Totally agree with you. I could not say which one of the three are the most important, so I'll say all of them are really important.

In my experience, I couldn't promote for so long, more than 10 years, because I didn't know my audience, or, in my case, the person in charge to say who promotes and who doesn't. I was lucky to comment it to him in a not meaningful conversation and, one month later, I promoted.

My lesson learned here is to understand and know the key persons at your company so points 2 and 3 will be easier.

What do you think?