“Tell me what we need to do in order to make this go through.”

English Lesson: Tell me what we need to do in order to make this go through.

One of your employees is trying to do a sales deal to get a big client. The deal is taking too long. You want to know what's preventing the deal from being sold, so that you can help sell it.

Tell me what we need to do in order to make this go through.

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Tell me (something)

You can ask for information from a person this way.

"Tell me ___" is very direct, so you should probably use it when you're in a more powerful position than the person you're talking to. For example, a police officer can say to the witness of a crime:

Tell me what happened.

A teacher can say to a misbehaving student:

Tell me why you did this.

If you're not in a position of authority, you should find a more indirect way to ask for information.

(do something) in order to (achieve something)

You do something "in order to" get a result:

In order to succeed, first you have to go through a lot of failure.

You have to get the blue shield in Level 3 in order to pass through to the next level.

"In order to" is often expressed just with "to":

Tell me what we need to do to make this go through.

But "in order to" is a little more formal. Speakers also use it for emphasis, because the word "to" by itself might get lost in the sentence. 

 

make (something) go through

When something "goes through", it completes successfully. Some examples of things that can "go through" are:

  • an attempted credit card payment
  • a business deal
  • a formal request

"Making" a deal or a sale "go through" means that you help to complete it, or cause it to finish successfully:

I can tell that you're working really hard to make this deal go through, and I really appreciate the effort.

Another phrase which uses the same words but isn't related is "go through (an experience)": 

We've been going through a period of weak sales.