Hi,
I must thank you dear botanist for your actually great choice, English collocations in use. it is wonderfully useful in making siginificant improvements in english proficiency.
At the beginning I want to mention that, looking up the phrase "at the first place", I realized that "the first place" just comes with the preposition "in". I am not sure, please correct me if I am making mistake.
e.g.: well, in the first place, Rahman would never say such a thing.
For now, I want to make up some sentences using the collocations introduced in the main topic:
The question is how we could turn in a profit making use of our existent facilities.
To make a success of doing research we need to learn some strategies.
It is of great importance to know how to set crystal clear goals.