely nothing. ."

Are you inspired by Alua's tale of the development of a profitable online business for online courses? Ready to take the leap your own way? Sign up for and start now.